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Rayna Vallandingham began doing taekwondo when she was 2 years outdated. By age 6, she’d earned her first black belt. Right now, at 20, she’s a 13-time world champion of the Korean type of martial arts identified for its punching and powerhouse kicking strategies. (Taekwondo roughly interprets to “the artwork of kicking and punching.”)
“Within the very starting, my mother and father put me within the sport as a result of I used to be simply actually shy, and I feel they might inform that I wanted one thing,” says Vallandingham, who lives and trains in Los Angeles. “Instantly, I simply beloved it. I felt at house, and each single day, as an alternative of watching Dora, I needed to go to the dojo.”
“As a substitute of watching Dora, I needed to go to the dojo.”
Vallandingham credit her success, largely, to her consistency through the years, and that features repeatedly hitting the gymnasium. “It’s a lifestyle,” she says. “It is not solely educating your physique actions and being in synchronicity together with your physique, but in addition similar to the psychological side of it.”
Mastering the artwork of taekwondo, which entails the power to carry out head-high kicks, in addition to spinning soar kicks, plus punches, with the intention to take down an opponent, will not be straightforward. (Understatement.) It takes an amazing quantity of energy, flexibility, and energy. “Of the three, I feel energy and suppleness are the highest two,” Vallandingham says.
Sadly, she discovered the onerous method that there isn’t a quick monitor to the kind of leg muscle extensibility (or elongation) required to excel at her sport. She recollects a time, early in her coaching when, much like ballet dancers, the varsity of thought was that you might power flexibility by pushing previous your finish vary of movement. “We used to have individuals stand on my legs and power my knees to come back down in butterfly stretch,” she says. “I’ve everlasting injury to my physique—I’ve tendonitis [because of this].”
She now has a a lot extra sustainable strategy to her coaching that helps her keep on high of her recreation, whereas avoiding harm.
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How a taekwondo world champion builds leg energy and suppleness
Earlier than Vallandingham even thinks about choosing up a weight, she takes time to stretch by doing a dynamic heat up, a sort of stretching that helps elevate her physique temp and elevate her coronary heart charge, rising blood circulate to her muscle tissue, so that they are ready to fireside up as soon as she will get shifting.
When she’s energy coaching, Vallandingham says she likes to concentrate on supersets, which entails performing two strikes back-to-back that concentrate on the identical muscle teams with the intention to double down on their positive factors. First, she’ll do a mobility train to take all of the joints she plans to load up via their full ranges of movement. (FYI, mobility is product of flexibility and energy.) Then she’s able to raise.
One in all her favourite workout routines for sturdy legs is a goblet squat. To arrange for it, Vallandingham will stand together with her ft shoulder-width aside, fold ahead till she will be able to slide her palms beneath her soles (you might additionally maintain your ankles or calves), then bends her knees, decreasing her butt towards the ground whereas lifting her chest, coming right into a deep squat. She’ll bend and lengthen her legs a number of instances on this place. Then, it is on to the primary occasion, holding a weight in her arms whereas bending down right into a deep squat.
Tips on how to carry out a goblet squat:
One other method Vallandingham likes to coach for flexibility, mobility, and energy concurrently is by performing workout routines on an unstable floor. “I like using a Bosu ball—they’re just about in each single gymnasium,” she says. She likes to face on one whereas executing lower-body actions like squats or deadlifts (in addition to kicks) because the shakiness they create causes her muscle tissue to activate greater than if she did the identical issues whereas standing on the ground.
The key to Vallandingham’s explosive kicks
Energy is a product of energy and pace. So when Vallandingham is coaching for lower-body energy, she switches up her tempo when performing workout routines, in order that she’s shifting quicker on the hassle and slower whereas resetting for the following rep. Say she’s doing goblet squats, for instance: This might seem like decreasing down in a rely of three, then snapping again up in a rely of 1.
“If I am constructing energy, I am additionally sustaining management of my actions,” she says. “That is the factor I really feel like lots of people who’re studying learn how to generate energy neglect—sustaining management throughout it’s so necessary.”
Why Vallandingham saves flexibility coaching for after her exercises
In case you took a frozen spear of asparagus and tried to bend it in half, it’d break—however in the event you allowed it to thaw out first, you might fold it over, no drawback. This similar rule applies to your physique and suppleness coaching—analysis reveals that holding stretches (the easiest way to work on flexibility) is the worst factor you are able to do when your muscle tissue are chilly. “Any time you begin to stretch [cold muscles], that causes a stretch reflex that will get your muscle tissue to activate a protecting mechanism to not over-stretch,” Eric Owens, musculoskeletal professional and co-founder of Delos Remedy, beforehand instructed Effectively+Good.
For this reason Vallandingham saves static stretching for after the remainder of her exercise when her physique is already warmed up. One in all her favourite methods to work on lower-body flexibility is by mendacity on the ground together with her legs up the wall after which permitting them to open out right into a facet break up. “I let gravity do its work as a result of that is my physique telling me, okay, that is the place we’re at,” she says. “My hips are opening on their very own, and I am not having to power something.”
Above all else, in the event you’re seeking to lengthen and strengthen your leg muscle tissue, Vallandingham says there’s one factor it’s important to observe diligently: perseverance. “Consistency is a lot extra necessary than depth for attaining most positive factors,” she says. “Benefit from the journey. Do not be overly onerous on your self; do not apply an excessive amount of stress.” And never simply to your joints.
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