Exploring Exactly How A Martial Artist Can Increase Their Kicking Power
A weight lifter asks a question: How can I gain more bulk? A runner asks: How can I lose weight and run faster? A hunter asks… Who’s buying the beer this time? A fighter, on the other hand, asks How a martial artist can increase their kicking power. At least, this is a question asked by any ambitious, dedicated martial artist. We all want to improve our striking power.
The easiest answer to this question is: Practice. But this is too easy. Of COURSE you’re going to practice. You wouldn’t be a martial artist at all if you didn’t, you know, PRACTICE the martial arts. But how do you get the most out of that practice? How do you practice efficiently and effectively without wasting effort? Read on and find out…
Walk More
If you do endurance running, you can get stronger legs, but you probably won’t improve as much as you would walking. With running, you simply can’t go as long as you can when walking. Walking, you can walk for tens of miles before you have to finally call it quits. If you want to improve your leg strength, then stop driving to work (depending on where you work, of course) and start walking a little more each day.
Run In the Morning
When you run, you want to sprint more than you want to run a marathon. You strengthen your legs by walking, but you improve your speed and agility, which are crucial to powerful kicks, through running. So when you run, try to do the ten yard dash as quickly as humanly possible. Keep pushing yourself and scrape precious seconds off your time every day.
Crunches
The legs and the abdominal muscles are almost equally important when it comes to kicking power. The stronger your stomach muscles, the stronger your kicks. You want to do as many crunches as you can every other day so as to allow them a forty eight hour rest period between workouts. Do as many as you can stand, though. If you can work your way up to one hundred, shoot for two hundred, then three, then four. The more you do this, the easier it gets, and the harder you’ll have to be on yourself.
Stretch It Out
The more you stretch, the more limber you’ll be. If you’ve studied martial arts for any length of time, then you know that power and speed are all about flexibility. Flexibility is the core of athleticism when it comes to the fighting arts. You want to be like water, tranquil and intangible one moment, and flooding down on your opponent with immense power the next. How do you get this flexibility? Well, with stretching. Look at the older martial artists. The reason they spend twice as long stretching is half age, and half wisdom.
Kata
If you don’t practice kata at your dojo, then here’s what you do instead: Quit that dojo and find a better one. We’re not kidding. The kata is EVERYTHING in the martial arts. The whole point of the fighting arts is to practice them from your very core. They need to be a part of you. That won’t happen without proper kata practice. Through the kata, you learn everything you need to know about the martial arts, and about yourself.
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