Exercises for Martial Arts Kicks

O.K., I've been doing SLS, rear foot elevated split squats/bulgarian split squats, front squats, olympic power cleans, single leg deadlifts, box jumps/jump squats, and GHR for my kicking strength and power. I also do tons of active flexibility kicking drills.

What I think my options are:

For extension:

> SLS

> FS

> Olympic Power Cleans

> Box Jumps/Jump Squats

For flexion:

> SLDL

> Regular DL

> GHR (single or regular)

> NCL negatives or with LOTS of band assistance

So, a few questions:

> Do I have pretty much everything covered?

> Which is worth more for a kicker, GHR or NCL? (I really want to be able to pump out NCL's eventually btw XD)

> This sounds silly, but it's not really. Do GHR and Olympic lifting HAVE to make your glutes grow way out of proportion? I mean, I've seen so many GHR videos where the person has HUGE glutes and they aren't even that strong! (example -->

) They aren't fat, they're just BIG. I've seen olympic lifters who have large glutes and legs but it's not the same thing (at least not in what I have seen). I don't want huge glutes. It makes it very hard to find trousers around here. Coach has said that he knows of male gymnasts doing many, many NCL's one after another which demonstrates great strength and yet gymnasts don't have huge butts. Like I said, this sounds silly, but I do so much glute-heavy active flexibility work for kicking that I don't want to gain unnecessary glute-weights. :oops:

Is this true? Does it have to be like this? Strong kicking = huge, out of proportion glutes?

> What is the general opinion of the deadlift versus the single leg deadlift? Is the regular deadlift a bit out of date for someone like me?

It's late after a long day, so if this comes off as silly or sloppy, sorry about that! Practically asleep on my keyboard. :wink:

Thanks!

Patrick

I just found a video of Mirko Cro Cop training: http://www.mmamoz.com/mirko-cro-cop-wei ... ng-routine

He's doing a ton of GHR and he was a very, very strong kicker.

EDIT:

This is a video of Tim Man who has very impressive kicking skill but not really any power (that I have seen): VASNMGY4o7E

Bill Wallace also has great kicks, but I'm not sure if he did GHR or not:

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I think the best way to become a powerful kicker is to just practice kicks and to do strength training more as supplementary exercises...

Working on technique is key, because the better your technique is the better you can transfer the energy into your opponent. You should work on relaxing the antagonist during the kick, because if you tense all your muscles in the leg the kick feels strong but only because all the energy is stuck in your muscles. My style has no high kicks so i can not say if that's also true for those...

In my opinion you got that strength part right but no, you don't need out of portion glutes to become a strong kicker.

Work on your technique, kicks in the air, and hammer your punching bag (what's your solution for the filling problem by the way?)

JN12, my solution to filling my heavy bag was to sell it on ebay and use some of my savings to buy a 130 lb factory filled bag from KOFightGear (http://kofightgear.com/) for $288 (shipping included). It's super, super tough. I highly recommend them.

I was thinking about it and I realized that you are 100% correct. I really don't practice my actual martial arts material enough. I mean, I spend about 3 hours on M,T, Th, and F training strength, doing rehab/prehab, active flexibility, etc. but my actual martial arts practice is less than 2-3 hours a week (on Wednesday). I didn't have a heavy bag I could use but since I do now, I will start practicing kata/forms/hyungs, air kicks/punches, and bag work at least 3 hours on Wednesday AND Saturday.

I guess I forgot that my general and specific strength and conditioning stuff can only make me a better fighter IF I practice a lot too. :wink:

It's kind of funny, but the dynamic gymnastic work helped certain kicks of mine get stronger. Especially the senders.

I'm not surprised, Phillip! What martial art and kicks do you practice? Any high kicks?

Patrick Smith said:

I'm not surprised, Phillip! What martial art and kicks do you practice? Any high kicks?

I do Muay Thai aka Thai Boxing. There are high kicks though they aren't that common compared to low ones. Getting cut kicked (standing leg kicked while high kicking) will make you want to stop kicking up high pretty fast.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with what I refer to as the hop roundhouse kick. It might be on youtube but it is almost like a power hurdle for a gymnast. The rear foot is lifed and placed under the body as it pushes off the ground. Kind of like starting a sprint race. Adds a lot of extra power and distance to your kick.

