If you're a man and you're not swole in any form, you are in fact NOT a man.

godkiller

"We are the Fury"
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Punching power has zero to do with arm strength....Lifting weights is a PUSHING motion...punching is a SNAPPING motion....a snap can't be built...Sorry, bro.
You can work out forever and have heavy hands, but you will never wreck a chin unless you have form or were born with K.O. power.

Lifting weights doesn't just improving pushing power and weight motions are different. Punching is not a motion totally disconnected from strength and power. If punching power was simply a function of torque, bigger men wouldn't naturally have more power behind their punches than smaller men. Torque is important and some guys are naturally better at generating it, but presumably men can increase their natural torque through muscle hypertrophy:

Elbow flexion and extension strength relative to body or muscle size in children.


Abstract
PURPOSE:
The purpose of this study was to examine gender- and age-related differences in elbow flexion and extension strength in children, when linear size measurements and actual measurements of muscle size were used as explanatory variables in a multilevel model.

METHODS:
Thirty-seven children participated in a 3-yr longitudinal study (18 boys and 19 girls). The average age +/- SD at the first test occasion was 13.0 +/- 0.3 yr. Stature, arm length, isokinetic concentric and isometric elbow extension and flexion torques, and MRI-determined elbow flexor and extensor muscle cross-sectional areas (CSAs) were assessed annually. Multilevel modeling was used to describe the relationship between the measured torques and body/muscle size variables, incorporating age, age by gender, and gender as additional explanatory variables.

RESULTS:
When muscle CSA was included in the static and dynamic torque multilevel models, gender differences in strength were nonsignificant. In contrast, use of stature or arm length alone, suggested gender differences in strength that could not be explained by differences in body size. All torque measures were best explained by inclusion of muscle CSA and a linear dimension in the models. Age also explained additional variance in torque, but the influence of age was action and muscle specific.

CONCLUSION:
Use of only linear dimensions rather than muscle CSA to account for differences in size may have clouded our understanding of strength development in children.
 
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*This was 10 years ago when I thought lifting weights made me a stronger puncher.*

My body isn’t like that anymore and yet I’m so much more powerful now even without trying. Earlier this year, I wrote a controversial article explaining why lifting weights doesn’t increase punching power.

A lot of people disagreed,

many got angry.

One person called me a “stupid kid that doesn’t know anything about sports science or boxing.”

…this guide is not to convince ANY of these individuals.

For everyone else willing to READ and LISTEN and set aside your bias for a split second, here are some more explanations as to why I stand confidently at this conclusion today.

I write it because it might change the way you think about training, change the way you fight, and help you punch harder than you ever could.





1. Power comes from the ground
To be more precise, power comes from your RELATIONSHIP WITH THE GROUND (in relation to gravity.) And not just punching power, but ANY kind of power.

It doesn’t matter what type of force you use to punch (push, pull, lift, drop, rotate, etc)…you will have to do it USING THE GROUND AS YOUR REFERENCE. (push from the ground, pull from the ground, etc).

The ground is your point of reference,
from which to generate powerful force.


The point of reference is NOT YOUR BODY, it’s the ground. Do not forget this. The moment you forget about strengthening your contact to the ground, your power will fail. Imagine if I was to be swinging in the air with my legs off the ground, I wouldn’t be able to generate ANY POWER AT ALL (regardless of my punching technique).

Moving on…



2. You can only go UP OFF THE GROUND, or DOWN INTO THE GROUND
Remember, the ground is your reference point.

All *powerful* movements you make must originate from the ground or else it’s “ungrounded” and won’t have any power. (If I was to punch on one leg, it wouldn’t matter what technique I used; the punch would be weak.) Being that the ground is your point of reference, all movements are either going away from the ground or into the ground.



ALL POWERFUL MOVEMENTS are either going UP off the ground or DOWN into the ground.

The choice is yours. Obviously going down when you punch is so much more powerful than going up. You have the added force of gravity to increase your body mass (making you momentarily a heavier object) and aid rotation. You can also punch going up (useful for some tactical purposes) but much of your energy would be spent just to OVERCOME gravity’s forces and then whatever’s left is applied to the punch.

