When considering upper body striking, martial artists tend to focus on the pectoral, triceps and deltoid muscle groups, and the glenohumeral (GH) joint, which is the most obvious shoulder joint. The GH joint consists of the humerus and the glenoid fossa of the scapula (the “socket” of the shoulder blade). Since this joint is essentially like a ball resting on a shallow dish, and not a deep socket like the hip joint, ligaments and the attached muscles provide most of the stability. There are also three other joints in the shoulder complex that play important roles in maintaining stability for the GH joint, with the scapulothoracic being most prone to abuse in combative training. This joint is formed by the fibrous connection of the scapula to the posterior torso wall, which allows the scapula to glide and rotate as the GH joint requires.
The serratus anterior and the trapezius provide the ability to adduct (pull close to the ribcage), retract, depress, and upwardly or downwardly rotate the scapulae. They maintain alignment of the glenoid fossa with the head of the humerus. A strong, reasonably flexible rotator cuff group is important, but the trapezius needs to be able to provide rotation and stabilization so that the GH joint stays centered and the rotator cuff isn’t impinged. The trapezius and serratus need to work synergistically with the GH joint movers. Striking in general requires the same coupling of scapular and humeral actions that has been reported for other overhand actions (Kibler, et. al., 2007) such as the tennis serve.
Specificity of training is the basis on which all modern physical training rests. Briefly, to produce a desired physiological adaptation, a training program must place sufficient stress on the physiological systems in question (Willmore & Costill, 2004). In training environments this is commonly referred to as Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands (SAID). Adaptations to training are limited to the physiological system overloaded by the program. This includes neuromotor, morphological, hormonal and metabolic elements. Fighting activities (encompassing both combat sports and fighting/self protection scenarios) present a unique programming challenge, requiring a range of adaptations to all systems.
The actions of fighting arts (including combatives and self-defense systems) and combat sports place regular high stresses on the spinal column. I’ve previously mentioned the anterior-posterior compressive and shear forces that affect the lumbar spine, but not the transverse rotational (torsional) and lateral compressive forces that actions like punching, kicking, throwing and falling places on the thoracic spine. Basic fighting postures, such as a standing guard or striking can encourage thoracic kyphosis and lateral asymmetry. Left unchecked, torso actions can become plagued by dominant muscular patterns of imbalance to one side or the other, as a result of a favored limb or ingrained movement compensations due to faulty stabilization or movement system activity. Over time these muscular imbalances can lead to vertebral facet degradation and arthritis, disk herniations and ruptures, nerve entrapment and bone spurs (typically in the direction of excessive muscular tension), all of which translate to reduced performance.
Curvature of a healthy spinal column. Note the lateral symmetry.
Ed. Note: while the examples used in the piece below relate to punching and recreational/athletic MA training, the concepts can easily be applied to all other fighting skills and situations in which they might be used.
How many ways are there to skin a cat? Or in this case, throw a punch? Among both novice and experts (and “experts”), it can seem as if there is a “right” way to perform a fighting skill, yet variations are to be found from style to style, from individual to individual, and even from moment to moment within the same encounter. The Q & A below came out of a discussion with martial artist and CSCS Daniel Ramos (fellow ATSU Human Movement Science alum).
The overhead squat assessment promoted by NASM (Clark & Lucett, 2011) provides a useful evaluation of the functional status of the latissimus dorsi during a common movement (video example here). The OHS requires that both trunk extension and shoulder flexion occur simultaneously, either or both of which may be altered if the muscle has become chronically shortened and tight. When the lats are hypertonic, shoulder range or motion (ROM) is altered due to excessive internal rotation and depression of the humerus, which further affects the actions of the scapula. This can be seen when an individual’s arms habitually fall forward past the line of the torso during the eccentric phase of the squat in an OHS evaluation, which is an indication of the arthrokinematic (joint movement) compensations needed to accommodate functional ROM as the muscle attempts to maintain a shorter distance between origin and insertion (for an excellent visual of how this occurs, take a look here).
Rear view of the latissimus dorsi. Note the broad connection to the pelvis, and the insertion on the humerus. An overactive (hypertonic) lat will cause alterations in shoulder and hip function, impairing good technique by reducing strength and mobility, while increasing the chances of an avoidable chronic injury.
Regarding historical or traditional training practices:
Within physical culture, old practices or concepts aren’t necessarily good or better than modern ones just because they’ve been around awhile. There is belief in martial arts circles, especially in “traditional” groups, that something which has been passed down for decades is unquestionably valuable, or even superior to modern evidence-based understandings. A common defense is “do you think technique x would still be around it if it wasn’t battle tested?” Another is “look at practitioner x- if it worked for him, and he had no fancy research.”
