exercises for stretching - shito ryu

[saavedra29]

Hello everyone!

I'm new in karate. I am from Greece, 32 y.o. and started shito ryu 4 months ago and i have the red belt.My teacher has 3 dan in shito ryu and 9 dan in okinawa so he also teaches as some of okinawa stuff.

I'd like to discuss with you some things about stretching exercises.

I had never practiced stretching exercises before so it is important for me to gain elasticity in my body, as i am old now to be very elastic. In my karate school the lesson is 1 hour and a half, 3 days /week, and the stretching exercises are done for only 20 min. So the days i dont have lesson i do stretching in my home for about 1 hour and half each time. I've seen very good results!

Now in the point:

I'm practising very much in side splits. I find them the most difficult but also the most important ( you can't do yoko geri without side splits). I've seen good progress but i'm still much far from doing FULL side splits. However i've overdone it and always feel pain on the hips during this exercise. I do it gently opening the legs a little bit more every 45-60 seconds and so on. I dont press in a brutal way because i am afraid it can cause damage.

The question is: Will i ever manage to do full side splits as i'm already 32 years old?

And is it normal that i always feel pain, even though i do this exersice very gently?

[Kuma]

With dedicated practice you can most likely do side splits. Not sure about the pain thing though.

Check out the book "Stretching Scientifically" by Thomas Kurz. Fantastic book, it helped me a lot.

[bushido_man96]

If you are feeling pain in your stretches, then you are stretching too far. Stop and let it heal. You should stretch until you feel that tightness, that tension, then hold. Don't overdo it, or you will hurt your chances at being able to reach the splits.

I can't do a full split, and I'm not sure if I ever will be able to. I'm not all that worried about it, either. You can do a good side kick without doing full side splits. But, keep at it, and when you get there, let us know!

[saavedra29]

Well i decided for the next weeks to do less splits than what i used to do until the pain disappeares. I'll let you now if i see any progress. Thank you eveyone!

[tonydee]

For traditional taekwondo, the side thrusting kick requires a kind of front splits. That's because the rear foot faces backwards as the kicking leg extends - at right angles to the kicking foot. Only if your technique requires the supporting foot to be facing sideways at contact does the position resemble side splits - to my mind, that's a very awkward kicking position, but some karate systems do use it. So, all I'm saying is make sure you stretch what you need, and don't just assume "flexibility = side splits", or you'll waste a lot of effort without improving so much where you need it (flexibility of different muscles is substantially independent).

More generally, with whatever stretching exercises you do need, make sure you stretch in the correct order (I should double-check myself, but am doing back, groin, buttocks, calf, hamstring, quads, psoas), as that will help isolate one resistant muscle at a time. Generally, you want to get leverage and isolation: for example, I like to perform my hamstring stretches sitting on a bench (like a gym chest-press one) with the ball of the foot extended forwards, the other leg out to the side and bent comfortably, and both arms reaching under the bench to pull me downwards while keeping the back straight. Do one leg at a time. And read about breathing and how to tense the muscle briefly and relax into a deeper stretch ("PNF" and variants - google's your friend).

Cheers,

Tony

[DWx]

The side kick does need some element of side splits flexibility. The kicking leg needs it otherwise you're going to be limited to low level kicks or bad technique. That is if you want the edge of the foot to be horizontal or (as we do it) rotated over slightly so the heel is more prominent. If you don't have that element of side splits flexibility you'll end up rotating the leg over to compensate so the knee is either pointing up or pointing down (down is what I see most people do). The best type of split for the side kick IMO is doing a half-and-half type. One leg in a front split position, the other in a side split.

[StrangeBacon]

http://www.trickstutorials.com/index.php?page=content/flexibility this helped me loads theres some great tips here