How do I increase the strength of my horse stance?

Question

For the life of me I can never sit in a deep horse stance for more then 30 to 40 seconds even after doing Kung Fu for quite a while now. Are there any tricks to improving your horse stance, preferable aside from just doing horse stances?

What muscles fail on you when your in your horse stance and what other exercises strengthen these muscles? If it is just a matter of doing a horse stance more, how often should I attempt to stay in horse stance every day and how long should I hold it? Would adding weight such as from a backpack help any?

Answer 1

Get into a solid horse stance, then do hand form and keep your stance through the entire set of forms. This will build your focus and leg strength.

What if your muscles fail while doing a horse stance? Then you sit for a minute, take a deep breath, and do it again.

For the record, there are no 'tricks' in any martial art. The only 'trick' is making yourself believe that a shortcut will make you stronger.

Answer 2

Not much, just do them every day until your legs give out, try not to focus on the pain because even when your legs hurt you can probably stay there a lot more. The very best thing for it is to do it but, even doing weights wont help MUCH because its a different exercise to just stay under tension, actually I guess you can squat down with weights and just stay there

Doing squats will help, but yeah, the best thing is to train the stance, every day, until your legs give out, note that I didn't say "until your legs hurt like hell" literally stay in the stance until your legs buckle and you fall over and if it helps do some stuff to take your mind off the pain

The official exercise is to stay in the horse stance and punch, from a chambered position rotating your fist like you do, then open our hand and imagine your are really grabbing the air and make a strong fist then pull your hand back while at the same time punching with the other, and repeating the same process, this is good for the hands and takes your mind off the pain, gl, I’m sure you can do more than 30 seconds, its just in your mind, don't cheat on the stance but!

Answer 3

I would start doing some exercises and stretching for the lower back since the muscles of your upper legs interact with that quite a bit. That is one of the reasons why you sometimes feel like bending forward to ease the stretching in it when you get into a good deep one and try to hold it. I would start doing one every day after stretching a little and work on my blocks and punches. Gradually increase the length of time that you do this and resist the urge to stand up or bend forward-instead turn your feet outward into a sumo stance if you have to relieve the tension on your lower back and outer knees and then after ten or twenty seconds turn them back in pointing straight ahead in a horse stance. If you do this over the course of several weeks four or five times per week you will see a definite difference in the duration that you can do them as well as an improvement in how deep you can get in them.

Answer 4

There is an exercise to help you... the invisible chair.

So you don't have to go searching for it, to do the invisible chair just put your feet on the ground and back on the wall. Your thighs should be parallel to the floor and at 90 degrees to your torso. practice holding this for up to three or four minutes (although one will be difficult enough initially).

Other than that exercise you just need to power through. Try holding your horse stance through the commercials while watching tv and then eventually through a half-hour program.

Kung Fu is about training three things:
technique
strength
guts

just keep at it!

Answer 5

The best advice i can give you is to relax, the more you fight the stance and strain the muscles the harder it is,

it'll take abit of time but keep chipping away at it, drop into the stance ,relax and hold it, when your about to give up throw in some upper body movement/punches etc.

Answer 6

My brother teaches karate for children from ages 2-12 and martial arts for teens and adults. I watch the childrens classes and for their horse stances they have to do squats. And we do squat kicks. First you squat and then you kick when you come up. I sure that adding additional weight to you pack is not very good for your back.

Answer 7

what Hugh Jass said. hes got it sorted with that answer.

when you go advanced it is called the Roman chair, when you move away from the wall and 'sit down' without support.

good luck

Answer 8

The best trick is to take MMA. Then realize that Kung Fu is pretty worthless. Seriously, who the hell uses a Horse Stance in fighting...