Aerobic Kickboxing at Home

Ever since Billy Blanks burst on the scene years ago with his Tae Bo workout, kickboxing workouts have become a great workout option for someone looking to do overall deep body conditioning while getting a great aerobic workout in the process.  If you’re looking for a great at-home kickboxing workout the steps below will walk you through a basic, yet effective, one.

As with all exercises, start off with a thorough warm-up.  Starting any workout without warming up and stretching first is basically asking for injury.  This applies to a low impact sport like yoga, let alone kickboxing.  After warming up, you can start slowly by marching in place.  While marching, you can rotate your shoulder blades forwards and then backwards in a circle.  Follow up with stepping to your left for 3 steps and then doing the same to your right side.

Without stopping the side-to-side step, start adding in punches.  When you take a step to one side, punch your arm out to the front of you without locking your elbows.  These “jabs” are extremely simple, and form the basis of a lot of kickboxing moves.  You’ll do this for about 60 seconds.

Now, you can stop the side-to-side step and stare straight ahead.  Take two steps forward while holding your hands above your head.  Lift up your right knee as you lower your hands down, making the two meet.  If you need visualization, think of it as you’re stranded on a desert island, and you’re bringing a surprisingly not-so-hard coconut down on your knee so that you can break it open and get the milk.  Or else you’ve grabbed a would-be-robbers head and are bringing it down to your knee to knock him out.  This is considered an extremely successful and effective kickboxing move, and would be used in a real kickboxing fight to take down an opponent.  Go back and forth between the left knee and the right knee, raising them high in the air as you move along.

From the knee exercise, you move on to kicks.  Start by lifting your knee and then kicking out.  Your objective is to kick your legs up as high as possible.  Whatever you do, don’t hurt yourself.  If the high kick is too hard, lower the height of the kick.  Make sure your hands remain in front of your face as you’re doing this, creating a defensive stance.  Keep your abs pulled in.

Now you move into ducks and squats.  These defensive maneuvers are excellent for working your lower body.  Stand with your feet spread apart, and start to squat down gently.  Lean to one side, and then gradually move yourself back up so that you’re sitting up straight.  Keep the knees a little bent.  Once you finish the movement, throw a number of cross punches, ducking in and out.  If you’re trying to visualize the movement, think of how a boxer throws punches back and forth as he’s practicing, bobbing and weaving.   

Next, you’ll move into combinations.  Mix all of the above movements together in different combinations.  Punch, squat, kick, then combine them all together.  You could move forward while simultaneously punching a jab.  Doing all the moves together is great overall body conditioning.  It also helps make your concentration skills sharper.                                                                                           

Finally, it’s time to cool down.  Don’t forget to do the cooldown!  It’s just as important as the warm-up, so don’t skip it.  As in the beginning, march in place, rotating your shoulders back and forth in a circular motion.  End with some deep stretching.