A forward movement is still an indirect angle of going UP off the ground. The reason being that there is nothing behind you to push you forward. So the only way to go forward is to either push yourself up at a diagonal angle from the ground or to push yourself UP off the ground and then fall forward. It’s not a fall in the sense that you lose balance but it’s a fall because you’re letting gravity project you forward rather than you being able to move yourself forward.



So let’s review again:

  1. GOING DOWN uses the added force of gravity
  2. GOING WITH gravity takes less effort and increases body weight
  3. INCREASING BODY WEIGHT gives you more punching power
Quite simply, going DOWN IS BETTER THAN UP!



3. Punching power comes from INCREASING YOUR BODY MASS
Your ability to punch harder,
comes from your ability to make yourself heavy
at the moment of impact.


Your punching power is a resulting combination of your grounded body mass, rotation in the hips, speed of the fist, and controlled tension at point of impact. There are many forces at play but for the sake of easier explanation, I have over-generalized it to these 4 major ones.



a) GROUNDED BODY MASS – means how heavy and how dense you can make yourself.

The heavier you are at impact, the more powerful your punch (which is why big guys naturally hit harder than small guys, they have the weight advantage). Likewise, becoming a dense object at the moment of impact makes you more powerful than being loose (just like how a tight fist transfers more energy than a loose fist).



b) HIP ROTATION – refers to the circular acceleration of your hips in force generation.

Of all the accelerating forces in a punch, this one is probably the most important…NOT FIST ACCELERATION. Fist acceleration alone does not guarantee hip acceleration; which is why some fast-handed boxers still don’t have any power. The hips are rotated to the spine, and rotating the hips powerfully rotates the spine powerfully which sends out the hand with power instead of only speed.



c) HAND SPEED – refers to the speed at which your fist travels when it makes impact.

Hand speed alone however does not guarantee any added power. What matters is THE ORIGIN OF YOUR HAND SPEED. If your hand is coming out fast because you have fast twitch muscle in your shoulder and triceps, it won’t add any power. Only when your hand speed originates from your CORE ROTATION, will you have more power from faster hand speed. Nonetheless, any hand speed (whether from the arms or core or both) is useful because it can catch your opponent off guard and surprise punches tend to hurt more.



d) IMPACT TENSION – refers to the integrity of your form at the moment of impact.

This is THE ONLY TIME when you should be stiff during a punch—it’s right at the impact. The reason you must become stiff is to transfer energy. Just like how when you play pool, the white ball must completely stop in order to transfer all energy to the ball it hits. If your white ball was still moving after hitting, that means it retained some energy still. Likewise, a puncher that doesn’t stiffen his punches will only bounce the energy off his opponent when landing a punch. Boxing, however is a tricky game, you most “stop” only long enough to transfer energy and then must keep moving again for fighting purposes. The fight itself is still constantly flowing, but do know that there are microscopic moments of “stillness”. Too many people overdo the impact tension and say things like “you must push punches all the way through!” which only wastes energy and slows down your combination rate because your fist is unnecessarily waiting around after impact.



Punching power IS NOT F=MA ( force = mass x acceleration )

I laughed when I saw all the references to the basic velocity equation in disagreeing comments from the first guide. Here’s what many people said,

“BUT JOHNNY, YOU’RE WRONG! Force equals mass times acceleration! More muscle equals more mass times more acceleration equals more power! You failed!”

No I didn’t. Yes, the equation is correct. But it’s application to the physics of punching motion is not that cut and dry. Comparing the complicated mechanics of punching to a simple linear physics equation is a failure.



F = MA is assuming a linear vector movement

mass-acceleration-force.png


How is this equation relevant to punching?…I see only one object and one force at work here!

  • Does the MASS refer to the weight of the fist or the weight of the body?
  • Does the ACCELERATION refer to the acceleration of the fist or the acceleration of the hips?
  • If we’re talking about hip rotation, wouldn’t it be circular acceleration (aka linear tangential acceleration) instead of linear acceleration?
  • Does the FORCE refer to the force transferred through the fist? Or the force generated through the body?
  • Is a punch a series of combined forces or just one force?
  • What if there’s a curve in the motion of the fist?
  • What if there are gravitational forces or other external forces affecting the resulting force?
WHAT ABOUT THE FACT THAT PUNCHING MOVEMENT is nothing at all like a straight linear movement?! If punching was only a combination of pushing motions, then why isn’t the best punching position me crouched up like a sprinter and then springing forward out of the blocks? (I’m kidding here.)



