Knee Injury

[georgie]

i was practising my kicking the other night when i threw a right roundhouse my left knee gave and i collapsed. im not used to kicking and im not sure if its proper because i havent got that far yet in my karate class but would not opening the hips cause this or even weak leg strength from doing an alien exercise?

[ryangruhn]

Was it in the air or onto a bag/pad?

[georgie]

it was in the air. i was shadow boxing.

[ryangruhn]

It sounds like you might have over extended your leg. A round kick is not meant to do in the air if you think about the mechanics of it; it is meant to hit a target. Allowing that much weight to fly through the air and then stop it suddenly, puts a heck of a lot of stress on muscles, tendons and joints. Especially if they are not used to doing it, in this case it was your knee. In Muay Thai, which is my kicking art of choice we always go through our targets and never suddenly stop as with TKD round kicks where they are more of a snap kick for that fast point when competing in point sparring. My advice, give it some time to heal, after that defiantly do or keep up with weight lifting and ab work. If you are going to continue to treat a round kick as a snap kick you need strong muscles, joints etc. But my key advice would be to hit something with your round kicks for now on.

[georgie]

it was actually my suppoting leg that gave. almost like the knee popped out of place. hurt like hell!!!

[ryangruhn]

My bad, well in that case what surface was it on? Were you wearing shoes, if so what kind?

Gruhn

[georgie]

i was actually barefoot on carpet and im not sure but i think i forgot to pivot and open up the hips for kicking. would this cause my knee to give?

[HtTKar]

forgot to pivot and open up the hips for kicking. would this cause my knee to give?

It's possible.
Remember here that first you need to perfect your form. Learning how to kick hard will come to you as you progress, but you need to perfect your form first. Not only will this save your body from unneccessary stress, but it will also help prevent your kicks from being telegraphed.
If you are not focusing on form first, you will learn to kick the wrong way. Bad habits are very hard to break. Right now it would be better for you to have perfect form, but not much of a kick, than to have a super-hard kick that hurts your supporting leg, and is completely telegraphed.

[georgie]

thanx for the info!

[fanman.]

also make sure you warm up properly

[Broadsword2004]

ALWAYS open up your hips and ALWAYS let your supporting leg and foot pivot and turn.

And don't go too hard on air kicking exercises; you will damage your knees eventually.

As a side note, just so you know, don't do spinning crescent kicks on a heavybag, because the knee is not meant to take stress side-to-side, which is exactly what a crescent kick will do. You will end up damaging your knees if you do that.

Only practice crescent kicks with like a partner holding focus mitts, which have some give. Or practice crescent kicks to the air.

[georgie]

thanx for all the help guys. i will say that im pretty scared of kicking now and take extra extra precautions now. that was unbeleivable pain. but no damage im lucky because im 200 pounds and thats a lot of weight on one leg to crash down on. its pretty much healed now. ive done lots of research on mending and strengthening the knees. it definitely helped. my style is wado kai karate and we dont use a lot of high kicks like tae kwon do. lots of footworking , body shifting and lower kicks like to the knees ,ribs and groin and this is definitely better for me as well as very effective.