Hips and what they mean to me
- Thread starter apizur**
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Yeah I did that yesterday after boxing... picking up that foot makes a world of difference.
So let's crest into the idea that bending at the waist is a bad idea.... which is a COMMONLY taught concept. Where do these two meet in the middle?
So let's crest into the idea that bending at the waist is a bad idea.... which is a COMMONLY taught concept. Where do these two meet in the middle?
A lot of people refer to the hips as the waist. For example in Sin's thread on positioning I believe he says that Mike McCallum would tell him to "break at the waist" meaning to move from his hips.
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Curling the back, using the lower-back and legs to facilitate an elevation change, and putting the head beyond either foot (compromising balance) is a bad idea. Stressed lower-back, strain on the legs, and poor balance...none of those are good and yet they are common.
In the positioning thread I recently posted a video of two of my guys (Daijon, who is the black kid and Loco, who is the Mexican kid, for identification purposes) doing a partner drill. Loco kept slipping poorly and compromising balance. He was still getting out of the way so some trainers might let that slide because hey, he's not getting hit. I corrected it because I don't want his back strained and wanted him in better position to return fire.
In the positioning thread I recently posted a video of two of my guys (Daijon, who is the black kid and Loco, who is the Mexican kid, for identification purposes) doing a partner drill. Loco kept slipping poorly and compromising balance. He was still getting out of the way so some trainers might let that slide because hey, he's not getting hit. I corrected it because I don't want his back strained and wanted him in better position to return fire.
I think it's a matter of whether the waist bend gets you anything and how extreme it is...like if you bend at the waist (break your hips) such that your balance ends up outside your feet, you're then unbalanced (gotta get back over your feet) and you can't see half of whats coming.
If you break/open at the hips and adjust body angle such that your weight is still between your feet you can then adjust so that your head/torso is of the line of fire, and immediately fire back or change angles because your torso and hips are still connected. E.G. basically every time Marquez moves outside Pacquiao's left in the posted video, he draws his body back or outside as a whole unit by breaking the right hip a bit. If he were to fold his whole body in half that'd obviously be a terrible idea, but he can't draw back without breaking either his entire upper body posture or folding at the hip, which is the better of the options.
At ~ 0:57- 0:58 in the second Canelo/Mosely video you can see the problem with getting out of the way without hip movement, he pulls his head back and gets entirely out of the way but breaks at the lower back, and therefore can't move his feet and angle immediately, or fire back.
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A couple of suggestions to the already afore mentioned excellent ones for hip mobilisation that you might not know about. The psoas are often very tight and yes the classic hip lunge stretch will hit these but for real precision deep targetting you may want to give these a go. The psoas go right up through your abdomen and lie deep under your abs.
And for anyone who might not be sure how critical the psoas are for not just hip mobility but lower back tightness well they attach to the lumbar spine and will pull your spine into overextension if they are tight tight psoas = lower back ache. The problem with most of us who do combat sports is we use the psoas all the time to kick, to punch and to crunch our torso.
Warning this is a nasty exercise which will make you feel sick if you do it right so don't do it after eating. You can use a small cheap blow up plastic football (soccer ball to you Americans) to do this.
And as a low back pain sufferer for many years I have found one of the best exercises I can do for my lower back is deep squat holds because it unjams my SI joint. I had a lot of SI joint inflammation so that some mornings I couldn't even tie up my shoelaces then after doing these at night and in the morning I wake up every day and can tie them no problem.
But one thing that hampered my deep squat was poor ankle mobility so if you have this issue I suggest working on that to be able to get the full benefit of this great exercise to release a stuck SI joint. Before this I had to go to a chiropractor to get my SI joint fixed, it got expensive. BTW Goblet squats will help you get into this position with moderate ankle range because it provides forward counterweight to overcome your tight ankle tissues pulling you backward. It's not a fix though but a work around.
Easy test to see how good your ankle range is, see if you can get into the bottom of a pistol squat.
