Deep back squat
I just received your Stretching Express DVD, and it looks very interesting. However, I have heard for ages that deep squats, where the thigh goes past parallel to the floor, are bad for the joints (in particular the knee joint). Is this a problem or an old wives’ tale, and more recent scientific evidence has proved that it’s fine [to do deep squats]?
I know from your Stretching Scientifically books (I’ve had three editions) that you wouldn’t recommend an exercise based purely on “this is the way we used to do it in Eastern Europe X decades ago.”
I look forward to your answer. I used to be able to do the splits when I was younger. I then had a few years out of exercise and am looking forward to regaining my flexibility with your method, if I can get some reassurance it won’t ruin my joints. I’ll also then get my students doing it (I’m a taekwondo master instructor).
REPLY:
First, a correction:
My recently published DVD is titled Flexibility Express, not Stretching Express.
Here is a quote from my article “Martial Arts and the Squat” that answers your question:
“You may have heard the myth that deep squats (legs bent until hamstrings make contact with the calves) destabilize the knees. It is not true. Deep squats with weights improve knee stability provided that the feet are placed so there is no lateral rotation in the knees (Tipton et al. 1975). Further, those same people who speak nonsense about the danger of deep squatting advise partial squatting—that is, until the thighs are parallel to the floor—as a healthy alternative. The trouble is that at this angle between the thigh and the shin, patellofemoral stress peaks for both eccentric and concentric muscle contractions (Huberti and Hayes 1984). If you do partial squats, you spend more time at this angle than if you do deep squats. This is because when doing deep squats, momentum carries you through that peak-stress angle, so you spend less time at it.”
If you’d thought of it, you could have done a few repetitions of the partial and deep squat each, seen which one makes your knees hurt more, and then you would have known what to think of those claims that “deep squats are bad for the joints.”
Alternatively, if your common sense is not enough, you can go to the bibliography of my article, obtain the above-mentioned sources, and read them. Next view videos of Olympic weightlifters, Hindu wrestlers, and other well-trained people. Finally, ask yourself why you ever paid any attention to what some people said or wrote “for ages”?
BTW, do your students a favor and do not instruct them until you can perform at least the MWod woman test shown below. That should give you practical understanding of normal mobility and fundamental exercises.
Filed under: Flexibility and Stretching | 1 Comment
Tags: deep squat, Flexibility Express, knee joint, martial arts instructor, partial squat, taekwondo, Thomas Kurz
The new year is the time for resolutions, for starting over, for trying something new. So here are a couple of resolutions for starting over and for trying something new:
“Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own” (Bruce Lee), and the Zen saying I had already repeated a few times in my previous columns, “Empty your cup.”
So, on to a story on instructors with full cups and no cups at all.
Some time ago, I gave two seminars on combining strength and flexibility training.
The first seminar was attended exclusively by instructors of combat sports and martial arts (including MMA); the second by instructors of various sports, from combat sports to track and field.
At both seminars participants exercised with me–because there is no knowing without doing. During and after the seminars I answered questions, but only from those who exercised along with me–because only those who do may ask sensible questions about the doing.
At both seminars I showed an arrangement of the most effective exercises for increasing flexibility and strength. The arrangement begins with very simple exercises, such as deep squats, overhead squats, and horse-riding stance; proceeds to lunges and crouches; and ends with splits and back bridges.
At both seminars I saw three types of participants, in about the same proportion at each seminar:
1. Those who could do these simple exercises as I was showing them, at a ROM indicating they do those exercises routinely in their training. So, in the course of that training they absorbed the useful but did not extract all uses from it–their cups were too full. Specifically, they were too full of preconceived notions about proper uses of these strength exercises. They had compartmentalized their exercises and separated those that were for strength from those that were for flexibility.
2. Those who were familiar with the general form but had neither the strength nor the ROM of people who routinely do those exercises. At least they did not discard the useful. . . .
