Face your partner and launch a front kick toward his abdomen. When your leg is extended and your foot is touching his body, hold it there for one second, counting “one thousand one” before you retract your leg. You don’t need to purposefully contract your muscles, because they are going to do it all on their own - trust me on this.
First, you do the kick and then your partner does it, continuing back and forth until you have done 10 reps with each leg.
You can kick at any height you choose; obviously the higher the kick the greater stress on the muscles. You can kick slowly, medium speed or fast, it doesn’t matter. It’s that one-second stick at full extension that you are after.
Do the exercise no more than twice a week using the roundhouse, side, back, hook and crescent kick, and concentrate on using good form.
There is a high potential for muscle cramp with this, so be careful.
A Variation
I was going to call this “A painful variation,” but I want to be positive here. This works best if you grab hold of something for support, such as the back of a chair, a wall, or your training partner’s shoulder.
Let’s use the sidekick to illustrate and let’s do it oh so s-l-o-w-l-y. Slowly chamber the kick, slowly extend it, and then stick it at full extension for one second, just as you did with the front kick in the first exercise. Don’t cheat and lean too much because you want your legs and hips to do all the work. When the second is up, don’t retract your leg; you haven’t done the fun part yet. With your leg still fully extended, slowly raise it as high as you can. Yipes! Can you say muscle cramp? If you get one, shake it out and continue with the reps.
Do one set of 10 reps to begin, and progress to another set of 10. As is the case with most exercises, there is no hurry to progress; add a rep whenever you can easily do the last one. Remember, you are trying to build muscle, not shred it.
Do this variation with the front, back and sidekick, and you will attack all the muscles involved in most of the other types of kicks. This is a result-producing exercise and, before you know it, you will notice a new crispness to your kicks and greater impact on the bag.
6. 1000-REP DRILL
This will make or break you; the answer lies within you. It’s a killer leg workout that will tap your energy, trash your legs and trash just about everything else. But in the end, your kicks will be faster and stronger and your discipline will be ironclad.
Your objective is to do one thousand kicks within about 30 minutes, about one every two seconds. Which kicks you choose is up to you, though you should choose ones that you want to improve. All of the kicks, all one thousand repetitions, must be executed at maximum power and speed. If you cheat and do a few easy kicks, you are cheating yourself and you shouldn’t feel pride when completing the giant set.
Here is one version that I have used. Use it or modify it however you want.
1000-Rep Kicking Drill
Single Kicks (Total Reps with both legs: 180)
Technique
Reps
Total Kicks
Front Kick
15
30
Roundhouse Kick
15
30
Hook Kick
15
30
Side Kick
15
30
Crescent Kick
15
30
Back Kick
15
30
Double Kicks Same Leg (Total Reps with both legs: 300)
Technique
Reps
Total Kicks
Front Kick, Front Kick
15
60
Roundhouse, Side Kick
15
60
Side Kick, Back Kick
15
60
Front Hook, Spinning Back
15
60
Crescent Kick, Front Kick
15
60
Supported Roundhouse Kicks (Total Reps: 100)
Hold on to a chair or brace your hand against a wall. If you are doing these with a partner, you can hold hands and kick back and forth. By supporting yourself, you can chamber your kick higher than you can when you are not supported. Do 50 reps on each side.
Unsupported Roundhouse Kicks (Total Reps: 100)
Now throw your roundhouse kicks without support. This way you are using, and improving, your hip strength to get your chamber as high as you can. Do 50 reps with each leg.
Triple Kicks with same leg (Total Reps: 270)
Technique
Reps
Total Kicks
Side Kick, Side Kick, Side Kick
15
90
Front Kick, Roundhouse Kick,
15
90
Roundhouse Kick
Side Kick, Back Kick, Back Kick
15
90
Finishing Kicks (Total Reps: 50)
Still got energy left? Whether you said yes or no, you still got 50 more reps to do. Choose any kick that needs extra work and whip out 25 with each leg.
I strongly suggest that you do this drill no more than once every two weeks, especially when you are doing additional training in your school and other exercises in your personal regimen. If you are careful not to overtrain, and it’s easy to do with this, you will notice a big difference in your kicks after about four workouts of the 1000-Rep Drill.
Let’s conclude this section by taking a look at each of the four basic kicks - round, side, back and front - to see how you can increase your speed, power and overall effectiveness.
7. ROUNDHOUSE KICK - MUAY THAI STYLE
Instead of going over the standard roundhouse kick, let’s examine the features of the Muay Thai roundhouse, an extremely devastating version of the kick.
I’m going to do something here that I rarely do, which is to recommend a technique before I have thoroughly tested it. I’m breaking my little rule because in the year I have practiced the Muay Thai method of roundhouse kicking, I’ve found it to be powerful and fast, more so than the traditional method of roundhouse kicking. No doubt this is why Muay Thai fighters have used this version for eons with great success in the street and in the ring. In fact, they refer to it as “The King of Kicks.” Here is how they do it.
Breaking the Rules
One of