The plain and unglamorous truth is that sometimes techniques or training practices got passed down simply because no one knew any better, or it fulfilled a cultural function (particularly in Confucian-influenced societies) or because they maintained a certain personal prestige or power structure within a group. A technique may have never actually been used in a fight; a conditioning activity may routinely cause joint damage that actually weakens a student over time, but the status of the originator serves to enshrine it. Old can be good; old is not automatically good.
Back in the days when I identified myself as a karate practitioner, I enthusiastically pursued all forms of supplemental conditioning that I could find throughout the branches of the folk art. I spent a considerable amount of time researching, constructing and using various makiwara, kakiya, and weights according to the notes left by early authors such as Motobu, Funakoshi, Mabuni & Miyagi. Among these, the chishi soon became a favorite in my training regimens. The chishi is an example of a class of asymmetrical lever weights that can be found in physical culture around the world. “Indian Clubs” are another example of the concept, and Chinese martial arts may also include them in their conditioning methods (Kennedy & Guo, 2005). The early Okinawan karate culture discovered its utility as a training device, and several branches of karate adopted them as part of their “hojo undo”, or supplemental training.
Despite my enthusiasm for the chishi, my concurrent study of kinesiology eventually began to make me question the effects some of the traditional methods of usage, and my formal education in this field has only confirmed that some common practices are dangerous to the shoulder joint system.
Deciding on Treatment
The MRI scan confirmed that I had a complete ACL tear, but little other damage, which meant that I could stop wearing the (awful, awful, awful) brace and begin to consider treatment options. Complete ACL tears don’t heal on their own, and the remaining tatters of the ligament atrophy quickly. It isn’t feasible to sew the ends back together, which leaves two main options: i) go on without an ACL or ii) have surgery to replace it.
It is possible to have a more or less normal life without an ACL. You can even do some sports such as running, cycling, and weightlifting. Surgery has significant costs—both financial ones (I’m in the US, I have health-insurance through my work but, as I discovered, that doesn’t mean it is free or cheap to get surgery here) and costs in time, inconvenience and pain during the recovery period. More about those in a bit. Generally, the older you are, and the less active, the slower and less complete your recovery from the surgery is likely to be, and the less need you are likely to have for a functional ACL anyway. The case for having reconstructive surgery gets stronger as the patient’s age decreases and their activity level increases. If the activities one wants to pursue include a lot of cutting or landing, as in football, basketball and yes, fighting, then an ACL might be required to keep the knee stable under the sorts of stresses such activities produce.
I’m 35, female and the martial arts are a huge part of my life, meaning that that I was very keen to get back to participating fully. I was actually rather worried that my age, gender, and profession would make doctors and therapists underestimate the extent of my physical activity. How many 35 year old female college professors consider it extremely important to be able to engage in physical activity that goes beyond well-controlled activities like running, cycling, and lifting-weights? Many—maybe even most—of my colleagues either run, bike or lift; we practically need our own departmental bike rack. But colleagues who are still playing soccer, rugby or basketball regularly are few and far between, and among the women it’s even rarer.
So I took it upon myself to convince any and all doctors and physical therapists that I was in need of a very, very good ACL reconstruction. There were three main strategies that I employed here: first, I always portrayed myself as an athlete, to the point where I made sure I was wearing sports gear whenever I had an appointment. Orthopaedic departments seem to have two kinds of clientele in the waiting room: young athletes who got hurt doing sports and old people who need joint replacements. The athletes are often teenagers in athletic shorts and school t-shirts, the old people are in shirts and trousers. There’s no way I look like a teenager, but I made sure I always wore shorts and a karate t-shirt to appointments. Second, I told all and sundry that I was worried that people would underestimate my activity level because I’m female and older. That put the disparity between me and the typical old college professor firmly in their minds. And lastly, I sought out the most athletic-oriented physical therapy center I could find.
Physical Therapy
The doctor who had diagnosed my injury recommended that I get six weeks or so of physical therapy before surgery, on the grounds that prehab and just taking the time to let the swelling go down had been shown to lead to better results after surgery. They gave me a choice of physical therapists, so I went home to look them up on the web before I made a decision, and in doing so I discovered this place. I checked with my doctor’s office, and yes, it would be fine if I went there, so I called and made my first appointment. My physical therapist was Ryan Noirfalise. You can see him in action in this video (although I should mention that Ryan hated this video because they only asked him to do it about 2 minutes before they started filming, so he didn’t get any time to prepare what he was going to say.)
