In the second link on the hammer look at the section on the physics of hammering and take note of the scientific explanation of why the hammer is capable of producing such great force over a very short working distance on impact. Within the same article, note why different hammers are used for performing different types of work. Once you understand their design and the physics of why hammers and other types of tool are able to produce the forces they do (particularly against hard objects) you can then try to apply those same physical principles to your punches when hitting an opponent to the body or head.
I sometimes use an analogy of the claw hammer to create an image of ripping or tearing through the target with your fists. This way of striking can be a useful tool in a fight, because you spend very little time on the target. And I’ve found in a streetfight that it’s particularly useful because it saves your hands whilst allowing you to deliver a damaging shot. Because the movement is cyclonic, the fist quickly returns to be able to go again, and even if you miss the specific target, you’re going to catch something in the path of the clawing action. This also ‘clears’ for you, getting his arms out the way for another shot. So imagine using the other end of the hammer when punching and you’ll get the idea.
Another type of hammer that caught my interest in the past was the nail gun (spring-loaded type) . Because I am interested in short range power, I was naturally interested in the principle of rapidly and repeatedly loading and unloading a spring so as to generate a force in a fraction of a second and of a magnitude sufficient to launch and fully embed a nail in a piece of wood. It also struck me that the principle of the loading and unloading of a spring wasn’t that dissimilar to what I knew about plyometrics at the time
And so, with the view of being able to generate a force of high magnitude within a very short space and split second of time (and, like a nail gun, with no obvious development), I set about applying certain principles I was aware of through my research into plyometrics and isometrics.
In particular I drew on my understanding from plyometrics of how to preset the reactive sensitivity of the muscle spindle so that even the slightest stretch or no stretch at all would elicit a myotatic reflex response. Through my work with isometrics I also knew how to train the CNS to become more effective at recruiting high threshold motor units(fast and super fast) by increasing neural efficiency and drive, as well as training the CNS to overcome the inhibitory effect of the Golgi tendon reflex. After a few years of practicing with these objectives in mind, I was eventually able to fire off damaging shots from very short ranges with the slightest of eccentric loading, or from a totally static position.
There is a sea creature, the mantis shrimp, that uses a spring load principle not that dissimilar to the chambered-type punch of karate. The shrimp can produce hammer-like blows capable of velocities similar to low calibre bullet
Tempting as it might be for the karate aficionado to get excited right about now, what you have to remember is that the mantis shrimp uses this weapon, along with very nimble footwork, against prey that is no real threat, or against other mantis shrimps that are armed in the same way. In other words, cocking your fist in a karate-like manner, though it works well when the guy you’re fighting has a limited game or when you’re fighting a stylistically similar type, is pretty limited when the guy you’re fighting knows your game, has a completely dissimilar style and (of course) knows how to fight.
In more recent years, the dead blow hammer effect has aroused my curiosity, particularly with regards to how one might go about increasing the mechanics of impact to the target by transferring more kinetic energy to the target whilst at the same time reducing the energy lost in the rebound or recoil effect following the initial impact. What I’m interested in here applies to working within a reduced space and time against a more resilient target (say, bone). The dead blow hammer gives us a clue about how to produce an accelerated follow-through so that the target fractures or the blow in some other way permanently distorts the body’s internal structures, because you don’t give it the time to absorb the impact .
In the Seventies, Eighties and early Nineties, I used to rapidly and repeatedly shake iron rings on my forearms using my entire body from the feet to the hands in both vertical and horizontal planes. I also used bars with very light weights that made a noise when I shook the bar exactly like this at 2mins 40secs, and I used light dumbbells in a similar way through various planes of movement. I not only did this so as to produce an explosive delivery of my limb or fist to the target by way of rapid eccentric/concentric loading and firing, but also to gain a sense of the explosive follow-through that was needed to immediately follow the initial impact.
