Three kung fu stances to strengthen your legs

Once you reach a certain age, it becomes critical that you start training your legs for strength and to build muscle.

Strong legs are critical to maintaining a decent quality of life if you happen to live to an advanced age.

Strong legs will help you avoid some falls in case you lose your balance and help you get back up if you do happen to fall.

Strong legs will also allow you to continue performing everyday chores and other things on your own.

Many people avoid training their legs because they think they need to go to a gym or they need equipment at home.

It’s also hard to train the legs to build strength and muscle but the benefits are huge.

With all that said, you can train your legs at home with no equipment.

In traditional martial arts, stance work is the primary method for training the legs.

Through the concept of “time under tension” the body will adapt to isometric type exercise by building muscle and strengthening connective tissue.

Below are three Kung Fu stances you can do at home to develop significant strength in your legs and build muscle.

Horse Stance

In traditional martial arts such as Kung Fu and Karate, the horse stance is the primary stance employed for training the legs.

We used this stance in a regular class setting when we worked on the details of various punches and blocking techniques.  It was also employed for basic bag work when training basic punches.

Horse Stance

Ideally, you learn to hold this stance at a solid depth for up to five minutes.  However, once you work up to the ability to hold for two minutes, you can add weight with dumbbells as you will see in the video at the bottom of this post.

Charging Horse Stance

When we focused on strengthening our legs in class we would often shift from a horse stance into a Charging Horse Stance.

This stance is more difficult since most of the weight is on the front foot.

Charging Horse Stance

Monkey Stance

The last of these Kung Fu stances that I like to train is the Monkey Stance.

This is another difficult stance because it places most weight on the front leg.  This stance hits the glutes and the hips more than the other two stances.

Monkey Stance

A typical leg training session

If you do not do any other form of exercise for your legs, I recommend training these three stances three times per week as follows:

Start out with the Horse Stance and hold for a minute.

Then shift into a Left Charging Horse (left foot forward) stance and hold for 15 seconds.

Shift back into the Horse Stance and hold for 30 seconds.

Shift into a Right Charging Horse (right foot forward) stance and hold for 15 seconds.

Shift back into a Horse Stance for 15 seconds.

Stand up and shake out the legs for 15 seconds.

Step into a Right Monkey Stance (right shoulder forward) and hold for 15 seconds.

Stand up and step into a Left Monkey Stance (left shoulder forward) and hold for 15 seconds.

As your legs get stronger, try to hold each stance for more time.  You can also start adding weight with the Horse Stance.

If you also train at a gym or at home with equipment, these are great exercises to train at the end of a workout.

Check out the video below to see how to perform each of the stances.

If you don’t have a set of dumbbells at home, I recommend these Adjustable Dumbbells by Nordictrack.

Interested in getting started with a fitness program but don’t know where to start?  Consider working with me to get a Fitness Prescription.