How to Train for Kickboxing: Overview and Sample Workouts

In this article I am going to cover, how to train for kickboxing or Maui Thai. NOTE: I am not a kick-boxer, so this will be an overview video I am not going to go into specific techniques of kickboxing, such as a different types of kicks or punches. Talk to a kickboxing coach for details on that.

In order to create a training program for Kickboxing, we must understand the demands of the sport. So lets go over the requirements one by one

1. Strength: A good kick-boxer needs to be strong to be able to put enough force in his kicks and punches. The strength is also needed to be able to withstand the attacks of the opponent
2. Power: To be a good kick-boxer, just being strong is not enough. You also need to have muscle power. By power I mean the ability to generate force in quickest amount of time as possible. If you look at kick-boxers, you can see how explosive their kicks and punches are, there is a lot of energy stored in those kicks and punches and all that energy Is delivered to the opponent is a very short time to maximize the damage. Think about a big stone coming at you slowly or a small bullet coming at high speed, both have equal energy but the bullet will cause more damage because the energy is localized to a small area and delivered in a very short period of time.
3. Balance: Balance is very important in kick-boxing. When you are tackling your opponent, you will find your body to be in various awkward positions. Your opponent will always try to throw you off balance, so that you lose your orientation and make it easy for him to attack you. So it is important that you develop good balance, so that you do not end up falling down on the floor.
4. Flexibility: Your joints absolutely need to have their full range of motion if you want to be effective in the ring. Without such flexibility you will not be able to tackle your opponent better and might injure yourself.
5. Endurance: Kickboxing involves 2–3 minutes of intense physical activity called as round, followed by a minute of rest. One bout can have 3–12 rounds. This means that as a kick-boxer, your muscles should have enough endurance to sustain an anaerobic activity for 2–3 minutes and then after a short break return back to peak performance. This requires a lot of muscular endurance.
6. Technical Skills: To be a good kick-boxer, you need to a develop muscle memory for effectively delivering your kicks and punches. You cannot go to the ring and think there about how to effectively deliver your kicks and punches. They need to come out naturally without you thinking about them. Also how to respond to the attack of your opponent should be second nature. You need to develop an intuition of what is going to happen next, based on the current movements of your opponent.

To summarize, kickboxing requires you to be good in pretty much all the areas of physical fitness. The training for a tournament should start 6–8 months prior to the tournament. Your training will go through three phases

Phase1: Off-Season: During this stage you will mostly focus on your strength and cardio, while not focusing so much on your technical skills and conditioning. This period is for building up your base strength and cardiovascular capacity. So the training during this time will involve heavy lifting in the gym and cardio work such as running or swimming. You can also cross train and play other sports during this time. In terms of lifting you are going to do compound exercises such as squats, deadlifts, bench press, shoulder press, rows, push-ups and pull-ups. Performing 5 sets of 5 reps with 2–3 minutes of rest between sets is a great way to build up strength. You should also include technical, sport specific, sessions in your routine but keep it barely enough to stay in touch with you sport. Your focus in this phase should be more on building your base strength and cardio. Spending your energy on technical skills will just interfere with your strength gains and cause muscle fatigue later in you training. Spend about half to one-third of your total training time in this phase.

Here is a sample workout you can perform during this period.

Phase2: Pre-Season: As your event gets nearer, you should now fix your attention more towards conditioning for your specific sport So now you are going to shift your focus to muscle power, explosiveness and endurance, while at the same time you will increase the frequency of your technical training. Exercises to improve your muscle power you will include Olympic lifts such as power snatches and power cleans in your program, Also for explosiveness include plyometric exercises such as squat jumps, split jumps, plyometric push ups etc. These will improve you muscles capacity to generate force quickly. In order to improve your endurance and anaerobic capacity, you will perform the plyometric exercises in a circuit, where you will perform three to five exercises back to back without any rest in between and then take short break and perform the circuit again. You can also include hill sprints in your program to improve your anaerobic capacity. You will still be performing strength exercises during this period, but the frequency will be decreased, while the frequency of technical training will be increase during this period

Here is a sample workout you can perform during this period

Phase3: Season: About 3–4 weeks from your tournament, you will change your program again and will focus most of your training on technical skills while keeping your strength and conditioning training to the bare minimum that is needed to sustain it. At this stage you should also take up full-fledged practice bouts every week to really get into the rhythm of the game.

Originally published at www.kaa-yaa.com.