ouch!!! my hips

[irontiger1981]

allright, so how do i know if i have something majorly wrong with my hips??? i donw know if my hips are just extremely weak or there is an underlying problem somewhere?? i stretch pretty routinely but i get sharp pains when i throw side,roundhouse kicks, but am fairly limber with linear kicks such as crescents and axe.

[uki]

how then do you address yourself the iron tiger?

[MasterKiller]

allright, so how do i know if i have something majorly wrong with my hips??? i donw know if my hips are just extremely weak or there is an underlying problem somewhere?? i stretch pretty routinely but i get sharp pains when i throw side,roundhouse kicks, but am fairly limber with linear kicks such as crescents and axe.

I have this same problem. Everyone told me I just had tight hips. I could do straight kicks, crescent kicks, push kicks, but my round kicks and side kicks were really not very useful.

It used to be very hard for me to kick anything above the waist. In fact, for a long long time, I never used my left leg for kicking because I just couldn't rotate the hip without sharp pains.

What helped me was doing lots of hip warm-up exercises like fire hydrants, body-weight squats, etc. It took me almost a solid year of doing hip exercises before I started to see the benefits.

This DVD has all the exercises I use:
http://www.createspace.com/221649

Occassionally now when I use bad form I get the same pain, but at least now I throw round kicks at any level with decent power without any pain.

[chaiwai]

Look up some videos by Paul Zaichik on youtube. He adresses a lot of those issues and it helped me a lot. According his system most people don't have the right strength flexibility and start kicking too soon.

[uki]

According his system most people don't have the right strength flexibility and start kicking too soon.almost like trying to walk before your legs are strong enough to support your body.

[chaiwai]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Lai_gGpb4k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8HLJenYKeQ&feature=related

Here is some great stuff for you about a side kick.

[irontiger1981]

I have this same problem. Everyone told me I just had tight hips. I could do straight kicks, crescent kicks, push kicks, but my round kicks and side kicks were really not very useful.

It used to be very hard for me to kick anything above the waist. In fact, for a long long time, I never used my left leg for kicking because I just couldn't rotate the hip without sharp pains.

What helped me was doing lots of hip warm-up exercises like fire hydrants, body-weight squats, etc. It took me almost a solid year of doing hip exercises before I started to see the benefits.

This DVD has all the exercises I use:
http://www.createspace.com/221649

Occassionally now when I use bad form I get the same pain, but at least now I throw round kicks at any level with decent power without any pain.

yeah thats what my sifu said to do, ill just keep truckin, i guess i expected results sooner namean??? thanks bro

[irontiger1981]

how then do you address yourself the iron tiger?

well actually the system does not call for high kicks hardly at all. you see a tiger doesnt really strike a lot with its rear feet, it does however use them to feed momentum and speed to the rest of his powerful body. its an in close system where we use a lot of clawing and blunt force trauma with upper body techniques.:D i want the high kicks for my self cuz lets face it htey look betta in forms and who doesnt wanna be able to kick someone in da head.namean??? but prolly not cuz ya sound like an internet ninja who spends way too much discrediting everyone else not enjoying the felllowship of martial arts that the forum provides.

[uki]

but prolly not cuz ya sound like an internet ninja who spends way too much discrediting everyone else not enjoying the felllowship of martial arts that the forum provides.sometimes the calm of the pond is just asking for a stone to be skipped across it's surface.

[irontiger1981]

sometimes the calm of the pond is just asking for a stone to be skipped across it's surface.
ok, thanks for the fotune cookie philosphy lesson. whichone of us is the pond and which one is the stone, cuz i can see it both ways pardner:p

[lkfmdc]

"uki" is yet another of the many trolls this place attracts, he comes on like a bad kung fu movie... best to just IGNORE HIM COMPLETELY....

[uki]

"uki" is yet another of the many trolls this place attracts, he comes on like a bad kung fu movie... yet you have a picture of an ape so people can indentify with your name... you wouldn't know a good movie from a T.V. commercial.

best to just IGNORE HIM COMPLETELY....it's not wise to fear things you no nothing about... ever heard the story of the ugly little duckiling?

a good way to strengthen the hips is to sit on your sacrum only and draw circles in the air with your toes... big circles, small circles... do them as slow as you can. :)

p.s. metal rooster... lkfmdc tends to pride himself on the fact that he gets the most complaints of any other member... just a thought.

