need help with a specific move...

[sakko]

Hey there...

I need some advice. I've got this form in my practice, well a couple actually that demand a certain move that I'm having trouble with. The move in the form is like a one legged crouch... that is, my entire weight is lowered into a crouch on one leg, with the other leg pointing in the opposite direction completely stretched out. My torso is turned toward the outstretched leg.

On my right side I can do it pretty well. At just about any point during exercise, practice or whatever I can drop down in that stance and come back up with little if any problems. The LEFT side however is a completely different story. I don't have access to a gym, but I know I need to work on either my left legs strength, or muscle stretching, or maybe a bit of both.

I've been trying to get this move down for far too long. I get discouraged that I'm not seeing progress and will stop for a while. The other day I was able to do it, then all of a sudden I am not. What exercises/stretches would help with this? Should I just try and try the move till I'm blue in the face?

I'm 6' 230 lbs, so a pretty chubby dude. I've lost alot before I started Kung Fu, and during just a little bit. I seem to have plateaued in weight loss. I know that means I have to change things up to lose more, so I've started jogging, and am trying to do situps and stuff. I figure if I can lose some more weight, it will make this move MUCH easier. I see kids at class doing it and they're 20 years younger and about 100 lbs lighter

Advice?

[Losttrak]

I am 6'5" 230 and I can understand your problem. The only way to do it is to perform negatives. My biggest problem was the flexibilty of my achilles tendon since in our we had to keep our foot flat. How I got mine down was to hold onto a rope or belt around a doorknob and slowly go down as far as I could. I repeated it until I was totally fatigued. Do that at least 3 times a week and you will get it down.

[sakko]

Are you able to do it no problems now? right and left? do you have a side that seems more difficult than the other?

[Toby]

Mmm, I'd suggest losing weight might help the most. Diet will help most with that, not jogging or situps. Soon I'll be doing the same because I want to improve my power to weight ratio. I.e. lose fat and maintain or (eventually) increase lean body muscle.

Apart from that, negatives like Losttrak said. When negatives become "easy" (relatively speaking), you could go on to weighted negatives. Bear in mind that I still struggle with pistols depending on how fatigued I am and at the moment I'm 200lb and squatting and deadlifting 340lb so they're not easy.

[Vash]

Indeed. Negatives, with a support will help.

[IronFist]

Dude, try doing it onto a step or a stool. Start with a stool at a height so that instead of having to go all the way down, you only have to go down 6-10" and then your butt sits on the stool. Do reps like that. Once you're comfortable with that, lower it a bit more, like move down a step if you're using stairs, or lower the stool, or whatever. Eventually you'll get low enough so that you can do them without a stool.

[Toby]

Iron and his box squats

j/k. Good idea.

[sakko]

Iron that sounds like a great idea, I'm gonna try that after work... hey as for the other posts can you guys be more specific with negatives? What is a negative? And how does one go about performing one? I'm about the furthest thing from a PE major you're going to find lol, and when it comes to simple gym/weight training terms I'm lost

[sakko]

btw Toby...

I was originally 270 about 9 months ago... my diet was soda and junkfood and as much as I wanted to eat for dinner Not only was I a fatty, but I felt completely unhealthy too. Dizziness just by getting up, extremely winded after a flight of stairs.. I needed to do something for myself.

I lost almost 45 lbs since then, cut out soda and sweet beverages altogether, went cold turkey on desserts, cut out fast food completely. I eat a sandwich and fruit (apples, oranges, bananas) and sometimes a yogurt for breakfast/lunch. I also eat hard-boiled eggs on occasion, I know they are good for you but I don't know if they are good for you when you're trying to lose weight.

Dinner is way better than I used to do, but still some room for improvement. If it's a dinner with some fat content I try to cut my portion significantly. The problem is my fiancee is totally picky when it comes to food. To be quite honest it's a real pain in the ass. She would never consider diet type meals, but she does a good job of hiding the sweets from me. She supports me in my diet, but isn't even about to sacrifice the foods she loves.

Since I've reached the 225-230 range I've sorta hit a plateau. I want to break it badly

[Toby]

Negatives is only the eccentric portion of the lift i.e. the lowering phase. The eccentric phase is where you have the most strength, so you will be able to do much heavier lifts if you only do negatives while still building strength.

Congrats on the diet. I don't really have any comments to add since I'm not an expert except that eggs should be fine. You've gotta watch the cholesterol, though, although only in the yolk. I recall hearing some recent research refutes that and says that egg yolk cholesterol isn't bad so you might want to do further research. I think they used to say 1 egg a day is fine. I eat the equivalent of many more eggs than that a week, but only egg whites. I drink 1 litre of egg white a week (in milkshakes) plus up to 2 scotch eggs a day (recent habit). For the rest of it it sounds like you're doing a good job. Drinks are a big part of it. I love fruit juice, but take a look at the carbs and calories you get on the side of the bottle.