Also foam rolling the IT band is not usually a long term fix by itself if you don't know why it's getting tight. It attaches to your TFL and your glute medius and rolling the actual band doesn't address these two components. This article explains in depth but basically you'd be better off strengthening the glute medius and not rolling the TFL specifically in most cases.
http://breakingmuscle.com/mobility-...s-not-the-enemy-but-maybe-your-foam-roller-is
And for anyone who might not be sure how critical the psoas are for not just hip mobility but lower back tightness well they attach to the lumbar spine and will pull your spine into overextension if they are tight tight psoas = lower back ache. The problem with most of us who do combat sports is we use the psoas all the time to kick, to punch and to crunch our torso.
Warning this is a nasty exercise which will make you feel sick if you do it right so don't do it after eating. You can use a small cheap blow up plastic football (soccer ball to you Americans) to do this.
And as a low back pain sufferer for many years I have found one of the best exercises I can do for my lower back is deep squat holds because it unjams my SI joint. I had a lot of SI joint inflammation so that some mornings I couldn't even tie up my shoelaces then after doing these at night and in the morning I wake up every day and can tie them no problem.
But one thing that hampered my deep squat was poor ankle mobility so if you have this issue I suggest working on that to be able to get the full benefit of this great exercise to release a stuck SI joint. Before this I had to go to a chiropractor to get my SI joint fixed, it got expensive. BTW Goblet squats will help you get into this position with moderate ankle range because it provides forward counterweight to overcome your tight ankle tissues pulling you backward. It's not a fix though but a work around.
Easy test to see how good your ankle range is, see if you can get into the bottom of a pistol squat.
Also foam rolling the IT band is not usually a long term fix by itself if you don't know why it's getting tight. It attaches to your TFL and your glute medius and rolling the actual band doesn't address these two components. This article explains in depth but basically you'd be better off strengthening the glute medius and not rolling the TFL specifically in most cases.
http://breakingmuscle.com/mobility-...s-not-the-enemy-but-maybe-your-foam-roller-is
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After watching broners fight tonight and rereading this thread I noticed broner gets hit when he was caught standing straight up and (backing up). Just thought id add this in here since it relates. Does anyone else notice this or?
Outstanding stuff, especially about the IT band. Fuck me, I've been having IT band/knee pain that I've been trying to foam roll away for maybe 6 months. Now that explains why it hasn't been helping in the long term. Ankle mobility is huge, and I also learned something new about the psoas. This post is the most useful one I've read on sherdog in awhile, thanks for taking the time!
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So if my head comes down and forward, my hips should push back to compensate, to keep me within my balance. Is that any part of what you're saying, Kirk?
For the Mosley example at :57... is there a way he could have leaned back like that without cresting out of balance?
To me this is starting to appear to say that compensatory hip movement that keeps your balance within your feet is 'having good hips' in boxing. If you feel only one side of your hips or midsection balancing you, you've stopped utilizing the hips either by limit or by technique and you then have to use other body parts to balance yourself, such as your arms or legs, until you come back into balance. Counterbalancing with the hips can allow high-body movement without losing balance due to the balancing mid-body movement.
The question this leaves me is in Sin's explanation of JMM, he talked about changing angles and counter attacking. How can hip movement change your angle? I thought you had to step to do that. Are we talking about changing "looks"? Or are we talking about the angle of JMM's body in relation to itself, and not in relation to the opponent?
For the Mosley example at :57... is there a way he could have leaned back like that without cresting out of balance?
To me this is starting to appear to say that compensatory hip movement that keeps your balance within your feet is 'having good hips' in boxing. If you feel only one side of your hips or midsection balancing you, you've stopped utilizing the hips either by limit or by technique and you then have to use other body parts to balance yourself, such as your arms or legs, until you come back into balance. Counterbalancing with the hips can allow high-body movement without losing balance due to the balancing mid-body movement.