3. Those who could not accurately copy the deep squat, horse-riding stance, etc., even without resistance, even though verbal instructions accompanied the demonstration. Long ago they decided these exercises, not being specific to their sports, were not useful, so they never learned them. They discarded the useful. I think they never had any cups. . . .
All participants were instructors of sports or m.a., but only the first group deserved the name.
To be a real instructor one needs:
— A quick eye to accurately spot what is right or wrong in a technique or exercise, during a single repetition, so the athlete doesn’t go on drilling an incorrect move, or worse, get injured;
— Fitness to show impressively the correct form of all techniques and exercises useful in their sport;
— Familiarity with general exercises–those useful in many sports–and exercises used nearly exclusively in the instructor’s sport (at least 1,500 exercises are classified as general and useful in the majority of sports, and then there are those classified as sport-specific).
The real instructors benefited most from my presentation because they already did the standard forms of exercises that quickly deliver feats of great flexibility–if correctly arranged and adapted to the task. (They knew these exercises were useful. . . .) Had they “emptied their cups” a long time ago, they could have come up themselves with the system that I presented. All they had to do was observe, with an “empty cup,” what people do in other sports and activities.
So, in the new year, empty your cup to absorb what is useful.
Filed under: Flexibility and Stretching, Strength Training for Sports and Martial Arts | Leave a Comment
Tags: combat sports, Flexibility, martial arts, strength, Thomas Kurz, track-and-field
Resistance and Technique
To make myself stronger, I use resistance between the minimum that forces the correct technique and the maximal training resistance (MTR)—the greatest resistance that can be overcome without a strong effort of will and emotional stress.
Exceeding the MTR, except for a well-justified test, is about vanity, showing off—it doesn’t perfect technique (it leads to blank spots in your mental image of the movement), is less effective for building strength than working at or below the MTR (due to excessive compensations), and is needlessly risky (too close to the limits of control).
Correct technique is that which permits safe—that is, stable and controlled (it doesn’t mean slow!)—movement; it is the basis for steady, significant progress.
Incorrect technique is that which may succeed initially but fairly quickly, even within a few workouts, leads to a plateau in strength gains or even an injury.
Optimal training resistance is between the maximum at which one can perform the technique perfectly and the MTR.
Here are the resistance “points” I use routinely in training, from the lowest to the highest:
1. Minimum that forces the correct technique (MinRCT).
2. Maximum that permits the correct technique (MaxRCT).
3. Maximum training resistance (MTR). Occasional minor deviations from the correct technique may be okay. People who do resistance training know why.
Those are on a continuum, and with subsequent repetitions the same resistance may move to a higher point, say from MinRCT to MaxRCT, and then to MTR.
These guidelines apply to all kinds of strength training: general, directed, and sport-specific (for definitions and explanations, see Science of Sports Training).
Filed under: Sports Technique, Strength Training for Sports and Martial Arts | 5 Comments
Tags: correct technique, maximal training resistance, optimal training resistance, Science of Sports Training, strength training, Thomas Kurz, Tom Kurz
A few people have asked me, “What is the difference between the Flexibility Express and Secrets of Stretching DVDs?” Here is my answer:
I made Secrets of Stretching when I was 35. I made Flexibility Express at 55, so the main difference between those two DVDs is 20 years of research and experience. The other difference is that Secrets of Stretching teaches resistance exercises and stretches designed specifically for fighters and martial artists who want powerful kicks, while Flexibility Express delivers simultaneous gains in strength and flexibility of the entire body for athletes in all sports. So, Secrets of Stretching covers flexibility and strength of the lower body only—that is, the hips and legs—while Flexibility Express covers the arms, shoulders, back, hips, and legs.
Compared to Secrets of Stretching, in Flexibility Express the method is streamlined; the exercises are simpler, easier, but no less effective; and you get more information on those exercises.
I can say that Flexibility Express is a distillation of my knowledge of flexibility and strength training, all that was published in Secrets of Stretching and Stretching Scientifically, and a lot that was not. This is why the DVD Flexibility Express is more expensive than Secrets of Stretching—just like a cognac is more expensive than the wine it was distilled from.
