This would be more than enough to make me question the training, conditioning and strengthening exercises, and the technique.
It's like when people say that Kung Fu injures the knees. When I hear that I think if they are using the correct structures or if they are doing conditioning exercises that help strengthen the tendons.
Then you have the challenge of doing 1000 kicks perfectly. As the body loses endurance, the more the person is at risk for doing the technique incorrectly.
Then there is also the issue of not giving the body enough time to repair especially as we age.
I wouldn't say the martial art injures the knees. In most cases it comes down to overuse, wear and tear, etc.
A perfect example would be a runner: If you run once in a while, chances are your knees will be fine. If you run 10k (or miles if you prefer) every single day, that accumulated pounding on the joints
will cause knee injuries. You can
lessen it by stepping correctly, reducing body weight, and wearing proper shoes, but it can't be
eliminated.
Since martial arts is preparation to defend oneself in a fight, and given that the actions taken in a fight are violent and cause extreme stress on the body, it only makes sense that students will experience injury to the joints (especially the knee) over time because of the incredible amount of torque that is placed on them during kicking exercises, especially if they always kick full force and pile up many years doing it. Your body is like a car: it's not the age, it's the
mileage that does you in. You can be old at 30 or young at 50, depending on how you live your life.
A kick or punch isn't powerful unless the body is "loaded" immediately prior to executing it. That "loading" refers to the built-up spring-like tension that the body has to produce prior to releasing a kick. Everything from tension in the feet and knees to tension in the hips and upper body (like a snake coiling before striking). Without that loaded spring, the kicks are empty and powerless. By its very nature, loading up that spring involves putting pressure on the ligaments in the knees.
I'm no doctor by any means, but I've got entire books on improving Knee health written by doctors, and I've discussed it at length with my family doctor.
Today, my knees are doing a lot better than they were. They'll never be 100% again, but a reduction in kicking combined with using less kicking force during training has helped immensely.
. People at the dojo say my low roundhouse has bad mechanics because I tend to not "drop my weight into it each time" but the higher it goes they say the better I am at doing them.
