Question on stretching to slizzardman

[Alvaro Antolinez]

I would like to ask you ( if you dont mind) about the stretching and strenghtening movements that you used when training with Manu, mainly the leg ones (as he devoloped such powerful kicks!). Thank you

[Alvaro Antolinez]

[Joshua Naterman]

He had me do a *LOT* of partner stretching. It was not fun at all, but it worked extremely well. Partner PNF, to be exact. For around 45 minutes 5-6 days a week we would work wall splits. I'd be in the wall split the whole time, and he'd put one of his feet on the inside of my left ankle and his hands on my right ankle. Then I'd go as far as I could on my own, and he would push me an extra few inches. I'd be held there for minutes, until everything relaxed. Then I'd squeeze against his hands and feet for around 10 seconds, and as I relaxed I would be pushed further. When it was fairly painful we would stop there and I'd hold it for around 20-30 minutes. Like I said, it's not fun. After that it would take me around 30 minutes for my legs to feel stable. At that point we'd do regular warm up. That was 5-10 minutes of jump rope intervals, followed by hamstring stretches and standing splits, but not too intense. A few lengths of hip external and internal rotations down the mat and I was ready for kicking! I ended up with devastatingly hard kicks.

For the hamstring stretching, a lot of it was Bruce Lee style. Progressions for foot-elevated single leg stretches. I performed these in PNF fashion, first moving to the extent of my flexibility and then pressing against the rail as if to bring my leg back down, without relieving the stretch. When I felt it was time to relax I would move further. It took around four months of all this for me to be six inches from a full split, which is as far as I took my splits. I kept working on my hamstrings and made slow but steady progress.

I also worked on active hip flexibility, which went ok. My flexibility has always been poor, but I ended up being pretty flexible. It took a lot of work, and a lot of that was partner work. there are machines you can buy to do some of that partner work for you if you don't have a trainer like I did.It's important to have that one way or the other if you have difficulty with flexibility.

Outside of that, if you want to have really, really hard kicks you need to do two things. First off, you need to condition your shins properly. If you feel pain there, you will unconsciously or consciously hold back, and that will keep you from being truly effective. You should be able to take a heavy bag filled with dry rice and be able to kick it at full power and feel nothing but a thud. If you're usng the 6 foot banana bags you'll find the bottom to be very hard. Usually these are half sawdust and half sand, if they are filled the old way. Cotton rags are good for a beginner bag, but once that doesn't bother you at the bottom of the bag with full power kicks then you'll need to move to the sand and sawdust bag. Very important to do this. You'll know you're getting somewhere when hair stops growing on your shins. Don't worry, it'll be temporary. As soon as you stop training hard enough your hair will start growing back.

The second thing is learning to be relaxed and kick fro the hip, not the leg. Until you master this, you will never have kicks that strike fear into the hearts of those who would confront you. Once these things have been done, which takes 6-8 months to make significant progress in, you will be kicking so hard that one hit is enough to convince people to completely rethink their strategy.

And then, of course, none of this makes any difference if you don't have excellent reactions. That's a totally separate aspect of training that I personally think is grossly neglected.

[Alvaro Antolinez]

What a great post!(as usuall!). Thank you. I'll try to use part of this stretching (all of it is too much time consuming for me).

Did you start your stretching from cold or did you warm up a bit? There was some strenghtening of the hip for the kick? other than kicking practice itself?

[Joshua Naterman]

Outside of kicking practice, I did a lot of core work. HLL progressions and body levers are going to be where you develop a lot of power. Make sure to build up to heavy HLL slowly, but build up to them. When you're doing HLL with 20+ lbs for sets of 8-10, with 2120 tempo at least, you'll really be causing damage. Outside of that, make sure you work your hip adductors and abductors.

ALWAYS stretch warm. I intentionally wore sweat pants and would jog or jump rope for 15-20 minutes after rubbing my legs down with Thai liniment. It burns like hell at first, but it helps bloodflow a lot and that helps heat up the areas to be stretched. Don't get it on your balls or the rest of your package, it will burn like you have no freaking idea man. At the very least, wear sweat pants to keep your legs HOT and jog, row, jump rope, get on the eliptical, do SOMETHING for at least 10 minutes to heat up the legs. Once you achieve your maximum stretch for that day, stay in it for a while. 20-30 minutes. Read a book. Take a nap. Whatever. It's not super exciting but it will get you flexible in a hurry. Just make sure you do strength work for the muscles you stretch on off days, and stretch lightly before and a little more after.

[Alvaro Antolinez]

Those are terribly usefull tips really! Thank you. Im going right now to stretch! :twisted:

[Razz]

Don't get it on your balls or the rest of your package, it will burn like you have no freaking idea man.

HAHAHA

anyhow I can imagine obliques are key aswell in hard kicks, or am I wrong?

[Joshua Naterman]

Sort of. The main acceleration comes from the hip flexors and the obliques, but training with HLL progressions is ideal because that is literally EXACTLY how you deliver the kick, just with one leg at a time instead of both. There are an awful lot of small technical details that go into a truly devastating round kick, and it is very hard to explain them all properly with words.

