Benefits Of Kickboxing

In recent years the popularity of kickboxing has exploded. People can access kickboxing coaching in a variety of locations including, kickboxing gyms, fitness gyms and MMA training facilities. With so many benefits of kickboxing, it’s easy to understand why people from all walks of life are putting on the gloves and training in kickboxing.

Beneath the competitive sport and somewhat violent surface lies a true martial art that offers numerous incredible benefits for everyone who learns it.

Today, we’ll look at eight of the most impressive benefits of kickboxing.

Ready? Let’s dive in.

Eight Impressive Benefits of Kickboxing

Here is a brief look at some of the most impressive benefits of kickboxing you can gain from regular kickboxing training:

• Quick and effective weight loss
• Superior cardiovascular fitness
• Better mobility and flexibility
• Improved strength and conditioning
• Fun and engaging workouts
• Positive effects on your mental health
• Learning invaluable self-defence skills
• Developing your problem-solving abilities

Let’s now take an in-depth look at each of these benefits of kickboxing:

1. Quick And Effective Weight Loss

Have you ever found yourself following a restrictive diet? Boiled eggs for breakfast, a green salad for lunch, and a chicken breast with some broccoli for dinner? And if you’ve been especially good, you can enjoy a serving of ice cream at the end of the week.

Or maybe you’ve tried losing weight by exercising diligently. For most people, that comes in the form of endless amounts of cardio – the treadmill, stationary bike, you name it.

And sure, these approaches help you lose some weight and see good results. But, at some point, you find yourself going back to your old behaviors because these diets and training plans aren’t sustainable. Sure enough, you lose all of your hard-earned weight loss and find yourself back to square one.

But what if I were to tell you that weight loss doesn’t have to be this gruelling and restricting experience? Kickboxing is amazing for weight loss because it helps you burn a ton of calories and stimulate your muscles. But, unlike jogging on the treadmill, kickboxing is fun and engaging.

It’s not uncommon to burn upward of 400 calories per workout. Have a few of these each week, and the caloric burn can add up to a significant number, helping you burn a lot of fat without changing much else about your life.

2. Superior Cardiovascular Fitness

While it may not seem important, our cardiovascular fitness is vital for our athletic abilities, recoverability, and training results. Good cardiovascular fitness makes us more endurant, better able to do productive workouts, and allows us to recover more quickly between workouts.

As a result, we get to practice our art more, stimulate our muscles to a significant degree, and recover more quickly between sessions. 

Kickboxing is incredibly effective because it offers a considerable challenge. You can be sure that each workout will make your heart pump fast and leave you drenched in sweat. 

Besides the obvious fitness benefits, this also means your heart is stronger, your resting heart rate is lower, and you’re at a much smaller risk of suffering cardiovascular issues down the road.

3. Better Mobility And Flexibility

Mobility is a measure of how well your joints can move through a particular range of motion. Flexibility is a measure of how well your muscles can lengthen. Both of these work together and contribute to our nimbleness, ability to escape awkward situations, and throw effective strikes.

For instance, if a person struggles to throw a high kick, the problem could be related to flexibility (for example, hamstrings are not flexible enough), mobility (for instance, the hip is not mobile enough), or some combination of the two.

The good news is, kickboxing training alone is often enough to help people improve their flexibility and mobility. The movements and activities naturally improve the joint range of motion and stretch our muscles, allowing us to become more nimble and reduce our risk of injury.

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Do You Have Your Own Kickboxing Gloves?

Fairtex was founded in 1971 and is one of the most established martial arts equipment brands in the world. All Fairtex products are designed to withstand gruelling training sessions and are made with durability in mind.

Below is why you should buy the Fairtex Kickboxing gloves:

• Fairtex is has a reputation for producing high-quality martial arts equipment.
• Fairtex gloves are made of premium leather making them durable and long-lasting.
• The Fairtex foam system provides optimum hand and knuckle protection and shock absorption.
• Fairtex gloves are available in a variety of sizes (8 – 16 oz).

