Like all combat sports, kickboxing demands superior athlete conditioning. When an athlete is tired, he becomes slow and exposed to unnecessary risks and injury as well as losing or dropping the fight. The coach, in fact, has a great responsibility in ensuring the athlete trains hard and safely during each session to ensure the fighter has enough combat effectiveness. We all know the harder you train the easier is the fight.

Planning conditioning drills sessions will ensure the kickboxers have sufficient energy, toughness, and staying power to overcome the toughest fight.

Running Part 1

Running is a good conditioning activity, indeed the oldest and the easier to practice. When the athlete starts running, the body adapts to the physical stress, and during the first few minutes, the muscle will start using ATP, which is the energy molecule the body makes from food. The muscle will also break down glycogen, a form of glucose deposited in the body tissues as a reserve of carbohydrates. The more you run the more your muscle will burn oxygen and glycogen which in return will increase your body temperature and the athlete will begin to sweat and burn fat.  The heart rate will go up, breathing will become heavier and faster because higher oxygenated blood and nutrients must be moved to your muscle and brain to cope with the physical activity.

Running increases, the heartbeat, improves the condition of the circulatory system, and with a planned ongoing running program aerobic capacity will increase. The aerobic capacity measures the max oxygen consumption during exercise and is an indication of your body’s potential to perform continuously under demanding physical activity for a long interval. Running also improves anaerobic function. Anaerobic fitness is the athlete’s body’s ability to perform short, fast, high-intensity exercises that do not use oxygen. In short, the opposite of aerobic capacity.

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