How Many Times a Week Should I Do Kickboxing
I love the types of questions people ask the internet. “How old is too old to start kickboxing?” “How many times a week should I do kickboxing?” “How often should I do kickboxing if I’m recovering from an injury?” “Why didn’t I start doing kickboxing sooner?”
I ask myself that last question, why didn’t I start earlier. Oh well.
The number of times per week you should do kickboxing is totally dependent upon your goals and current fitness level. If your body is in a decommissioned state then the answer is probably 2 kickboxing classes per week spread out with at least a few days inbetween. My academy recommends people go on Monday’s and Thursday’s for example.
I personally have found when returning to kickboxing (muay thai) after a long break to go pursue whatever shiny personal training certification has popped up in my social media feed that the hardest hit muscle by an hour of kickboxing class is my calf. Well, calves. In Muay Thai you keep the rear heel elevated, which puts a stretch on that muscle.
My current solution to said problem is to skip rope. Jumping rope builds up the calf muscles, which in turn makes me better conditioned to go to kickboxing classes more often.
How Many Times a Week Should I Go To Kickboxing Class If My Goal is Fitness?
For fitness freaks / people who are doing kickboxing for cardio I would advise 3-4x a week in an hour long class. You won’t actually be doing an hour of work in an hour long class as there are partner switches / rest periods / demos of what to do next / etc / etc. You are going to be getting an awesome workout though and burning a ton of calories so, yeah! Get those fitness goals.
I fall into this camp. I lost a ton of weight taking Muay Thai classes, I got into fitness, and I don’t really want to be punched or kicked in the face. I also hate the taste of mouthguards in my mouth. I’m friends with fighters, I train with people who want to fight, but I do it for fitness.
How Many Times a Week Should I Go To Kickboxing Class If My Goal is To Be Learn a Martial Art?
More than 3. If you’ve got a garage you can go practice in your garage as well. Personally I would do something every day if you truly want to study the art and become a student of the game. You don’t necessarily have to go to class all the time (make at least the minimums required by the leader of your academy if you’re there for more than fitness) as you can practice offense / defense / drills / etc outside of the academy.
You can practice strikes on a heavy bag. You can bob and weave / slip using a tennis ball tied to a string. You can practice moving around a target and staying out of their range with a broom or a piece of tape on the floor. You can take hand wraps and tie them to two points of the room to practice bobbing and weaving / making sure your elbow doesn’t chicken wing out.
The number of drills you can do outside of the academy are endless, you just need to use your imagination. And yes, days training outside of the academy still count as days training.
How Many Days a Week Should I Do Kickboxing?
As many as you want to as long as your body is holding up to the stress and demand you’re placing on it. A slow technical session is going to put a lot different demand on your body than a HIIT style heavy bag workout. Mix up the types of workouts / routines you’re doing and you should be able to do something pretty much every day. I personally would take an actual rest rest day to fully recover and a slow recovery day once a week (you could lightly shadow box on slow recovery day) or you could spend some time making your hip flexors happy (because the hip flexors take a beating in kickboxing) by using the Pso Rite.
The number of days you train should always depend on your current fitness level and your goals.
If you aren’t able to train as often as you’d like incorporate in skipping rope, running, and some ab routines. The ab routines will help improve your core, which takes a beating during classes, the skipping will improve your calves, which take a beating during class, and running will improve your steady state level cardio, which can take a beating towards the end of class.
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