My side and roundhouse kick seem to have stayed the same, but it feels like it's more an issue of balance and correct leaning than flexibility. One visible improvement I've seen has been my ability to raise the knees higher towards the chest, which is helping a lot with the shin blocks. I think I'll definitely see most of the flexibility gains as I practice my technique a bit more.
24/09/2013 Warm up Solo practice: all basic punches, kicks and footwork x10 Combos practice with partner One round of all out punching Stretching 26/09/2013 Warm up Exercise 1: bouncing all the length of the gym while doing roundhouse kicks without ever putting the leg down, then rest while partner does it x 6 Exercise 2: hold onto the partner shoulders and raise a leg sideways to kinda-roundhouse kick his hand at shoulder - head height, then rest while partner does it x20 kicks each leg alternating legs Exercise 1 x2 20squats + exercise 2 x3 frog jumps all the length of the gym + 10 tuck jumps x4 exercise 1 x2 exercise 2 x3 exercise 1 again while Kicking partner's hand Possibly repeated these some more times, I honestly lost count Various abdominal exercises (max reps in a certain time) Various push ups variations (max reps in a certain time) Isometric stretching with partner Relaxed stretching
28/09/2013 On Saturdays there are no classes at the gym so we have access. Warm up Freestanding bag: 50 low kicks 50 middle kicks (mawashi geri) 50 middle kicks (thai kicks) 50 high kicks (either of them) Most of them were shoulder-height, but on a few I managed to kick my head height. Not enough at all since I'm quite short, but still rewarding. As I imagined, it's all about technique. 20 front push kicks Punches: freestyle for a while On the heavy bag: Punches and kicks with focus on footwork, evasion and dodging. This is a very light bag so it swings around a lot. Stretching I am no longer tormented by DOMS after every class. I can start isometric stretching again.
The mawashi geri is a is done by chambering, snapping from the knee, chambering and putting the leg down. The movement is always controlled. In the muay thai style roundhouse all the power comes from the rotation of the hips (no chambering) and from the knee down the leg is relaxed - I've been taught 'dead leg'. The motion is more thrusting than snapping. It is much more difficult to control a thai kick, you can't just stop it halfway in the air. I mainly use the latter for power and the former for speed and accuracy.
08/10/2013 Warm up 2 minutes jumping rope + 10 pushups x4 (1 minute rest) 2 minutes heavy bag x 3 (rest 1 minute) 2 minutes pads x 2 Drilling combos with partner, focus on technique and accuracy - 4-5 drills Isometric stretching Relaxed stretching Still recovering from illness, and in terrible conditions to train. Maybe I should have stayed at home as I didn't manage to train properly anyway, but that's it.
Process of healing/recovering: complete. :happy: 24/10/2013 Warm up: jogging and light calisthenics 3x 2 minutes jumping rope, 10 pushups (1 minute rest) 4x 2 minutes heavy bag drills (1 minute rest) 2 minutes pads, 2 minutes paos 3x 2 minutes light sparring (1 minute rest) Relaxed stretching I've got shin splints again though. I've iced them and I'm going to foam roll them later/tomorrow morning and see how it goes.
Wooop for going back to training! Have you tried doing a regular calf raise routine? I've had shin splints for...8 years now and I still get bothered by them, but I'm finding regular calf raises with the foam roller stuff has been helping immensely. They still bother me but it's getting easier. Worth a try maybe?
24/10/2013 Warm up: 10 minutes on the stationary bike, some calf raises About 45 minutes of random bag work - alternating intense 2 minutes round, distance work and slow technique work Isometric stretching: side split level 5 - I've just restarted from there. It wasn't as bad as I expected. Relaxed stretching My shin splints haven't got any better yet.
28/10/2013 4x 5 body rows - not actually done in a row, more like 5x1 with no rest 15 push ups 20 lying leg lifts 30 hindu squats (Rest 1 minute) That's it. I'd planned another circuit to do just after this, but after spectacularly failing the first set of OHPs I decided I'd better not push myself as I have class tomorrow. I was appalled yet. After this one, not so challenging circuit I found myself shaking and light-headed. My self esteem is now considering suicide. EDIT: RIP my broomstick. It couldn't survive any more sets of body rows. :cry:
Lol, time to eBay a spare Oly barbell bar then? That's still a pretty decent set to do though, even if you don't quite feel like its' much.
I've considered that, but it wouldn't be worth it as I'm going to move to some bigger town soon, so hopefully I'll have access to a proper gym. Not to mention there are still so many brooms to break! 29/10/2013 Warm up 5x 2 minutes of walking knees at high intensity Lots of slower technique work 2x 2 minutes pads Relaxed stretching
I haven't been updating this for a while... Well, I'm training regularly 3 times a week. Just gone through a period of intense training - lots of conditioning drills and sparring. Now there's a week of ligtht training, so today we did a lot of technique work.
The "oh no MA classes are over" season has officially begun, so I thought I'd dust off this log a bit. Today: 2.5 km running with rest half-way. :cry: I'm blaming the heat for the crap - as well as my starting the run sprinting.
Update: I've been doing some totally random swimming, cycling and bodyweight training - no running because of a broken toe - but I've been too lazy to log. ------------------------------------ Today: Morning: pushups 2×15, 3×20 bench dips (feet up) 3×10, working on form Evening: 5:00 running + 1:00 walking ×4 Could have run more, but the bloody toe was starting to complain. Going to do some stretching later.
