that you are naturally stiff and that you will never be flexible. Even if you have never been flexible a day in your life, you can improve. You just have to stretch consistently, at least every other day. On those days when your muscles feel especially good, push yourself a little, and on those days when you are especially tight, stretch, but take it easy. There will many days when you can’t stretch as far as you did the day before. No problem. Just stretch as far as you can and don’t worry about it.
Stretching should never be painful. If you have a Marine drill sergeant for an instructor, and he screams, “Push it! Push it! Eat the Pain!” while you are stretching, quit his class. That kind of mentality is dangerous to your health and safety. Stretching is a slow and gradual process that should feel good while you are doing it and leave you energized afterwards.
Be Careful with Partner Stretching
Use caution when stretching with a partner, especially if your partner likes to clown around. I was watching a children’s class recently in which the majority of students were goofing around during partner stretching. They were pushing and pulling each other’s legs far beyond their maximum capacity and having a good time doing it. The teacher had her head in the clouds and didn’t seem to put any significance on the great risk the kids were being subjected to. If I had a child in her class, I would have immediately pulled him out.
While there are the occasional goof offs in adult classes who think its great fun to overstretch their partners, usually over stretching by adults happens by accident. Your partner, who is pushing your leg over your head, can’t feel your muscle tension the same way you do. You must communicate to him that your leg is nearing maximum stretch. He may be thinking about the last time the two of you stretched together when you were especially flexible. You must tell him when to slow his push and when to stop and hold it. Don’t let your ego keep you from saying “that’s far enough.”
Keep communicating and keep in mind that partner stretching is never as safe as solo stretching.
Communicate with your partner how you are feeling this day and how far you want to stretch.
Stretching for Strength
Here is a new finding that may surprise you: According to a recent study done by Wayne L. Westcott, Ph.D., director of fitness research at the South Shore YMCA in Quincy, Massachusetts, stretching will actually make you stronger. Westcott conducted a 10-week study, in which 53 people stretched consistently. While all of them made strength gains, those people who followed a complete weight training workout with a separate stretching session showed the greatest strength gains - a 54 percent increase. People who stretched after each weight training exercise, showed a 37 percent strength gain. Those who didn’t stretch at all after their weight training, gained 29 percent in strength.
Can you Warm-up for a Street Fight?
Instructor Daniel Alix has found an interesting way to keep his legs prepared to kick hard and fast in a street situation when there is no time or opportunity to warm up.
“Obviously most real fights occur under conditions that don’t allow a fighter to warm up ahead of time,” Alix says. “I find that a good way for my legs to be ready to perform is to do dynamic-style stretches first thing in the morning.
“What you get from this is a resetting of the nervous control of your muscle tension and length. What this means is that your nervous system has a built-in reflex to avoid letting a stretch, particularly a sudden stretch, end abruptly and cause a tear. It does this by gradually tightening the muscle as it’s being stretched.
“Not even intense conscious relaxation will stop your nervous system from regulating the tension in your muscles as they are stretched. What will help is to reset the point where the nervous system starts to tighten the muscle during a particular movement. But don’t worry, your nervous system will not allow your tension point to be reset beyond where your muscles can stretch when they’re warmed up.”
Alix explains the practical application: “To do a dynamic hamstring stretch, raise the leg up to the front. You don’t want to throw the limb up in front of you (ballistic stretching), nor do you want to slowly lift the leg up because this forces the thigh muscles to do all of the work. Find a happy medium where the leg still uses its momentum, but at a slow rate of speed. Start out low, then progress higher and higher. You shouldn’t feel a big stretch each time; instead you should get to the point where the nervous regulation reflex is about to kick in. You notice that with each lift, the leg goes higher and higher until you reach your maximum height after about 10 lifts. Do a few sets like this to imprint the new nervous reset point (but not too many sets).
“A few hours later, do a few reps of this same leg lift, and you’ll find that your nervous reset point is still way up there. You will not achieve this same range of flexibility by performing traditional, stretch-and-hold static stretches in the morning. Dynamic activities require dynamic stretching, while static activities require static stretches.”
One last safety tip. When you are at maximum stretch, you should feel a pulling sensation on the muscles being worked. You do not, however, want to feel a pinching, burning or tearing sensation. If you do, stop the stretch or at least back out of it until you no longer feel that sensation. Don’t try to tough it out to impress your teacher, your workout partner or because you were able to stretch further during your last workout. Your muscles are communicating to you, so listen to them. Think of this way: If you don’t listen to what your muscles are communicating to you, then you must be prepared for some extraordinary pain and many months of recuperation.
Flexibility is Not Just for Kicking High
Greater flexibility not only means that you will be able to kick high, but that will be able to kick faster to a low target. This is because a flexible muscle is one that is looser and less restricted. Also, with a greater range of movement, you are less likely to be injured when you unexpectedly slip on the floor or a sparring partner grabs your kick and jams it up to dump you.
With increased hip and leg flexibility, you can experiment with offbeat kicks such as the reverse roundhouse.
After chambering the reverse round, snap it into his inner thigh, groin, or bladder.
2. SQUATS
Many bodybuilders feel that the squat is the best exercise of all. Powerful legs mean a powerful foundation, a quality we definitely want in the fighting arts.
If you have good knees and you belong to a health club, you can do squats with barbells and various types of squatting machines. As a supplement to your karate training, your objective with squats is to develop fast and explosive leg muscles for kicking, not just big muscles so you can lift even heavier weight. For karate, you don’t have to use the extreme poundages that bodybuilders and power lifters use.
If you lift weights and include squatting as part of your regimen, you should squat no more than once a week. Push it hard during your session, but don’t squat with weights again for at least seven days. Remember, you are also doing lots of kicking and stance work in your karate training, so don’t risk injury by overtraining.
If weights are not accessible to you or you choose not to include them in your training, here are two karate squat-like exercises that work your kicking muscles. Do these at the end of your class or on off days.
Moving
