'Air' punching and kicking result in injuries?

I dislocated my first knee in my first year of martial arts practice. I was practicing jumping high kicks in my cement floored garage.

Jumping as high as I can straight up into the air then high kicking, unfortunetly at the time my re-chambers where not as quick and I would land on one leg. My instructor never warned me about practice high juping kicks without mats... I learned the hard way, when I destroyed my left knee.

My right knee was dislocacted durring sparring. I was swept wrong. Instead of attacking the back of the knee, my sparring partner hit the side of my knee.

That clear it up for you? When I refer to pain in my knee's i's usually a pinching feeling or lack of power in the knee. As I said, I wear a brace when this happends.

Cleared it up good. Take it easy still because you don't want to make things worse. Take care of yourself Tek.

Newton's First Law of Motion - "Objects in motion tend to stay in motion, and objects at rest tend to stay at rest unless an outside force acts upon them."

Newton's Second Law of Motion - "The rate of change of the momentum of a body is directly proportional to the net force acting on it, and the direction of the change in momentum takes place in the direction of the net force."

Newton's Third Law of Motion - "To every action there is an equal but opposite reaction."

The object in motion, for example, is your arm when you punch. The only way your arm will stop is if another force acts upon it which in this case happens to be you contracting your muscles to halt the motion. Usually the amount of force needed to stop motion needs to be equal to the force used to start it. As you try stopping the movement of your arm, the momentum is still moving forward as the force you are exerting is moving backwards, thus placing stress upon your joints.

I hope that makes sense, at least from a scientific perspecitve. If not then I apologize.

If you don't extend your leg completely or punch with bad intentions how are you training?

Not extending the leg, is poor technique, works the muscle less and is a bad habit which can spill over to your sparring. Further, by not extending the leg and using power behind your technique your not commiting to the attack which is very bad psychologically. Especially if your oppoenent catches wif of your fear of committing, they will eat you alive.

Example: If your constantly on the defense durring sparring or durring a match, your opponent will gain confidence and momentum, you on the other hand lose any advantage you might have had.

Never let them see you sweat.

-Tek

Question to me? I personally don't like kicking and punching into the air but I do it as that is some of the drills we do. Punching I have no problem but kicking I hold back. I try to complete the technique but lighter and with control. I much perfer kicking paddles as then I can kick through it.

I've found for myself I cannot kick very high when it comes to the air. Kicks are usually knee/groin level when kicking in the air, with the exception of step side kicks and front kicks, but when kicking to paddles I can easily kick chest height. Also a little reserved about kicking to hard as I have a bum left knee.

It was a general question to anyone.

I prefer kicking paddles or chest protector drills. But when we do warm up line drills we kick the air. I like to extend my leg completely to get full range of motion and work te muscles more. I don't put so much power that I lose control of myself and trip over. But I do extend my leg completely. For side kicks, round kicks, back and front kicks, I lock my knee's when I kick and then quickly re-chamber.

But yea, wen it comes to kicking drills I prefer paddle and chest protector drills.

Much of Olym[ic style kicking drills are done with a forward momentum. Meaning many of the kicks are down with footwork. Very little is a kick down in stationary position. And even then we have like foot work for stationary position.

Dont extend the joint in a punch or kick. Also keep the elbow or knee slightly bent. And pull the technique back if there is no pyhsical target to hit. But the real key is to not extend the joints as if you were going to hit a real target.