Is there a stretch for this or is something wrong with me?

[bphan002]

It seems like I've been having huge trouble turning my foot over for round houses so that it hits with the instep. My roundhouses kind of scrapes up the target because of it.

So I did a little test. I asked a friend to lay on her but and see if she can point her feet into each other. ( Link to picture down below)

http://i713.photobucket.com/albums/ww136/phandebbie/feet/IMG_1857.jpg


I can't seem to do this... (me attemping to do this)

http://i713.photobucket.com/albums/ww136/phandebbie/feet/IMG_1860.jpg

Now I'm questioning if I can kick a proper roundhouse because of this limitation.

[slipthejab]

A few things...

1) what your seeing in the pictures is an internal rotation of the leg in the hip joint.

2) it's only 1 of several factors in determining how your leg lands when you kick

Most likely a far bigger factor will be your supporting leg/foot placement as you throw the kick. Try stepping out at an angle to your opponent or heavy bag. Try stepping out at about a 45 degree angle to your target. The foot must be turned out as you step out and put it down. This allows you to open up the hip and then you are able to get the leg turned over as it's not fighting your own hip joint to do so.

Chances are if you are in a kicking dominant MA (most seem to be) that your hip flexors are tight. So you will have compensations going on... and of course a lack of flexibility in the hips. If bad enough it could be a real limiting factor. While it's fine to be able to internally rotate your legs at the hip joint - there are lots of other things going on in a kick as well. Not being able to internally rotate your hip joint or having limited internal rotation will however effect the kick to some degree.

You might try... post a vid (even cell phone quality is fine) of you throwing the kick against a heavy bag. Make sure you show the full body so we can take a look at your supporting leg/foot placement. At the moment when your roundhouse lands on your bag/opponent... the heel of your supporting leg should be facing the opponent/bag. This means you have your body in the proper position to facilitate turning over of the hip and you leg/foot/shin coming horizontally into the opponent.

As I free up a bit I'll post a stretch and some strengthening exercises to counter balance all the hip flexor dominance you probably have. Most likely your glutes (especially glute medius) is week and lengthened by having tight and short hip flexors.

[simon s]

I also agree with the foot placement suggestion. If you don't step the hips close as you kick.
Stand with left foot planted with toes forward facing your opponent. Now without moving your supporting foot throw a roundhouse kick. See how yor hips close together, the toes of the kicking foot point upwards and you cannot get your kicking let through centre line.
Now stand with your left supporting leg with toes pointing out to 9 o'clock, do the same kick as before. Now see how the toes on the kicking leg are in a much better position and you can kick through centre line.

Look at the postion of my supporting leg in this picture. The heel is forward which allows for maximum rotation. So as Slip rightfully said, step with the supporting foot out at an angle or learn to pivot as you kick.

20645

[bphan002]

Thank you for all your help. I will go ahead and make a short clip and post it hopefully tomorrow. I do TKD and the main reason is that I was hoping to not turn my supporting foot so much. About 90 so I can quickly throw doubles and triples in my kick. Its quite difficult to throw doubles and triples when its at 180.

[slipthejab]

Simon S -
Nice shot! That pic illustrates perfectly what I was talking about. Having that foot fully rotated so that the hips open up and allow the leg to come through. Brilliant. I see your roundhouse with rotated hip and raise you two roundhouses with rotated hip! :P

Bphan002 -
One key thing to note... not only will that save your hips (hip joint etc.) as you age but it will also dramatically reduce the chance of you tearing or stretching ligaments in your knees when you apply all that torque to the kick via the core and then it gets stopped and runs into the knee.

1) the first one is in light sparring. So the point of the drill here is to land on the neck... not hard enough to KO... but just enough with enough control to let the opponent know they'd have gotten caught out. As I've posted before on the roundhouse kick... the heel is off the deck, I'm up on the ball of the foot... by far the safest position for the knee and the most efficient position for the hip. In addition in some Muay Thai gyms coming up on the foot of the supporting leg also facilitates the downward chopping motion that many Thai's are keen to get. By rolling the hips over as the kicks land and adding a bit of plantar flexion (flexing the foot towards your own shin) they are able to effectively hook and drag the opponent down by the neck if the kick hasn't entirely annihilated them. I've seen this particular technique used just to annoy fighters. The Thai's seem to be able to pull of the move as sort of an inside joke as they're toying with an opponent. Frustrating I can tell you.

2) is me throwing the same kick but as a body shot on the heavy bag. Again this clearly illustrates the position of the hips right about the point of impact. As you can see by the back of my knee I'm rotated enough to allow the hips to carry the leg over comfortably... not impeding rotational power at all... or risking the cartilage in the hip joint by unnecessary wear and tear.

Just a note... this is the Muay Thai methodology so it varies from art to art... TKD may have an entirely different set up because of theory or rule structure or simply even the mechanics of the kick.

[simon s]

Thanks Slip.

I see this problem all the time. We do not do much kicking and most of my students are really stiff across the hips. The technique you describe allow them to kick correctly and more importantly, comfortably.