Benefits of Kickboxing Classes: A Comprehensive Guide
There are so many benefits of kickboxing it’s no wonder it’s one of the fastest-growing group workouts. From losing weight to improving coordination and lifting your spirits, kickboxing has several physical and mental health benefits. In this article, we break down why kickboxing is one of the best physical activities for turbocharging your fitness goals and elevating your journey to a healthier and happier life.
Kickboxing Classes Are Accessible To Beginners
Kickboxing is accessible to everyone, even if you’ve never thrown a punch in your life or barely step into the gym. Among the benefits of kickboxing is the fact that YOU control the intensity of your workout. Depending on how you’re feeling and how much you’d like to be challenged, you can increase or decrease the force of your strikes and the speed of your pivots. You can take breaks as needed and ask your instructor for help if you’re feeling like you don’t understand how to perform new moves or drills. This makes kickboxing highly accessible to beginners. At X3 Sports, our group kickboxing classes are designed for everyone to participate comfortably.
We highly recommend that you come early and talk with our top-notch team on-site to learn more about what you can expect from kickboxing class. We have a store at each of our gym locations for your essentials, such as handwraps. But one of the great benefits of kickboxing is you really don’t need much to get started! At X3 Sports, we provide heavy punching bags that are hung up on racks awaiting your wrath. All you need to do is show up ready to sweat!
Your instructor will show you good form and correct you if needed to keep your bones and joints safe. They’ll slowly and clearly walk you through maneuvers that may be brand new to you, such as jabs and round kicks. While these are high-energy group cardio classes, you’ll receive individualized instruction throughout the session so you never feel lost, overwhelmed or confused.
Trying something new such as kickboxing may seem intimidating, but we make sure to design classes that are easy to follow, rewarding and fun. Kickboxing can give you a strong kickstart to reaching your personal health and fitness goals. We’ve had some members tell us that they’ve lost up to 15 pounds in their first month!
Kickboxing for Fitness
Kickboxing is considered High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), which is defined by bursts of maximum output in between brief periods of rest. This anaerobic form of intense training makes kickboxing a highly efficient cardiovascular workout that can improve heart health, energy levels, endurance, and strength.
One of the top benefits of kickboxing is that it simultaneously burns calories and builds strength. Since kickboxing demands a lot of bouncing momentum, alongside pivots, kicks and punches, it works out the entire body, toning legs, backs, core and arms while burning through calories at a jaw-dropping rate. Among the core benefits of kickboxing is that it works every muscle group, unlike some workouts that zero in on one or two body parts, while simultaneously getting your heart racing. This makes it one of the most effective cardio workouts for reaching weight loss, strength and endurance fitness goals.
The stop-and-go nature of HIIT workouts force your body to shift into overdrive to get through the next energy sprint. This keeps your heart rate elevated throughout the workout and boosts your resting heart rate, which means you’ll begin to feel more at ease in all your other physical activities. With consistent kickboxing practice, your endurance will dramatically improve, which will lower the effort required for you to complete all sorts of activities in your daily life. One of the coolest benefits of kickboxing is that everyday tasks like walking to your car or lifting your child will be completed with significantly less effort as your heart health improves.
Losing Weight With Kickboxing
Aerobic exercise is a proven tool to boost your metabolism while also evaporating calories, making weight loss one of the most attractive benefits of kickboxing. Studies show that aerobic exercise is better than resistance training for burning fat, while other studies indicate that HIIT workouts are more effective at the task than more static cardio workouts, such as running or the elliptical.
What makes kickboxing effective at both is that it’s both aerobic and anaerobic, the latter emerging from the pulsing reps that comprise a HIIT workout. To get through an intense kickboxing workout, your body needs an immense amount of oxygen, which requires it to dip into your fat stores. Put another way, one of the greatest benefits of kickboxing is that your body has to break down the glucose in your body to amass the energy it needs to get through the next burst of maximum effort after a rest. This activity elevates your metabolic heart rate, enabling you to burn calories for hours after the class has ended.