With the rings, for example, I discovered ways of generating the types of forces that would cause the rings to continue to accelerate forward after what would have been the initial contact point. The sound made by the rings against each other as they accelerated forward on my forearm was an indicator of the intensity and duration of the force I was transferring to my hands, and subsequently to the target. And I could adjust my body mechanics accordingly until I got it right. It was then just a simple case of taking the mechanics of moving the rings and transferring them to my hands or wrists for an actual strike.
In principle this method is not unlike the free-flowing lead shot that is used within a dead blow hammer so as to increase the transfer of kinetic energy to the target. Indeed, it was by training in this way that I was able to break a fair number of people’s arms with my strikes. I didn’t intentionally break their arms; the break was just the consequence of years of training to instinctively strike in this way, combined with a sense of timing that enabled me to break the arm while it was moving during an exchange.
This kind of delivery of a massive force within a brief impact time is one that I’ve found to be effective for breaking bones and dropping a guy with a body shot by causing deep intense visceral pain. This effect is not unlike kinetic weapons such as the bean bag. For more on this
However, as valuable as this type of shot may be, it’s not an ideal knockout shot.
Rotational Knockout
I have knocked a couple of guys clean out with the jolting shot I describe above, but I suspect that the jolt in these cases was so intense that it resulted in disruption of the reticular activating system, which controls consciousness. If the jolt occurs in such a way that the head is very rapidly and suddenly rotated—even if the rotation is small—then the knockout will occur. This is because the jolt of the blow magnifies an effect that is common to all knockouts: disruption of the reticular activating system, which controls consciousness.
The disruption of the reticular activating system occurs through the violent rotation of the brain on the brainstem (see links at end of article). In most cases, this rotation is very obvious, whether it occurs through twisting, moving side to side or through the head being violently snapped back. With fists gloved or not, the highest percentage way of knocking a guy out is to be able to violently rotate the head from different ranges, angles and through different planes. Important to this is being able to sustain an accelerated follow-through for a longer period of time than when breaking bone or when delivering a more jolting shot to the head. Rather than striking the way the mantis shrimp does, the fighter looking for a knockout needs to hit more like the ways these professionals in this clip hit.
In this clip, like many other knockout highlights I have observed, the majority of knockouts come from causing an obvious violent rotation of the head. And take note of how the entire body is used to accelerate the shoulder, elbow and fist through the head to a point often beyond the head’s natural point of rotation, often to such a degree that the head rebounds back following the initial impact. Also note how the hip on the leading side contributes to this explosive follow-through, and don’t forget to look at what the other side of the body is doing so as to complement the follow-through rather than getting in the way of it.
So, shots that violently turn the head cause more knockouts than those that only jolt the head. But that’s not to say that the snapped or more recoil/jolting shots don’t work. They do, and they most definitely have their place in fighting. Look what happens at 40 secs, 1 min 52 sec, and 2 min 48 secs on this Teofilo Stevenson clip.
Teofilo Stevenson was an expert at this type of punch, though he didn’t use it exclusively. Stevenson is well worth looking at. He often had a tremendous reach advantage over his opponents, and so the way he chambered his right hand suited his height, evasive style and his unbelievable sense of opportunity distance and timing. Also, his opponents often stood before him like sitting ducks. Having said that, in 1980 Istvan Levi and Pietr Zaer with their raised guards had him figured out and managed to go the distance with him, whilst Francesco Damiani of Italy with his forward bullish spoiling style managed to beat him in 1982. Igor Wysotsky claims to have defeated Stevenson in Cuba in 1973 on points and knocked him out in Minsk in 1976. Nevertheless, given the slightest opportunity, Stevenson was a great knockout/TKO specialist and one who should be closely studied by those who favour this way of fighting. And take note of how he uses his entire body to deliver and retract his piston-like right hand. Even if you don’t favour this approach, study him anyway in case you run up against a similar type.