It also helps on double kicks. Instead of rechambering the leg and starting the whole process over again for the second kick I teach students to basically punch like a gymnast so that the second kick is a lot faster and has much less time between.

I hope you understood all that. If not, I'll have to make a video or something. It's hard to explain over the internet.

I think I understand you perfectly, Phillip. The style of fighting that I am currently active in is much more like American kick boxing/tang soo do/karate than traditional Muay Thai. I basically fight like Bill Wallace does but I do spinning kicks every once in a while.

I haven't been leg kicked during a high kick, but I know what a regular leg kick feels like. Hahaha.

Leg kicks aren't really allowed in the tournaments that I compete in (checks are, tho) so I kick high and fast. I like the feeling of catching someones head with my hook kick

I don't do any of the TKD "xtreme martial arts" stuff, tho. I don't have a problem with that stuff objectively, but I cannot bear to see it. Bleh

Ah yes. An instance where the rules make the sport. It's amazing how when you change the rules, the sport and tactics become so different. It's interesting to imagine if they added cut kicks to your arrt of perhaps in mine if punches were valued more then you create a whole new sport. I'm not sure why but I find that so interesting.

I also agree on the hook kick. Landing a spinning one to someones face makes you feel like taking a victory lap after it's all over.

My style is pretty modified too. The stance isn't open like the traditional baited centerline. Too hard for beginners to learn. It's more of a kickboxing stance. We also add in other strikes like overhands and spinning back kicks. I'm more into the hands, and knees though. Sometimes elbows if I'm close enough. My shins are too delicate to kick anything.

Hahaha! I have some pretty good shin smashes during spinning kick stories

I find that aspect of sports/competition fascinating, too. I'm glad my system doesn't allow leg kicks or sweeps, though. I'd love to have a system of fighting where competitors where anything is allowed. That will have to wait until I invent a suit that will be able to absorb and distribute blunt, point, and line trauma j/k

The thing about the semi-forward stance is that I find it too hard to quickly enter and exit aggressive range. If I stand mostly sideways the way Bill Wallace does, I can easily disguise my kicks (hook, round, side), be very aggressive/defensive, use my back hand + turning punch/reverse punch to enter into hand range and follow up on kicks.

When you invent that suit, please tell me!

I like the more sideways stance too for getting in and dealing the damage and getting out. None of that, "I'll take 3 of his punches to give one of mine." Unfortunately, leg kicks are allowed so the sideways stance is a little vulnerable to them unless you move in while they're throwing it.

Patrick Smith said:

(...) I really don't practice my actual martial arts material enough. (...) I will start practicing kata/forms/hyungs, air kicks/punches, and bag work at least 3 hours on Wednesday AND Saturday (...)

Here you go Patrick, you've found the answer to your question

Heavy bag and pad work with a partner two or three times a week for 45 minutes, that'll do wonder to your kicking speed, precision, accuracy, timing & power.

Osu

Fred

PS: Leg kicks are great!

Fred, I am still working towards making my strength/conditioning routine more efficient and effective in making me a better martial artist, but I agree, there's no replacement for hours and hours of technical practice/drilling. I think I'll work up to about 6 hours a week (two 3 hour days) with sparring and kicks on two other days, too. I already do about 2 on Wednesday but things keep coming up on Saturday, my main day, and I keep having to miss that workout. No more! It's going to get real.

That's great Patrick!

Although, 3 hours is very, very long for power kicking :shock:

How you can manage of course depends on your planning for the week, but to me, 45 minutes of hard kicking is the most I can efficiently handle in one session; I probably hit the point of decreased returns after 25 or 30 min.

Fred

FredInChina said:

That's great Patrick!

Although, 3 hours is very, very long for power kicking :shock:

How you can manage of course depends on your planning for the week, but to me, 45 minutes of hard kicking is the most I can efficiently handle in one session; I probably hit the point of decreased returns after 25 or 30 min.

Fred

I don't practice power kicking for that much of a percentage of my total practice time. I do kick specific strength and flexibility drills on Monday and Thursday in my lower body workouts, but Saturday is the day where I am working up to doing over 1000 kicks in a single workout like Bill Wallace would do. Some of them are power kicks, some are not, but they are all hard and fast enough to be practical in sparring and painful enough to do damage. I also have to practice Kata (hyungs in Tang Soo Do) as well as drill basic strikes and blocks. The nice thing is that they all indirectly improve each other slightly. The better I get at the basic drilling, the better I get at kata, and visa versa. The better I get at kicking, the better my katas get (although only the kicking parts obv ). Katas reinforce the same stuff as the basic drilling, so kata makes me my drills better.

