When practicing my chain punching, I’ve noticed that in times of fatigue or simply just “brainless” chain punching, my punches are faster during the last 2/3 of the punch than the first 1/3 of the punch. I’ve noticed it’s not delivered in consistent explosive 100% committed bursts. If I look carefully, it seems that the first few inches of “punch-delivery” is slower than when the punch is nearing completion.
Why is this? My thoughts – in weight training, when you lift a weight (let’s say 45 kg plates during bench press), the majority of stress on your muscle occurs during the initial push and as you gradually continue the push, the weight gets “lighter” in the sense that muscles aren’t stressed the same way. This is why you see many people cheat when they perform an exercise – they only go down less than half way but are able to stack on the weight plates. I believe this effect is due to leverage, angles inherent in the positioning of our arms in relation to chest during the exercise, as well as pre-existing muscle conditions. As you continue with the push the amount of weight exerted on your muscle decreases since the angles change as you continue with the push, thus leverage changes thereby decreasing the force required to push the weight.
If this idea can be extended to the chain punch, this may explain why the chain punch is relatively slower in the first part of the punch compared to the last part of the punch. To counter this, what I’ve tried to do is focus on exerting more initial burst so that the speed of the punch at the beginning of delivery is consistent with that at the end of delivery. In class, I sometimes ask students to imagine the scenario that their forearms are chopped off and they have to hit w/ the ‘stubs” of the elbow. This might help you get the idea of the type of driving force I’m trying to replicate.
3 comments:
As the arm moves, the motion begins as angular momentum, increasing the distance that the arm must move. That is, the elbow moves up and the fist move forward. Due to the way that the shouler is involved in this, and the way the elbow hinges, the fist will naturally move faster in the final 3/4 of extension, due to more mass being involved. With the WT punch, it is my understanding the the impact should be made about 2/3rds of extension, which would make since as during that time, the fist is still accelerating. As force=Mass*acceleration, the last variable is at peak when we are supposed to make contact. We then continue on and, as more muscles come in (the shoulder moving forward, as well as the structure of the stance) we increase the mass. This way we increase force in two different ways, increasing damage on initial contact, such as with a forward traveleing pak sau/wu sau or a punch, but then again increaing the force with the addition of mass increasing the deformation damage, as is the case with a committed punch.
Thats my take on it.... thoughts?
I forgot my point entirely.... Increasing velocity of your point at the begining is useful for training, however, it must be understood that the fist will naturally move faster at the end of the punch than on the beginning. Thus, focusing on increasing the speed at the start will also be increasing the velocity at the end, which increases the overall damage. It would be of the highest benefit to practice with a wallbag, as this forces the body to train the force-pushing muscles.
I can't say i disagree with this. thanks for the added words. No denying that the punch will travel faster at the end of the punch. I was just thinking along the lines of either fatigue or laziness during the punch. When doing chain punches on a wall bag, you can see the punch start to slow during the launch and then later on "catch up" in speed as the puncher needs to create that "bang" sound on the bag. My post is simply a reminder for all of this of this laziness or fatigue aspect and that we should be aware of it - giving 100% all the time! Keep on pushing!
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