Those skills are useful before you hit old age. Reactive balance is the type of mind-muscle coordination you need to catch your balance when you trip, or when life throws some unexpected object your way.
“Anticipatory balance is something you use when you can see a need coming, like when you’re stabilizing yourself to reach up into a cupboard,” Jackson says. Kickboxing improves both types of balance that the body requires-anticipatory and reactive-and better balance reduces risk of falls or muscle weakness. The benefits likely apply to older adults as well. Kickboxing helps strengthen neuromuscular control in people with the disease in ways that improve balance, mobility and dual-tasking activities, he found.
Jackson studies the neuromuscular benefits of kickboxing training for people with multiple sclerosis (MS), a condition in which poor communication between the brain and muscles can lead to falls or problems with activities that rely on multitasking, like walking and talking. The sport can also improve coordination, even in the most extreme cases. One study from the American Council on Exercise (ACE) found that the kind of punching-and-kicking combinations used in Tae Bo or “cardio kickboxing” classes burn more than eight calories per minute-about the same amount you’d burn while swimming. The men in the study improved their upper and lower body power by about 7%, while shaving off more than a second from their time in a 50-meter dash.
Kickboxing has been shown to improve fitness, power, flexibility and agility, according to a study of healthy men in their twenties who trained three days a week for five weeks. If you don't get the confirmation within 10 minutes, please check your spam folder. Click the link to confirm your subscription and begin receiving our newsletters. For your security, we've sent a confirmation email to the address you entered.