When it comes to fitness, some people need research to vindicate their beliefs. With the gimmicks out there, it’s easy to understand why. But I’ll admit that a lot of my beliefs aren’t shrouded in research. Let that be a little disclaimer before reading this post as it is nothing but a meandering thought that I had while rehabbing my foot.
HOMUNCULUS PEOPLE
I have a love-hate relationship with the Gait Guys. Sometimes they change my life, sometimes they destroy it. One thing they taught me about was the importance of the foot in movement. Considering it was all squats and deadlifts prior to that, I have to thank them.
A main premise that I learned was that propulsion happens off of the second and big toe. If we assume that you have an even weight distribution over the forefoot of your foot’s tripod (which most people don’t have, but were assuming here so don’t judge me) you would have 50% of your weight on each point. But with propulsion, it’s more like 60 or 70% on the medial point (nearest the big toe). This requires to foot to evert somewhat — you can try it out yourself.
An even weight distribution over the forefoot of the foot's tripod.
Carrying more weight on the point nearest the big toe. There is a reason it's the "big" toe and the highest point of the foot is there.
As mentioned in a previous article, I trained isometric holds after breaking my foot. To prepare myself for explosive movements, I did holds in the slightly everted 60/40 position.
You have to remember that when I first started rehab, I couldn’t even balance on one leg, let alone on the tip toes of one leg. So when I tried to progress to the 60/40 position my knee was wobbling all over the place and when I lost balance to the outside (if you’re balancing on your right leg, your body tips over to the right) my knee would jerk inward to get my balance towards the mid line, trying to not fall over.
No big deal when we’re talking about a half crippled guy relearning how to balance on one leg. But if you think in terms of cutting, when higher forces are involved, it’s the same mechanism that causes ACL/MCL injuries. We see a lot of guys go down with knee injuries with NO CONTACT. The two that come to mind are Terrell Owns and Rod Woodson in the NFL, but there are many more beyond my memory.
It used to baffle me how these things happened. But taking what happened to me, I created a little theory. Knowing that propulsion happens off of the medial point of the forefoot (remember the 60/40 relationship), WHAT IF your ankle rolls to the outside (same motion as a traditional ankle sprain) when you’re trying to cut? If the knee spasms inward as it did with me, it makes sense that an internal knee injury will occur.
My hypothetical "cut." The foot plants strongly and everything is aligned, ready to propel upwards.
Hypothetical bad cut. Ankle rolls outward and the knee collapses inward in what you would call a "knee jerk reaction." Although my knee isn't collapsing inward in this picture, I was trying to make it. It physically hurt my knee, making me believe this theory even more.
The big picture is that our ankle stability during cutting is largely dependent on isometric strength because we have to absorb a lot of force in a small time and spit it back out quickly. The range of motion is small. If you look at the video below, when Powell’s foot strikes the ground it stays at a relatively constant angle until propulsion occurs.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRZvlQTTCMg
What if non-contact knee injuries are an overreaction of the knee trying to correct balance issues that are caused by a foot that isn’t doing the “right” thing?
I can’t remember where I read it exactly, maybe a Kelly Bagget article, but I remember reading that voluntarily cocking (dorsifliexing) your foot in each stride should improve your sprint. Is this visible in the video? Maybe I’m overestimating how visible it is.
I did a nice 100 m race on a track the other day, against a friend who ran 400 in highschool, and still athletic guy. It was a nice ego boost because at first he was ahead of me but then i somehow passed him and ended up winning by a good margin. I’ve always felt kinda fast once I caught my stride. But for sparring I think acceleration is more important. Does this mean I should do a lot of 40s for a while, or is that simplistic thinking?
Sorry for the ramble!
I encourage rambling, so please don’t apologize! In fact, ramble more often!
I don’t remember Kelly Bagget ever saying that and it is never something I’ve focused on. I usually have people focus on the hands when they sprint, but you could be right. I’ll keep my eye out for it. Generally though, the more you think about things during explosive movements the slower you’ll go. At some point it just has to become natural so you can relax through your strides.
For a fighter top speed isn’t important as you mentioned. You could switch to 40s but sometimes people are just “better” at one portion of the sprint. Usain Bolt, for example, doesn’t separate from the pack until he gets his stride — after the acceleration phase. A lot of things go into it, but height is definitely a factor.