A punch requires multiple accelerations
of different masses
working together simultaneously.


A punch requires several forces to accelerate and decelerate from different areas simultaneously.

inside-punching-power.png


  • The force equation for a simple linear acceleration is F=MA.
  • The force equation for punching is WAY MORE COMPLICATED THAN THAT.


4. The MOST IMPORTANT MUSCLES for Punching Power
As I’ve explained before, punching power comes from:

  • increasing body mass
  • hip rotation
  • hand speed
  • impact tension
If you don’t know how to punch, it will sound like 4 separate movement principles. First, you’ll waste your time with squats to build leg muscles. Next, you’ll waste your time with the bench press to build a stronger upper body. Then you’ll do some cable pull-downs and push-ups to strengthen your triceps. And finally with the last of your energy, you’ll rush through the crunches.

You’ll soon find out why this is a GIANT WASTE OF TIME.

If you DO know how to punch, then you’ll realize that all these movements are basically ONE MOVEMENT. Yes, it’s beautiful—grounding, rotating, hand speed, impact tension—ALL THAT CAN BE DONE WITH ONE MOVEMENT!

The core ALONE can increase body mass,
rotate the hips and spine,
release the hand, and create impact tension.




The secret to punching power LIES IN THE CORE

The core alone can make ground you, making you heavier and denser as you punch. The core alone can rotate your hips. The core alone can send out your hand quickly. And the core alone can tense up your entire body at the moment of impact.

Haven’t you ever noticed that when you’re tired of punching, your stomach is tired or you’re out of breath or you lose balance? It’s because your muscles at your center are no longer holding you up. You’re punching like a hollow skeleton which falls and bends as it struggles to move. The other muscles of the body such as the arms and legs fail too, but your punching suffers the most when your core fails.

Try running or squats until you collapse and then throw punches. Then try doing sit-ups until you collapse and then throw punches. And tell me which exercise affected your punching power more. Tired legs can still punch and let you fall into punches…but a tired core will always be too weak to do anything!



But what about other athletes that lift weights?

Yes, I’m aware of sprinters, gymnasts, basketball players, football players, and dozens of other athletes that lift wights for increased power. There is one fundamental difference between THEIR MOVEMENTS vs a PUNCHING MOVEMENT.

All those other athletes ARE MOVING THE BODY. Sprinters are pushing their bodies forward, gymnasts are swinging their bodies, basketball players and football players are moving their bodies all over the place.

A boxer throwing a punch is doing the exact opposite, he’s trying to GROUND his body as much as possible! A punch is you generating force from the ground and then projecting it, transferring all of it to your opponent. If your hips move from their position (either up or forward or back) you will either decrease the power generated or decrease the power transferred.

Other athletes are moving their bodies,
boxers are not.


From a technical standpoint, boxers actually have the tougher job. It’s very hard to generate and project power. See, a sprinter would only have to workout his legs and then run all out. He doesn’t have to worry about anything else. (I’m over-generalizing; I’m aware it takes years to develop running technique.) A boxer on the other hand, has to generate a ton of force, and then transfer this force through a very small and weak extremity (the hand).

For this reason, the power punching skill takes so much longer to develop than many other movements (like running, jumping). A trained puncher can easily outpunch an untrained puncher 3-5 times but a trained runner can only outsprint an untrained runner by 15-30%. Regardless of how powerful you are, you have to understand that muscle power has a very low influence compared to technique when it comes to punching power.



5. INSIDE MUSCLES vs. OUTSIDE MUSCLES
I know I’ve said “core” a thousand times up above but it’s actually more complicated than that. Instead of thinking about only your core, another way to look at your body is “inside muscles” vs “outside muscles”.



outside-muscles-releasing-power.png
 
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