Back to the rotational knockout. What’s important to remember when going for a rotational RAS knockout is that the movement of your opponent’s head can dampen the effect of the blow. He may move his head and try to ride the shot, and thereby neutralize some of the shot’s effectiveness. You must anticipate this possible dampening effect and have already compensated for it. You need to remain in accelerated contact with the head for a relatively longer period of time than, say, when breaking bone, so as to have a disrupting effect upon the nuclei of the brainstem and therefore upon consciousness. Equally, whilst by way of leverage clipping the chin might produce a greater rotational effect on the brainstem for less effort, it’s a more difficult shot to pull off in a fight, where your opponent’s head is continually moving. Rather than targeting the head in a very specific way (e.g., the point of the chin) the better alternative is to aim more towards the hinge of the jaw. So if the head does move, you will still stand a chance of hitting the head somewhere and causing a rotational RAS effect of some kind, or disrupting the labyrinthine/vestibular system and subsequently your opponent’s balance and orientation to his surroundings. And of course you have to be able to do all this within a fight where your opponent is trying to knock you out. Many of your shots will miss or have no effect. Importantly, punching with follow-through not only increases your chance of a knockout but also allows you to close the distance, move to the clinch, or use the punching hand at the end of its delivery to check or control the opponent in some way, including transitioning to the takedown. Emelianenko is a great example of this last form of follow-through as a tactical tool.
Shavers and the role of the body
Ernie Shavers was an expert at all this and more, and his fight record speaks for itself with 68 knockouts out of 74 wins. Just watch the amount of explosive body movement that Shavers transfers to his arm, and subsequently on contact, to his opponent’s head or to his body. As the accelerating mass of Shavers’ body decreases from his legs, hips and trunk to his scapula and arms, the velocity of his fist increases, simply by the conservation of momentum. Look at the way he uses his legs, hips, waist and upper torso and head to launch the arm from the scapula to the fist. Everything he’s got is going into trying to put his opponent away, irrespective of the range, angle, or where his hands are in relation to the target. And he is able, if given half a chance, to repeat the process over and over again, or switch from attack to defence and vice versa. Shavers was no Teofilo Stevenson--he wasn’t looking for the clean knockout and in fact he often battered his opponents into unconsciousness--but his record speaks for itself and like all the other great knockout specialists he should be closely studied.
Also take note of the diagonal planes in which Shavers works, rather than vertical. Not only is he incorporating the serape/derape effect by doing this, but he’s also increasing the moment arm from the axis of the hip/spine to the fist. He’s also reducing the chances of himself being hit. Not only does hitting in a diagonal plane potentially produce more power in a safer line, but these natural body power lines correspond to the angles at which the opponent’s head and body targets are most vulnerable.
Something else to note about Shavers is the size of his hands, which when bandaged and gloved would have been hanging like weights at the end of his arms. You have just got to put a very light bar in your hands to feel the increase in the centrifugal effect of throwing punches and to realise how having something to grip on also significantly increases impact.
Training Tips
This brings me to some details about the role of the hand in the knockout. Having a gloved hand allows you to hit without fear of breaking your hands and provides more contact area with which to rotate or rebound the head. Having said that, there are ways by which you can use the un-gloved hand to produce similar advantages. Of course, any form of hand development, including hitting the heavy bag, will allow you to hit with more confidence and more effectively, but there are other ways, too. One way to develop a sense of having a heavier hand is by rapidly whirling your arm at your side so that the centrifugal force causes blood to rapidly pool into your hand. It will turn red and feel full and heavy. Now, immediately switch to the heavy bag and hit it with this heavy ‘full hand’ feeling. This pooling of blood also helps to protect the hands as a result of the fluid within the hands being brought to the surface. This works much in the same way that hand ball players soak their hands in hot water so as to protect them. By regularly engaging in this kind of practice, you can eventually learn to develop a ‘heavy hand’ feeling without the whirling, and the practice also can improve upon the dynamics of the scapula and shoulder when striking.
