1. Go pro or not
Kickboxing is both a professional and amateur competitive sport and an exercise routine that provides an excellent cardio and muscular workout. Kickboxing grew out of the karate movement when the martial arts community wanted to beef things up in the 1970s. Full-foot and hand contact is not allowed in true karate competitions, but some practitioners wanted to go extreme and allow the full contact. Kickboxing was born to satisfy that need.
2. No Padding Required
While competitive kickboxing rules require participants to wear helmets and padding, aerobic kickboxing for exercise does not involve any contact with others. Instead, the workout routine has taken the extreme moves from the sport and modified them for exercise purposes. All the kicking and punching is done in the air.
3. Get in a Good Warm up First
A good warm up of at least 10 to 15 minutes is important to do before beginning a kickboxing class. You will be putting enormous pressure on your ligaments and joints and you need for them to be flexible. Include some stretching of the upper and lower body. Get the blood circulating with jumping jacks or a fast ride on a stationary bicycle or elliptical machine. If you haven't done any heavy aerobics in a while, then you may want to postpone any kickboxing routines until you get yourself back in shape and accustomed to intense aerobics.
4. Fight Without Fighting
While kickboxing workouts can get you pumped up and tone the entire body, you will also be learning some self-defense moves. The routines pit the participants in a fighting stance, with feet set shoulder length apart and hands up. The instructor calls the punches and kicks and you fight an imaginary opponent. You will do roundhouse kicks and straightforward punches. After working out with kickboxing for a while, you can protect yourself against any attacker or at least give the attacker a hard time.
5. Stay Loose When Kickboxing
You don't need any of the gloves or padding used in the sport to exercise with kickboxing. You will need to wear loose clothing and light cross-trainer shoes. Since it is a rigorous workout, don't do kickboxing workouts more than three times a week to give your muscles time to recover from each routine. Consider finding a kickboxing class that offers interval training. The instructor will get the music and the kicking and punching going really fast and then slow it down for some smooth moves. Then your instructor will alternate between fast and slow kicking and punching so that you can maintain proper form and last longer.
Posted in: Kickboxing