Kickboxing can burn as many as 900 calories in a single hour, which means that one of the primary benefits of kickboxing is that unwanted fat will melt off your body like an ice cream cone in July when you keep up a regular workout routine. By complementing these efforts with the right diet, you’ll start to see results in just a few weeks.
Pro tip: don’t be too glued to the numbers on the scale. You’ll be losing unwanted fat while you’re simultaneously building lean muscle throughout your body, which may initially cause the number on your scale to seem stagnant, or even briefly tick up. By keeping up with consistent practice, you’ll soon enough start to see your toned arms, abs, and legs begin to shine through as the fat evaporates.
What To Expect From Kickboxing Training
In order to capture all of the benefits of kickboxing, there are a few things you can do to physically and mentally prepare. For one, kickboxing will introduce you to a new skill set while challenging you physically. It will invite you to move your body in possibly unfamiliar ways. If you don’t have much experience punching and kicking things, you might be asked to leave your comfort zone in class. Your instructors will show you new drills, moves and positions and constantly shift the routine to ensure variety.
But rest assured – we care about your safety. We would never ask you to go farther than you can handle and we highly encourage you to keep an active dialogue with your trainer to ensure the right dose of heat. Going out of your comfort zone is a great thing, though. We know you’ll be able to handle it like the Warrior you are.
Another way to ensure that you’ll unlock all the amazing benefits of kickboxing is to eat nutritious foods before and after class and take time to stretch. Kickboxing will put to work nearly every muscle group in your body. You’ll most likely be sore after one of these sessions, even if you put in the time to come every week. What you eat and how you stretch can make a big difference in helping your body heal. Keep in mind that soreness is not only normal, it can be encouraged. Soreness is a sign that your muscles are growing and strengthening as they repair. Be warned that you'll be sweating… A LOT. Kickboxing is an intense cardio workout and builds lean muscle while shedding the fat. Be sure to drink lots of water.
Maybe the best piece of advice we can bestow is to have fun!! While you’re pushing your way through all of these challenges, remember that these classes are designed to be fun, with upbeat music and routines that lift your mood and heart rate.
Benefits of Kickboxing for Teens and Adults
Kickboxing is great for people of all ages and men and women alike. Accessibility is a crucial benefit of kickboxing and one of the reasons why it has exploded in popularity. For teens, the benefits are enormous and can have life-changing effects. This combat-cardio group class is a fun way to teach adolescents self-defense fundamentals in a safe and healthy environment while navigating them toward healthy activities that bring purpose, confidence and a sense of community during some of the most crucial developmental years of their lives.
But the benefits of kickboxing for teens go far beyond that. One of the most notable benefits of kickboxing is that it allows them to learn important life skills and develop healthy habits. These habits can be as direct as exercising regularly, and how thrilling working out can be. But they will also learn indirectly about discipline, commitment and hard work. Habits formed in adolescence can carry through into one’s adulthood. By becoming a part of a kickboxing community, teens can build a healthy foundation of determination, hard work, friendship, and self-confidence that can serve as tools they carry with them throughout their life.
With teen depression at all-time highs and social media taunting youth self esteems, a kickboxing community and active participation in a high-energy group fitness class can serve as a catalyst to improve physical and mental health. By joining a group of peers who are all having fun safely and healthily, teens will improve their focus, reduce stress, mend tattered self esteems, and avoid unhealthy coping mechanisms. As they conquer new techniques and sequences, as their fitness level improves and something that once felt difficult now seems easy, they’ll feel a sense of accomplishment. They’ll begin to feel and know that they are capable of doing anything they set their mind to.
Plus, taking out anger and stress on a punching bag is gratifying at every age.
Benefits of Kickboxing: Mental Health
In addition to building physical strength and endurance, one of the key benefits of kickboxing is that it serves as a natural stress reliever and mood booster. During a 60-minute kickboxing class, natural chemicals such as endorphins, serotonin and dopamine flood the brain, washing the day’s stress and releasing feelings of gratification and happiness.