Another important point when going for the knockout with bare fists is to try to hit the jaw with the entire surface area of the fist so as to cause maximum rotation of the head. Remember, you’re not going for a penetrative effect, say with a single knuckle or to break the jaw, even though that might happen anyway. You are going for the violent rotation of the head. Remember, the knockout is the quickest solution to ending the fight, particularly against somebody armed with a knife.
But in order to cause a violent rotation of the head, the entire arm from the scapula to the fist, with the dynamic support of the whole body, needs to accelerate through the head. This effect is more like a bat hitting through a ball and less like throwing the fist at the head as if throwing a ball, or cracking the arm like a whip by using the entire body so as to produce a high terminal velocity of the fist within a brief impact time. This bat-hitting-ball effect is more an application of the impulse momentum change theorem to the generation and application of force to the target where mass plays an important role rather than an application of kinetic energy where achieving a high velocity is the key ingredient. But either way, if you’re going to emphasize the head as a major target, it would be a good idea, rather than just hitting the head and hoping for the best, to hit it in ways that have been shown to be effective in the professional rings of boxing and Muay Thai.
If you want a catalogue of the various ways of delivering a knockout shot, take a look at Thomas Hearns, who against welterweights up to heavyweights had every shot in the book.
Whichever way you end up trying to hit the head in a fight, it’s worth a mention that like a hammer head and its shaft, your fists, arms, shoulders and scapula have to be capable of not only delivering tremendous impact forces from any position and at any angle but also of sustaining them. The best way I know by which to produce and sustain such forces is to spend a lot of time on the heavy bag, and I do mean heavy—just like Marciano did. And irrespective of whether you are working on hand conditioning, aerobic/anaerobic conditioning, power generation, or tactics (separately, in combination or all together), it’s crucial to always do so with an opponent, real or imagined, in mind.
Sure, the heavy bag (like slip/maize bags, ground to ceiling balls, speed balls, wall bags, uppercut bags, etc.) is never going to exactly replicate the man you are going to fight, particularly when you first start using them. But provided you are working your bag alongside your drilling, conditional fighting, and fighting, you will find that gradually as your fight experience and knowledge grows you can start to work the equipment much as you would a man in a fight. This is about you, not about the bag. It’s about being able to transfer the impression of your opponent in the fight to the bag, and that takes place on an internal level. It relies on your experience and can’t be contrived. The bag might not have arms, but in your mind it can. The bag doesn’t hit you back, but in your mind you’re fighting the man. Indeed, being able to see the bag as a man speaks volumes of the quality of the fighting experiences that have been imprinted as engrams on the sensory and motor areas of your brain. Just as when you are shadow-fighting, when there appears to be nothing there at all, when you are working on the bag you must call up the fight in your mind’s eye.
Understand what you are seeing
I would suggest that quality impressions from your own fight experience (in the gym or elsewhere) as well as quality impressions from observing the knockout specialists in action are the key to this whole thing. Look at the clips, so that when you’re next working in the gym on a head shot, within your mind’s eye you will have a clear impression of what you are trying to do to your opponent’s head. This will enable you to start to work on the dynamics and tactical application of the shot.
I’ve talked to you about the mechanics behind the knockout, but at the end of the day the best advice I can offer you is to watch the clips and really study them. Shavers, like Marciano, Tyson, and of course the mantis shrimp, was one of the biggest hitters of all time. He was also one of the toughest fighters to ever step into the ring. Just look at how he comes back from being decked by Roy Williams to then knock him out. Just because these knockout specialists are referred to as boxers, they were first and foremost fighters, and anybody who can’t see that either has to be blind or seriously locked into their own beliefs. You would not want to test your chosen combative skills against them, unless of course you yourself were an accomplished fighter or you intended to use a gun, because you most certainly would need it.
