At the moment at training we are often doing our kicks and trying to hold them at the moment of impact. Its quite funny watching how quick mine and everyones leg is dropping from this. Im wanting to increase mine. ive asked for advice from our two instructors, both have given me different answers. 1st one said the best way to train this is to just hold your leg out for as long as you can (which ive been doing every night while i brush my teeth) Ive been using ankle weights for this aswell. 2nd instructor said do a front raising kick slowly. I can see how both would eventually train for this, but which one would be more effective. Would the ankle weights help with this? I have heard ankle weights can do a bit of damage if you arent using them properly
Ankle weights put too much stress on your knees if you bring it too high up. If you want to use ankle weights its better if you just raise your leg slowly to the side (keep your leg below the waist). Or you could do what your instructors told you since their both right. Don't just raise your leg to the front or just to the side, do them both. The stronger your leg is the more flexible it is "active" flexibility atleast, just cause someone can do the splits doesn't mean they can kick very high. Raise your leg slowly in all directions (to the back, side, front), it helps alot with your active flexibility, leg strength, and also your balance. Your kicks will improve greatly.
ankle weights only stress the joints if you try kicking with them on. if you actually read his post properly you would see he is only using ankle weights for static active holds - which is good. if you want to get better at holding your leg at the moment of impact. Just keep practiscing precisely that. Just make sure your core is strong enough - as it can stress your lower back. g-bells(Y-Town) - what are you on about a long muscle is a strong muscle?
What you are looking for is called active flexibility, where you try to hold a joint a the longest range of motion using only your own muscles for support. As our resident stretching geek wynnema said, you want to simply practice holding it at the desired range of motion without support for the leg at all. There are also other ways to train this up, such as supporting it upto the desired height, then trying to tense the muscles to pull your leg slightly above that ROM and hold it for as long as possible. This can be done for any reasonable number of sets and reps.
That's what's puzzled me for a while. I'd think a longer muscle would be a weaker muscle, all other things being equal. Thus, wouldn't you have to trade strength for flexibility? Or rather, you'd have to work harder to keep a long muscle at the same strength as a shorter one?
Why use ankle weights when you can't even hold your leg out with no weights? First get the dynamic stretches/holds down with little to no movement before you try to move on to ankle weights. That's just asking for injury, and please try to keep your useless sarcastic remarks to a minimum, it really doesn't make you sound smarter .
Just wear some really heavy boots or even the ankle weights, and practice holding them up, both in front of you, and to the sides. Your hip muscles will get stronger quickly, and when you're at class and not wearing the ankle weights you will have a whole lot more stamina at it.
a flexibile muscle is stronger than a non-flexible one. have you ever notice that people that are long and lanky seem to have a natural brute strenght.their muscles are long and lean ie flexible :bang:
dynamic stretching has little to do with static-active flexibilty. where exactly have I made a sarcastic comment in my post - are you American?.
PNF stretching is pretty useful. Basically, get a partner to hold your leg at the desired height, and while you try and move it higher, they push it down. BE VERY CAREFUL.
Stoky people are good at benching and squating, lanky people are good at deadlifting. If I remember correctly.
That's more because of levers more than anything else. Overall strength can't be judged by just 3 standard weight lifts.
