Kickboxing for Weight Loss: Why 42 Combat Burns More Than Running

Let's say you have 42 minutes to work out. You can spend those 42 minutes on a treadmill, or you can spend them throwing punches, kicks, and combinations at a heavy bag with music blasting and a coach pushing you through rounds. One of those options burns significantly more calories. One of those options builds muscle while it burns fat. And one of those options is so genuinely fun that people actually look forward to it instead of dreading it.

It's the same one for all three.

Kickboxing, specifically the way we run it in our 42 Combat classes, is one of the most efficient fat-burning workouts that exists. And it's the workout people stay with long after every treadmill routine, every elliptical commitment, and every "this time I'll stick with running" attempt has faded away.

Here's why.

The Numbers Don't Lie

When researchers compare calorie burn across different workout types at similar effort levels, kickboxing consistently lands at the top. We're talking 750 to 900 calories per hour for kickboxing-style training versus 400 to 600 for running at a moderate pace. That's not a small difference. That's nearly double the calorie expenditure in the same amount of time.

But the calorie burn during the workout is only part of the story. Maybe the more important part.

The Afterburn Is Where It Really Gets Interesting

When you do high-intensity training like kickboxing, your body enters a state called EPOC, which stands for excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. The short version: your metabolism stays elevated for hours AFTER you finish the workout. Your body is still burning extra calories while you're eating dinner, watching TV, or sleeping.

With steady-state cardio like treadmill jogging, your calorie burn drops back to baseline almost immediately after you step off the machine. So that 300-calorie treadmill run really was just 300 calories. Meanwhile, a 42 Combat session that burned 700 calories during class might burn another 200 to 300 over the rest of the day through the afterburn effect.

Why Kickboxing Builds a Better Body Than Cardio Alone

Running primarily works your legs. That's about it. Kickboxing works everything. When you throw a cross, you're rotating through your hips, engaging your core, driving through your shoulder, and extending through your arm. When you throw a roundhouse kick, you're firing your glutes, quads, hamstrings, and core all at once. Add in bodyweight conditioning between rounds and you've got a full-body workout that builds lean muscle from head to toe.

Why does that matter for weight loss? Because muscle is metabolically expensive. Every pound of lean muscle on your body burns extra calories just by existing. More muscle means a higher resting metabolism, which means you're burning more calories 24 hours a day, not just during the workout. Cardio doesn't build muscle. Kickboxing does. That's a massive long-term advantage.

And here's a bonus that doesn't show up on any calorie chart: kickboxing improves your coordination, balance, and agility in ways that transfer into every other physical activity you do. You move better. Period.

There's also the joint issue that runners eventually have to deal with. Running is high-impact and repetitive. The same motion, thousands of times, on the same joints. Over months and years, that takes a toll on your knees, hips, and lower back. Kickboxing on bags and pads is significantly lower impact because you're absorbing force through gloves and the bag itself, and the movements are varied instead of repetitive. Your joints will thank you for switching.

What a 42 Combat Class Actually Looks Like

People always ask this because they're picturing some kind of UFC situation where they'll get punched in the face. It's not that. At all. You're hitting bags, not people. And the coaches are there to make sure you look good doing it.

Total time: 42 minutes. Total body parts worked: all of them. Total times you looked at the clock wondering when it would be over: zero, because you were too busy hitting things to notice.

The Thing Nobody Talks About: You'll Actually Want to Come Back

This is honestly the biggest advantage kickboxing has over every other form of cardio, and it has nothing to do with science or calorie counts. It's fun. It's really, actually, genuinely fun.

Running on a treadmill is boring. We can dress it up with podcasts and playlists and incline changes, but at the end of the day you're running in place staring at a wall. The dropout rate for treadmill-based fitness routines is enormous because there's nothing pulling you back. Nothing about it is exciting.

Kickboxing is the opposite. The music is loud. The combinations are different every class. There's a rhythm and a flow to hitting the bag that's almost meditative once you get into it. And the stress relief is unmatched. Every member we've ever had, every single one, has said that kickboxing classes reduce their stress more effectively than any other workout they've tried. There's something primal about punching a bag after a long day that just works.

When you look forward to a workout instead of dreading it, you show up more. When you show up more, you get results. It's that simple. The best workout in the world means nothing if you quit after three weeks.

We see this play out constantly. People who have tried and quit every cardio routine under the sun walk into a 42 Combat class and something clicks. They come back the next day. And the day after that. Six months later they've lost 30 pounds and they're throwing combinations they couldn't have imagined on day one. Not because they suddenly found discipline. Because they found a workout they didn't want to skip.

How to Try It

Our 42 Combat kickboxing classes run multiple times per week at both our La Quinta and Palm Springs studios. If you want to ease in and try the full Fit in 42 experience (including kickboxing, personal training, and nutrition coaching), the 21-Day Kickstart is the perfect on-ramp. Short commitment, full experience.

Come throw some punches. See what happens.

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