Kickboxing Cardio Strong is a moderate intensity cardio kickboxing workout. As the picture associated with this workout suggests, the one combo that the majority of this workout consists of is simple and easy to follow. If you’ve done other cardio kickboxing workouts, the punches and kicks are generally done at a brisk or downright fast pace. Not so in this workout. The majority of the workout all of the kicks and punches are done at a controlled pace. I really enjoyed this workout but there were some cuing issues. This is a free YouTube workout so that’s part of the territory and if you pay attention, you can make the corrections yourself. Let me explain. After a long warm up, Angie builds a punch/kick combo. You repeat this combo many times in the course of the workout. In the middle of one, she changes the punch lead but not the leg lead. So if you follow her, one side of the upper body will be worked more than the other. But I noticed right away and continued doing the punches on the side the Angie actually intended.
The workout starts with a long warm up. During the warm up you start with punch drills and end with kick drills. Then you learn and repeat the combo many times. Next you grab some light dumbbells and repeat the combo several more times. The workout ends with punch drills still holding the light dumbbells. This is the only place where the punches get fast. However, Angie does take safety into account and never has you do hook punches fast while holding dumbbells. There is some impact in this workout–squat jumping at different times. Angie shows low impact versions of the squat jump every time.
Kickboxing Cardio Strong is 36:56 minutes; 45 second intro; 8 minute warm up and 5 minute cool down/stretch. The last minute is Angie reporting how many calories she burned and how many steps she took, so the actual length of the workout is a little under 35 minutes. In case you’re interested, she said burned 266 calories then later changed it to 235 calories; she walked 3578 steps or 2.04 miles. I burned 244 calories and walked 3524 steps. I never entered my peak heart rate zone and I was in my cardio zone for 21 minutes or 55% of the workout.
Equipment: boxing or weighted gloves and light hand weights (Angie recommends 1, 2 or 3 pounds; I used 2 pound hand weights and wore 1 pound weighted gloves). The first 5 minutes of the warm up reviews the different punches with some squats to change your lead. The remaining 3 minutes of the warm up reviews kicks, again with squats to change leads. The warm up could have actually been longer but when she started putting together different types of kicks into combos, it seemed like maybe the warm up was over. So that is where the breakdown begins.
- Front kick + back kick
- Stationary lunge pulses
- Repeat #1 & 2 on other lead
- Alternating front knee raises
- Pulsing squats
- Jab, cross, hook, upper
- Descend one elbow and ascend the other (a sort of block move)
- Combine #6 & 7
- Front kick + back tap, 4 reps
- Back kick + front tap, 4 reps
- Repeat 9 & 10 two more times
- Repeat #11 but for 2 reps each
- Combine #8 & #12
- Repeat #6-13 on other lead
- Squat pulse 3x + a hop; ends with 8 squat hops
- (grab light hand weights) Repeat #13 & 14 holding the light hand weights
- Squat pulses; 3 squat pulses + one jump pushing DBs overhead
- Alternating front jabs
- Alternating upper cuts
- Alternating cross punches
- Alternating hooks
- Alternating double front jabs
- Fast alternating upper cuts
- Repeat #22 & 23
- Speed bag
- Alternating deep reverse lunges (hold lunge for 3 counts each side, tapping DBs to floor)
- Double hop skater runs
- Jump rope while doing large circles with arms
For more info on AngieFitnessTV and other (free) streaming workouts I’ve sampled and reviewed, check out my Streaming page.