In my book it’s far more productive to watch someone of the calibre of Shavers, Marciano, Tyson or other knockout specialist like Hearns in action, than to spend your time and energy listening to any ‘expert’ expounding on the dynamics of hitting the head when most ‘experts’ fail to emphasize the importance of causing a violent rotary or jolting effect upon the head. The dynamics of a skill are determined by the effect you need to cause--just like the design and dynamics of a tool are determined by the task at hand. If you’re just hitting the head without understanding the effect on the head you need to produce so as to cause a knock out, then your chances of getting the knockout are reduced. And if you can’t put your shots together like Hearns (for example), then if you come up against somebody who can, you’re going to be in big trouble.
Look at the fighters and learn all you can. No matter how impressive, informed, or eloquent someone might appear to be on the subject of fighting, no amount of talk can substitute for the observation of the real animal in action.
References:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2oh18
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=z1oj5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knockout
http://www.sherdog.net/forums/f2/pointed-c
Introduction
This article on the knockout first appeared as part of a thread on the Fighting Arts Alliance forum. Now that the forum members have read it, I thought this material might be of some interest to those who read my blog. The article is long and will appear in two parts.
But first, an introduction covering the main reasons why I posted this piece on the forum in the first place.
For over thirty years I’ve been trying to explain to those who could be bothered to listen the importance of moving the head in various ways. This can be done to support the dynamics and direction of body movement, or it can mean that the head is used as a weapon and even as a 5th limb (as in head fighting). The head is also the major target in a fight, one which will be attacked and needs to be defended. At the same time, your opponent’s head needs to be attacked in various ways with strikes and controls. All of these uses of the head are important.
When I read about the movement of the head in martial arts/SP circles, I note that some have placed great emphasis on the importance of the head in movement, and are aware of the head being a major target. However, these same advocates of ‘using the head’ haven’t as yet, it seems, understood how to use the natural movements of the head to support the bending, extending, flexion and twisting of the spine. There doesn’t seem to be an understanding of how to use the head to set the direction in which the body and its mass needs to move in response to a given situation. There doesn’t seem to be an understanding of how the head of one’s opponent needs to be moved in a particular way so as to gain greater control, inflict pain, or most importantly of all, produce a knockout, whether sustained, transient, or stun (i.e., proprioceptive or vestibular disorientation).
Unfortunately, much of the discussion I read online about the use of the head is one-dimensional. It lacks awareness of the specifics of how to move the head so as to support the dynamics of a particular skill, and of how to attack the head so as to cause a specific effect—for the purposes of this article, a knockout.
Interestingly, the way you move your head so as to produce the dynamics of a shot is often the same way your opponent’s head ends up moving. Outside of boxing and Muay Thai, when I look at what passes for the best examples of the dynamics of how to hit a guy in the head (or body for that matter) the main focus seems to be on how hard can you hit him with one single shot—or, more often, how hard can you hit a static substitute, say a bag or a pad. These examples often lack understanding of the specific effect you need to cause by hitting, and they certainly show an inability to repeat the process if the first shot fails—as, inevitably, it often does.
In the same way that the dynamics of a tool are designed to cause a specific effect, so should be the dynamics of, say, a shot to the head. But unless you know what those specific effects are and the best ways of achieving them, you could be running blind. This is particularly true if, unlike a professional boxer (for example) you never get the opportunity to learn by trial and error how to knock guys out. So, if you are not training in a live fighting environment, this article is primarily for you. But even if you are training in a ring/cage environment, there may be some pointers here, particularly in the clips.
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About professionals
The article was written in response to a comment made by
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randomflow on the forum:My better half is a framing carpenter and I have watched with awe at his technique, and have tried to learn from him how to do it right. There is definitely a dropping, or perhaps 'falling into' feeling when hammering efficiently. Sometimes you see carpenters not retract straight back off the target but let the hammer fall lightly to the side before doing so (blacksmiths do this also). Personally, I've found it's less tiring when you are hitting something really hard, the light tap after gives a little bounce to aid the retraction. Having read the article, why you would do both these motions makes more sense now - No recoil/dead blow = more power. Light, relaxed, tap to catch the momentum for an easier retraction.
