Introduction
This article continues listing and describing the numerous fitness components that can be included in and improved through a professionally designed kickboxing fitness program.
More Fitness Components
Mobility
Mobility is the ability to move freely. Movement is caused and/or controlled by activated/functioning muscles being “told” what to do (and not do) by the brain and nervous system. Full range of motion movement is also impacted by joint structures and connective tissue (ligaments, tendons, etc.). To maintain and/or improve the ability to “move freely,” we must MOVE all the joints in the body, in every possible movement pattern, through the greatest potential range of motion. This requires maximizing muscle function and flexibility! The very nature of boxing, kickboxing and martial arts training involves moving all joints of the body in every possible plane and angle of motion!
Balance Training
Why balance training? Balance training should be a part of everyone’s fitness regimen. Don’t wait until you need ‘balance’ training! It is better to improve and maintain good balance early in life, before it becomes a safety concern!
Balance is improved by manipulating variables that can impact the 4 ‘types’ of balance, which are:
- Static balance is the ability to maintain the center of gravity within your supporting base, while standing, sitting, or kneeling.
- Dynamic balance is the ability to maintain an upright position while your center of gravity and base of support are moving, and the center of gravity is moving outside the base of support.
- Reactive balance is the ability to compensate and recover from perturbations while standing, walking or during any movement.
- Functional balance is the ability to perform daily movement tasks (picking something up from the floor, getting dressed, etc.) that require balance.
Improved static and dynamic balance are a direct result of learning and practicing the specific movements and combinations of movements associated with kickboxing. Movement patterns used in kickboxing workouts tend to be unique compared to movement patterns used in everyday life and/or in traditional fitness workouts. Kickboxing movements, activities, drills, and routines can be designed to focus on improving balance.
Coordination Training
Why coordination training? Coordination exercises can:
- Improve muscle function.
- Increase daily energy levels.
- Improve agility and flexibility.
- Enhance concentration and memory.
- Stimulate the release of endorphins (called happy hormones).
- Enhance self-esteem and self-confidence. Think about how you feel when you finally “master” (or at least improve performance of) a movement pattern that was once difficult!
Kickboxing activities, drills, and routines can be designed to focus on improving coordination.
Agility Training
Why Agility Training? Agility is your ability to change directions quickly. While it is useful in many sports, it is also useful in everyday life for avoiding obstacles and preventing injuries. When you think of agility training you immediately imagine some of the top athletes aiming to gain performance benefits for their given sport, but recent research suggests that this style of training can also benefit people in everyday life. Simply being active isn’t enough to gain long-lasting health benefits, especially as it relates to preventing injuries. Movements in life sometimes require quick changes of direction, sudden stops and starts as well as acceleration and deceleration.
Agility training can improve dynamic balance, which is the ability to maintain control of a moving center of mass over a changing base of support. Reactivity and quickness drills can enhance natural reflexes, helping you to move faster in almost everything you do. Agility training may improve reflexes and ability to execute rapid body movements enabling effective balance control.
Boxing and kickboxing activities, drills, and routines can be designed to focus on improving agility!
Reaction Time Training
Why Reaction Time Training? Reaction time is very important for everyday life. It enhances safety and ensures that your body is primed to move whenever necessary. Think about all the activities you do every day that rely on quick reaction times to perform successfully.
Reflexes slow with disuse and aging. Physical changes in nerve fibers slow the speed of ‘message’ conduction. And the parts of your brain that are involved in controlling movement begins to lose cells over time. This decline in function can be slowed by including training activities that require the brain to observe and interpret certain stimuli and then quickly respond.
Boxing and kickboxing movements, activities, drills, and routines can be manipulated to focus on specific improvements in reaction time by assigning specific movements to specific verbal or visual cues. The challenge of reaction time training drills often turns into an extremely FUN part of a workout!
Brain Health/Cognitive Function
Brain health is enhanced through the same physiological responses that result from safe and effective exercise and physical activity. Increased blood flow and oxygen delivery to the brain resulting from exercise activities will improve brain health and function.
Cognitive functions can be challenged in a variety of ways during a kickboxing fitness workout. The key is to keep your mind engaged during the workout – think about something specific while you are moving! One of the many ways to do this is by including reactive training in your workout. You will have to respond in a specific way to a specific stimulus or cue. Having a training partner to give a specific movement, verbal or visual cue to cause a specific reaction by you.
Emotional & Mental Benefits
Emotional & Mental benefits may be experienced from physical training and the goals that are achieved. Some of these benefits include:
- Confidence & Self-Esteem – is developed by:
- Starting, maintaining, and experiencing the physical results of an exercise program. Confidence and self-esteem are enhanced when you experience improvements in physical appearance, capabilities, and abilities.
- Learning and mastering any new skills required to perform a kickboxing workout. A sense of accomplishment and internal power is developed as coordination and physical skills improve.
- Discipline relates to having the mental and emotional control to perform and complete required tasks. Maintaining a workout program promotes both physical and emotional benefits. This is an indirect reinforcement for discipline development, which is required to maintain the program under any circumstances. The discipline achieved can positively impact other areas of personal and/or professional life.
- Respect is developed in two areas: 1) respect for oneself, and 2) respect for others.
- Stress relief – think about it! What is a normal reaction to something that causes negative stress? Do you clench your fist? Do you slam your clenched fist down on a table or hit a wall? Well, that is a normal response! So, what could be better than participating in boxing or kickboxing fitness where “striking” something is a normal part of the routine! You will experience immediate legal and non-destructive stress relief! The emotional stress relief experienced is a key benefit in today’s world of “fast” paced and high-tension lifestyles.
Conclusion – Very Important:
Kickboxing fitness classes DO NOT TEACH SELF DEFENSE. You learn how to execute certain defensive movements and strikes, in a non-threatening environment!
A real conflict situation requires the ability to effectively execute practical, realistic, and effective street self-defense skills under highly stressful conditions. The physiological AND emotional responses to a real attack are impossible to duplicate in fitness training. Believing that you can learn real-life self-defense in a fitness class, is to create a false sense of confidence that could possibly have very negative results.
Some movement patterns are executed differently for self-defense than they are for fitness because the goals for each are different. The goal for fitness is to improve the body’s function and conditioning. The goal for self-defense is to physically subdue a real attacker. Example – fitness movements (such as striking) should be done using joints in a full range of controlled functional movement, whereas self-defense strikes should be performed efficiently (no wasted motion) with speed, power and accuracy.
Kickboxing fitness training can provide practice time for certain physical self-defense skills (striking, blocking, evasion, balance, agility, reaction, etc.), but it won’t simulate the physiological response required during a realistically simulated attack that happens during real self-defense training.
In fitness training, you don’t learn how to get out of various types of grabs & holds or how to fight while on the ground or in any other potential environment. And an important part of self-defense training includes the development of mental, emotional, environmental, AND physical awareness.
Fitness training, if performed ‘properly’, can enhance the physical conditioning required for performing physical self-defense (anaerobic conditioning with muscle endurance/strength/power conditioning).
So, I repeat – kickboxing fitness classes DO NOT TEACH SELF DEFENSE. But I still believe that kickboxing fitness workouts are potentially THE most versatile fitness activity you can participate in!
Remember, “One Body, One Life, One Choice!”