It's so complex, relative strength , bone density, joint stifness, arm length, shoulder width, all of those parameters matters too, in general a heavy built athlete who has a fast sprint speed is powerful, if we want it simple 😀
its easy. you can lift heavy weights more slowly to gain big muscles, and then you can move heavy weights quickly to make the big muscles much stronger. it will take time, as all things do.
I would like to tell you that this video is absolutely fantastic. If I could give it 6 stars, I would. This video has clarified the mystical concept of "power" training to me in one go, as if the fog has cleared in my mind. I have been training in MMA for over a year but continue to only do bodybuilding exercises in the gym because I had no idea where to start with explosive training. Thanks to this I will take my first step forwards into the realm of training for athleticism and power development. As a scientifically minded individual, I hugely appreciate the effort you have put into this lecture along with citations, diagrams and intuitive yet accurate explanations. Thank you!
I learned to deadlift by watching RU-vid videos with next to no workout experience and I've been doing it for years without hurting myself. The people who hurt themselves are the ones who are just too lazy to put forth an effort to learn the correct way to do the lift. Normal people should not be discouraged to do deadlifts, it is not hard if you put half of your brain towards learning it. I learned it in one day.
Good point about the deadlifts. I think I will keep the weight moderate and do them with as good of form as I can. I'm getting older and focusing on longevity, so hurting something while grinding out a heavy rep is totally not worth it! IMO, anything above double bodyweight is probably starting to get to diminishing returns for actual performance anyway (outside of just numbers to compete in powerlifting).
Your part of stiffening IS legit. That does NOT happen as you prepare. The move is a relaxed explosive move and then you lock everything in a stiffening that helps in the penetration.
Love these videos they’re so educational and full of knowledge and has come at a good time and I really appreciate such a good quality video on it thanks!
As an amateur boxer for years I can say: When I started to throw my punch and really focus the impact on my middle knuckle (like cross, right uppercut)...it boosts your punch power a lot. Either the impact is spread along on 4 knuckles or just on one...I even had pain and bruises on my knuckle after mitts.
This is a great video, but sometimes I feel like the ex-phys types miss the forest for the trees. Take for example, the confusion over strength training, velocity training etc... The most "sport specific" high velocity, training one can do to improve their punch.... is to throw a punch! Any additional weight or equipment UNAVOIDABLY alters the execution of the punch. Best case scenario: the boxer learns a new "style" of punch that he employs just during the particular exercise. Worst case scenario: he screws up his actual boxing execution of punches because of motor confusion. This is after all, the problem basketball training ran into in the 60s, they had the "genius" idea of training with heavier balls. The result was the players didn't get stronger (insufficient intensity to drive adaptation) and they got WORSE at putting balls in the basket because shooting with heavier balls messed up the highly specific mechanics. So I'm often left scratching my head over exercise suggestions for boxers to improve their PUNCH velocity, to include stuff like sprints or hurdles and so on. I'm also quite suspicious of how we seem to be recycling everything the soviets did, without even questioning their assertions or indeed the quality of evidence. Also, as far as I'm aware, there is a stunning lack of comparative studies in the field. Not just for boxing, for any sport. There is a lot of "just so" stories and questionable study design in ex-phys, but very few comparative experiments.
Hi, thank you for the input. Yes, I agree with you that nothing is more sport-specific for a boxing punch than a punch itself. We have to decide on how far we want to take things with sport-specificity. However, those exercises are meant to ''hyper-focus'' on individual pieces (the trees) rather than the whole forest as you explain, if I understood it correctly! And obviously as a coach, I agree with you that you have to emphasize the boxing motorics when you do exercises that are meant to aid boxing movements, like the medicine ball punch for instance. I don't necessarily believe that adding some resistance into certain exercises will necessarily screw up boxing motorics, given that they are performed correctly. I agree with you that this field is very under-researched and, and we're left with a lot of scrap pieces of the Soviets. Also, the few evidence we have is somewhat ambiguous. As of now, it's a matter of using what we have until we get more up to date research. I guess there is a reason it's understudied, it takes a special individual to decide to dedicate his/her life to the science of and application of punching people harder. One thing is for sure though, with all the options for power-development, variation is always good for an athlete. Athletes get bored and adaptation is slowed down with one intervention long term, best to change things up periodically. At least for the sake of maintaining enthusiasm.
That reasoning falls apart when you realize boxing training involves the heavy bag, focus mitts, speed bag, double-ended bag, running, sprints, shadow boxing, drills, etc. We all inuitively understand skill isolation. But as soon as it enters a new area people question it.
I think grip strength plays into it a lot. I play guitar, and my guitar hand can hit considerably harder than my normal hand. It has a lot more muscle and about 30% stronger grip.
Your increased forearm muscles allow you to tense your fist tighter, making it more dense and less prone to injury from misalignment upon punch impact.
I know this is an older video, but would box jumps contribute to punching power due to the rate of recruitment. Because I heard box jumps can be massive help in improving deadlift strength.
