Kicking problems

[InvisibleShadow]

Sirs and Ma'ams,


I have a quick question about my round house kicks and side kicks.
For my round house kicks I can not get any height with them, my hips are very unflexible right now.

Do you know of any special stretches I could do to help me get my hips to go farther up when doing my roundhouses? Same with side kick, if you know of any special stretches.

Thanks

 

[bluekey88]

There are two factors that come into kickin gheight. One is your felxibility, the other is your muscular strength. Box splits, and the liek are great static tsretches (you probably do them in class), but without the associated muscular strength in your hips and core you won't be able to get your kicj up to where you want it.

At the very basic level, the best thing you can do is through lots of roundhouse and side kicks with progressive height.

As an assist, I would also look at doing fron, side and back leg swings. Here you swing your styraight leg through a full range of motion gradually trying to increase your range without "snappinbg" or "forcing" the movement. Done daily, this will help with your dynamic flexibility. You may also wan tto look at doing excercises like squats to build leg strength which will also lead to greater height if you work towards it.

Hope this makes sense and good luck.

Peace,
Erik

 

[terryl965]

There are two factors that come into kickin gheight. One is your felxibility, the other is your muscular strength. Box splits, and the liek are great static tsretches (you probably do them in class), but without the associated muscular strength in your hips and core you won't be able to get your kicj up to where you want it.

At the very basic level, the best thing you can do is through lots of roundhouse and side kicks with progressive height.

As an assist, I would also look at doing fron, side and back leg swings. Here you swing your styraight leg through a full range of motion gradually trying to increase your range without "snappinbg" or "forcing" the movement. Done daily, this will help with your dynamic flexibility. You may also wan tto look at doing excercises like squats to build leg strength which will also lead to greater height if you work towards it.

Hope this makes sense and good luck.

Peace,
Erik

Erik has said it better than me.

 

[phatbway]

As an assist, I would also look at doing fron, side and back leg swings. Here you swing your styraight leg through a full range of motion gradually trying to increase your range without "snappinbg" or "forcing" the movement.
Peace,
Erik

Erik said it best

...and Some Yoga has helped me in the past to increase kicking height.
To each his own.

 

[Deaf Smith]

InvisibleShadow,

Try this.

Find a exercise bicycle that has an adjustabe seat that is soft and the bicycle is very stable (it should hold your weight if you lean out to the side and not fall over.)

Now bring the seat up to say hip level. Put one of your legs on it in a snap kick, resting your calf on the seat, and do a front stretch by leaning into it. Now rotate into a side kick, placing the knee on the saddle. Lean back into the perfect roundhouse/side kick form but make sure you are stable and don't fall. Now flex the lower leg like doing a round house.

Repeat with the other leg.

Now bring the seat up an inch or two and repeat.

Do this till the seat is as high as you can adjust it and still preform the whole thing.

You can do active stretching and PNF stretching that way.

Do this maybe twice a week.

And regular floor stretching and some dynamic stretching like those have mentioned above.

Hope that helps.

Deaf

 

[granfire]

one small point tho:

You need to pivot on the leg you are standing on, or the mechanics won't work right, meaning, the kicks don't get up high. So when you do round kicks and side kicks the food you are standing on should point the opposite direction from your kicking target.

Stand close to a wall or door frame to hold on to and do your kicks in slow/medium speed, no snapping. This builds the muscles needed (you will be surprised how much core strength you use) do sets of 15-20 each side. check form so you do it correct. Eventually the kicks do get higher.

 

[TKDHermit]

When you kick high, ur supporting foot should be pointing the opposite direction that you're kicking at. I mean it's not a must-follow, but it helps me achieve my height. For sidekicks, bend your body down more if you need to. But you don't have to kick above your head level most of the time - unless your opponent is taller than you. And do stretches everyday, improves flexibility.

 

[exile]

I really think Erik's point earlier about strength being a crucial factor may be central to the problem here. There's actually a third factor—balance—which is bound together with strength issues, because until you develop the necessary balance skills, you can't get your leg high enough to stress the hip flexors in a way that builds strength in them, while at the same time, without the strength, you can't get your leg high enough to learn how to position your body dynamically through the kick so that you stay in balance from beginning to end.

What I've found is that there are certain very useful exercises Shesulsa suggested in a discussion along these lines some time ago: instead of working directly on the kick, work on the chamber, and then go from there with very slow motion kicks to (ultimately) full extension, frozen in place for 10 to 30 seconds. They work like this: you stand facing north, bring the knee of your kicking leg up as high as you can, and, while pivoting on the standing leg till your upper body is just past west, rotate your chambered kicking leg counterclockwise downward so that it winds up parallel to the floor, with your standing foot 180º from the target (as people have suggested). And just stand there, maintaining that position as long as you can, with whatever upper-body movement off the vertical you need to do to stay in comfortable balance. Once you get comfortable doing that, try slowly extending your kicking leg as far as you can so that you can maintain that position indefinitely. Try going a little further each time, till you can maintain that frozen position with nearly full extension (you don't want to go to 100% full extension in any case, especially when there's high impact at the end of the kick).

Do that for a few weeks and you will almost certainly find that your strength, flexibility and balance are all much improved, and your comfortable kicking height has increased in a major way. I've field-tested this kind of exercise with my own students and I think it has markedly improved the kicks of the ones who work on it consistently.