Using a hammer correctly is a great skill to have, you have to have accuracy of target and line of attack, good hand eye coordination, intent, and body mechanics - good martial training perhaps? :-) Splitting wood is good too ....
I have made similar observations over the years with regards to how professionals use tools to do work--including the 'tools' that are built into the body.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRX5BlsU3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcR28Yqt4
It is noticeable how an expert with (for example) an axe uses the body so as to let the tool and often gravity do much of the work, thereby gaining a multiplication of force or speed from the design of the tool. By contrast, when you observe most people doing work with a tool they are unfamiliar with, they put more into the effort of using the tool than they are getting out of it.
That’s why I always look to tried and tested professionals to see how they do work specific to their trade, whether they're skilled craftsmen or construction workers using a simple tool such as a hammer, axe, saw, or spade (for example). Take a professional blacksmith. He has learnt his trade by performing his specialized work day in and day out for many years. He hasn't spent his life talking about what he is going to do with the hammer if he ever happens to meet a horse. He's been doing it for real, making mistakes and correcting as he goes. You can't bullshit your way around putting a shoe on a horse.
You can probably guess where I'm going with this one. In the martial arts there's a lot of talk about tools and arsenals and toolboxes. But when I look at the performance of the men who are doing the talking, I can't see any of the expertise that the tradesman displays in the clip above. Regardless of what they may have to say about tools and biomechanics, most martial arts instructors use the tools of their body like a rank amateur. It shows--to me, anyway.
The professional fighter, on the other hand, employs the principle of the body's tools in action in a way that's clearly effective. If the job didn't get done, he'd be out of work. That's the definition of a true professional. That's why when it comes to fighting, whether in the ring or street, I always take my measure of an 'expert' by comparing what he does and says against the world's leading professional fighters and trainers, both past and present. Personally, my money would be on the professional every time.
The dynamics of tools
Now, on to the tools. Fundamentally, I've been a labourer for most of my life. And I've been learning from how workmen use tools for many years. During the twenty years when I managed a 200 acre estate, I was not only engaged in plenty of physical labour myself, but I came into contact with many workmen skilled in using axes, two-handed saws, spades, picks, you name it. You can learn a lot by watching a workman who knows what he's doing, and I always had my eyes open to pick up on the nuances of their skill.
The reason I am interested in the dynamics of tools such as the hammer and their skilful application is that they have often provided me with an insight into how the body might better be applied when doing work both internally and externally. In the context of a fight, this type of insight means being better able to deliver enough force to knock a guy out or stun him with a shot to the head, or drop him with a body shot, or even break bones with a blow.
And the truth is, there are many ways of executing, say, a punch so as to produce sufficient magnitude of force to take a guy out. I've probably tried and had some success with them all, including the chambered or cocked type punch of karate--something I'll be including in my next post. Each of these shots is mechanically different, and has a different potential application within the context of a fight. Any can potentially cause a knockout depending on the context. But it's understanding the various principles of the delivery and impact of the shots that gives you the edge, and that's where an understanding of how tools work can help.
The hammer, like the majority of our biomechanical levers, is a third class lever. When a hammer drives a nail into a piece of wood, the wrist acts as the fulcrum or axis, the mechanical effort of the arm is applied through the hand, and the load to be overcome is the resistance of the wood. This type of leverage is capable of producing great speed of the hammer head and its impact force (see 'The Physics of Hammering' near the bottom of this link .
Indeed, the human arm from the scapula to the hand is a third class lever. Here's a quote from 'Training the Shoulder Complex in Baseball Pitchers: A Sport-Specific Approach' by Jeffrey J. Jeran, MS,CSCS, National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health Wellness Center,Morgantown,West Virginia and Robert D. Chetlin,PhD, CSCS, HFI, West Virginia University School of Medicine,Morgantown,West Virginia.
