As part of my new year resolutions, I’m in
the works of developing a new workout program for myself of which is designed
to help increase punching power. The
plan is to start March 1st.
It is going to take some time to come up
with the program as well as additional weeks for trial and error as I adjust
into it. The program will be designed to
accommodate the following goals:
·
Tone up/lean out
·
Maintain muscle (if you’ve
never worked out, then it will build muscle)
·
Increase punching power
The last point, increasing punching power,
is not an easy task. Personally, conventional workout exercises are not really
geared to increase punching power. In my opinion, I don’t even think one needs to lift weights to increase their
punching power or punching effectiveness. That said, however, once your timing,
positioning, angles, etc are figured out, then adding resistance training will
add to your punch.
The goal of this is to create a workout
that complements punching.
(And yes, I know it’s been debated to death
in boxing/martial art circles whether weight training is good for punching or
not. I can tell you right now that the plan is not designed to make you into a
muscle monster or slow you down, stiffen you up, etc )
Personally, I enjoy working out. I find it
helps break the monotony of the office lifestyle and it conditions your body
differently than say wing chun, karate, etc ..it also has an aesthetic appeal
too. Why not create a plan that provides
the benefit of working out with the side effect of increasing your punching
power?
Punching is a different type of action with
a very specific result – knock out power. The very nature of weight training makes
it difficult to replicate exercises that specifically train punching
power. That said, it doesn’t mean that
they could not complement each other. Here are my observations for effective
punching power so far:
We know this equation: force =
mass x acceleration. Also, power = rate
at which work is being done.
·
What this tells us is we need
to increase the speed of our punch to increase force and power (explosive
action). Also means we could increase mass (build some muscle)
·
Kinetic linking is just a scientific
term for being able to connect the force generated from the ground (your legs),
through to your torso, then to your arms and then to the fist and target.
o
With this in mind, we want to
be able to generate significant force from the ground (eg. strong explosive
muscle action from the legs) and efficiently
carry all that energy into our arms.
o
I emphasize the word efficiently because if you can link
100% of the energy your legs generate into your punch, you will have one hell
of a punch vs. a guy who can squat heavy weights but can only link 25% of that
energy into their punch.
o
The idea of kinetic linking is
very important in wing chun, kung fu, etc…they just use different terms for it
(eg. chi, fa-jing, etc).
o
Think about it, the more
efficiently you can link your energy from the ground/legs..then really, you
don’t need to ‘punch hard’. You kind of just have to “touch” the other guy in a
sense. In other words, you don’t need big arms/shoulders and you can throw relaxed
punches that have knockout power.
·
We don’t want to ‘push-punch’,
we want to ‘whip-punch’. We want to be
as relaxed as possible as we throw the punch and add in forms practice.
·
Conditioning of opposing
muscles. Back muscles, rear deltoids, biceps, although not used during the
punch, are responsible for bringing the hands back and also fatigue quickest
which affect our subsequent punch delivery.
These muscles are also used for other grabs, holds, and actions beyond
just punching.
·
We also want to condition our
small muscles, joints, ligaments and fists.
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. We should take some time
to focus on the small stuff.
·
At the end of the day, if you
want to be a powerful puncher, you just gotta hit stuff.
Have I missed anything? I have to account for all these points above
while I create the workout plan. I do
want you guys to try the workout plan with me. Share your thoughts, experience. If you’re a newbie to working out, the plan
can be tailored to your fitness level, but I’m creating this plan with my
current fitness level in mind. I will
let you know how to tailor it to your fitness level when I have more details
figured out.
One final note – having good punching power
does not mean that you’ll be a good fighter.
Until then.
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