Kickboxing has plenty of benefits, from teaching you how to defend yourself to helping you develop a healthy lifestyle. If you want to start training at home, on biggerbetterbeards.org you’ll find many of the things you need. This rather modern martial art has the ability to teach you many things while also helping you in becoming a much healthier person.
Learn how to defend yourself
Kickboxing is a versatile martial art that can help you learn many of the basics of self-defense as you’ll understand how to hit not only by using your hands, but also your feet. Many people start this type of exercise as it helps them deal with bullies when young or with the potential of being mugged or attacked when being older.
Socialize
Kickboxing, like many sports, falls into the social activity group as it lets you meet new people and join a group. Being in a kickboxing class is not only great for helping you in keeping away all the dangerous people, but it will make you feel like you belong and you matter. You’ll also meet new people of different ages and backgrounds so the fun will be doubled!
This is really important for children especially as it is during childhood that we learn how to make friends, how to function in society etc. It’s also highly important for adults as well because we may find ourselves at a moment in time in which we feel like we don’t connect with our old friends which is why meeting new people is the way of solving the problem.
Build your muscle mass
One of the main advantages of kickboxing (and one that immediately comes to mind to everyone) is the fact that it can help you become very strong in a very short period of time. By using both your feet and your arms, you are working with plenty of muscle groups at all times. This will make your muscles develop quite nicely.
Keep in mind that when doing kickboxing, you don’t just learn how to strike the opponent, but also you’ll have to do sit-ups, pushups, jump rope, run, etc. You’ll have many exercises as part of your routine which all contribute in the end to developing your musculature. Arms, legs, core – they’ll all be stronger and more toned.
Forget all about stress and rage
One beneficial trait of this sport is that it lets you relieve all of your stress, anxiety, and rage that you built up during a day. Regardless if you’re having a strike at a training dummy at the gym or if you have a real opponent, you can get rid of all that’s bothering you in a kickboxing session. This is possible because of the nature of exercising in general.
Things like depression appear because of a chemical imbalance in your brain and exercising is a simple and natural way of making your brain produce some of the chemicals that you need to feel happy such as dopamine, serotonin or endocannabinoids. These chemicals can be produced by your brain when you’re exercising really hard.
When all of these chemicals come together they reduce your levels of stress, anxiety, and depression by a lot, to the point where it can be part of the treatment in case these problems are chronic.
Become much more flexible and balanced
We can’t forget about another important factor of kickboxing – helping your level of flexibility. While kickboxing in itself will not contribute greatly to this, the steps you take before and after you have a class of kickboxing do. The most important of them all is stretching which makes you feel ready for the class, but it also makes you highly flexible.
You need to warm up your muscles every time before starting any physical activity if you want to not get injured. By building your level of flexibility over time, you’ll also keep at a distance any injuries that may occur in your day-to-day life.
For example, falling on ice is a well-known painful experience we’ve all been through. If your body is not very flexible, you can hurt yourself more when your body is moving to “catch” yourself while falling, by pulling a muscle. This problem is usually solved by doing stretching exercises.
Also, there seems to be a link between being flexible and having a much better balance. Not to mention, often in kickboxing, you’ll find yourself standing only on one leg, which is an exercise that will make you work on your balance more.
Kickboxing is also great cardio
Another important trait of these exercises is the fact that they provide a good way of doing your aerobic and anaerobic training which means the heart and the lungs will be stronger. This happens when you are kickboxing a bag or your rival during a competition.
The activity in itself makes your heart pump faster and your lungs more active so you’ll start seeing the benefits by yourself in a short time. The training part for the sport has the same effect on your body. You can jump rope, sprint, do jogging, etc., as they all can improve your cardiovascular health.
A strong heart is highly important for a series of reasons, as we very well know. A strong heart reduces the risk of heart attacks, high blood pressure or high cholesterol, arterial diseases, etc.
Basically, just like with your muscles, the more you work with your lungs and heart, the stronger they become and also more efficient. As your heart grows stronger, it will have to put in less effort for doing its job so your heart will keep being young for a longer period of time.
A strong heart also makes for more blood to be pumped into your muscles which means they’ll have more oxygen and nutrients so you’ll be able to kickbox for a longer period of time!
Stronger lungs are also highly beneficial. By doing cardio, your lungs will have a better ability to absorb oxygen, process it and send it to the muscles via the bloodstream. If you have higher levels of oxygen in your muscles, you’ll increase your overall physical performance so it’s a win-win situation.
Sources:
- http://www.australianunity.com.au/health-insurance/existing-members/wellplan-online/general-health/benefits-of-kickboxing-workouts
- https://www.healthline.com/health/kickboxing-benefits
- https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/a-z/kickboxing-benefits