There are other good reasons for pricing it higher than Secrets of Stretching DVD:
I have noticed that people tend to pay more attention to instruction when they pay more money for it. Let me explain: Our previous DVDs and books were priced similarly to or lower than other publications, of lower instructional value, on similar subjects. This has kept some of our customers from fully appreciating them and diligently applying our instruction and thus getting the full benefit of it. I know that many people buy our DVDs and books and then let them gather dust. Then, when their friends see our DVD or book on their shelves and ask, “Can you do what this thing teaches?” the answer, of course, has to be “No.” The friends then get the wrong impression of the quality of our instruction. Setting a higher price on Flexibility Express DVD is a way to remedy that. Yes, higher-priced items are appreciated more than lower-priced items, and they are used rather than forgotten.
Also, with the higher price I hope for no such stupid questions as, “I am 45. Am I too old for these exercises?” Or stupider, “I am 35. Am I too old for these exercises?” Or the completely stupid, “I am 25. Am I too old for these exercises?”
To learn more about the DVD Flexibility Express, read this review by Rev. A. Bodhi Chenevey, RM, DD, Hikaze Learning Corner, Wooster, OH.
Filed under: Flexibility and Stretching, Strength Training for Sports and Martial Arts | 10 Comments
Tags: Bodhi Chenevey, fighters, Flexibility, Flexibility Express, martial artists, resistance exercises, Secrets of Stretching, strength, stretches, Thomas Kurz
Groin Pain: How Discipline Won!
This post is a follow-up to Groin Pain, or On Athletes, Pain, and Discipline, where I gave advice to a Kyokushin karate fighter who was experiencing groin pain (pubalgia).
Recently he sent me this photo, showing the result of following my advice on dealing with his groin pain.
Alan Bacci, age 43, does hanging side split to show full recovery from pubalgia.
Here is what he wrote:
Following your advice on treating my groin inflammation and pain (pubalgia), I am now able to train again and use your methods presented in your books and DVDs. Thank you very much!
Yours gratefully,
Alan Bacci
My new DVD, had it been available a few months ago, could have prevented his groin inflammation and pain.
Filed under: Flexibility and Stretching, Sports Injuries | 2 Comments
Tags: Alan Bacci, Flexibility Express, groin inflammation, groin pain, hanging side split., Kyokushin karate, pubalgia, recovery from pubalgia, Thomas Kurz
It has been a long while since I produced any instructional material on training for sports and martial arts. The reason is a severe shoulder injury I had a few years ago. I totally dislocated and nearly destroyed my shoulder. (Full info on the injury is at http://atomic-temporary-4752433.wpcomstaging.com/2010/06/30/back-bridge-twist-seminar-excerpt and http://atomic-temporary-4752433.wpcomstaging.com/2009/10/22/no-sweat-workout/#comment-133.)
Of course, I was not sitting idle all that time. I worked out as much as I could. As soon as I could do any exercises after the shoulder surgery, I did. And so, in addition to the shoulder rehab, I did whatever exercises I could do for strength and flexibility of my legs and trunk.
Someone who saw my workouts told me, “You have this gold mine of know-how—you should share it!” So I had a couple of my workouts recorded, with me explaining how and why I do what I do, and put them on a DVD.
I don’t show any spectacular feats of strength or flexibility on this DVD. After all, my destroyed shoulder is still far from normal strength, so I can’t train the way I used to. But this is good news for people who have let themselves go—if I can do it at age 55 and with a severely damaged shoulder, then anyone can. So, without further ado, here is the DVD:
Filed under: Flexibility and Stretching, Strength Training for Sports and Martial Arts | 19 Comments
Tags: back bridge, exercises, Flexibility, Flexibility Express, martial arts, shoulder injury, shoulder rehab, shoulder surgery, splits, sports, strength, stretching, Thomas Kurz, Tom Kurz
Non-athletes need discipline to keep working out; athletes need discipline to stop.