[SimonM]

No Uki, Ross doesn't fear you.

It's just that your brand of hippy-dippy mix-and-match new age pseudo-orientalism bores us.

[TaichiMantis]

Try a foam roller (Foam Roller Exercises for Easing Tight Muscles) before you stretch or kick. It really does help your flexibility.


Foam rollers offer many of the same benefits as a sports massage, without the big price tag.
The foam roller not only stretches muscles and tendons but it also breaks down soft tissue adhesions and scar tissue. By using your own body weight and a cylindrical foam roller you can perform a self-massage or myofascial release, break up trigger points, and soothe tight fascia while increasing blood flow and circulation to the soft tissues.

How It Works
The superficial fascia is a soft connective tissue located just below the skin. It wraps and connects the muscles, bones, nerves and blood vessels of the body. Together, muscle and fascia make up what is called the myofascia system. For various reasons including disuse, not enough stretching, or injuries, the fascia and the underlying muscle tissue can become stuck together. This is called an adhesion and it results in restricted muscle movement. It also causes pain, soreness and reduced flexibility or range of motion.
Myofascial release is a body work technique in which a practitioner uses gentle, sustained pressure on the soft tissues while applying traction to the fascia. This technique results in softening and lengthening (release) of the fascia and breaking down scar tissue or adhesions between skin, muscles and bones.

Myofascial release has also been shown to relieve various muscle and joint pains such as IT band syndrome and shin splints as well as improving flexibility and range of motion.
Foam rollers are inexpensive and with a bit of experimentation you can target just about any muscle group.

[irontiger1981]

Try a foam roller (Foam Roller Exercises for Easing Tight Muscles) before you stretch or kick. It really does help your flexibility.

thanks, my man il definately give it a whirl ill try anything at this point!!

[Knifefighter]

allright, so how do i know if i have something majorly wrong with my hips??? i donw know if my hips are just extremely weak or there is an underlying problem somewhere??
Get an MRI. Hip problems leading to arthritis are endemic in martial arts and combative sports.

[naja]

I have this same problem. Everyone told me I just had tight hips. I could do straight kicks, crescent kicks, push kicks, but my round kicks and side kicks were really not very useful.

It used to be very hard for me to kick anything above the waist. In fact, for a long long time, I never used my left leg for kicking because I just couldn't rotate the hip without sharp pains.

What helped me was doing lots of hip warm-up exercises like fire hydrants, body-weight squats, etc. It took me almost a solid year of doing hip exercises before I started to see the benefits.

This DVD has all the exercises I use:
http://www.createspace.com/221649

Occassionally now when I use bad form I get the same pain, but at least now I throw round kicks at any level with decent power without any pain.


Interesting, as I too am in the same boat here. My left roundhouse kicks are more like angled front kicks. It's the only way I can get that kick above knee level. If I try it the correct way I end up with a dagger-like pain shooting into my hip. I don't have any trouble with side kicks though.

I need to check out some of those exercises.....

[irontiger1981]

"uki" is yet another of the many trolls this place attracts, he comes on like a bad kung fu movie... best to just IGNORE HIM COMPLETELY....

i actually kinda like him, to tell the truth.( uki that is)

[cjurakpt]

ok, if this is not self-limiting (e.g. - doesn't go away after a week or so), it would serve to have it looked at by someone;

from a top-down perspective, the way to go would be to first get the standard ortho MD eval, including an MRI to rule out structural abnormalities / serious pathology; in all likelihood, you won't find anything, but better safe than sorry; barring anything untoward, the ortho will probably recommend some combination of rest, anti-, exercise, PT, small animal sacrifice (admittedly, the last one is not exactly in keeping with contemporary best practice, but it can't hurt to appease Baal anyway...);

that said, you may not walk out of there with the correct diagnosis or even an actual one at that (but at least you'll know that you don't have avascular necrosis of the femoral neck);

so then comes the tricky part: you want to find a GOOD PT (or chiro, acupunturist, ATC - all valid approaches, it just depends on the skill of the practitioner) to work with; for PT's a good place to start is someone who specializes in orthopedics, has been practicing at least 5 years, and has some sort of advanced training in one of several available approaches that understand how to accurately diagnose and treat what you have: someone with some combination of the letters OCS, COMT, CFMT, FAAOMT, JSCSC, MTC and / or FAAOMT is a good start (or someone in the process of getting advanced certification through an organization such as IPA, NAIOMT, or others)

