Tuesday, January 29, 2013

hacking my feet

So one of my weak points that has been exposed in Krav Maga has been my foot position.  The basic problem is that my feet feel more natural when they're both 45 degrees off center:


A few more degrees, and I think I could call it my "Fred Flintstone" stance.  Not sure if this is because it's genetic, structural, or just out of habit.  Great for dead lifting, not so hot for driving forward.

In order to get max power for punches and keeping your weight centered so you can move around more easily, the feet need to look like this:


Seems like a minor detail, but it's an important one.  As I get tired, my right toe starts to drift back out which means I end up using the right leg to push off of more for punches.  The extra stress really became apparent one night when we start throwing knees and my right calf muscle was cramping pretty much the next day.

What I've been doing to try and fix it has been to try and walk around by pigeon toeing my right foot inward.  To me, it feels excessively turned inward, but that seems to be just a mind trick.  The end result is that my gait is a little noisier and my weight seems to be pushed more forward.  Also seem to be less agile with the feet parallel... as in changing direction or sidestepping stuff isn't as easy to do.

Just for kicks and grins, I tried keeping the feet parallel for the kick during the breaststroke, too: didn't notice much of a change in power, it's just "different".

It still feels weird, but it's becoming less so.  On the plus side, my calves are no longer killing me on the day after a heavy bag workout so I think this is having an effect.