Shadow boxing ultimately helps you gain muscle memory that is related to striking, that’s really it, it just happens to be a great workout. Shadow boxing helps you build those neural pathways that will make throwing a strike as easy as you might walk or grab a glass, you wont think about it, you will be capable of subconsciously throwing strikes with no hesitation or thought needed.
It also has a level of superiority over similar conditioning work such as training on a heavy bag purely due to the fact that you can do it anywhere, it gives you so much variety, due to you being able to work on any aspect of your striking!
If you want to work footwork you can work footwork, if you want to work defence you can work defence. It really is a versatile tool in your arsenal,
it is also important to note that shadow boxing is one of the exercises that will build up your task dependent conditioning, which boils down essentially to, if you want to get better at running, then run. So it stands to reason that if you wanted to get better at punching, you should punch more. I’ll cover task dependant conditioning more comprehensively in another post.