Kickboxing refers to the sport of using martial-arts-style kicks and western-boxing-style punches to defeat an opponent in a similar way to that of standard boxing. Kickboxing is a standing sport and does not allow continuation of the fight once a combatant has reached the ground.

Kickboxing is often practised for general fitness, or as a full-contact sport. In the full-contact sport the male boxers are bare chested wearing kickboxing trousers and protective gear including: mouth-guard, hand-wraps, 10oz boxing gloves, groin-guard, shin-pads, kick-boots, and optional protective helmet (usually for those under 18.) The female boxers will wear a tank top in addition to the male clothing/protective gear.

Kickboxing is often confused with Muay Thai, also known as Thai Boxing. The two sports are similar, however, in Thai Boxing, kicks below the belt are allowed, as are strikes with knees and elbows.

Arts labelled kickboxing include blank">http://www.mikemiles.com/history1.html :

• Adithada (Indian kickboxing) — A form of kickboxing that uses knee, elbow and forehead strikes
• _Lethwei (Burmese kickboxing) — Traditional Burmese martial arts of which has now grown into a popular kickboxing event with strong emphasis on knee, elbow strikes and head butt. Any part of the body may be used to strike and be struck. It us also known as Bando kickboxing.
• Pradal Serey (Khmer kickboxing) — Predecessor of Muay Thai
• Muay Thai (Thai boxing) — Traditional Thai martial art of which has now grown into a popular kickboxing event with strong emphasis on knee and elbow strikes
• Japanese kickboxing — Similar to Muay Thai, but different point system is taken (e.g. K-1).
• American kickboxing — Similar to Japanese kickboxing and Full contact karate, but different point system is taken
• Full Contact Karate — Most of the time padding and in some cases body armor is used and is the applicable component of karate like many other styles which also include routines training.
• Savate (French kickboxing) — Allows the use of shoes
• Sanshou/Sanda (Chinese kickboxing) — The applicable component of wushu/kung fu of which Takedowns and throws are legal in competition as well as all other sorts of striking (use of arms and legs).
• Shoot boxing — A Japanese form of kickboxing which allows throwing and submission while standing similar to San Shou
• Yaw-Yan (Filipino kickboxing) — Sayaw ng Kamatayan (Dance of Death) is the proper name for Yaw-Yan, a Filipino martial art developed by Napoleon Fernandez. The art resembles Muay Thai in a sense, but differs in the hip torquing motion as well as downward-cutting of its kicks.

There are many additional derivatives of these forms, as well as combined styles which have been used in specific competitions (e.g. K-1). The rules of 'kickboxing' also vary between these different styles.

The term kickboxing is disputed and has become more associated with the Japanese and American variants. It must be noted that many of the above styles do not consider themselves to be 'kickboxing' as such, although the public uses the term generically to refer to all these martial arts. The term itself was created by the Japanese boxing promoter Osamu Noguchi for a variant of Muay Thai and Karate that he created in the 1950s; this term was later used by the American variant. When used by the practitioners of these two styles, it tends to refer to them specifically rather than the martial arts they were derived from.