A few weeks ago, I injured my lower inner knee doing hook kicks and I now believe it was because I did not correctly align the ankle relative to thigh on the snap--I was chambering my knee too low.
That's like putting your leg into a bad hurdler's stretch which, in motion, with snap, equals injury, primarily to the sartorius, longest muscle in the body, running from the lower inner knee to the hip flexor area. (Here's a picture: http://www.exrx.net/Muscles/Sartorius.html )
The same rule applies to the roundhouse: Chamber too low on extension and your knee hurts. Thanks to something I read in Stretching Scientifically, I corrected this early when I was learning the roundhouse, but I didn’t understand to apply it to the hook kick.
My instructor generally used side kicks as warm up for hook kicks and compared the set up for the hook to that for the roundhouse or side. (We don’t do Mr. Kurz’ roundhouse; rather, we do the one where you chamber and pivot at the same time, then extend.) He emphasized “knee up, making a circular motion, then hook,” but I didn’t pick up on the chambering/alignment issue.
I look forward with bated breath for Kurz’ article 56, but meanwhile I’m already working on hook kicks, so any words of advice are welcome.
Best regards,
Cindy
p.s. I saw a doctor the day after the bursa on my lower inner knee seemed to swell up like a tiny balloon, about five weeks ago. He explained that the bursa doesn’t really get inflamed, but that it can become painful or pop out like that if the muscles over it are too tight. Two hamstring muscles and the sartorius pass over this bursa and connect to the tibia below the knee. My hamstrings were tight at the time, so we had assumed they were the primary problem.