Stretching

Stretching is an incredibly important part of exercise, and something that you should do regularly throughout your life as it helps minimise muscle tightening and restricted range of movement as you age. Stretching not only increases your flexibility and reduces the risk of injury - it also reduces muscle tension, helps circulation and increases energy levels.

Always warm up and stretch before undertaking any exercise, but it's also a good idea to stretch regularly even if you are not exercising. You naturally get the urge to stretch in mornings or when you're tired - why not simply do a range of stretches that work your entire body, instead of just your spine?

How to stretch safely

• Do not bounce in your stretch
• Make sure that increasing your stretch is a gradual movement
• Take breaks between stretches; do one stretch, then move to another, and go back to the original one again. You should be able to stretch further than the first time you did the exercise.
• Exhale when pushing further into the stretch
• A stretching/burning pain in your muscles is ok, but if you start getting a sharp pain or any pain around your joints, stop immediately
• Don't force your body to go too far - stretching involves pushing your body a little bit each day. Do not get frustrated and end up injuring yourself. 

Different stretches 

This diagram shows a range of stretches for your whole body.

 1) Chest: Clasp your hands behind your back and hold them to pull your chest apart. Raise your hands up (still clasped) as far as you can.
2) Upper back: Clasp your hands on front of you and keep your arms straight, raise your hands up to chest height and pull your shoulder blades apart.
3) Triceps: bend one arm and put it down the middle of your back. Either push near the elbow (not on) with the other arm, or bring it up the back and try to join your hands.
4) Calves: Stand in the lunge position - instead of bending the back leg, keep it straight with the heel on the floor.
5) Hamstring: Either lie on your back with your legs bend, and raise and straighten one leg, pulling it towards your chest with your arms (keeping it straight), or stay standing and put one straight leg on a chair (heel on the chair) and push down a little).
6) Quads: Stand up and bend one leg - using your hands, pull it up and towards your body. Keep your knees together.If you have balance problems, you can do this lying down.
7) Outer thigh: Lie on your back, with both legs bent and in the air. Cross your legs over, using the upper leg to push the lower leg to the opposite side.
8) Inner thigh: Stand with your legs just over shoulder-width apart. Bring your bodyweight over one foot by bending the leg, which stretches the opposite thigh.
9) Inner thighs: Lie on your back, bend your legs and bring your feet together, letting your legs fall apart. You may want to push a little near your knees (not on)
10) Lower back: Either lie on your back with your legs bent and let your lets fall to one side, and keep your shoulders flat on the floor and point your hands in the opposite direction to your legs, or lie on your back, bend your legs and clasp your hands behind your legs (you can do this with both legs together, or one by one).
11) Torso and quads: Sit up straight with your legs out straight in front of you. Bend one leg and bring it over the other. Look over the other shoulder, and use the opposite arm to the leg push it further across.

Make sure that you stretch both sides equally, and do not push on joints.

Do you have any other stretches that you do regularly?

How to Avoid Injuries When Training

As with any sport, kickboxing carries a risk of injury if you don't take the proper precautions and don't respect the sport. Most injuries occur if people haven't prepared properly for their training session or if they are not showing adequate respect towards the sport or their partner, and end up hitting too hard or hurting themselves by doing techniques inaccurately. There are a few simple ways to avoid injuries, to ensure that you can continue training safely.

1) Warm up properly
We really can't stress this enough - lauching straight into exercises without warming up properly (and stretching) is dangerous. In the best case scenario, you may just pull a muscle. In the worst case, you could ruin your joints for life. If you turn up for your training on time, you will be taken through a rigorous warm up and stretches, which help maintain your fitness levels as well as getting you ready for the techniques/sparring/working on the punch bags. If you happen to turn up late, your sensei will tell you to do a quick warm up before you join the class - it's imperative that you do this properly, or you risk injuring yourself.

2) Pay attention, and express techniques accurately
There are mistakes that a lot of beginners make, such as hitting with the wrong part of the foot. The techiques in kickboxing are designed to inflict damage to the opponent (if used at full strength) without hurting yourself. Work through techniques slowly at first to ensure that you are hitting with the right part of your body (your sensei will tell you to 'show your weapon' clearly to make sure you're doing this), and if you're unsure of how to do a particular technique then ask!

3) Show respect to your partner and those around you
This does not simply mean bowing and touching gloves. Showing respect to your partner also means not hitting too hard when sparring, not pushing too hard in partnered stretching and generally ensuring that you are not going to injure anybody around you. Good communication is key, but common sense should tell you when you are doing something dangerous. Try to be aware of what's going on around you to avoid falling on/over other people as well.

4) Don't push yourself too hard
As athletes, we often want to push harder than our bodies want to go in order to achieve results, and see muscle ache and mild discomfort as the price we pay. It's important to understand the difference between 'good, normal' pain (such as the dull ache you experience when stretching, or the muscle burn during intense workouts) and 'bad, damaging' pain. If you feel pain in your joints at any point, or sharp pains, ease off whatever you are doing and sit down if you feel the need to. Equally, if you are asthmatic and feel short of breath, don't be afraid to sit down and recharge.

We've recently put up some new punchbags, and it's great to see students really pushing themselves on them. When you first start punching and kicking at full-speed and strength, it's recommended that you wear wrist wraps and build up instead of simply throwing punches as hard as you can to ensure that you build enough strength in your joints to take the power of your strikes.


If you take these precautions, you should be able to kickbox and train for decades without suffering serious injury. Serious sportsmen and women often suffer injuries simply because they are pushing their bodies harder than they want to go - taking good care of yourself entails working out safely, as well as eating and exercising well.

Be a Better Kickboxer in 10 Minutes a Day

To really excel at a sport, you can't just turn up to training once a week and forget about it for the rest of the time. To truely become a master of it, rather than someone that 'goes kickboxing' you need to dedicate yourself to it. That doesn't mean hours of training every single day, and it doesn't mean that it needs to be in your thoughts constantly - you need to rest, and you need to do other things! However, a small amount of daily exercise can help you push yourself further in your training sessions and help you progress faster - whether that's getting your kicks higher, moving faster when sparring or being able to train harder right through to the last minutes of the lesson.

Stretching (2 mins a day)

Kickboxers aren't just strong and fast - you need to be flexible too, otherwise you'll never get your kicks up above the belt. Stretching before bed or during an ad break on tv won't make a huge difference after a day or two, but in a month or two you'll notice that your kicks are getting higher and your body is more supple.


Tabata (4 mins a day)

You've probably read the last post in December on how tabata training can help lose weight and stay in shape. It's quick, but by no means easy. Choose an exercise you need to improve on (such as push ups) and just work on that for a few minutes a day. You'll be amazed at the results.

That Extra Bit (4 mins a day)

This is the easiest part since you don't need to 'set aside' any time to do it. Take the stairs instead of the lift, walk to the next bus or tube stop, walk to the corner shop instead of hopping in the car - basically, take advantage of the daily opportunities to get a bit more exercise.