I'd really like to work up to 4-5 hours on Saturday with a 20 minute break between the 2 hour sections. When you have the athletic training (strength and conditioning) stuff going well in the background, I think the person who will win everything is the person who has practiced everything the most (assuming that person practices effectively). I want to be able to compete at a national/international level next year. At the rate of training around 20 hours a week right now, despite working a part time job (which is thankfully linked to my training) and full time college student, I have about 700 hours (give or take a few) left for training this year which will be spent doing at least 25,000-30,000 more kicks, about 20,000 more punches, 175+ more repetitions for each kata I know, at least 16 more hours sparring (but I want to increase that to about 30 if possible), and about 3 more miles of drills to complete (I do laps across my dojo, back and forth, back and forth).

Fred, the biggest thing holding me back right now is my recovery skills. I do soft tissue work and mobility wod stuff every day basically, as well as a ton of full body prehab on a daily basis but I still feel pretty beat up after a tough practice session. Any tips that you have on that would be greatly appreciated.

Pfew... that is a lot of training! :shock:

I don't really have specific advice for improving your "recovery skills", but if I felt as beat up as you do, I would:

- reduce the amount of training for a while and see how that goes.

- increase sleep (add 2 or 3 naps during the day)

- keep in mind that more is more, but better is better... perfect dedicated practice makes perfect, not more practice.

- review my goals... you want to win everything and practice everything more than anyone else... hummmmmmm, it is not hard to see that the one competitor that specializes in one aspect of your art will easily be able to train more than you in that part...

Set realistic goals for yourself, and adapt your training to meet these goals:

- If your goal is kata, work these forms to perfection.

- I don't know the sparring format of Tang Soo Do, but if it is anything like TaeKwonDo, or point karate, it consists of small bursts of very fast & explosive power... after 2 hours training, you hardly work these qualities, you are more on an energy preservation, pacing mode at that moment! If winning the sparring is your goal, maybe you want to adapt your training accordingly?

Of course, I don't know you and I don't know Tang Soo Do, so I may be completely off; but from my standpoint, these are the avenues I would explore to improve the efficiency of my training and prevent a rapid burnout (I do not have your work capacity )

Osu

Fred

Fred,

It's really not that bad, but you're right. I need to get more sleep. I've been incredibly busy lately with college, teaching, and training that I've been getting around 7 hours or sleep or less. That's really bad. No time during the day for naps, though. I'll work on getting around 8.5-9 a night as soon as I get all these college assignments finished. LOL

You're correct that the Tang Soo Do sparring (and katas) matches that I have to fight don't ever last more than 3 minutes total time, however, for me, the majority of my training is not geared towards increasing my conditioning for those 3 minutes. I do high intensity blitz endurance drills as well as long steady practice sessions. The short interval/bursts are to increase my ability to fight within the 3 minutes and the long drills are low intensity so that I can keep it up longer and get more training/hour in.

It's true that I'm not really working those explosive abilities after 2 hours, but I do my explosive stuff early in the workout so I'm fresh. It's less about conditioning and more about high volume perfect practice. Better is better, no doubt. Lower volume perfect practice is better than higher volume imperfect practice, but high volume perfect practice beats rock, paper, AND scissors

My goal is to be better at everyone at everything

I expect that there will be people who are better than me at very specific things, but the thing is, the harder I work the closer I will be to their skill (or better). If someone who has a mildly strong work ethic and competitive drive trains up to 2-3 hours a day practice a certain skill, it is likely that that person will be better than me who practices 6-8 hours a week practicing a broader array of stuff. At the same time, is that person doing the general and specific strength and conditioning that I am? From what I've seen in the circuit I intend to compete in in two years, these people are marathons behind the people here in strength and conditioning, and I mean absolutely no offense to them. It's just my opinion.

In my opinion, GB work + olympic lifting (which I'm working on learning since it seems best) + tons of kicking specific strength + Joel Jameson conditioning + tons of directed and close to perfect form technique practice + excellent nutrition + work ethic = world class athlete.

