Archive: Stretchy legs

Source: Gisoku no Jutsu
Original post date: 8 May, 2007

All is going well with all my random injuries – my stump is looking better than it has in weeks, and my ankle is feeling great; I get a bit of a dull throbbig pain once in a while, but it’s doing really well. I’m aiming to do a weights session tonight to get me back into the routine, and will be training on Wednesday night providing I don’t do anything stupid between now and then. Hamez is taking a break from soccer for a couple of weeks, so I’ll be taking him along with me, and Tank might be able to make it, also. I’m really looking forward to it, this’ll make it ~2 months since last training.

In stretchy leg news, for some reason my muscles were sore yesterday 😛 The only thing I can think of is that Tank and I were doing some shonky backyard cricket on Sunday morning as Wifey and I headed over to Mum and Dad’s for brekkie/morning tea/eat fest. Given backyard cricket is generally as low impact as it comes, I can’t see that being an issue. Mind you, it possibly didn’t help that I kept on kicking the ball with my foot and instead of knocking it with the cricket bat, Segata Sanshiro style:


*Ahem* Anyway, the point is, shonky backyard cricket should not have resulted in my legs being sore. The only thing I can think is that maybe I stretched a bit too far on Sunday night. Regardless, I’m continuing my stretching routine, probably every second night or so, maybe a little more frequently. It’s the same routine we do in karate… kinda – I don’t spend any time stretching my left leg much, since there’s not much there to stretch 😛 I can’t remember if I went through it before, so here it is for all to consider:

  • Shake the legs about a bit to get the blood flowing, then fall gently into the side splits, getting down to the point of slight discomfort and hold it. 30 seconds is supposed to be optimal, I generally lose track of time so I’m probably sitting there like a dufus for a few minutes 😛
  • Shift your weight and do the straight splits, right leg in front, and get down as low as possible and hold it. Again, 30 seconds I think is optimal, but I lose track of time. Damn telly 😛 If you have two legs, feel free to reverse the position to stretch out your left leg
  • Settle back into the side splits, getting lower and hold your balance on your heels, steadying yourself on your hands (or in my case, knuckles – helps condition them). I read up that the point with this is to keep your hips at an angle and nto vertical, as the former is its natural position. By this point, I can normally do the full side splits with a bit of effort
  • I don’t know the name for the next stretch – I face forward wit my front (right) leg bent so you’re almost kneeling, with my other leg behind my for support. Stretches the groin and inner-thigh I think. Hold it for 30 seconds or more to avoid random injuries to your groin muscle
  • Finally, return to the side splits and pop yourself down as far as you can go without causing yourself an injury. If for any reason I haven’t managed to do the side splits up until this point, I’ll generally pull it off here

After I’ve done my leg stretches like that, I’ll do 15+ leg lifts front, side then back. Once all that’s done, my leg(s) are generally feeling pretty stretchy and stuff – last night after I did all the above I went and took the wheely bins out for ccollection this morning, and on the way back to our place I started practicing random kicks. You know, crazy flash of inspiration and all that. I want to be able to do two snap kicks in a single strike – lift the leg, strike once (waist), strike two (head), return the leg to the ground. I’m working on something similar with my fake leg, not sure how it’s going to go. If I can develop it, the idea would be a series of two double-strike kicks in succession – double-strike kick with right leg, double strike with left leg. Not sure how practical it would be, but I like the challenge. Once my ankle’s better, I’ll get started on working on the tornado kick and (reverse) butterfly kick. I’m referring to the latter as a ‘reverse’ butterfly kick as I can’t launch off my left leg because, well, there’s no ankle or knee to facilitate it 🙂 I could try, but the best I could achieve as falling over. So I’ll have to see if I can develop it to jump off the right leg; granted, I’ll still fall over, but at least I’ll be able to fall over a little further along 🙂

Oh, you’ve probably noticed that the main page’s layout has been updated. I’m really happy with the result, it came out better than I expected. I’ll be updating the blog’s layout soon as well. I’m just happy that my coding wasn’t too shonky – thankfully, there’s a stack of info on the web when it comes to learning CSS.

I’ll post an update later in the week, hopefully this time with some karate training news. Can’t wait 🙂

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