Power starts with the legs so building explosive power would definitely have an impact, combine that with weighted lunges so also work your legs one at a time and in a more similar leg position when boxing.
A couple notes I wanted to give you: While you discuss velocity and the force formula behind it, you don't touch on the technical aspect of how it applies to collision upon the actual target. It's a bit more technical than scientific in this case but it makes a difference in how you would prioritize punching technique depending on whether you were hitting the head or body. In the same vein you give a chart of FORCE production across the body but leave out the consideration of the workload of those different parts (arms, core, legs you had put)... while the legs and core are about to produce more force than the arms they play different roles in contributing to the velocity of the arm which is doing the striking. The legs have to move the whole body, the core has to move from the waist up and the arm only has a less than 20 pound arm to move. So while the arm produces less measurable force than the other 2 drivers it has a lot less workload and therefore plays a much, much more significant role in accelerating the object that's actually doing the striking. Cue the scene of Forrest Griffin getting KO'd by Anderson Silva's arm punch as Anderson was moving backwards and not rotating his trunk... but just stiffening upon impact and throwing the arm at top velocity. I only leave the note because I see a lot of new to intermediate fighters over prioritizing leg drive in a way that hurts them technically. Neglecting arm training because the chart shows that the legs and core contribute ~75% of the force involved in a punch would be a big misunderstanding of what these numbers represent. Otherwise I thought your video was very comprehensive and well put together. Great work.
Hi, thank you for the feedback. I agree with you that there is a lot more to discuss regarding the technical aspects of punching, but I can only include so much in one piece of work. For the purpose of simplicity, the only punch that was really discussed in detail was the straight rear hand. And with the video already being 55 minutes long, I chose to focus primarily on the training interventions that one can implement for power-development. Obviously there will be situations where you will use the ''arms only/flicking type of punches'' (or however one wants to describe it) but the purpose of this video is optimizing for power punches. I will leave further technical aspects and boxing tactics for more qualified people. However, I do want to say that In the Forrest Griffin instance as you mention, we also have to take into consideration that Griffin was charging at Silva head first, so it's already all that momentum forward, all Silva had to do in that moment was to stick his fist out and tighten. Anyhow, your average Joe doesn't have the phenomenal timing and intuition of Mr Silva :)
@Apizur so the effective mass of the ounch is the arm weight plus shoulders right? All that legs and core rotations aim is to accelerate the effective mass
@@medes7894 that's a good way to feel it. It's not about connecting your muscles so it feels like you're driving the punch with your foot all the way to your hand... it's about timing the movements so the fist/arm is moving fast upon impact and being in the right skeletal alignment to transfer the most weight through the joints at that instant.
@@Apizur thank you, what would be the most important muscles for punching power do you think? I would say shoulders, triceps, upper back, serratus, core and glutes. Like the aim of legs are to turn as quick as possible to move hips, hips turn the torso and so on
Great video. However I'm sorry see that you've not used the proper formulas to model your hypothesis on punching power. For instance you didn't want to use force (which is the amount of effort needed to accelerate a mass to a velocity). You should have used energy . Energy= mass*velocity ² (energy is transferred to the target and is what we call power in boxing). There are other errors but i leave them to you as I've no time to do more than hit the first major error in your work. Please keep making videos but please put in the effort to be correct. Esp when trying to teach beginners.
Sure. I was at a boxing and kickboxing gym for 4 years and we did them a lot. Especially the explosive ones like plyo pushups. Like pushup with a clap or superman pushup. But I would not rely on solely that to improve your punching power.
But the MUSCLES and amount of them have little to do with punching power. There is an element of developing Quick flex muscles, which comes from training with maximum effort all the time, accelerating the weight. But Jack Dempsey knocked people out of the ring and he looked skinny and had very big bones, meaning he had less muscle mass. Punching power comes from HOW you throw the punch. I can throw a hook from 6" away, and hit as hard as someone else with a big swing. The power comes from an explosive combination of locking all the punch movement back to the back foot. The more relaxed the muscles are, the quicker they can move. High muscle tone is NOT helpful. Jack Dempsey had a running bet that he could place his fist on a persons shoulder and knock them out from THERE. I can do this also. But the lunch has the entire body behind it.
People are born punchers. I been in and around boxing for almost 20 years and u have guys with no technique that can really punch. Good technique will help u get the punch to the target and teach u how to maximize the power u already have. If people knew how to gain punching power everybody would be a puncher especially really technical boxers like floyd
What does that have to do with this video? Lmao No one is denying that power is genetic but regardless you can still increase your punching power no matter how weak or strong you are
@@jeromemock26 there’s literal studies proving you wrong you can grow your power technique is only part of it quit denying actual science it’s literally common sense yeah genetics play a role in how hard you’re able to punch most people aren’t gonna be Mike Tyson no matter how hard they train but they can still grow their power to their fullest potential
