Image: Donald Miralle
How to Improve Your Freestyle Kick
Try this easy hamstring dryland exercise
You probably already know that your hamstrings play a major role in the strength of your freestyle kick strength, but they also serve an important purpose in protecting your knees during the kick. This simple exercise can help you build that important hamstring strength.
Hamstring Kick
For this exercise, lie down on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Let your arms lie on the floor, palm down, wide out to the sides for support.
Then, think about tucking your tailbone by really engaging your glutes so that your bum lifts a few inches off the floor. Maintain contact between your heels and the floor and let the knees flex a bit, so that your legs form a convex arc toward the sky.
Keeping your bum elevated, lift one left leg straight up off the ground while maintaining that tucked tailbone position. Flex the foot and point the bottom of the foot toward the sky as best you can. If it’s too difficult to lift your leg from that angle, try walking your heels closer to your bum until you find an angle that works for you.
The key to this exercise is maintaining that tucked tailbone position throughout while thinking about strong body positioning. This will help strengthen your hamstrings and power up your kick.
Complete four sets of 10 repetitions on each side.
