Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: i am bored on 22/02/2008 03:32:46
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I have been using 2.5lb ankle weights for speeding up my kicks and movements in karate and I have began to wear them around 13 hours a day, and I was wondering up I bump the weight up to around 5 to 10 pounds if it will be safe, the principal is that during the normal week I want to wear 5lb of weight on each ankle then the week of a tournament go all week (almost 24 hours a day) wear 10lb then at the tournament take them off right before sparring making my legs extremely lighter than my body is used to thus increasing the speed of my body and kick........but then again its not worth it if I cause even more damage to my legs than I already have.
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i can't tell you how much weight you can put on your ankles before it starts doing any sort of harm to your body. but i do see one possible flaw with your plan. You don't want your legs to be fatigued when you go into your sparring match, so you'd want to give them time to recover. I would wear the heavier weights on a regular basis, then switch to the lighter weights the week of the match, then take them off completely 1-2 days before the actual match. I don't know anything about karate, but every training technique i've learned for other sports makes me think this plan would work better for you.