Groin pain happens. It happened to one combat-sport athlete—a Kyokushin fighter and instructor—who then asked me for advice on dealing with it.
Athletes, and especially combat-sport athletes, have high pain thresholds and high internal motivation. Those two traits combined make athletes vulnerable to self-inflicted chronic injuries—near certain if the athletes and those directing their training proceed oblivious to the signs of trauma.
Anyway, here is the athlete’s question on dealing with his groin pain and then my advice, which applies to any pain:
Since a few months I am afflicted with pubalgia, a pain inside my groin tendons, a sort of inflammation of the inner right adductor and the inner low corner of my right abdominal muscles. I think it is beginning to heal during these last days. In those months when I felt the pain, I did fewer and fewer side splits, while continuing to do front splits and some easy early morning stretching. But I want to resume my usual workout routine with no pain anymore.
I would like you to advise me what to avoid and what to do to solve my problem. Probably I could find the answer reading articles on your website but I need prompt advice from the source. I didn’t go to a physician because generally they say to cease any exercise, do an X-ray, then therapy, but I cannot stop training.
Reply:
It was an error to continue doing any splits and dynamic stretches (early morning stretching) when feeling pain in your groin. You could have gotten a hernia and adductor strain. Doing splits and dynamic stretches kept irritating the inflamed tissues of your lower abdomen and inner thigh and made them weaker. You can hope it has not made them weaker permanently, but only postponed your healing. Here is my advice:
1. Do not do any exercise that gives you any feeling in the injured side that is different from the uninjured side. When you have been injured, any exercise that is not approved by a physician treating your injury, any exercise that causes you even the lightest pain or an abnormal feeling, sets you back by weeks or months from the full recovery. It may even keep you from ever recovering. If you would like to never regain your full ability, all you have to do is to keep exercising through discomfort. Stopping training and following a proper injury treatment and rehabilitation program takes discipline.
2. Read and apply the advice in the following articles:
www.stadion.com/injuries-two-models-of-treating-sports-injuries/
www.stadion.com/injuries-best-advice-on-sports-injuries/
3. Find a specialist who can help you quickly and permanently fix your injury. I had good experience with physicians and therapists of the following specialties:
www.muscleactivation.com/find-a-specialist/
www.icakusa.com/find-a-doctor/
If you insist on doing an exercise through pain, you can easily end up unable to do it ever, forever.
Filed under: Flexibility and Stretching, Sports Injuries | 6 Comments
Tags: athletes, chronic injuries, discipline, dynamic stretches, early morning stretching, fighter, front splits, groin pain, injury treatment, Kyokushin, non-athletes, pubalgia, rehabilitation, side splits
This post was written as my contribution to a series of posts on training young athletes, published in coach James Marshall’s blog.
I will begin with tips not for the young athletes themselves but for those who train them.
I begin by commenting on a concept from the post by Frank Dick, “before you get into teaching young people techniques they must have the physical competencies to do so without building in compensatory movements.”
I don’t distinguish very much between teaching general exercises and sport-specific exercises (techniques of the sport). In both cases one has to observe athletes to see whether they are ready for the exercises, if needed correct their defects, and then, with the defects seemingly corrected, still correct those defects or others as the exercises reveal them. To do so effectively one has to pay attention to the athletes and know how to dose the exercises, their form and internal load. (External load = External resistance, number of reps, distance, etc. Internal load = Physiologic effect of the external load.)
Now I will end the fuzzy generalities and give examples.
A gymnast learns vaults. Soon after the warm-up he does well, but as the workout progresses his form gets worse. Eventually he misses jumps, more and more, and yet the coach encourages him to keep trying as if trying harder could help when inhibitions have set in. The coach is not paying attention to a technical flaw in the landing on arms, that in turn has its source in a posture defect. Every landing is causing a discomfort and raising an alarm in the athlete’s motor centers, “This hurts, this damages, stop this.”
