Kickboxing isn’t for the faint of heart, as seen in matches. But when it’s used for fitness purposes, it’s great total body workout that develops your cardiovascular endurance, body strength, and flexibility.
Fast Calorie Burning
The beauty of kickboxing as a fitness regimen is its fast calorie burning potential. In an hour of punching, jabbing and kicking, you will burn between 350 and 450 calories! You will also slash your stress levels, not only because strenuous exercise releases feel-good hormones but also because you can pour your frustrations into the moves.
Unless you’re training for a kickboxing career, you will not be engaged in hand-to-hand combat. You will instead be punching, jabbing and kicking a punching bag and the air. Your balance, coordination and flexibility will improve by leaps and bounds, too, the more time you spend in an iLoveKickboxing gym.
Multiple Body Parts Targeted
Kickboxing isn’t just a high-intensity, high-impact and full-throttle workout – its movements also target multiple body parts including your:
- Core muscles, particularly in maintaining your balance
- Arm muscles due to the jabs, punches, and uppercuts
- Leg muscles because of the sidekicks and roundhouse kicks working your quads and hamstrings
- Glutes, again due to the roundhouse kicks
- Back muscles since kickboxing is a total-body workout
Aside from the strength-building component, kickboxing also has aerobic and flexibility components. You will be stretching your muscles as well as challenging your cardiovascular capability for the entire hour you’re in a kickboxing class.
The bottom line: Kickboxing is a kick-ass total-body workout that will make you fitter and better!
But before enrolling in a kickboxing class, you should first consider its suitability in your case. You don’t want to enroll in a class only to discover that you’re not exactly cut out for it.
Yes, kickboxing is suitable for beginners but it’s best to start slowly and gradually, such as with low kicks and basic moves first. You have to work at your own pace and build up your stamina and strength over time.
You will also be working out indoors usually with a kickboxing instructor in front and with other gym-goers. You can buy a kickboxing DVD but the experience will not be the same, not to mention that your risk for injury can increase because of incorrect form.
You will also need a few pieces of equipment to get the most from kickboxing classes. These include punching bags, jumping ropes, and boxing gloves aside from your usual workout gear.