Ryan had me do various exercises, both in my sessions at the SEG and at home. Doing 2-3 lots of 20 minutes of PT at home every day takes a lot out of your schedule. When you think about it that’s about 7 hours a week – plus whatever time you’re spending with the therapist – and whilst it’s sort of interesting and you’re pretty motivated to do it at the beginning, it quickly becomes routine drudgery. Especially the wall-sits. But Bob’s training in corrective exercise had convinced him i) that physical therapists are amazing and ii) that something done regularly and correctly for a finite period of time (like 8 weeks) can make a huge difference long term, iii) that trainers and physical therapists often have a hard time persuading their clients to stick with a programme long enough for them to start seeing results and iv) that often it’s much more important that you do the exercises than that you fully understand the rationale for doing them. So despite the fact that I’m a naturally argumentative, theory orientated person who won’t normally do what she’s told without 6 weeks of research and a book’s worth of reasons for doing so, I settled down to do whatever Ryan damn well told me. Including getting up half an hour earlier so that I could fit my at-home PT in before work, and sleepily struggling through my routine when I got home at 2am, even if I just really really wanted to go to bed. I did it in airport departure lounges, on the side of the mat in karate, and in my office. But it got done.
The Vastus Medialis Oblique (VMO)
The objectives of that pre-surgery PT included i) improving the strength of my VMO (see the picture above) ii) improving my control over my VMO iii) improving my hamstring strength and iv) improving my balance and my ability to make my toes track forward over my knee when I bent it. One of the first exercises I ever had to do (and which is likely to be familiar to anyone who’s torn an ACL) was this one:
I discovered it was pretty difficult to activate my quad muscles on command whilst simply lying down—though within a couple of weeks I’d had enough practice that I could control those muscles pretty well.
Meanwhile, I was trying to find a surgeon. Or rather, I was trying to find the best possible surgeon. When I first tore my ACL I mentioned this on facebook and was amazed to discover how many of my friends had done so too. None of them were martial artists mind. The people who’d torn their ACLs were generally skiers, footballers and basketball players. I emailed a couple of them to ask for advice (thanks Fabrizio and Jose!) and one thing I heard many times was that you want to find a surgeon who has done the surgery hundreds of times—that experience with the particular surgery you were having done was key. I have no complaints at all about the surgeon who’d diagnosed my ACL tear, but he was very young and not all that experienced (though no doubt in 30 years he will have the experience.) I asked at the Sports Enhancement Group, where they see hundreds of ACL reconstructions a year, and they recommended Michael Milne with the phrase “he’s turning out the best knees in St Louis these days.” So I made an appointment and it quickly became clear that he’d done the surgery, in its many variations, hundreds and hundreds of times, and so I decided to go with him. The decision then was what to put in place of my old ACL and the three main choices are i) part of your own patella tendon, ii) part of your own hamstring and iii) an allograft from a cadaver. There are various reasons for or against each version, but Doctor Milne made it clear that he’d be prepared to do any of them. I was keen on the allograft from the start, reasoning that the less of me that had to get cut up the better. One reason people sometimes avoid the allograft is the risk of rejection or infection, but it turned out that this risk was so low as to not really be a concern for me. I got the impression from the physician’s assistant that people sometime refused the cadaver ligament just because of the “ick”-factor. But that wasn’t a big consideration for me—though I can imagine a crazy horror movie where a cadaver implant somehow allows a necromancer to take control of your knee… Reasons against the patellar tendon and hamstring homografts include increased recovery time (especially if you are older, like me) anterior knee pain (in the patellar case) and some problems with fixing the material to the bone (in the hamstring case) which Doctor Milne told me had largely been solved. Anyway, I heard a lot of different things from a lot of different people on this topic, and the technology is steadily improving, so you’d want to talk to your surgeon and get the most up-to-date advice. I went with the allograft and allowed Dr Milne to choose the particular type (it was a hamstring allograft.) And we booked the surgery for 7 and a half weeks after the initial injury, which allowed me to fit in a trip to a conference in Scotland. (The physical therapists at the SEG warned me that my knee would swell up on the flight and gave me a compression bandage to help control it. They were totally right, as usual.) I was allowed back on my bike, allowed to drive and allowed to do some basic conditioning, though I quickly discovered that I my knee wasn’t really stable enough for everything I was allowed to do (like side planks.) In the next instalment I’ll talk about the surgery itself and maybe I’ll even be able to find the photos that the doctor took from inside my knee!