Benefits of Kickboxing: Constant Variety
One of the top benefits of kickboxing is that it is constantly changing. Since a typical kickboxing class consists of self-defense techniques alongside strength and conditioning exercises, instructors put their own spin on each class, designing unique routines alongside energizing music. Every single class is different, keeping your muscles on edge and ensuring that you never feel bored and that no one class ever feels stale. The constant variety accelerates your fitness goals and makes each class uniquely fun so it’s easier to keep up with your workout regimen.
Benefits of Kickboxing: Self-Defense
When considering the benefits of kickboxing, self-defense fundamentals should also be high on the list. Instructors take time to teach kickboxers proper form and technique that help participants learn valuable self-defense basics through punches, kicks and pivots. At the minimum, kickboxing builds up the muscles that you’ll need in a real-world emergency situation in which you need to physically defend yourself. But it also teaches broad situational awareness so that you’ll be more mentally prepared for the possibility of danger and react defensively as a second nature versus being completely blindsided.
Benefits of Kickboxing: Women Excel And Gain Confidence
One of our favorite benefits of kickboxing is that more women are learning self-defense while simultaneously working towards the body of their dreams. Kickboxing offers so much to all the women who participate, including the ability to constructively build confidence, which can handily show up in other parts of your life.
Kickboxing is incredibly effective at melting calories and elevating metabolisms, which can help women trim stubborn fat around their arms, legs and belly. Kickboxing’s use of interval workout techniques lifts the metabolic heart rate and keeps the body working in overdrive for hours after class is over. As the fat begins to disappear, women with a regular kickboxing practice will start to notice lean muscle forming in its place. Kickboxing is a full-body workout that incorporates a wide mix of different drills, strength and conditioning exercises, and techniques that require balance and core strength.
Women who usually stick to the cardio machines might find that kickboxing supercharges their fitness journey and challenges them in new ways. Kickboxing burns more calories than more static forms of cardio because of its high intensity bursts and use of nearly every muscle group to punch, lunge, kick, duck and pivot. Kickboxing is an incredible way to get in shape and feel better in your own body.
The aerobic and anaerobic benefits of kickboxing mixed with the fact that you’re releasing stress and aggression in safe and healthy ways while striking a heavy sandbag, make kickboxing a great way to relieve anxiousness. There’s something really gratifying about physically releasing your stress in this way. Kickboxing is also a great way to meet like-minded women in your area. These group classes tend to be high energy and loaded with fun, good spirits and inspiration. You’ll all be working on your respective fitness goals together; cheering one another on as you do it.
A great byproduct of all this calorie torching and fun is that you’ll be learning critical self-defense basics that can serve you in real life. Kickboxing will teach you how to defend yourself in a dangerous situation by safely blocking, punching and kicking aggressors. Cardio kickboxing classes don’t usually include sparring, which means women learn the skills, muscle memory and awareness critical to self-defense without all the bruises and blood.
Benefits Of Kickboxing: Save Money
While the cost of kickboxing classes vary from gym to gym, kickboxing can be affordable when incorporated into a broader gym membership. It can end up saving you money in tangential ways too, such as spending less money going out as you reorganize your priorities and or on healthcare costs as you improve your cardiovascular health.
Gym memberships can vary widely in cost depending on location, offerings, facilities and caliber of trainers. Extras, such as the free body assessment that X3 offers to its members to help keep their fitness goals on track, as well as class offerings, clean locker rooms and additional training options, are all important aspects to consider when evaluating the price of a kickboxing class.
Here is a general pricing outline for the different styles of kickboxing classes offered:
- Private kickboxing classes: $100/hour
- Group kickboxing classes with a gym membership: $120-$200/month
Kickboxing classes are included with X1 memberships, which start at $139/month. This puts us at the low-end of the range, even as we offer clean, safe and modern amenities, high-caliber trainers and experienced fighters, ample free gym space and workout equipment, and robust class offerings.
