Slow Kicks

Hi Guys,

Thanks for reading. The rehab is going well...although slower than I had hoped. The hip isn't really giving me too many issues now, its mainly the hamstring holding me back. So after yet another torturous session with my sadistic osteopath things are looking better.....slowly.

I'm still to avoid isometrics for the time being (I really feel like the blog should be called training with injuries) but am slowly re-introducing kicks and more focused work on my hamstrings, still only light stretching though.

The exercise I am finding the biggest benefit from are slow kicks.  This is a big thing for me because I hate slow kicks.....I've hated them for over 20 years. While there is nothing better than a fast strong head height kick, there is nothing more demoralizing than slow kicks.

My hatred of slow kicks dates back over 20 years to my early Tae Kwon Do days. My instructor at the time loved them...and why wouldn't he?...he was awesome at them. He would routinely stand and teach the class about the finer points of a side kick while holding one leg out at head height. He had such an enviable combination of flexibility and strength....just picture Bill Wallace in his younger days, but Anthony (my instructor) could do it with either leg!!

While it was a great inspiration to train under someone so good, the focus of any leg exercise became (for me) to just get my leg as high as possible...and doing so I pretty much cheated myself out of any real benefit of the exercise and just grew to hate it..so started avoiding it, and have done for way too long.

Fast forward to today and while I am still terrible at them, I am finding them very beneficial. I had previously done them using some sort of support (a chair, a wall or partner) for balance but find doing this really takes away the biggest benefit of the exercise...developing strength in the supporting leg.

Now I do them freestanding and find them much more beneficial.

What the hell, I just made a quick video of what I mean. See below.




While I wouldn't go so far as to say I love them, I can definitely see the benefit in doing them. They are great to use as part of a warm up for a kicking session as well.