On August 16th, 2010, I tore my right anterior cruciate ligament – the main ligament in the knee – at a fight training class. This is part 1 of the story of how it happened, the reconstructive surgery, the 5 months of physical therapy that followed the surgery, and my gradual return to full participation in fight training.
The Injury
The ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) is the most important of the four ligaments which stabilise your knee. It is is a strip of connective tissue which inserts at the front of the bony plateau at the top of your tibia, in your lower leg, and crosses to the back of the distal part of the femur, in your upper leg. Its major function is to resist your lower leg being drawn forward and/or twisted in relation to your upper leg.
The major ligaments of the knee.
The other three ligaments in the knee are the PCL, LCL and MCL. The PCL (posterior cruciate ligament) inserts towards the back of the tibial plateau and runs forward to the front part of the femur. It forms a cross with the ACL, hence the name “cruciate” and the “anterior/posterior” part comes from where the ligament attaches to the tibia. The other two ligaments are the LCL, or Lateral Collateral Ligament, on the outside of the knee, and MCL or Medial Collateral Ligament, on the inside of the knee.
ACL tears are common sports injuries, especially in sports that involve a lot of cutting and landing, such as football and basketball. One man I met at physical therapy had torn an ACL on five separate occasions – getting it reconstructed in between, of course, he only had the two legs.) Women are more likely to tear an ACL than men, but at the time of my injury, the only ACL incident I had heard about was that of football legend Michael Owen, who tore his ACL in 2006 World Cup against Sweden. You can actually watch him do it here:
You will see that Owen isn’t touching anyone. Non-contact tears like this are very common; you don’t need to be tackled or kicked to tear your ACL.
Unlike many, mine was not a non-contact tear though. I was doing stand-up randori with a friend. We were the only two people in the class at the time, so our instructor, Robert Miller, was watching closely. We were outside on grass, and wearing athletic shoes. My friend is a fair bit bigger than I am, so was really putting my all into my attempts to throw him. We were in the last few seconds of the round and I managed to line everything up for a good o-soto-gari leg sweep with my right leg. I didn’t get it cleanly and he didn’t go down right away. So I did what you do to force it: I planted my sweeping leg, and attempted to use every atom in my body to force him back over it. He bore down to resist. I pushed hard…but instead of him going back, there was a pop from my right knee and I found myself on the ground, yelling and clutching my knee, with a very worried looking practice partner looking down at me and wondering what the hell had happened.
The intense pain didn’t last long, and within two minutes I was able to get to my feet and limp away. We ended the class then. The back of my calf felt tight at the top, near my knee (I now know that was because when your ACL isn’t there to resist anterior draw of the tibia relative to the femur, your gastroc muscle tries to do that job instead. The tightness was my gastroc freaking out at all the new work it was going to have to do.) But I was ok, I thought, I had just strained my knee or my calf in some way, and a little ice and elevation would have me fixed up in a couple of days. Deep down I knew that the popping sound I’d heard was a bad sign—that people reported hearing such noises when their ACLs went but, honestly, it just didn’t hurt that much any more. I iced, I elevated. I walked funny. But I didn’t think I I’d done anything that wouldn’t heal itself in couple of days. But I was wrong.
The next night I was teaching karate at Washington University. I was demonstrating a technique, shifting forward in stance to block before grabbing and pulling my uke into my punch. And as I shifted forwards there was another crack from my forward knee—this time it felt like the noise was from the femur slipping against the tibia—and I found myself back on the ground, with more yelling, this time with a few more alarmed people looking down at me. Everyone had heard the crack. And my knee had just collapsed on me.
Diagnosis
That collapse was surprising and unexpected enough that I called my GP the next morning. Robert Miller came with me when I went to see her. She asked me what had happened and performed a few tests for knee stability, including one with which I am now very familiar— the Lachman test—the standard clinical test for ACL function. Then she said: “I’m not totally sure, but going from what you’ve said, the way you are holding your leg when you stand, and from manipulating it, I think you might have torn your ACL. Anyway, I’m going to send you to an orthopedist, so we can find out for sure.”