a manually-oriented osteopath (DO) from the US or UK / France (the two approaches can be very different) could also be a very good option

your issue may be as simple as getting a few good hands-on treatments to start rebalancing the agonist / antagonist muscular relationships around your hips and pelvis; some basic manual therapy treatment can be surprisingly effective; on the flip side, if you have no discernible functional changes after 2 or 3 weeks / 4 - 6 treats, move-on, don't waste your time / money on that person, they aren't helping you;

also, postural re-education systems like Alexander Technique, or Feldenkreis could do the trick as well; another manual / postural approach is Rolfing (Structural Integration), it has helped many folks as well; trager Work might also be of interest to you (just throwing things out)

[uki]

It's just that your brand of hippy-dippy mix-and-match new age pseudo-orientalism bores us.really... something tells me you read all my post to some extent... and when you are speaking of us, are you holding hands with other folks? does it bore them or you? funny thing here is i have aquired enemies and friends... obviously some folks enjoy what i have to say... personally i think you are afraid of change, you and your herd of dogmatic buddhists used to have some shape of authority around here... every new thing that comes along gets lamblasted and labelled troll-like, why?? because your little bubble of supreme and enlightened chit-chat gossip over the truth has finally been popped and you can't handle it... you all preach as if you understand, but your choice of words, presentations of concepts, all have some fatal flaws... lack of conviction. :)

i had some hip problems a few years ago and i went to a local chiropractor(spelling?), a few simple adjustments and it seemed to help... routine tune-ups are advisable.

[Lee Chiang Po]

Pain is caused by injury at different levels. If the hips are hurting when you do certain things it is because the hips are not able to handle the action. I had that problem many years ago when I attemped to train in a form of gung fu. I eventually went to a chiropractor and he told me that I was not built right for what I was trying to do. This is what he told me and it makes sense. Any physical action that you have to train your body to do over time will have to be continually trained if it is to be retained, and as you get older and older it becomes more and more difficult to do. Not to mention that you can and will likely injure yourself now and again. Trying to fight using such physical movements can be dangerous not only to the opponent but also to yourself. His advice was to pick and choose the movements that I could do well and do easily and train them until I could do it extremely well. One does not really need an arsenal of kicks, just a few that he can do really well.
When I was a young man I did a bit of fighting with other gung fu fighters, not many, but a few. I was able to prevail, but in each case I was able to take advantage of a high kick by my opponent. It was the only weakness in their stratogy, and if they had not kicked above my waist I would probably have been beaten badly.

[uki]

. It was the only weakness in their stratogy, and if they had not kicked above my waist I would probably have been beaten badly.train high. kick low.

[irontiger1981]

Pain is caused by injury at different levels. If the hips are hurting when you do certain things it is because the hips are not able to handle the action. I had that problem many years ago when I attemped to train in a form of gung fu. I eventually went to a chiropractor and he told me that I was not built right for what I was trying to do. This is what he told me and it makes sense. Any physical action that you have to train your body to do over time will have to be continually trained if it is to be retained, and as you get older and older it becomes more and more difficult to do. Not to mention that you can and will likely injure yourself now and again. Trying to fight using such physical movements can be dangerous not only to the opponent but also to yourself. His advice was to pick and choose the movements that I could do well and do easily and train them until I could do it extremely well. One does not really need an arsenal of kicks, just a few that he can do really well.
When I was a young man I did a bit of fighting with other gung fu fighters, not many, but a few. I was able to prevail, but in each case I was able to take advantage of a high kick by my opponent. It was the only weakness in their stratogy, and if they had not kicked above my waist I would probably have been beaten badly.:D oh for sure i totally hear ya on the sparring dude ,my fav is soon as they try to use some spectacular van ****e crap, give them an eye poppin front spap kick to the junk (groin). i just want it for the beauty in my forms and like uki said "train high, kick low" and then youll be fast enough for front leg roundhouses to tha dome.

[uki]

give them an eye poppin front spap kick to the junk (groin). kicking big oafs in the nads doesn't even require a second thought... some people call it cheap, i call it practical.

[irontiger1981]

kicking big oafs in the nads doesn't even require a second thought... some people call it cheap, i call it practical.

o heck yeah, you gotta train that fast twitch muscle memory, ya know. At the expense of someones nads, sorry should have guarded a lil better dude.lol