Do you want to do 40′s for acceleration or for your fighting? Give me some more information and I’ll help you out — like what kind of fighting we’re talking about here.
Well I had left TKD towards the end of college for a bunch of reasons including pain that I didn’t know how to deal with. Now about 5 years later in grad school, I find that there’s an awesome team and they compete at a pretty high level. I decided that since this is my probably my last chance to really compete in tkd like this, I would give it my all (within the constraints of school work n what not). So yeah acceleration and agility are vital for me because even though I cut down to fight at 172 at 5’9 I’m often shorter than the fighters in that class.
I understand of course that practicing the techniques and movements themselves should be first priority, but I am trying to now relook my supplementary training, if only for this year. (I had a 315 squat goal for the end of the summer, but it’s on hold for now, though partially due to piriformis pain that’s been harder to handle).
correction, towards the end of high school.
I could’ve sworn I had posted a reply and it was awaiting moderation but for some reason it’s not there. In any case, basically, I have short legs and I’m a bit short (5’9 on a good day) for my weight class even when i cut down from 182 to 172.
In any case, I know working my technique and footwork should come first, but I think sprinting training could be quite helpful. Any ideas on structuring it? I’m thinking starting with just 100s, adding more of them each session. Then at some point I’d switch to 40s and shuttle runs (suicides?), maybe with a few 150s in the end.
Yea, it was there. I was finishing up some articles and I didn’t get an e-mail notification about it until you just replied again! Sorry about that.
About your TKD – Linear speed isn’t critical for it. When you think of a TKD match, you’re not running at all in fact. It’s a lot of hops back and forth, a lot of lateral movement, and a lot of explosive bouts. Whats your aerobic capacity like — meaning, how winded are you during a match? If you don’t get winded at all, then I wouldn’t worry much about your running unless you’re doing 40 yard sprints to develop your legs or something. Suicides aren’t necessary.
I guess I should ask, why do you want to do sprints? What benefits are you looking to get from them?
Well like I said I need to move faster. I need to be able to dash in faster (I don’t like playing the clinch game but at my height it’s necessary sometimes).
I guess you raise a good point about lateral movement since moving in a fighting stance is somewhere in between forward and lateral movement (I don’t do the fully sideways stance like some TKD people do).
As for endurance, well it doesn’t happen often since there is stoppage time/a lot of waiting and baiting at the black belt level, but it would be nice to be able to go hard longer. All that said, I wasn’t really talking about intervals for endurance (maybe my use of ‘suicides’ was incorrect).
In conclusion I just want more supplementary speed work to improve the speed of my movement and kicks, as well as agility. Heck regardless of tkd, I’d like to be more explosive in general. Last I tried, my standing jump was >= my depth jump though only by a little.
Well, I’m not sure that sprinting is going to help you much in the ring. Ironically enough, gaining more control over your kicks via isometrics and slow kicks seem to be a good way to get some power. With martial arts, it’s all about specificity. I had a 35-40″ vertical when I tricked and I’m not exactly slow, but my kicks always seemed slow because I did nothing to target the specificity aspect of training for them.
For general speed work and explosiveness then sprints 100 yard or less with full recovery will be of benefit to increase sprinting speed. But neither sprinting or vert training is going to do much for your agility. You need short distance bounds and the likes.
Have you seen TKD Andy’s Slow Kick Tutorial?
I can’t seem to reply to your last comment.
As a matter of fact, I have seen Andy’s stuff and I do that to some extent though perhaps not enough and in a structured enough way. Might be because it’s so hard to make gains in those exercises, in my experience anyway. In any case thank you for your input.
I think sprinting will at least help a little with leg development and make me feel more bad-ass, so I’ll keep it in my regimen for now. My backflip training on the other hand has been haulted. It’s like my body has already forgotten how to do it. But I’m rambling senselessly now.
Now on a more serious note. Was your hip extension article the last in the series? Should I simply be doing this stuff and then hope/will my glutes to fire better during my regular squats and deads (in both of which I use a strong spinal arch)?
I was always afraid of flips haha, so I know what you mean.
It’s my last planned article for now. Although I haven’t really detailed how to incorporate what I’ve taught into your squats and conventional deadlifts, I hope you can do some experimenting to try to figure it out. How do your romanian deadlifts feel? Do your glutes burn? Do they feel any different?