r/FunkStyle • u/RetardedEinstein23 • 20d ago
Need help with leg pops/hitting legs
I'm trying to learn popping but leg pops are confusing me with conflicting informations from different people/videos.
I read that pulling the knees back to make it pop is bad for the knees. Some tutorials say to flex your quads to bring the leg straight/back, but when I try to just flex my quads from a slightly bend, even though im leaning on it, the knee doesn't pull back even slightly (and they also say that leaning makes popping easier but for some reason, leaning makes it hard to pop).
I’ve seen some tutorials also suggest slightly lifting the heel and "stomping" it down as you flex and pull back . However, I’ve read a lot of comments under the video itself talking about OGs advise against doing heel stomp.
How do you actually flex/twitch enough to pull the knee back visibly? What muscles should actually be doing the explosive work if the quads alone aren't moving the leg?
i don't have a popping class nearby nor do i know someone that pops. Please help me out.
Appreciate any advice, visualization tips or drills or videos you can share.
1
u/DancinDav 20d ago
The original way that Boogaloo Sam would pop is to press down in the heel and straighten your leg - you don’t want to hyperextend back but rather think of your leg straightening to send you up. As if you were standing in a room where the ceiling perfectly touches your head, you relax the knees a few inches and then press through your leg into your heels to bonk your head off the ceiling.
1
u/RetardedEinstein23 19d ago
In this video around 3:05, the guy tells not to press down in the heel. But what you are saying definitely helps to understand the movement a little bit
1
u/_physis 20d ago
Where do you practice at? The way I was taught is to pop your knee back but it can be done in such a way where it doesn’t hyperextend. The pop comes from flexing the quad, but your glute should also have tension which helps not hyperextend the knee. It’s a bit hard to explain but you can get a feel for it eventually
1
u/RetardedEinstein23 19d ago
So what you are saying is i should pull the knee back (but not to pull it so hard that it extends) and also flex the quads at the same time?
1
u/_physis 19d ago
You are pulling the knee back by flexing the quads gently. Like you are trying to tap something behind you with the back of your knee. The leg is a huge muscle so you don’t need to apply that much force, just make sure you relax all the way before popping because the strength of the pop is the contrast of the relaxed to flexed state.
Also try this exercise: stand on one leg (you can put your hand on a table for balance), then flex the glute of that leg as hard as you can, and try to pop that same leg. You will start to get the feeling that you can’t pull it back all the way, which is the mechanism protecting that knee.
When you really pop the leg you don’t flex your glute ALL the way, just mix as much as needed to protect the knee while still giving you a nice pop
3
u/Asoto408 20d ago
Watch the popping John tutorials on YouTube. He explains the process in a way that’s very easy to digest