By Antonio Myrie, NYC Personal Trainer
Bruce Lee made it cool. Chuck Norris made you cringe. Jean Claude Van Damme made it sexy. I\’m talking about kicking! Yes, whipping that leg at the head of a bad guy, snapping that foot, making him spin around 360 degrees and fall into a useless heap. However, unbeknownst to even we followers of the way of the warrior, kicking can also burn major calories while conditioning several areas of the lower body and abdominals.
For example, the roundhouse kick is a basic kick, always used in kickboxing programs, and capable of toning you up like you wouldn\’t believe. One common variation of this kick is to stand in a basic boxer\’s stance but instead of having your hips squared, you turn them so you\’re positioned in more of a side facing stance.
Using the hip as the trigger point, you raise the leg (firing the obliques), keeping the lower leg bent at the knee, and as your knee raises to the point to that it\’s parallel with your hip, you snap that leg outwards (activating the quadriceps and triggering the glutes) looking to make impact with the instep (i.e. top of the foot).
Retract the foot by ‘hooking\’ it back towards the glutes (targeting the hamstrings) while bending the knee, then placing it on the ground, landing gently on the ball of the foot before placing the heel down (activating the calves). Now try doing 30 to 50 of those kicks quickly, maintaining a constant speed from the first kick to the last. Next perform the same kick set with your opposite leg.
Ok now repeat two more times per side! That\’s 300 kicks and, if done correctly, approximately 50 to 75 calories in 5 minutes! The goal is not to kick hard, just fast and most importantly, correctly.