Form Friday | Front Kick

Front Kicks are a standing cardio exercise that increase your heart rate and stretches your hamstrings and glutes. Taken from cardio kickboxing this move provides a low-impact option with cardiovascular benefits. If you are looking for another way to increase your heart rate without all the jumping around, you should learn how to do Front Kicks. How does it work? Your legs are heavy. Lifting them over and over at a fast pace gets your heart rate up. It’s as simple as that!

There are a few things to consider before doing Front Kicks. You should be sure to keep your kicks low until you feel sufficiently warmed up. If you kick too high, too soon, you may pull a hamstring. Once you feel warm, you can begin to move them higher and faster for a higher heart rate. Front Kicks are also a great way to strengthen your core muscles. In order to get your legs to lift you naturally engage your core, but by focusing more intently on pulling the core in you will be able to move your legs more quickly and higher for a better result.

Don’t worry too much about having perfectly straight legs on this move. Most people have tight hamstrings and need a little bit of a bend in the knee. Even if you bend your knee more than a little, this is still a worthwhile move for you to try. Use it as part of any cardio workout for a change of pace to the usual jumping jacks, or insert some front kicks into your weight lifting routine to keep your heart rate up in between sets.



What Muscles Do Front Kicks Work
Front Kicks are an awesome low-impact cardio exercise that work your legs and core while giving you a great cardiovascular move that gets your heart rate up anytime, anywhere.

Benefits of Front Kicks
There are many reasons you should incorporate Front Kicks into your workouts. Here are just a few:

Cardio Boost
You can choose your effort level in front kicks, but no matter how you do them you are going to get a great cardio workout. The best part is that this is low impact. No stress on your joints or connective tissue. Just kick and the harder and faster you move, the more results you will feel (just make sure you don’t kick higher than your body is capable and injure your hamstring).

Work Your Lower Body and Core
Your legs are working and they will feel this move! Same goes for your glutes. But the surprise might be that your core has to tighten up to hold your posture tall while you are kicking.

Hamstring Stretch
While you should be careful not to kick higher than you are able, it is pretty remarkable how great this move is for stretching your hamstrings. While many leg exercises cause tightness, this one actually stretches you out.

reprinted from gethealthyu.com