A young female gymnast lags behind the group in hip flexibility. She is skinny but much taller then the rest of the group. Her Russian coach, a former gymnast, makes her do the same flexibility exercises as the rest of the group, even though they evidently don’t work for her. The coach has no clue that there are other flexibility exercises than those that work only with little children built for gymnastics. The coach has no understanding of anatomy that would give him a way of adjusting her position in stretches so to make them effective for her.
A high school track-and-field sprinter has a pronounced upper and lower cross posture, which forces his legs and arms to move in inefficient patterns. His coach, a high school p. e. teacher, has never given him corrective exercises. The athlete was allowed to sprint prior to undergoing a corrective exercise program.
A judo wrestler ends a practice bout, and walks off the mat with a slight limp, which he had not prior to this bout. Time for another bout, so he steps on the mat again, with a limp. His instructor acts like all is well. I stop the wrestler and order him to have his knee examined. The exam revealed a severely sprained ACL, that took several months of rehab to get back to normal.
Now tips for the young athletes themselves.
A good technique feels comfortable. If it does not, then you are taught wrong. It does not matter whether you were not prepared well for learning that technique, or you were taught a wrong technique, or you have misunderstood the instruction—you were taught wrong. It is a responsibility of the instructor to instruct according to the athletes’ capabilities.
The most effective training loads (resistance, number of reps, distance, etc.) are such that do not distort good form. If your form in exercises or techniques deteriorates, you are doing too much. You are erasing good technical habits and ingraining bad ones.
A good coach is the one who looks at the athletes when they exercise and not into notes on a clipboard or in a laptop, notepad, or whatever. If your coach or instructor doesn’t catch your errors on the first or second repetition, you need to go elsewhere for instruction.
* * *
Here are all the posts on training young athletes, published in James Marshall’s blog:
Training young athletes: Part 1 Frank Dick
Training young athletes part 2: Vern Gambetta, Roy Headey
Training young athletes part 3: Paul Gamble, Simon Worsnop
Training young athletes part 4: Gil Stevenson, Denis Betts
Training young athletes: Part 5:Kelvin Giles
Athletic training in practice: Tom Kurz
More articles on the practical application of principles of training are at Stadion Publishing site.
Filed under: Sports Injuries, Sports Technique | 3 Comments
Tags: Denis Betts, external load, external resistance, Frank Dick, general exercises, Gil Stevenson, gymnast, internal load, James Marshall, judo wrestler, judoka, Kelvin Giles, Paul Gamble, Roy Headey, Simon Worsnop, sport-specific exercises, sports techniques, sprained ACL, sprint, sprinter, Thomas Kurz, Tom Kurz, track-and-field, Vern Gambetta, young athletes
In my previous post I answered a question on the use of resistance bands in improving kicks. However, the video example of a class practicing kicks with those bands showed such poor instruction standards that I gave my opinion about its instructor—quite typical for m.a. So today I have another example of a typical martial arts instructor: Mr. Hu Zhengsheng, a Shaolin kung-fu exponent, in China. He is actually a master of the real Shaolin kung-fu, not of the flashy variety sold for the masses. He is described and interviewed in the March 2011 issue of National Geographic (“Battle for the Soul of Kung Fu”, pp. 94-113). Here is a passage from the article (p. 106) that gave me pause:
“A boy dressed in the school’s dove gray robes and sneakers appears at the office door to report that a student has twisted an ankle. By the time Hu arrives to check on him, the injured pupil has resumed practice, gritting his teeth as he kicks a heavy bag. Hu nods with a teacher’s satisfaction. `He is learning to eat bitterness.’”
So, neither the chief instructor, Mr. Hu, nor any competent professional, was present during the workout. Children were not adequately supervised doing high-intensity exercise. Injuries happen with ample warnings—a good physical education or sports instructor can see them coming well ahead of time and can intervene—but one needs to be there watching! The surest way to stifle an athletic potential and make mature age miserable is to accumulate injuries at an early age. The sure way to make the injuries’ effects last a long time is to make them worse by not resting to let them heal. Persisting or even allowing intense exercise of the injured body part takes it to another level….