And honestly, I thought—naah. What does she know? She isn’t even sure and she’s probably just being careful. My leg is fine. I’ll go and see the orthopedist and they’ll tell me it’s just a strain. Looking back I find it easy to recognise the element of denial— a commonly reported response in the sports psychology literature—in my own responses. But I went to see the orthopedist. He repeated the Lachman test, immediately diagnosed an ACL tear and scheduled me for an MRI to try to find out what other damage I might have done. He also gave me a brace for my leg in order to minimise any extra damage I might do to the soft tissues until we figured out just how stable my leg was (at this point there was some question about whether I might have damaged the LCL at the same time as the ACL.)
One of the sad things about the injury and brace was that it took me out of the FSRI demo at the 2010 MoBot Japanese Festival. Here I am mic'd up to present while Chris looks sad about having no-one to demonstrate with.
As it turned out, I only had to wear the brace for a week, but that week was miserable. You wouldn’t think it would be such a big deal—the brace only weighs a few pounds and since I was injured anyway, it’s not as if I was walking normally before I started wearing it. So let me break down the ways in which wearing it was bad. First, it locked my leg in extension, making it impossible to bend my knee. I couldn’t ride my bike, and I couldn’t walk normally—a major disruption to my lifestyle, though since classes hadn’t yet started at the University where I teach, I didn’t need to get to work each day, and so didn’t need to ride my bike as much. But you only have to go without bending your knee for a few hours to really, really develop a serious yen to bend your knee. When I took the brace off to shower I would attempt to bend it but the hours of extension had shortened the quadriceps around it to such a degree that bending it was slow torture. The additional weight of the brace puts extra strain on your hip flexors as you walk (you end up walking as if your braced leg was a pendulum—something you have to swing forward as one piece, like a crutch) tightening them on the side with the brace. This in turn puts extra pressure on your lower back, leading to much achey-ness. I also to sleep in the brace, which is not so easy, and meant that I was getting less sleep, and with it less recovery.
I haven’t mentioned the worst part yet, which is that in the week of wearing the brace the muscle melted off my right leg like warm butter. All those years of training and building up quad and hamstring strength were undone in a few days, leaving my right leg about half the size of the left. It was this, I think, that really brought it home to me that I had to take this seriously. I couldn’t look at my shrivelled right leg next to the as-yet still muscular left one in the mirror and not realise that something had gone very, very wrong.
The results of the MRI came back, confirming that I had a complete ACL tear, but no other serious problems, except for the fact that I was as incapable of lying completely still for 40 minutes as a 2 year old on Red Bull. Doctors from then on would frown and shake their heads over the “movement artefact” on my MRI. I was allowed to take the brace off, and proscribed physical therapy for a few weeks while the inflammation from the initial injury went down, and while we considered options for surgery—the topic of a future instalment of this account.
A topic that comes up frequently on the FSRI blog is “core training,” particularly as it relates to moderating the lower back/spinal stress that training in all fighting arts creates. I dialogue quite a bit with people from various fighting arts circles, and often someone will respond to a core-related topic with “I do x reps of sit-ups everyday.” Ostensibly this seems like a good way to train the core musculature, however it neglects many important elements of the core’s movement and stabilization systems at the favor of the most visible aspect, the rectus abdominis (the “6-pack” that people are unfortunately obsessed with). Due to their positioning in the spinal column and the muscular attachments of several muscles, notably the psoas, the lumbar vertebrae end up being exposed to kinematic demands and kinetic forces that are greater than one might think. Full sit-ups actually increase these forces, since hip flexion is required along with the desired rectus abdominis action, which places a combined compressive and shearing force on the lumbar vertebrae of the lower back:
Clinicians often recommend abdominal exercises as both a prophylactic and a treatment for low back pain…However, sit-up type exercises, even when performed with the knees in flexion, generate compressive loads on the lumbar spine well over 3000 N (ed: 675 lbs. force) . According to one clinical report, the use of sit-up type exercises appears to have actually contributed to low back pain development among a group of 29 exercisers. Partial crunches have been advocated as providing strong abdominal muscle challenge, with minimal spinal compression (Hall, 2007).
The action of a full sit-up creates several surprisingly high forces: compression on the anterior (front) facets, tension on the posterior (rear) facets and shear at the medial rotation point of the lumbar spine, particularly the lower vertebrae.
If the goal is to correct the stresses that training and conditioning place on our lower backs by strengthening the rest of the core, it should be clear that full sit-ups are not a good choice, and that the RA muscle is not the best target for “core training.” Don’t forget the image of the core as a tall tower with guy wires stabilizing it in all directions. The other core movers and stabilizers also need proper conditioning Although the RA is visible and easy to target, standard sit-ups and targeting it exclusively may actually increase the stress load to the lumbar spine, worsening existing muscular imbalances, performance deficits and increasing the risk of low back pain/chronic injuries.