I'm pretty sure that of the people I will compete against, most might do some form of strength work (random weight lifting or bodyweight stuff, but nothing progressive or programmed like GB). Many will run. Their nutrition will not be great, probably close to S.A.D..

Again, I don't mean ANY disrespect to these competitors at all. I admit that I'm insanely lucky to have GB as my base and such a great forum full of fantastic people who help me. Still, objectively speaking, it's hard to see how anyone at that competition level would be THAT serious and that organized.

It's a lot of training, but I'm not being mechanical about it. It's just a prediction based off of what I'm currently doing.

Osu 8)

Very good Patrick, you seem to have put a lot of thought and planning into your preparation & training; I wish you every success you are aiming for.

From where you are at, there is only one serious competitor left; the toughest and most ruthless of all: yourself

Osu

Fred

I'm sure you will kick some serious ass 8)

Do you do some endurance work like running etc.?

I know you probably don't have the time to do anything like that with all your training going on, but since i go running for half an hour two times a week i noticed i recover A LOT faster! Between sets and also between workouts. You could even go very slowly as some active recovery on rest days.

I am ruthless, Fred... very ruthless :twisted:

That's a great suggestion, JN12! I remember a discussion about Chinese gymnasts using running to facilitate recovery not too long ago. I think they were running less than 1-7 miles a week but it helped.

I will probably start doing that during the summer if I can't find/think of something better, but right now I have no time! Now I understand what people mean when they wish there were more hours in a day. I used to think, "Make time!" but I now I realize it's much harder in practice! Ahaha, dat karma..

I also don't run more than 7 miles a week. You don't have to run a marathon to get the benefits

I'd suggest you run at 60-75% of your max heart rate. More would be serious training and not recovery and might be too taxing for you. But you will see...

Personally i mix things up with some sprint-work or a very fast run or go swimming, biking,... Cardio doesn't have to be boring

Do you have access to multiple sparring partners?

I sure do, Nic! Thankfully for me, I have access to a nice array of fighters with different fighting types.

Mainly:

1. brown-black belt dude, all around great fighter. Used to box, great practice. Very aggressive unless I am super aggressive, when he becomes more defensive and careful.

2. Tall black belt about 200+ lbs. Not an amazing kicker in terms of height but kicks like a horse and very fast too. Also really good with hands. Great challenge because of the size advantage he has. Very aggressive unless I really bring the fight to him.

3. Tallish 4th dan black belt old timer. Still very fast and hits very hard. Has an amazing sense of the fight and incredible timing. I learn a ton from him, and he's still winning championships against the young competitors. Quite defensive-reactive, but sometimes will be pretty aggressive.

4. Newish black belt, good fighter. Okay kicks and punches. Not super hard, but because he's quite defensive, it's a challenge to get through his defense.

5. Short guy, very quick with great timing. Agressive AND defensive.

6. Soon-to-be black belt. Both aggressive AND defensive... My height, good with hands.

And I'll have tons of completely new fighters that I'll get to fight almost every single month next year when I start testing the competition waters in my states karate association circuit.

JN12 said:

I also don't run more than 7 miles a week. You don't have to run a marathon to get the benefits

I'd suggest you run at 60-75% of your max heart rate. More would be serious training and not recovery and might be too taxing for you. But you will see...

Personally i mix things up with some sprint-work or a very fast run or go swimming, biking,... Cardio doesn't have to be boring

If I remember correctly, that is basically the same HR that Joshua or Coach suggested. Raising it above that would make it work and it's not supposed to be real work

Sleep is big, the run advice is great. Running should real feel like recovery for your legs. If you're tired after you did too much. Do not over train your skills, seriously too much drilling on bags can be an issue. Do the work but not too much, learn to do your kicking drills with "off" timing as well.

As the match gets closer get your sparring partners to work with you. If your state is on 3 minutes rounds (up here Muay Thai is 2min amateur) then set the round for 3:30sec. Change the opponent every 1:10. Keeps them fresh and you not. The extended round will help with the endurance for the match, do NOT extend it further then the 30sec as you will get detrimental results.

Sprint work mixed in with bag drills is pretty good too. You do need to do some explosive kicking on tired legs, not a lot but enough to know how it feels, and to ensure you maintain good technique.

You have a lot of info in this thread I don't want to pile on too much more.