Kicking speed

[Jim]

Hello:

I wonder if anyone has some good tips on how to make your kicks faster ?

I videoed myself kicking yesterday and all I saw was an old monkey trying to kick the bag.  I looked like I was trying to do a slow motion kick.

Any help would be very helpful.  Thank you.

[AndyMaBobs]

3 hours ago, Jim said:

Hello:

I wonder if anyone has some good tips on how to make your kicks faster ?

I videoed myself kicking yesterday and all I saw was an old monkey trying to kick the bag.  I looked like I was trying to do a slow motion kick.

Any help would be very helpful.  Thank you.

First step is to always check in with your technique, because the arc of your kick affects the speed. Sylvie has a good video on what she calls 'the golden kick' that uses a smaller arc and is quite a bit faster than the baseball bat round kick you often see. 

Then of course you have plyometric exercises like jump squats and things like that which can speed up your kick. 

Something I like to get my fighters to do though is something I call a 'jelly leg' so when you kick, if you just imagine your kicking leg as being soft and loose like jelly, to get rid of any unwanted tension that will allow it to get to the target faster! 

[Conor Sullivan]

Dont worry about speed man. Keep focus on the technique - the speed comes with fluidity. The kick comes straight up like a knee and the hips turn over. Its a big hip rotation and the arm swing is needed to help bring the leg over and keep balance. Work within your flexibility range too. If youre trying to kick out of your range the tightness will slow the kick down. Focus on bringing your foot back to the ground so that its a big arc rather than just going up and striking. The body will be hesitant to commit to speed if its not sure where the foot is going to end up and leave you off balance.

Practice in shadow a lot. Use the bag to try out what you've practiced in shadow and keep that cycle going.

 

And what andy said previously, imagine your leg is just a giant slab of meat, and the rest of your body is the only thing that will tense to propel the leg. 

[Matty]

If you can rule out flexibility and muscle stretch being the limiting factors, maybe it's worth looking into Don Heatricks explanations on fast twitch vs slow twitch muscle fibres. 

[ineedtobenicer]

this is an old trick and was done in the 70s before sports science knows what it does today

when you add weight you run the risk of using the muscles differently than they were intended

for some, maybe that's not a problem.

for others, it will lead to muscles not normally involved with kicking being recruited to help you keep your balance and sling the weight around which will lead to muscular imbalances and injury

the chance for hyperextending your knees also increases because the joints were not designed for your foot to weigh 5 extra pounds

IF you do this do it very very very sparingly and pay attention to your body

IMNSHO it is a too much risk for too little reward kind of thing

[Sören]

There are of course lots of ways to become faster with your kicking. But first of all you need to polish the general techinque of your kicks (step-in, hip rotation, arm swing, retracting the leg). Afterwards you can start with adding resistance to your kicks in both ways, so that not only your kick lands fast, but that you can retract your leg fast