The solution is to leave full sit ups out of your conditioning routines. Take a look at Bob’s Back Brief article for some suggestions and links to video demonstrations of many core exercises which can add balance and increased performance- as well as decreased stress on the lumbar spine- to your conditioning.
Update: Read Back Brief by our own Robert Miller, CPT and CES, for some ideas about how to prevent and fix lower back and hip problems associated with fighting arts training.
Lower back pain is an issue that affects a large percentage of the US adult population. Although I don’t have any numbers at my fingertips, I’d be willing to bet that lower back pain affects fighting arts practitioners more than the average population, with a larger percentage occurring in so-called traditional arts. Particularly those karate, kung fu and taekwon do groups who place an inflated value on very long and deep stances. The rationale usually goes that holding a longer and deeper stance increases leg strength and mobility, so all students should start out as low and deep as possible.
Standing in a very long stance places the lower back into lumbar hyper-extension, or exaggerated lordosis. The longer you go, the harder it is to use the abdominal stabilizers and gluteal muscles to do part of their job- stabilizing the torso in an upright position. The hip flexors and spinal extensors are shortened and tight in this positon, and are likely already prone to overactivity from repetitive kicking and punching actions without much complementary conditioning for the posterior kinetic chain. Tight and short hip flexors further inhibit the activation of the abdominal and gluteal muscles, leading to eventual prominence of the lower gut, weak core stabilizer muscles (which in turn increase risks for lower limb injuries), reduced hip mobility, lower back pain and the likelihood of a ruptured disc in the lumbar spine.The illustration below demonstrates normal spinal curvature and exaggerated lumber lordosis:
A useful visualization for the neutral alignment of the pelvis and spinal column compared to hyperlordotic posture.
Lordosis in action, with swayback on the way. Many well-known karate practitioners exhibit these movement dysfunctions. The foot turnout in the rear leg is a further indication of short and inhibited gluteals: the MCL, medial meniscus, ACL, Achilles's tendon and ankle complex are at further risk.
Assume a very long stance and notice that the longer you stretch it, the harder it is to use the gluteal muscles and rectus abdominis to extend the hips and stabilize the pelvis to maintain a neutral lumbar spinal curvature. Lunging and thrusting motions should bring to mind the reverse punch, a staple of many karate practitioner’s practice. The more you thrust and absorb anteriorly directed impacts in this position, the more the posterior facets of your lower spine and associated ligaments have to absorb. Your lower spine is not meant to do this without the help of the gluteals and abdominal stabilizers. Without their involvement, the vertebrae at the bottom of the spine are now in the unfortunate position of having to absorb the compression and shear forces of lunging or thrusting motions:
A more effective approach to lower body strength and power development for martial artists is simple: squats, lunges & cleans, along with activity-specific skill and partner work. The other retort to the “longer and deeper” fixation is that holding fixed positions increases isometric stabilization within that posture- but does not increase dynamic strength or speed throughout the range of motion. Standing in a low, deep stance makes you good at, well, standing in a low, deep stance. True-believers of this method will often point out that Sensei so-and-so adopted a higher stance in his older years because he “had mastered the long stance” and could now do it his own way. It’s much more likely that these individuals simply cannot move the way that they used to before a lifetime of encouraging poor movement patterns took it’s toll on their bodies. The higher stance is a reflection of acquiescence to deeply ingrained movement compensations resulting from inhibited prime movers & stabilizers and dominant synergists (although a higher, more natural stance makes more sense from a mobility and force production perspective anyhow).
From a performance perspective, it’s also worth noting that with the rear leg fully extended and the foot kept flat on the floor, the gluteal muscles are placed in a shortened position, which further inhibits them and reduces the amount of force that they can produce, as well as the degree of stabilization that they can provide to the pelvis. The compression that this creates between the femoral head and acetabulum (hip socket) can lead to bone degeneration, ligament damage and hip flexor tendinitis (hence the reason that a long time practitioner of these methods may be forced to shorten the stance in order to move). It’s no coincidence that it’s not difficult to generate a list of well-known karate practitioners who have had hip replacements. One may be able to continue to produce similar levels of striking power by adopting movement compensations, but these in turn will lead to further injuryhigher up the kinetic chain.
For injury prevention strategies, check out the links posted at the top of this article, or contact one of us for consultation and individually tailored corrective programs.
are available here.
Fight Sciences Research Institute blog 