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4. Improved Strength And Conditioning

Strength and conditioning are two vital characteristics for any athlete, especially martial artists. If you’ve ever watched a kickboxing match, you’ve probably noticed that both fighters display impeccable athleticism. No other team players can pick up the slack, and they can’t take it easy from time to time. Every second matters, and a moment of weakness can mean losing the fight.

The great thing about kickboxing training is that it involves numerous activities designed to improve your skill, make you stronger, and boost your conditioning. As a result, you become stronger, more endurant, and better able to tackle all sorts of physical challenges.

5. Fun And Engaging Workouts

Let’s face it:

We can’t always enjoy our training fully and feel engaged. We all have our bad days where winning is about showing up and doing the work.

But, unlike many activities, a great benefit of kickboxing is that your workouts are incredibly fun and engaging. There are always tons of things to learn and improve upon, you get to mix high-intensity activities with more leisurely activities, and you get to see yourself improve from week to week.

6. Positive Effects On Your Mental Health

Physical activity is a significant predictor of good mental health. Countless studies and observations show that folks who exercise regularly are happier, more confident, and more optimistic.

Plus, research shows that sedentary living is among the biggest predictors of disorders like depression and anxiety.

The issue is, many types of exercise aren’t that fun or engaging, so folks find it challenging to stick with them over the long run.

Kickboxing is fantastic precisely because it engages the body and mind. It pushes you hard, but it keeps you interested and makes you much more likely to stick with it over the long run.

Improved mental health is one of the most important benefits of kickboxing.

7. Learning Invaluable Self-Defense Skills

Woodrow F. Call once said, “It’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it!” Self-defense is one of these skills we never need… until we do. While I wish you never have to exercise your self-defense abilities, it’s better to have them and know they are there.

There are many benefits of kickboxing, but perhaps the greatest one is that it teaches you how to use your entire body to defend yourself and the ones you love. It teaches you how to keep your distance, protect yourself from attacks, and use all four limbs to deliver devastating blows.

8. Developing Your Problem-Solving Abilities

While it may not seem so, each fight is a collection of problems you need to face and overcome. You need to learn your opponent’s style, what their tendencies are, what their preferred strikes are, and what their strategy is. You need to dodge strikes, avoid attacks, know when to keep a distance and how to close it effectively.

All of these are minor problems you need to solve on the go. The more you do that, the better your problem-solving abilities become. 

This is an invaluable skill for the ring, but it also benefits you in the real world and allows you to recognize and overcome problems quickly and gracefully.

How To Progress Faster In Kickboxing

If you’re looking to improve your kickboxing skills outside of the gym, you should check out a kickboxing instructional course.

You can learn kickboxing from your favourite trainer or fighter and focus on specific areas or styles of kickboxing you find interesting.

We recommend checking out these kickboxing instructionals:

• Leg Kicks For Kickboxing – Teddy Atlas
• The Fundamentals Of Kickboxing – Duane Ludwig

Whilst there is no equivalent to training in the kickboxing gym with your instructor, these courses are a great way to improve faster.

Summary Of The Benefits Of Kickboxing

We went through a lot of information today, so let’s do a quick recap of the eight excellent benefits of kickboxing:

• Thanks to the amazing caloric burn, kickboxing helps you lose weight more easily
• Kickboxing is an amazing way for you to improve your cardiovascular health and become more endurant
• Through a variety of movements, kickboxing helps you become flexible and more mobile
• The sport is a rare way of training that improves your strength and overall conditioning simultaneously
• Kickboxing offers fun and incredibly engaging workouts
• Kickboxing has a strong positive effect on your mental health and helps prevent conditions like depression and anxiety
• The art teaches you valuable self-defence skills and how to use your whole body to stop aggressors
• Kickboxing teaches you how to recognize, overcome, and solve problems quickly and with grace

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