The Top 10 Benefits of Fitness Kickboxing Workouts
Source: #BestHour Kickboxing is an award-winning fitness kickboxing training facility with two locations (Federal Way and Kent, WA). Beginners Welcome.
The Top 10 benefits to starting Kickboxing
1. Burn Calories
Kickboxing is a high-intensity, high-impact workout that will have you constantly in motion. Your heart rate will be raised throughout your session, which means you’ll be burning calories. “On average, women burn 500 to 800 calories per class, and men burn up to 1,000 calories per class.” We have “Real Time” Heart Rate Monitors in our studio to help you monitor your intensity and report exact how many calories you’ve burned.
2. Trim Body & Visceral Fat
Kickboxing will reduce your body fat percentage. In addition, the majority of our members also see a reduction in “Visceral Fat” as well as “Subcutaneous Fat“. The way we approach this is to incorporate our Fitness Kickboxing program into your weekly routine 3 times a week while having you work with our certified nutritional coaches to create a “personalized nutritional program” that includes meal plans, supplements, and accountability tracking.
3. Build Skeletal Muscle
Reducing body fat, subcutaneous fat and visceral fat is important. We measure it in our studios. However, besides fat reduction, we also measure Skeletal Muscle. It might come as a surprise the majority of the muscles in your body are skeletal muscles. They make up between 30 to 40% of your total body mass. Tendons (tough bands of connective tissue) attach skeletal muscle tissue to bones throughout your body. Your shoulder muscles, hamstring muscles, and abdominal muscles are all examples of skeletal muscles. If you reach for a glass on a shelf, you’re using skeletal muscles in your neck, arm, and shoulder. They are functional muscles.
Kickboxing builds and strengthens skeletal muscles throughout your body during our fitness kickboxing classes. In fact, we like to say no muscle can hide from our class plans, we hit muscles you have forgotten about!
4. Learn Self-Defense
The average person in the big box gym can not boast they are learning self-defense while on an elliptical machine or bench press.
Kickboxing is not only great for your physical and mental health, it also has a very practical usage as a means to learn self-defense. “Kickboxing differs from other forms of fitness by utilizing various punching/kicking techniques, teaching you basic self-defense skills,” states BestHour CEO, Jim Harrer. “Learning a skill set while working on your fitness is an incredible way to spark self-confidence, and learning self-defense will always stand by you. Think of it as a sport that you can improve in the more you do it. That is why people don’t get bored kickboxing.”
5. Relieve Stress
When you finish one of our custom designed fitness kickboxing classes you will be in a different mental state. You will be happier, you will feel better about yourself… Yes, you will be PROUD of yourself for carving out your #MeTime. There’s nothing quite like punching out those less-than-positive emotions against one of our 220-pound free-standing kickboxing bags. Kickboxing requires constant movement, which helps relieve stress. We’ve seen it again and again with our clients, kickboxing reduces feelings of anxiety, depression, and anger.
Forget dwelling on your everyday worries—when you’re enjoying your kickboxing session, you won’t be able to think of anything else. “I’ve had so many clients come in to train (not wanting to be here) and become a different person when they leave (so glad they came in),” says Harrer. “It’s like a therapy session; they get all the bad energy out when they are punching a bag or hitting mitts.”
6. Develop More Energy
7. Instructor Guided
You’re never working out alone. Our professionally trained kickboxing instructors are on the mat, working with you. “All you have to do is show-up for class, 10-15 minutes early and you will see results… guaranteed”, says Harrer. “We change the class plan, music, and rotate our instructors every single day.
You have instructors on the mat with you, teaching and pushing you to give it all you’ve got. Share your goals for the class (calories, skills improvement, more time in the red zone), and our team of instructors will help you achieve them.
And because the entire class has left their phones in their locker, you will all be enjoying our professional “studio grade” sound system, fist-bumping after each round!
8. Improves Focus and Balance
We live in a world full of distractions and interruptions. Also, as we grow older, we don’t do the activities we did as kids that helped us develop “super forms” of balance. In our Kickboxing classes, there is a lot of hand-eye and foot-eye coordination necessary due to the strikes and kicks we perform. Not to mention the constant change of direction when throwing punches. Kickboxing activates many muscle groups, helping to develop coordination and balance.
The effect of kickboxing on balance has also been researched on individuals with multiple sclerosis, who may have a compromised gait and balance and are prone to falling. “Our clients have reported improved balance, coordination, and focus after just 25 kickboxing classes,” says Harrer.
9. HIIT Style Workout
HIIT burns a ton of calories quickly. Our clients often compare our HIIT designed Kickboxing classes with working out in big box gyms and have reported that our Kickboxing classes often burned 25–30% more calories than the other forms of exercise. “That is one of the reasons we have real time heart rate monitors in our locations, we want you to see the calorie burn real-time“, says Harrer. “In addition, our clients spend less time, about 1/3rd less time working out than they did on cardio equipment in their gym. This is because HIIT allows you to burn about the same number of calories but spend less time exercising.”
10. Make Friends
“I often tell people to look closely at the people you spend the most time with,” says Harrer, “If you hang out with people who exercise regularly, and eat healthily, you will probably do the same”. Our clients connect with each other in our studios. They work hard, fist bump between rounds, share secrets of meal prepping and eating healthy, and laugh… a lot! You will make friends in our studios, guaranteed. There is no value you can put on that.
There you go, my Top 10 Benefits for Kickboxing. Which is your favorite? Did I miss one of your TOP 10? Either way, comment below and let me know!
