and part of that training involved 10yrs of weight training (including
Olympic lifts) having nearly done double body weight squats and bench press
and triple body weight deadlifts my strength is quite good. Now I just do
weights and Martial arts.
I've been doing Ree Tae Kwon Do for about 10yrs now. I find my flexibility
is really a hurdle, though it has improved so much from when I started I
cannot do a side stretch and get an angle of more than about 90degrees
between my legs. I re-did your half side split test and I can get my legs
close to the position.
My first problem is that the outside of my hips are very tight. I found
that trying to put my leg upright and have my hips inline caused my foot to
roll forward. The front of my hips aren't to bad as I can get quite low in
a front split, say 20cm from the ground though I find it hard to get my
hips square. ie my body facing straight forward. Basically sitting with my
legs crossed on the floor is like a stretch for me, my legs are that tight.
I've been using massage to help losen them as well but I didn't see a
stretch on the video for that area specifically. Is there one that could
help in that area?
My dynamic flexibility isn't bad considering my static passive and active
flexibility is very poor. Without that I find that the power in my kicks
is just not that good unless I drop the height of them and being only 163cm
tall, if I spar taller people then I'm kicking far too low.
I don't think it's the hip position as sometimes in class we stretch
sitting down and with a partner legs are pushed apart slowly. My legs are
so tight they are like springs wanting to spring back together. In that
position I can lean my hips foward and lean forward. So they can go apart
but only with my body weight otherwise just sitting on the floor with no
pushing lucky to get 70 degrees.
I don't need to be able to do the splits, even a 50% improvement would
greatly improve my kicking, sure splits would be great.
Is there a limit to what can be achieved? ie side splits. I found the
dynamic aspect has been good but little progress in the static area.
David
