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One of the most notorious injuries, ACL tear! Martial art brothers and sisters, knee instability is a major drawback from practices. Make sure you go through proper medical help. So, for those folks who finished the repair surgery, what graft do you have? Often, your surgeons take out some portion of hamstrings tendon or patella ligament. No worries, at the end of the day, either graft works similarly to increase stability for your knee in long term (3-15.3 years). When I was working at UCSD, I got to observe ACL reconstruction surgery. I had a great discussion with the surgeon. [...]

If you are a striking martial artist which involves kicks, have you ever felt knee pain? Through your intense training, your quadriceps-hip strength balance can be changed and can cause pain. Strengthening both glutes (for knee control) and quads (patella control) is a major key for correct biomechanics. For quads, how should we strengthen them without aggravating the patellofemoral joint pain (PFJ)? First, the conclusion is: If you use knee extension machine, keep 90-45 degrees of knee flexion to start! If you squat to strengthen quad, keep 45-0 degrees of knee flexion to start! These range of motions are considered [...]

Even though there is a normal walking form, there is NO normal running cycle! However, each type of running style has characteristics you should know! Martial artists need great cardiovascular fitness to fight through multiple rounds. How do you improve it? Very basic and simple, running‼ But, make sure how you should run based on your physical condition‼ Let's dissect "running" real quick! There are mainly three types of running: rear-foot, mid-foot, and forefoot ground contact forms. When contacting the ground, forefoot runners experience great force at calf muscles. If you have something going on at your Achilles tendon, make [...]

Compared with placing the band around the ankles, placing the band around the feet for resisted side stepping elicited more activity in the gluteal muscles without increasing TFL activity. In short, you can exclusively strengthen your outside hip (hip abductor) by putting the elastic band at your feet and perform side steps! The hip abductor is crucial to maintain single leg stance balance‼ If you are a Muay Thai fighter like me, you know balance is one of the most important part to improve your performance. Definitely give this exercise a shot! BUT, our body doesn’t function by only contracting [...]