Hi there folks, a couple of quick questions about Muay Thai. In a few months I will be moving and when I do I'm looking to start Muay Thai training. I'm in decent enough shape and have good hands from boxing but literally zero kicking skill and quite limited leg flexibility. Firstly how flexible do I need to be for Muay Thai? Obviously the more the better (within reason) but I'm planing on starting a stretching regime just wanting to know where to set the goal as flexibility has never been my greatest attribute. Second question, does high/head kicking occur much in Muay thai? I have seen a few clips and pictures showing head kicks but am unsure if this is something trained in Muay thai or techniques picked up from elsewhere by some of the more acrobatic fighters. Cheers for any insight you folks can provide
It comes from flexibility, but also practice and technique. You just need to rep it out and stretch after every class.
We never did stretches. Flexibility came from the consistent drilling of techniques and the warmup skipping and shadow boxing.
So then in your experiences there is little I can do until I start training apart from fitness. Bit supprised stretching/flexibility work isn't emphasised that much, don't get me wrong I'm happy if that's the case lol
Depends how high you want to kick. If you're a relatively short player who wants to kick bigger people in the head, you may want to work towards full splits. I don't watch the sport, but I'd wager that answer is different with every fighter.
Well I'm 6'2/187 so not likely to be kicking above my head to reach many heads but then I suppose my weight 15st/210lbs (that's @ approx 10% body fat) might mean I'd be against some rather lanky chappies. Full splits is not exactly what I was hoping to hear lol good thing I have a few months to work on it ey. Your thread on splits progression is forming the backbone of my flexibility training plan, cheers for the article
I think the neck is a legitimate target, so you're probably not going to need as much flexibility as someone like me (5'4, but I don't do MT). Splits will be more of a nice to have for you. Good luck with your stretching, don't be afraid to mess around with the method.
There are several famous kickers unable to do the splits, yet kick head high. For instance Keith Vitali. This is not even close to stretching the limit and should not pose any problems.
You don't need to be massively flexible. I'm very average, people less experienced than me have better flexibility, but I can comfortably throw a high kick. For me personally it's the momentum that helps carry the kick. Ask me to do it at anything other than full speed and I'm gonna struggle to get my leg higher than shoulder height. Just practice and practice some more.
And the thread maker is taller than him. I have never heard of shorter guys obligated to being able to perform splits to kick head high. Is there some sort of logic behind such reasoning?
Which is why I said it depends on how high he wanted to kick. How tall are you? Splits aren't necessary to kick high, but they (or close to them) are ideal. Yes - kicking beyond the limit of your static flexibility may cause injury, and you will eventually lose the ability to kick so high due to age related changes in joint make up. Splits serve two purposes: they're a pragmatic measure of static flexibility and they are probably the most effective positions in which to increase static flexibility.
I'm 5'9", 35 years old, I can't do the splits anymore, yet I am still able to kick the top of a door frame with the sole of my foot. If for some reason I cannot reach, I jump.
Just curious; is there any difference in your kicking proficency since losing the ability to do the splits? Why did you lose it?
Think the only real difference is the need to lean back more when kicking tall people in the head with roundhouse kicks and side kicks. Nowadays my kicks are more Thai style kicks so I still have alot of power developed behind them. I don't generally head hunt with kicks, though I managed to kick the guy in my recent kickboxing title fight in the head with a lead snapping roundhouse kick, he stood at 6'2" and I'm just 5'9". Lost the ability to do the splits simply from years of not stretching for it. I used to be able to do it as a teenager but I just stopped doing martial arts at one point, then when I got back into martial arts I never really got into anything that did that sort of stretching during warm ups.
