So, Kelsey Lee, let me ask you a little question.
When was the last time you were in a flight?
- Don't want to talk about it. - Wow, that bad?
But we are meeting Lutalo today.
We are. He's a taekwondo Olympian.
Yes, he is.
I'm really looking forward to it.
I think I'm going to get my butt kicked.
- Really? - Yeah.
No, come on. I think we'll do all right.
- Let's go and find out. - Let's find out.
My name is Lutalo Muhammad.
I'm a two time Olympic medallist
in the sport of taekwondo.
Winning an Olympic medal is just an amazing feeling.
You put years of work into this one moment,
and to come out of it with a medal,
getting to stand on the podium in front
of thousands of people, it's hard to even describe.
I really, really enjoy being in the ring.
It's the place I'm most comfortable.
The fighting is actually the easy part.
It's the training which can be a little bit harder.
It's the person who's mentally toughest,
the person who holds it together the best
is going to go on and take the gold medal.
There he is. Hey, how's it going?
- I'm Kelsey. Nice to meet you. - Lutalo. Great to meet you.
Good to see you, man. How you doing?
How long have you been doing taekwondo?
I started to do taekwondo when I was three years old.
- Oh, my gosh. - I know.
My dad's the one that taught me how to do it,
so I had no choice about what sport
I wanted to do growing up.
What's your favourite aspect of what you do?
I do think the thrill of competition.
I do love... Being in the ring's the place
where I'm most comfortable.
When I'm performing for people, I love it.
- You thrive under pressure. - Exactly.
You want to be in that position.
How is your training looking?
What kind of stuff do you do on a regular basis?
It really is an intense programme.
Probably about an hour's pre-activation in the morning
when we wake up into about a two and a half hour
taekwondo session, we have a bit of a break,
then we go into another two hours
of strength and conditioning,
and we do about six days a week.
So up to six hours a day, pretty much?
- Yeah. - For six days a week.
- Yeah. - I think that's enough
of the chat for me.
I want to get into the gym and see what you've got.
- Let's do it. All right. - Let's go.
He wants to get kicked,
- so let's do it. - OK!
I really don't. I really, really don't.
- We're here. - We are here.
We are here. I'm excited about this, actually.
- I'm not going to lie. - This is cool.
I'm glad you are. It might be painful, though.
It's going to be painful, but worth it, I believe.
I'm kind of going for pain free.
- OK. Pain free for you. - Pain free.
Painful as possible for him.
We're just going to hold this one for five, four,
three, two, one. Really good.
All these stretches help prevent injuries,
so it's really crucial that we do this
before we start kicking.
Let's just slide down into our forward splits.
All right, you can start now.
I'm making progress slowly.
Slowly. There we go. That's it.
Just hold it there.
Yeah, but it's hard.
Think about winning that challenge.
All right. This is called a one legged squat.
And the reason we do this is because we stand
on one leg a lot when we kick.
We just need to fire up all the muscles
and make sure that we're ready to go.
Get in this position here.
It's down and up, and we're going to do five of these.
Nice.
So would you do a lot of gym stuff,
as well, in terms of weights?
Like squatting and things like that, or do you not?
Not so much.
We do more kind of plyometric stuff, so stuff
with no weights, just so we can keep light and springy.
So you've just naturally got big legs?
Yes. Yes, my mama gave me these.
OK, so we thank her.
These are called leg raises.
To get us ready for the kicking motion,
we're just going to raise our knee like this as high as you
can, and just lower it down.
And we're just going to do five of these.
Nice.
Let's start some actual training.
Good stuff.
I've used these before. These are good.
Yeah, you balance them there, don't you, on the head?
Nice.
Like that, right?
- I'll take it from here. - Let's go.
This is Stu.
He's a trainer here at the gym, and he's
going to help me to demonstrate all my cool moves to you.
So we're going to start off with a front kick.
Now, this is the most basic kick in taekwondo.
All we're doing is bending the leg and kicking out like that.
One thing about taekwondo, we shout when we kick.
Do you think I'm louder than you?
- Probably. - Nice.
One more.
Awesome, awesome.
You got a tough act to follow, man.
- Your turn. - Imagine I'm not even here.
That was surprisingly good.
Again.
That was good. It's good. Finally.
I've only done some stretching.
Next we're going to a turning kick.
Some people call this a roundhouse kick because you
literally come all the way around the houses
before you make impact, but the trick with this kick
is you have to pivot the foot that's on the floor.
