As I mentioned elsewhere, I have a new commitment to stance training and slow motion kicks. It is exposing some issues I am having. I hope some of you can shed some light on my crane stance issues. 1- is the typical flexibility issue. How does one get their crane stance up higher? I am embarrassed to admit I am not even sure what muscles are primarily used in a crane stance. Can someone with a good sense of anatomy tell me? Thing is, when I do a front kick full speed, I can kick pretty darn high. But in a slow motion snap kick, it is much lower. A LOT lower. I am not sure why and I am not sure what to do about it. (Of course, I will ask my instructor and/ or Sifu too.) I am left sided, but my left crane is worse. My leg droops at the end of the training. I know that is just building up the strength, but maybe other reasons too? That side is tighter during leg stretches too. 2. After some time, my left foot (which is supposed to be pointing down, but with the toes curled up) starts to shake sometimes. I have also had this issue when doing lots of TCC toe kicks. (Sifu will have us do like 10 TCC kicks on each side- holding them out at full extension for a few seconds.) Anyone else ever have that? It sort of freaks me out. I tend to not hold my foot the way I should once it starts doing it because of it freaking me out.
If your full speed front kick is good then I doubt your problem is with flexibility. I would guess that your problem is with the strength of your hip flexors. When kicking full speed you can rely on momentum to lift your leg up, whereas slow kicks will put a lot more stress on the flexors. Presumable this is also what is giving you trouble with your crane stance, presuming you're having difficulties with holding your leg up. Bearing in mind of course that my own acquaintanceship with anatomy is very casual. I can't say much about your other problem, unfortunately.
yeah, keeping the leg up is a function of hip flexor strength. there are three main hip flexors (with contributions from a handful of others in different positions): the psoas, which goes from the lower back and pelvis to the femur, the iliacus, which goes from pelvis to femur and is usually combined with psoas (you'll surely have heard of 'iliopsoas' at some point), and recrus femoris which is one of the four heads of the quadriceps and goes from the pelvis to the commin quad tendon towards the kneecap (and so shares the distal insertion in the tibia and also does knee extension). it you lift your knee, the leg is easy to lift because the lower leg isn't way out creating more difficult leverages, and the rec fem can contribute fully. if your leg is extended as in a raise or a front kick the leverage becomes somewhat of a harsh mistress, and the rec fem approaches active insufficiency (the gradual inability to contract more and exert more force) because it shortens fully (where as it was lengthened at the flexed knee in the knee raise), so the iliopsoas has to work a ton more to keep the leg up. rec fem you can strengthen with any quad exercise (any squats, deficit deadlifts, hex bar deadlifts, leg press, etc), and you can strengthen all the hip flexors via isometrics where you resist hip flexors (get a 5 minute plank and front squat above 1x your bodyweight for reps, combined with regular slow kick training, and you won't have a lot of trouble with leg lifting). off to the sides you start to involve more miscles in the movement: the heel kick that crosses to the inside like they do in wing chun (tan gerk?) will involve adductors and sartorius (sartorius rotates the leg and contributes to hip flexion and knee extension, adductors bring it to and past the midline and resist the opposite, with minor hip flexion and extension contributions depending on where the knee is). quad exercises will generally strengthen these along with them, but some leg raises and machine exercises could help bring them up if they're lagging. to the outside you involve the tfl (the muscle that tenses the it band) which is a small diagonal strip of muscle, and the gluteus medius and minimus which are the forgotten pillars of le butte and are small triangular side muscles tat go from hip to leg. in the untrained and many trained (guilty lol) all three are small and puny. tfl contributes to hip flexion and abduction, and the small glutes are abductors that contribute to flexion and extension depending on position. you can train all three with leg lifts and side planks as well as slow kicks. no idea on number two, but may be your calves getting fatigued. see the thread matvei made about calves for suggestions. also this is in no way shape or form related to my obsessive desire to make everyone lift weights no ma'am. absolutely not. never. okay maybe a little
also, ask late for dinner. he does CLF and he actually works in the field for which i'm studying, so he'll know more
Woo hoo people are spelling things right! Anyway when I was having trouble with. My kicking in wing chun it was essentially the same problem you're having now. The solution for me was isometrics. I'm not a big fan of isometrics most of the time especially on their own but I think it's a good spot to use them. The muscles clearly have enough strength through the rest of the ROM and fails at the top so strengthen it specifically at the top. My Sifu told me (jokingly I think) that they used to hang a bucket on the end of the leg to strengthen the muscles. I just held my leg up as high as I could for progressively increasing intervals. It certainly won't provide the same full body strengthening that fish is suggesting but it seemed to work well and fairly fast.
yup, juck isometrics are specific but less efficient. optimal method for long term, is to use both, short term probably the kick isometrics and some planks.
