Some exercises detailed below can be incorporated into your training sessions very easily. The main objective is to strengthen the hip flexors and increase your flexibility. 1. Start with holding onto a chair or wall. Raise your leg in side leg raise. (Try and keep the leg straight and your foot in the correct side kick position) Raise each leg 20 times. As you progress, you can lose the chair / wall and this will help to build your balance. You can also add ankle weights or increase the amount of reps you do 2. Again hold onto a chair or wall and ask someone to place their hand out at your hip level. Raise your leg and circle around the hand one way for say 10-15 reps then without lowering the leg repeat going in the opposite direction. THIS WILL BURN so pay attention to what your body is saying. (If it burns it is working, if it is PAINFUL, stop) 3. Bring your leg into the chamber position and slowly push the leg out into a sidekick. Hold for a few seconds and bring back into the chamber and repeat. The purpose of each exercise is strengthen the hip flexors and increase your flexibility. Although it is envitable that your body will lean back when performing a high side kick, the more you lean, the less balance you will have and will in turn have less power behind the kicks. These exercises will help to overcome over leaning. Hope this helps
Try one of those horizontal bars that ballet dancers use in front of the mirror to increase flexibility. Alternatively use the kitchen worktop or fridge by placing your kicking leg on it and stretching out at various angles. You can also dip down on your supporting leg to increase flexibility in the groin area.
Stretching exercises to improve side kick height Hi, i've recently started taekwondo and i'm having trouble with my side kicks, they still seem quite low and restricted. Are there any quick exercises that i can do in the morning and evening that will give me greater flexibility for this purpose? Cheers.
Something that I have found really useful is the side swing kick. its more of a stretch than a kick though. Be sure to go slow at first, than start going higher. check it out. Welcome to map, also.
welcome to the TKD forum. here you'll find several links that i'm sure will help you out: http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6306
Welcome to the forum. If you have just started don't worry about it to much, you just need to put continued effort into your stretching and training and get a gradual improvement over time. In ITF there is no requirement to kick higher than mid section till red belt (3 + years training) So your better off gettiing your technique right and slowly increasing your kicking height rather than pushing for height and having sloppy technique.
I'm aiming to be just as good physically as the yellow belts - set myself an initial target - and it was during that leg swinging exercise, which we do at training, that illustrated my lack of movement compared to some of them Thanks for all your advice.
Do just normal stretches, so go as far into splits as possible. Then you can go for active stretching i guess (holding your leg up for shortish period of time in side kick position)
Take a look at this thread .... http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2614 ... some good discussion on side kick stretches/drills See my post #17
dipping the body lower to the ground can increase height, but other than that its been said just to gently stretch and progress. Good luck.
yeah, to increase kicking height, just do the basic stretches. sit on your butt with your left leg bent in and the sole of your left foot against your right theigh, and your right leg infront of you and stretch down as far as you can go. if you do this stretch daily a couple times, in four weeks tops your forehead will touch the ground next to your knee, it's pretty funky stuff ^_^ another one that will help you with the muscles on the inside of your legs is just sitting with your back straight and spreading your legs as far out to the sides as you can, and maybe trying to lean forward to stretch them. again, if you do that regularly, you'll be able to so a side split like nothin' a couple more stretches i've found useful in getting used to flinging your legs up the the air (i.e axe kick ) is a high rising up and side rising up. makki yup and swing your back leg up as far as you can. think of it as doing a snap kick, but with no kicking or chambering. the side rising up is a little different. you can do it wit ha pole or without one, but for starting off i suggest a pole. you stand in front of the pole and put your right hand at about shoulders height and your left a little above your waist height. swing your right leg in front of your left, and then back the other way, waaaaaayyyy up in the air. don't be afriad to really wing it up there, just don't hurt yourself. you should feel a stretch in your left calf and inner theigh as well as your right inner theigh. i've found this stretch really helps with the height of your side-kicks. sorry about the length of that ^_^ i just didn't want to miss anything
yes, lowering your upper body will enable you to lift your leg higher, but i don't think it's a good idea. work on your techniqes and they will improve in time. you should not be obssessed with the height. it's better to kick at waist level and have a strong kick without falling down instead of kicking high and enabling your opponent to use the imbalance of your body.
of course they are but what i wanted to say is that you can't keep lowering your upper body just to gain height in your kick. the position of the upper body is very important for the kick. I've seen students who lower their upper body so much when doing a dwit chagi that instead of turning the head and looking at the opponent over the shoulder, their look goes underneath their armpit and that is simply wrong. the same goes for yop chagi or side kick. of course you lower your upper body to a certain extent, but it can't go way down. some students do it to impress others, but lowering your upper body too much doesn't look good or impressive. and other students lower it because they are not flexible enough or they simple haven't understood what the kick is all about. and BTW TKD kicks rock
High Kicks Is there any suggestions or tips you guys/girls have for me on how to get my side kicks higher? thanks. threads merged
Aside from what Gaylen mentioned application of the kick helps too. Make sure your base foot is turned to point behind you, this opens your hips, also bend that base leg knee. Another thing i've found helps is pointing your fist where you want your foot to go and instead of focusing on your foot or opponent, helps with mainly accuracy. Run a search plenty of other threads on this topic most people will just say stretch and theyre right.
personally while I am flexible and can perform most kicks to any height I never do. apart from in sparring where the target area is so limited. but in the real fights and the full contct full body sparring with my friends I would never dream of going above the abdomen. dont worry too much if you cant get your leg that high as unless you are a competition sparrer or a demonstrations person(which I must admit are VERY cool) you shouldn't ever need your leg to be that high...
im a dolio kicker so my side kick isnt my best trait (hugh diadvantave as i do ITF style) but ders lots of ways to help your side kick. mine was a complet disgrace but i started a training progame done one a day and it realy inproved my side kick. leg raises and things like that are what you need