The Shaolin kung-fu master is a very competent exponent of the style, possibly a very proficient fighter, but a negligent instructor. He wants to make a living and to raise funds for his traditional Shaolin kung-fu school. He doesn’t care that his pupils get injured—it doesn’t occur to him that their injuries and thus long-term health are his responsibility.
Filed under: Sports Injuries, Teaching Movement Skills for Sports and Martial Arts | 6 Comments
Tags: exercise, Hu Zhengsheng, injury, martial arts instructor, Shaolin kung-fu, Thomas Kurz
Someone has asked me what I think about using resistance bands in kick training, specifically Myosource Kinetic Bands. (You can see a martial arts class using these bands in the video below.)
Here is my answer:
With good technique, they could help. The TKD master in the video is an abysmally poor instructor, so for people in his class, those things may even be harmful.
For adding resistance to a technique to make sense, the form and timing of the technique have to be well learned, otherwise both will be ruined and a bad habit will be ingrained. You can see this ruining of side and roundhouse kicks by a too early application of resistance in the martial arts class shown in the video.
The type of resistance is the next consideration (but no additional resistance helps until technique is learned). Each type of resistance has its pluses and minuses. Elastic resistance slows down movements at the end of their path when their velocity should be increasing. Weights offer the most resistance at the beginning of the move, but then their inertia can overextend the move. Application of the right type and amount of resistance depends on the weak points of the athlete in a given technique. For some that will mean applying resistance only at the beginning phase of a technique, for others at the end phase. Some techniques must be broken into parts that can be safely done against resistance.
The bottom line: If a resistance distorts the correct technique, then it should not be applied or should be applied differently, or a different resistance should be applied. The way to find out is to try, observe, and adjust.
And here are reasons why this TKD master is a poor instructor:
— An instructor worthy of this title doesn’t turn his back on the class, especially a class of children. The first reason has to do with discipline and class control: You don’t turn your back on the class because people, especially children, can do the craziest things when you are not watching. This is taught to all real instructors. The second reason is not taught to people mentally fit to be instructors because it is too obvious: When you are demonstrating something, you have to face the class so students can see what you are doing, and you can see how they are doing it. Further, trained instructors demonstrate all moves as if a mirror image of students facing them. So, when a real instructor shows a move that is to be done with a right limb, the instructor does it with a left limb, so students facing the instructor don’t have to flip the image in their minds. That helps the students concentrate on the essential points of the movement and speeds up learning. With well motivated and focused students, an instructor can get away with such “backward” demonstrating as this TKD master—as witnessed in good-to-excellent results of individual instruction in Dancing with the Stars, for example—but as a rule, in large-group settings it wastes students’ time.
— The class mixes grown-ups and children. That is a sign of incompetence or desperation. In such a setting, group instruction short-changes both young and old. Readers of Children and Sports Training realize that.
— The instructor has students with poor or even no technique (a testimony to his teaching skill) practice moves they don’t know with added resistance. More need not be said….
Such sights are common in martial arts, especially those imported from the Far East. Their exotic origin and language give them an air of mystery, set a rigid hierarchy, and so help obscure incompetence of the “instructors,” grand and utmost masters, and gurus. There are individuals desperate to be in charge, to be authorities, no matter how ignorant they are of the subject. Many of those martial arts organizations give them that opportunity if they are a tad fitter and persistent than the rest of their peers. And there are plenty of gullible people among their peers to keep those masters in business.
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Filed under: Sports Technique, Strength Training for Sports and Martial Arts, Teaching Movement Skills for Sports and Martial Arts | 6 Comments
Tags: American Taekwondo Association, ATA, athlete, Chief Master Steve Westbrook, Children and Sports Training, comedy, elastic resistance, instructor, kick, kicking, martial arts, martial arts class, Myosource Kinetic Bands, resistance bands, Songahm Taekwondo Federations, sports training, STU, taekwondo, technique, Thomas Kurz, TKD master, World Traditional Taekwondo Union, WTTU