At X3 Sports in particular, you’ll find that one of the benefits of kickboxing at our gyms dispersed throughout the Atlanta Metro Area is that your membership is packed with extras. This includes a unique fitness community that participates in competitions and community events together through Team X3. You’ll also receive discounts for healthy meals at X3 Sports’ partners, including Fresh and Fit and Sweet Mama Earth.
Where Can You Get All The Benefits of Kickboxing?
Kickboxing is one of the fastest-growing types of exercise for men, women and teens, with participation rocketing by more than 2 million participants and counting in recent years. The greater Atlanta area has emerged as a hub for kickboxing and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) has named X3 Sports as THE place to go.
With so many different choices in town to enjoy the benefits of kickboxing, there's a reason why we’ve been named the best by one of the biggest newspapers in Atlanta. That’s because X3 Sports has five convenient locations in Atlanta, Marietta and Athens, each with clean and comfortable facilities stacked with all the equipment you need. All of our gyms have convenient and plentiful class times and welcome you with a membership-based dedicated community and experienced high-energy staff.
At X3 Sports, you can even hire a personal trainer who will conduct a comprehensive body assessment to determine exactly what kinds of foods and training you need to reach specific, customized fitness goals.
X3 Sports Can Help You Unlock All These Benefits of Kickboxing
Ready to unlock all the benefits of kickboxing? With over 500 class offerings a month, there is something for everyone at X3 Sports. With the dawn of a new year, there’s never been a more exciting time to try fitness kickboxing. Sign up for a free class to see what we’re about and if a membership is right for you!
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Additional classes to keep you at the top of your game:
BEGINNING BOXING
Burn calories, improve footwork, and increase hand-eye coordination learning "The Sweet Science" from our skilled trainers. Whether your goal is to earn a world championship belt or simply lose few inches off your waist, our boxing class will give you the highest confidence both inside and outside of the ring.
FAST TRACK℠
Fast Track is a unique mixture of cardio and resistance training that utilizes sports training exercises to help you lose weight, tone muscle and improve your coordination. As an alternative to outdoor boot camp classes, Fast TrackSM gets results, whether you have fitness goals or want to increase your sports performance.
WEIGHT TRAINING
Power TrackSM is an instructor-led, weight-training group class developed by X3 Sports. Using a variety of exercises derived from three basic lifts—bench press, squat, and deadlift—certified strength conditioning instructors closely supervise you to ensure correct form and technique. This class promotes muscle confusion and cognition, which aids in losing body fat and increasing lean muscle mass.
ADVANCED BOXING
When you're ready to up your game, our advanced boxing classes help you boost speed, eye-hand coordination, endurance, and more. Our experienced trainers have the skills to take you to the next level.
BRAZILIAN JIU JITSU
Whether you're looking for the best system of self-defense, wanting a challenging way to stay active, or hold aspirations of competition, our world-class professors welcome all beginners through black belts onto the mats.
MMA
X3 Sports MMA classes will teach you MMA fundamentals and combined techniques. If you're a beginner, you'll learn the basics of striking, submissions, and wrestling—and how to blend them all together. When you're ready for more advanced moves, our world-class trainers will help you improve your skills. They can even train you to become a professional fighter.
YOGA
Yoga is a great way to balance your workout routine. X3 Sports Yoga classes will help you increase flexibility, tone muscles, reduce stress, increase core strength and stability, and develop better focus.
Youth Martial Arts
Kids and Teens in our X3 Sports youth programs learn discipline and fundamental techniques from experienced coaches. Our class-based training provides a positive outlet and increases focus, discipline, and school performance.
PERSONAL TRAINING
Personal training sessions can be one-on-one, or within a small group. You are able to specify your training based on your goals, or focus on progressing in any of our classes offered.
Servicing Areas: Atlanta, Buckhead, Brookhaven, Inman Park, Old Fourth Ward, Grant Park, Piedmont Park, Decatur, Midtown, West Midtown, Marietta, Kennesaw, Acworth, Smyrna, Mableton, East Cobb, Vinings, and surrounding Atlanta.