The question this leaves me is in Sin's explanation of JMM, he talked about changing angles and counter attacking. How can hip movement change your angle? I thought you had to step to do that. Are we talking about changing "looks"? Or are we talking about the angle of JMM's body in relation to itself, and not in relation to the opponent?
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PrettySweet
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Below are physical therapy type things. Not boxing specific like The Tile Excercise.
The website mobilitywod.com has a lot of videos related to hip mobility and psoas strecching. The videos can be found in the "Episodes" section.
Some pictures and videos.
http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/08/05/undo-the-damage-of-sitting/
The website mobilitywod.com has a lot of videos related to hip mobility and psoas strecching. The videos can be found in the "Episodes" section.
Some pictures and videos.
http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/08/05/undo-the-damage-of-sitting/
Yes, assuming that we're using forward/back to indicate relative to your centerline (as if you were running) rather than the direction you're moving in a boxing context.
I don't think he could have moved his head that direction without getting unbalanced. If he'd gone down/back by folding at the right hip instead of/up back he'd still have been able to move off of his back foot. He may well have had other reasons for not going that way of course.
That's pretty much what I'm thinking at this point. But I'm very much still just trying to grok this myself .
I re-read the posts on the first page, I don't actually see him saying Marquez's angle changes are CAUSED by hip movement (snippet):
I think the reference to "subtle positioning changes very quickly" is more in line with your "changing looks". He does say that Marquez is a "take an angle and hit you back" kind of guy in his opening post, and it seems to me that some of Marquez's success in taking the angles quickly is attributable to good hip movement, because he can move his feet immediately after avoiding fire.
Finally a small disclaimer: not trying to take any sort of position of authority here, I'm still trying to figure out principles and use them myself. I'm a knockdown karate guy who happens to think this stuff is super neat, but it doesn't end up showing up all that much in competition.
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Angles aren't only side to side, angles can also function up and down. If I slip your punch and lower my elevation, then hit you from that changed position I'm hitting you from a different angle.
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Yeah that looked more like an emergency manuever to me than a part of his greater strategy.
So when you say angles you're talking level changes and changes in the "head slot" (left, right, middle)? You're also talking about avoiding slamming your head downward to slip, bending at the back and losing your ability to move your feet and getting at such a horrendous back angle that you can't return fire without finding your center again.
I'd say so too. I think the issue is that this seems to be an apt description for most of Mosely's evasive movement. I think his issue through the posted videos is twofold: 1) not a lot of care about where his hips/mid body are 2) little enough mobility/flexibility in his hips that he'd need to be amazingly precise with his positioning for it to matter. Hence the hopping in/out and jerky movement; the bar he needs to clear in terms of thought/positioning is just too high due to lack of mobility
EDIT: FWIW In terms of offense I'd think of pretty much any positive change in relationship between the position of my shoulders and my target/things that might block the path to said target to be taking an angle.
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Bingo. If you watch Marquez with this in mind, it shows another level of how brilliant a counter-puncher he really is.
Excellent Thread. No one wants to talk about stuff like this, but it is critical for all athletics.
Kelly S. has some great stretches on his channel, you should check it out.
Unfortunately Apizur, ur sentenced to months of boring stretches. But it is necessary.
also try this. In bottom of squat position, put elbows on legs and push out.
Kelly S. has some great stretches on his channel, you should check it out.
Unfortunately Apizur, ur sentenced to months of boring stretches. But it is necessary.
also try this. In bottom of squat position, put elbows on legs and push out.
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Yeah no problem. I always figure if I find a fix for stuff that I suffer from I'll share it so it can help others.
And while we are on the subject, I got a lot of this stuff from Kelly Starrett's work. He might not be everyone's cup of tea but if you can get beyond his (slightly grating) presentation style he has a lot of great stuff. Would recommend his book Supple Leopard as well as his youtube vids.
When you hear "put your hip into it", it means getting torque by shifting bodyweight and rotating your hips using foot work.
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