help - i'm inflexible and it's hurting my kicking

[young guns]

hey bro's,

i was hoping some of you could give me some suggestions on how to increase my hip flexibility. my round kicks are suffering because of it. also, any little tips or drills or anything to help me pivot around to drive my kick through?

i tend to have 3 major problems when i kick; i don't step out enough, i don't pivot, and i don't drive through on my kick. the end result is that i hit on the outer part of my leg and not on the shin bone, and i kind of snap my leg instead of "diggin" in with the leg.

obviously practice is what i need...lots of it. just figured i'd share my kicking troubles for the hell of it. my instructor did say that he felt my inflexibility was part of my problem, since it's a big reason i'm have trouble with my balance, and keep fallin on my heel. and i'm sure you all know...it's damn near impossible to pivot flat footed.

 

[msho]

Foremost, what MA are you learning? Lots of this stuff is from regular kickboxing, so...

Lots of these issues sound like lack of fundamentals. Work on your footwork. It may be obvious, but make sure you have a really good guard stance. Make sure your toes and heels are lined up, and when you pivot, your coming back to that correct guard stance. If you don't have a good foundation, kicking will be hell. Try the basic pivots, on your toes, all roundhouse kicks. Work the roundhouse from chamber, extend, chamber, down, slowly for a couple of minutes. You need to build up your strength/stamina in your hip flexors, and of course, increase your flexibility. I work from both left/right guard stance for balance and to develop my body equally. It's not as productive for fighting, but I like it.

For flexibility, work the flamingos. Go slow through the motions too. I stretch my hips and hamstrings 3x a week for around 30min each.

 

[young guns]

Foremost, what MA are you learning? Lots of this stuff is from regular kickboxing, so...

Lots of these issues sound like lack of fundamentals. Work on your footwork. It may be obvious, but make sure you have a really good guard stance. Make sure your toes and heels are lined up, and when you pivot, your coming back to that correct guard stance. If you don't have a good foundation, kicking will be hell. Try the basic pivots, on your toes, all roundhouse kicks. Work the roundhouse from chamber, extend, chamber, down, slowly for a couple of minutes. You need to build up your strength/stamina in your hip flexors, and of course, increase your flexibility. I work from both left/right guard stance for balance and to develop my body equally. It's not as productive for fighting, but I like it.

For flexibility, work the flamingos. Go slow through the motions too. I stretch my hips and hamstrings 3x a week for around 30min each.

sorry, forgot to mention, i'm training MMA, so my kicking is all muay thai.

i may be dumb here, but i'm not sure what you're talking about kicking from chamber, extend, ect. also, don't know flamingos either. could you explain this stuff a little more.

thanks for the reply, and sorry for being ignorant to your suggestions. i've only been training about a month and a half so i'm still new to all this.

 

[msho]

It's all good. I know nothing about Thai kickboxing, so this stuff may actually be counterproductive to what your learning. I've been doing "Traditional Kickboxing", which is primarily punches and kicks, just something so I'm more proficient standing up (I do mostly boxing and BJJ).

The flamingo is a hip stretch. It's like a standing up quad stretch (heel to the butt, one hand grabbing your ankle). Instead, your leg is out to the side like your doing a roundhouse kick. The back foot is angled back about 45 degrees; the angle at which you would end your pivot as your front foot comes into contact with your target.

The chamber, etc., is the kick your doing for a front roundhouse. In left guard stance, it's your left foot. It's comprised of 4 steps. 1) bring your leg up (this would be the same as a flamingo), 2) extend and hit your target 3) chamber again, and 4) down to the left guard stance. It's kind of hard to explain.

Probably the easiest thing to do is to do more stretching. Butterflies, splits, and hamstring stretches are the best, or I should say, what I've found that has helped me the most. A good stretching chart off the internet may be helpful. I always do about 15 min. more of stretching after my classes, since I'm pretty inflexible. I don't work out anymore and have lost lots of muscle mass, which has also helped my flexibility increase (I'm 5'5 165 9%).