The basics are that you have to be very whippy and have fairly open hips. Then you have to learn how to deliver the kick while fairly relaxed. This minimizes telegraphing and maximizes potential power. The rest of it is how quickly you rotate, how much of that rotational energy your hip flexors can transfer to the lower leg, and what part of the shin bone you hit with. If you're doing it right, you will literally fold a 300lb heavy bag in half. Like there will be a 60+ degree bend in the bag. You do that to someone and you are breaking multiple ribs with a clean hit, if they are lucky. I have personally watched Manu cave in someone's pelvis. Yea. It's freaking gross. It was one of his fights in thailand. 5 kicks to the same spot on the guy's right hip, and on the 5th kick his shin goes in nearly to the guys belly button. I think I still have that tape somewhere.

[Alvaro Antolinez]

Please post it on youtube if is not too much truble! :twisted:

[Joshua Naterman]

I'll see if I can find the tape. If I still have it, I'll go ask him for permission to post it. I might have given it back, and if I have I'll ask him if he still has it.

[Alvaro Antolinez]

Mmmm maybe too much of a headache! forget it by the moment.

[Seiji]

On a side note:

Bill Wallace says core muscles are more important than leg muscles for kick strength and height. You can find a few instructional videos of his on youtube.

[wingspan]

Slizzardman. You've mention reaction training before, can you give a very brief idea of how you trained this?

I've trained martial arts in the past and not maybe aways by the best instructors or in the most optimal way and I'm interested how someone decent at goes about it.

Cheers

[Joshua Naterman]

You work on angle reactions. Anything coming in from a certain angle gets dealt with a certain way. You work on 2-3 per day, 2-3 times a week intensively and 2-3 times a week fairly lightly, with honestly not more than 6 per week. Stay with the same 6 or so reactions for a few months before adding one or two more. Once you have good reactions, you don't need as much training to maintain them, so you can afford to focus on new ones, though you always need to work what you have developed.

There is no particular right way to do it, so long as you create a system of reactions that allow you to successfully accomplish whatever your objectives are. For me, personally, I always trained for counter punching and counter kicks, and defensive penetration. That's a pretty wide variety of reactions to train, so I started with the basics. Anything coming at my head straight on got slipped. I worked on always slipping to the outside. Then for looping punches I worked on slipping to the inside. I also specifically trained to always move forward while I was slipping, because the last thing I wanted to do was remain in punching range. I always want to get as close as I can, because despite being big I am very, very good at short punches, slips, weaving, and elbows. Once I am close it's over, as far as striking is concerned, so that is what I played on. That was a big strength, and it is hard to keep someone from penetrating when they move just enough to have your fist or foot brushing the hair on the side of their head. I worked the same thing on weaving. This made me close to unhittable as far as punches and high kicks were concerned. For round kicks I worked on quickly moving in at a 30-45 degree angle in the same direction of the incoming leg. If it was going across my body from left to right, I shot in at a 30-45 degree angle to my right. This puts me inside the kick, which most people never do. My opponent is on one foot, and the faster they are moving the more likely they are to hyperextend their knee on my body/elbows. They are essentially putting their life into my hands. Only the rules of the ring protect them from having their head powerslammed into the concrete, dirt, grass, canvas, whatever. The rules of the ring still allow me to savage them with an elbow while tripping them so they still fall backwards. If their head splits open, F them for stepping in with me. That's my attitude once violence starts, sport or otherwise. I refuse to play around.

Then I worked on always making sure incoming straight kicks met an elbow or knee in either the foot, ankle, or knee. You wouldn't believe how easy this is to do. You don't even have to move, hardly. Anyhow, this is how you build your reactions. You have to spend a good 15-20 minutes on each thing, straight. You start slow. It takes 3-6 months to really get each one of these sharp, but doing so pays unbelievable dividends. It is why I was nearly unstoppable.

This is the same process BJJ black belts use to become so fast at transitioning from one attack to another. You work one part of the sequence at a time, over and over until you do the right thing at lightning speed without thinking. That's just how it works, and stand up is no different. It's a lot easier, in fact, because you don't need a particularly skilled opponent to build some incredible reflexes. You just need someone who is willing to spend the time and work with you exactly how you want it. Still pretty hard to find.

[Alvaro Antolinez]

Great post again!.It really makes sense. Now maybe is too much of a request but is possible a short video with some of those basic moves some time in the future?

[Joshua Naterman]

Over the summer I'll put some of that for sure. That will be fun, I haven't done any of that in years. My girlfriend thinks I still have good reactions but I know better lol! I remember what I was like and I am a pale shadow compared to when I was 18-19.

[Alvaro Antolinez]

Thanks!

[wingspan]

Thanks again Sliz. Very interesting stuff.

The vids would be cool if you ever get the time.

[Joshua Naterman]

I will. I can promise you that it's not anything flashy. The most effective stuff rarely is, though I think it is an EXTREMELY GOOD IDEA to practice the floreio like Ido does, because agility on the ground can save your ass and it's always good to be able to move in ways people do not look for.

I will say now, and I will explain again in the videos when I post them, that this type of thing has to be put together as a complete approach, so what you see me show will be based on my personal approach to fighting, which works well for me partially because of my large size, though personally I think most of it works for everyone. Anyhow, you'll see soon enough.