The Sports Archives

“Tae Bo” creator, Billy Blanks holds a class for service members and their dependents on his famous roll boxing Tae Bo techniques.

The Tae Bo exercise regimen has been around for several decades now. It was first devised by Billy Blanks in 1975. What is Tae Bo? Tae Bo (Total Awareness Excellent Body Obedience) is a combination of many things, actually. It is a mixture of martial arts moves, kickboxing, and dance aerobics just to name a few. Set with a lively music as background, Tae Bo is a fun full body workout that will entice anybody to move their body and simply exercise.

These days, with the advent of many new exercise programs popping out everywhere, you might be thinking that Tae Bo is already obsolete. Think again. One could say that Tae Bo is one of the fore fathers when it comes to dance workouts with a twist. Until this day, there are still many Tae Bo fanatics that would attest to the awesome benefits of Tae Bo. Let’s name a few here:

Fun Martial Arts/Aerobics Exercise

Tae Bo incorporates martial arts like taekwondo and kickboxing moves into its exercise program. We know the benefits of knowing and practicing martial arts – you get to learn self-defense, and you build body strength and mental focus. Moreover, as with all martial arts and contact sports, it is not just learning to fight and toning your body that is the main advantage of practicing the sport, it is mainly about learning discipline. This discipline will transcend into your daily lives – making you more alert, respectful, and gives you an all-around better outlook in life.

Tae Bo as being a semi-martial arts exercise also has all these qualities we’ve mentioned. Its biggest selling point, though, is the fact that it is so much more fun and freeing to do. It, being a semi-dance aerobics set to upbeat music, makes it so much more appealing to women and young teens than the more rigid and contained environment of the pure martial arts.

Health and Body Toning Effects

Tae Bo being a great aerobic exercise simply means that it maximizes your body’s flow of oxygen. When there is higher circulation of oxygen, the cardiovascular system in the body ultimately benefits. Aerobic activities strengthen the heart and veins. Hence, continuous aerobic activities like Tae Bo lessen the risk of heart ailments. According to Billy Blanks, the cardiovascular benefit was one of the first things he noticed about Tae Bo. The incorporation of dance into his martial arts practice really tired out his very fit body during exercise (sign that the exercise is really working).

Lastly, what any body-conscious practitioner is after – does Tae Bo let you get a greater looking body? The answer is a resounding YES. According to one study conducting about Tae Bo, an hour of Tae Bo exercise lets an average person burn off 350 to 450 calories. That’s an impressive amount of translated weight loss. The high impact moves and continuous movement of the whole body during a Tae Bo exercise results to a toned and sculpted body.

Written with the help of The Park Club a family friendly gym in Chiswick offering various martial arts classes.

Photo Credits: Wikipedia