Best exercises to increase your balance and leg strength, with training focusing

[ex0duz]

primarily on the real world application of kicking and moving around(for fighting) in general(so this also includes balance exercises like static horse stance and other shit like that..

But yes, let me say it again if you didn't catch it before. This is PURELY for kicking and for fighting, which prioritizes speed/strength/agility/mobility and all that stuff over SIZE/BULK/BEING SLOW/UNFLEXIBLE etc etc.. So no, you don't wanna bulk up n be doing squats or whatever and end up having tree trunks for legs and then not even be able to kick higher than your waist or someshit.

And with that said, i just reminded myself. Stretching exercises for the legs are more than welcome, and in fact, exercises which help develop/increase your kicking range/angles etc are imo probably what i would learn/get the most out of in terms of cost/benefit ratio, which is usually how i choose what to work on(ie what i think/know to be my biggest weaknesses, which in turn should give me the biggest gains for the least effort too..).

Not saying that we should be able to do the splits after or to even be aiming to do them n shit, but are just awesome leg stretches in general(that you'd be able to do before/after each workout etc). But of course, also list the stretching exercises that are purely to increase your kicking range/angles..

Disclosure: i personally don't like to kick higher than waist level, and i also don't even like to kick waist level since i also find that too easy to read and catch/stop since my name is not Buakaw etc..

I prefer purely low level/line kicks to the knee/shins etc.. but if needed, i can kick head height, unless they are like easily 6 ft+ and are reasonably skilled.. in which case even if i theoretically COULD kick their head, i wouldn't risk it in a real fight, since the chances of me actually landing it is close to zero/below 50% and even in general and vs someone who hasn't trained but is still bigger than me, even then i'm not nearly skilled enough to warrant taking such a big risk since i don't have to and can probably win in a 'risk free' way.. since if they are bgger than me and catch my leg or grab me while i'm off balance.. i should expect such a mistake to get punished and that punishment should be safe to assume that you will lose consciousness and possibly even die, like from leg catch and then turned into a bodyslam/back breaker and he just keeps ragdoling you by holding your leg and swinging you around and stomping/kicking you every now and then to stop you from getting bored.. lol)

And yeah, i know there's some fitness thread already. But IIRC, i'm banned from it, and i created this separate thread because it will focus purely on legs for KICKING/fighting applications only, so preferably no weights and ideally would be all bodyweight exercises that you can do ANYTIME/ANYWHERE etc(as long as you don't care about looking like some idiot fighting the air etc.. which is what i guess it looks like to noobs when you train technique and especially forms/katas or do shadow boxing/image training i guess lol). If you guys have seen wing chuns forms, and especially the first and most important form(the sil lim tao, look it up on youtube, you will probably enjoy it quite a bit if you one of those people who think wing chun is crap/useless etc and if you are also not 'creative' enough to be able to see what all those 'funny' looking moves/techniques in the form are for..

Here, for all the lazy people.. in this video, the form is being performed by Ip Man himself.. who you may ahve heard of from the Ip Man movies, and/or maybe you've heard of one of his students.. a little scrawny kid who had a western/english name called Bruce.. :P

Anyway, lets get back to the leg exercises.. if you could link to videos of either yourself showing the technique/exercises, that would be great.

I would also love to get some footwork discussion going, because to kick, you also need to be in the right place at the right time and have the right posture to generate power etc.. but at the same time you also don't want to telegraph your kick and get countered hardcore with a sweep etc and land on your ass..

Lastly. Anyone trained TKD or Karate or some other martial arts which has an emphasis on foot techniques rather than hand? Maybe Karate shouldn't be listed here, but you get the point. I've also developed a slight interest in capoeira and want to understand how their balance/power generation and all that shit works.. like how they have like one hand on the ground a lot of the time, this would completely change their center of gravity and affect their balance n shit in general.. and i just wonder how much balance they actually have, and what they would do vs someone who just charged them and tried to single or double leg them etc..

And yeah. I've also been wanting to train and incorporate a spinning heel kick into my arsenal after seeing Irish's last fight vs Mendez. I always thought that it was too much of a 'gimmicky' move, but i realize now that even though i still consider it to be a gimmicky move, that doesn't mean that it won't do damage if it connects. And vs someone decent who can read you and has already got your style 'worked out' etc, using some 'gimmicky' moves might actually be useful in terms of it actually landing and KO'ing them or more importantly, making you harder to read and giving them more shit to think about.. just like how mixing in some wrestling shoots and going for double/single legs etc will also make them have more shit to think about and maybe put them off their current 'kickboxing mentality' which they have gotten used to and are comfortably settled into by now(and most likely winning all/most of the striking exchanges which is why you are forced to rethink your current strategy and use your brains and new strategy/tactics to win rather than just pure skill/technique/strength etc and just trying to walk through and magically outstrike them somehow now(even though nothing has changed and your the one who's probably accumulating more and more damage..) and instead try to put them off their pace and 'reset' their feel for distance n timing, along with using some 'gimmicky' moves to give them even more shit to think about and hopefully make them confused and you knock them out in that small window while they are still confused.. lol

The more old school/traditional the exercise(or rather, the more 'creative' and the more surprised i am by it's simplicity and effectiveness), the more cookies you'll get as a reward. Of course, it has to be effective, and only reason why i like old school/traditional over modern is mostly because old school ones are easily doable(like you can make the shit yourself or find the necessary shit easily or maybe you don't even need equipment), along with modern ones being expensive and sometimes even 'gimmicky' and maybe even detrimental(i'm sure you guys have all seen those night infomercial that have all those workout equipment n shit).. bet those will fuck you up hardcore and free weights would > that shit anytime..

[ex0duz]

I will most likely get some stretchy rope/fabric of some kind and use that to help me increase my flexibility and range/angle of my kicks.. like tie one end of a rope around my foot, and then loop it over a tree branch, and pull down on the other end in order to forcibly pull my leg up, and hopefully this will allow me to kick higher in the end.. Dunno what that shits called.. will also get some stretchy bands and maybe tie them to my feet somehow and fuck around with that shit and develop something useful. Hopefully. I will let ya know when i have figured out my choice of exercises and routine.. which will come after i test the various exercises that look interesting to me and i find out just how much "bang i'll get for my buck" :P

[Elven_Lord]

if you want to increase your leg strength, you have to do resistance training. So, yes, squats. Squats don't automatically make you bulky and slow. They just give you muscle which is how you gain strength. If you want to be fast too then be at a low body fat percentage.

[DhEatsYouAlive]

squats belong to basically all exercise routines in sports that involve using your legs

[LeavePlz]

Yeah

[jUsTaNoTheRoNe]

5x5

[WAAA]

You probably want to do explosive exercises aswell as heavy squats such as box jumps and other kind of jumps, power cleans or cleans etc.. There is lots of very good flexibility videos out there, none of which i can remember so do some googling.

[ex0duz]

Ok, i will try keep the above in mind. However, i'd like to know about other techniques and training exercises to compliment with my existing skillet etc, but to also be chosen based on my own martial arts philosophy/goals etc etc..

So yeah. With that in mind, keep em coming. Thanks for the advice, but yeah, It doesn't take 5 people or whatever to tell me to do leg squats andnd telling me about their importance when i already mentioned leg squats in my own pos. Grated, it came off sounding like i wasn't going to do any muscle/weight based exercises, but of course, you'd be wrong.

Late for work atm., so i will reply more after if anyone still doesn't what what i am asking for or has something that needs to be clarified etc..