Trap and neck stiffness for sparring and punching.

[mdcholakian]

Hi everyone,

During my last kickboxing class, i was told that a stiffness in my traps, neck and shoulders is usually noticed. But it's being difficult to me to relax and still have my guard up. I'm have trouble mantaining my arms up and not being all stiff.

Does anybody have any tip or advice?

thanks!!

 

[Kanka]

Shadow box and try to focus on being relaxed in your shoulders and traps. Then when you hit the pads dont try to be all agressive. Alotta stiffness is just mental. Keep calm and focused.

Keep a good balanced stance and breath with your stomach, not chest.

 

[aries]

Try stretching your lats out before you box. If you have tight lats it will cause your upper back and shoulders to contract harder to keep your hands up as they will be fighting the downward pull of your lats. In general you want to make sure all your internal rotators like your pecs especially pec minor are loose or you will have a hard time keeping your hands up.

 

[Kanka]

Yeah thats good aswell. You could get a massage too

 

[Higus]

1. Don't be tense (comes with practice)
2. Maybe this isn't as obvious as it seems, but there are times when you can put your guard down. Don't hold your guard up when they aren't in striking distance, for example. Give your shoulders a break.

 

[mdcholakian]

Thanks all for your very good advice!!

I'm trying to be relaxed. The Higus advice, is not so obvious for beginners like me. Everyone is telling me to hold up my guard, so i wasn't doing what you tell until my teacher noticed the stiffness. Yesterday we spar and i do exactly what you advice, i think it work pretty well and make me combine better my attacks.

Kanka, breathing was a problem. Specially with the mouth guard. I was working on that last weeks, the "aish... aish" was my path lol.

I think Aries hit the spot. I have serious problems in my rotators, so I think is maybe the root of the stiffness issue. I have to keep in my mind that stretching is very important in every muscle. Lats and pecs, are usually left apart.

Thanks all again!!