This is a question I found this morning on Yahoo! answers. The following text was submitted by Bigchief and it reads as follows:

Well im a boxer.at our boxing club i was kind of surprised on who has the hardest punch.

During our bag drills we are asked to hit the bag during sets of 10, 20, 30, /// 30, 40, 50

Well we each get our turn to hold the bag when we are done, and during this time we hold the bag for the next guy. During this time i get a great understanding of the guys punching power.

Some of the boxers there who work out, and are kind of bulky , hit fairly hard, but not as hard as they look they would.
Some of the boxers who have muscle definition , but are not bulky hit just as hard.
What surprised me the most was that some of the boxers with little to no muscle definiton, hit the hardest.

This brings me to the belief that punchers are born, and muscle mass has little to no effect on power.

Id like to know if this is true, or if anyone else has had a different expierience , or if this is just a coincidence at my club.

In spite of the details about how bulky or defined each person is you are not specifying their weight: that can make a big difference in the power of their punches. Muscle mass and density will also have importance here, as some people are naturally stronger than others.

Punching power, given two punchers of equal weight, will depend in large measure from the overall body co-ordination when performing the action. A jab thrown using just arm and eventual shoulder power will have a certain level of power. On the other hand the same punch performed using the whole body, leaning toward the target even slightly and adding a half an inch step forward will result a lot stronger punch.

If you have access to a good coach he/she can teach you the concept in minutes: the point is then to practice it until it come natural, without thinking about the whole process.

Posted under theory, yahoo_answers

Have you ever heard expressions like:

• Practicing martial arts without thinking?
• Going with the instinct?
• Thinking is too slow in a fighting situation?

The main purpose of learning complicated moves and combinations during most martial arts practice brings two main advantages:

• improving the muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints involved in that move
• building connections in our mind to assimilate the move, storing it at subconscious level where most of our natural and instinctive actions are performed;

In the Western world many of us might have grown up playing some kind of ball sports and the action of catching or kicking a ball is natural for many of us. When somebody throws a ball at you and a natural instinct can be to catch it if it’s aimed at you upper body or to kick it if the ball is aimed at your legs. Other actions we do naturally are breathing, walking, running or perhaps driving: these usually require minimum conscious involvement, by this I mean that you don’t need to consciously think in order to walk and you can do it while talking, listening to music and so on. Sometimes you might require involving conscious thought if you are walking in a dangerous area or on unfamiliar terrain.

If you have never practiced martial arts and somebody throws a punch toward your face the instinctive response could be to over reacting or covering your head with both hands in a defensive position. Months or years of martial training will improve the reaction to same attack, depending on the martial art you practice. Different styles will suggest a variety of defences against the same attack (punch to the face in this case). The most important achievement will be to have an instinctive reaction where no conscious decision must be taken and when your subconscious mind takes over and deal with the attack in a simple and efficient way.

The latest neuroscience discoveries confirm that some of the principles that the ancient masters have been teaching for centuries have strong scientific backup. When you learn a new thing, being that a pure theoretical exercise like calculating mathematical formula or a physical operation such as swinging a golf club, you are creating connections in your brain that initially will require conscious thinking. If you keep repeating the same action over time you assimilate it, store in the subconscious. Our brain literally thrives on subconscious actions and whenever possible it tries to store things we are learning in our subconscious: from there it can be used and retrieved in a much faster, direct and more efficient way than when it requires conscious action.

Posted under educational, theory