So make sure you pivot, come round...
- Wow. - ..and down.
- Beautiful. - Ready to have a try?
Well, thank you, sir.
One more.
- Nice. - That was good.
One more. Come on, let's shout.
Let me hear you shout.
This one is called an axe kick because we literally
swing our leg as high as we can and come down like an axe.
This is where the flexibility
is going to be an issue for me, I think.
I'm going to hold the pad like this,
and I just want you to swing down and come down
as hard as you can. That's good.
- Flat foot. - Where's your shouting, man?
Come on. I thought you liked me.
You ain't shouting. Why am I shouting?
I'm the sensei. I don't have to.
This next kick is called a jumping front kick.
Now, the trick here is to swing the back leg,
and you're going to use that force
to push off and come up high in the air.
Come on, Stu. I can do better than that.
- Oh, my goodness. - So up, and down.
So remember, it's all about the back leg for momentum.
Airborne.
There we go. That was it.
That was really good. That was great.
Nice.
That was really good.
Just don't fall on your back.
Fantastic.
No vocals again, but I think...
- That's all right. - We'll add them in later.
This last one is called a spinning kick
because we spin our whole body around,
and we make contact with the heel.
So it looks like that.
Come on, Stu. You keep...
There we go. There we go.
Use your height, Stu.
Beautiful.
This one, remember, point your heel at the pad.
All the way around.
This is inside of the hamstring.
- Up there you can feel it. - Exactly.
Right up there inside the groin.
It's a very difficult kick to execute.
That's why we give you the most points for it.
So you get four points.
So if you can nail that, that's four points.
That's scary. That's really scary.
Good.
That was good. That was good.
You thought of somebody.
That was really good.
Very nice. One more.
- Fantastic. - Good.
Really good, that is. Really, really good.
Taekwondo is the Korean martial art
which means "the way of kicking and punching".
A full contact sparring sport characterised by its emphasis
on a variety of kicks.
Each fight involves a single-elimination tournament
to decide the gold and silver medals.
Events are scored by awarding one to three points
based on where the person gets hit
and what techniques were used.
Now you've seen what a day of taekwondo training looks like,
It's time for the challenge, where
the winner will be presented with this not so shiny medal.
The challenge for today is who can do the most amount of kicks
in 20 seconds while hopping and changing legs at the same time.
So this is a bit advanced.
You're up first, DC. Let's do it.
Ready, set, go!
Keep going, keep going, keep going, come on.
Keep going, DC.
Come on!
It's not as easy as it looks.
Right, the technique wasn't great.
- I'm not going to lie. - It was a good start.
We'll see, though.
I think the competition's going to be tough, though.
- Are you ready? - Here we go.
Ready, set, go!
That's it. Good.
That's it. Keep it up, keep it up.
Beautiful. Keep it up, keep it up, keep it up.
Let's go. Beautiful. Keep it going.
- Oh, my gosh. - That's tight.
I don't know what happened.
That's really close.
I don't know what just happened.
I actually don't know what my body was doing.
- I don't know. - That was hard work.
- It's not easy. - It really was.
I am more than pleased to say that the winner is Kelsey.
I knew it. I knew it.
I did it!
Awesome, awesome.
My height, I think, wasn't an advantage in this.
No, height is an advantage. You just weren't very good.
OK. See you.
Nice to meet you, mate. Have a good one.
All the best for Japan. See you soon.
You turned up, and that was amazing.
That is not what I'm about. I don't represent turning up.
You both did really, really well.
- I'm proud of you both. - Appreciate it.
Thanks for showing us what your training involves.
- All the best. - Well, let's end this.
Attention, bow.
I'm good at that bit.
Going into taekwondo with Lutalo,
I had no idea what to expect.
The power that was going through my whole body,
it was crazy.
Kelsey and DC were really, really great.
I love their attitude.
They brought a lot of flavour and they both surprised me
about how good they were at doing the kicks
with zero training before.
The finesse that is required for that sport is just nuts.
I'm pretty sure he was flying.
I don't really know how else to explain it.
If anything, today just reaffirmed
that size doesn't matter.
It's all about your mental attitude,
and we all had a blast learning.
Lutalo is just an awesome guy.
You can see the passion he's got for the sport,
and he was just great fun to be around.
Next time on Hitting the Wall...
We're meeting up with Olympic sports climber Cesar Grosso.
Let's see if we can hang!