Keep Your Joints Safe During Cardio-KickboxingKeep Your Joints Safe During Cardio-Kickboxing
Cardio-kickboxing instructors do not teach students how to safeguard joints in the arms and legs. Though rooted in martial arts, cardio-kickboxing is an aerobic format. Similar to any other aerobic format, it is set to high energy music.
Typically trainers have no time at all throughout their regimens to provide customized safety pointers for each student. If you participate in these classes, ask for feedback to make sure you are practicing the motions correctly. Never perform a workout that triggers pain.
We reached out to Houston Chiropractor Dr. Richard Werner for tips to help kickboxers avoid injury and when injured, knowing when to seek Chiropractic Care.
Seven Tips for safe Kickboxing in Houston
1. Keep your wrists straight while striking.
A bent wrist with a great deal of momentum behind it can cause radial nerve and joint damage.
2. When punching, make a tight fist.
Tuck your thumb and make contact using the leading knuckles of your index and middle fingers just. Even if you do not have a bag or a genuine opponent to strike, practice your form. Keeping a tight hand will help you keep your wrist straight.
3. Never ever lock your elbows.
Though your hands and wrists stay rigid, your elbows ought to constantly have a little give. Locking can trigger severe damage to them; and, if you are hitting a solid target, to the shoulders and collarbone too.
4. Toss your entire body into a hand motion.
Stopping your own momentum by using simply the arm can be damaging in two ways. It can lure you to lock your elbow. And, it can tear your shoulder muscles and/or ligaments by literally ripping the arm far from its socket.
5. Pick your whole foot up instead of pivoting.
Frequently in cardio-kickboxing classes you are expected to strike with one hand and then the other without switching feet. This is an efficient exercise due to the fact that, in addition to giving you the cardiovascular workout you came for, it’s likewise working your obliques (side abs).
However, if you just pivot your back foot when you perform the 2nd strike, you are putting your knees and ankles at risk. It might look like more work to choose the foot up initially; once you get the hang of it, your joints will thank you.
6. Never lock your knees.
The knees are among the most frequently hurt joints in cardio-kickboxing due to hyper-extension throughout kicks. It is even more harmful to lock your knees than your elbows since your legs are heavier than your arms, and the momentum can trigger more damage.
7. Completely extend your hip flexors, which are the locations in front of your thighs.
If your trainer does not typically do this throughout both warm-up and cool-down, do it on your own time prior to and/or after class.
As your flexibility improves, bring your front foot even more and further forward. You might become able to lift your back knee off the ground into a runners’ lunge. Keeping the hip flexors limber is important due to the fact that you use them each time you do front kicks. If they are stiff, it can impact your upper legs or perhaps your knees due to tightness in your quadriceps.