'Inappropriate scapular kinematics may be further illustrated by the biomechanical principle of levers. Throwing a baseball involves thirdclass lever action, where the glenohumeral joint acts as the fulcrum, the baseball acts as resistance opposite the axis, and the muscles responsible for delivery are located between the fulcrum and the resistance. Imagine that your arm, shoulder, and scapula form a type of catapult (a classic third-class lever), where the scapula forms the base (i.e., the fulcrum or axis), the shoulder, upper arm, and forearm provide the desired muscle action (i.e., the effort), and the basket (i.e., the hand) holds the ball (i.e., the resistance). If the scapula or base is weak, or not tightly fixed, and you have the strongest arm in the world, the law of acceleration assures that your unstable base (i.e., scapula) will be difficult to control, resulting in improper mechanics, inaccurate throwing, poor velocity, and increased susceptibility to injury. Therefore, we believe that a strong base (i.e., the scapular fixators) is vital to both skilled performance and injury prevention. The scapular fixators, therefore, should be trained as diligently as those muscles that are directly involved in accelerating the ball.'
Being a third class lever like a hammer (which includes club and sledge hammers), axe, baseball bat, tennis racket, catapult, sling, billy jack, club, and even a mouse trap, the arm can be used in similar ways where moving the load at great speed over large distance is an advantage, in that the distance moved by the load is greater than the distance moved by the effort. And since this motion takes place in the same time frame, the load moves at a greater speed than the effort.
In other words, third class levers move the load quickly over a large distance by applying a large effort over a small distance. So if we can find ways of increasing either the length of the load or resistance arm, or increasing the applied effort, or both, then we can increase the speed of the delivery of the fist to the target.
Something else we can play around with is torque, or the magnitude of twist around the centre of rotation, which as a formula is equal to the application of the force multiplied by the perpendicular distance from the centre of rotation to the line of application of the force. Torque can be seen both in relation to the application of force by way of the muscles and tendons to the bony levers of the body and the joint axis about which they rotate, as well as in the application of force to the target and the major axis about which the rotation is taking place; i.e., the hip or the spine. And because torque is the product of the force and length of the moment arm, it can be increased by increasing the magnitude of the force and length of the moment arm.
Although having an understanding of those numerous factors that influence both linear and rotary motion can improve your performance, such an understanding is not essential and sometimes it's better to draw on analogies such as throwing your fist like a rock or a ball, catapulting it, whipping it in like cracking a whip, using it like a club or a hammer and even spring-loading it like a mouse trap when describing the different ways of punching a man in the head, for example. What's important to remember, though, is that unlike a catapult or hammer, the human arm can be applied from various positions, levels, ranges and angles. The hammer, for example, is by its design limited to do work within more specific planes and environments. The human arm, on the other hand, can be adjusted and forcefully applied to the target in many different ways.
Important to the success of this third class leverage system of the arm is the scapula, whose supportive structures must be developed in a way so as to provide a dynamic base from which to launch the arm and sustain the impact. And so this area has to be developed and strengthened by exercises specific to what the scapula has to functionally do in a fight. That’s why shrugs/rolls with weights in various positions, isolated scapula pull-ups, press-ups, dips, etc. are important. Most important is testing the dynamic stability of the scapula on the heavy bag.
Applied scapula
Two great fighters who clearly show scapula and shoulder development as well as how to use the arm like a catapult, hammer, or club to strike with the fist with tremendous force are Rocky Marciano with 43 knockouts out of 49 wins, and Mike Tyson with 44 knockouts out of 50 wins .
Just watch the clips and you will see how explosively the arm, from the scapula, shoulder, elbow, to the fist is able to move through various planes of movement from any position. Too many guys when they punch are either too tight in the scapula and shoulder region, so they end up punching with just their elbow, or too loose, so they end up punching in a disconnected or floppy way.
Naturally, the elbow is important in the delivery of force to the head or body as it is the last link of acceleration development in the kinetic chain from the feet to the hand. In over-arm, side-arm, under-arm and push-arm patterns the elbow can greatly enhance the acceleration of the fist and subsequently the follow through. However, irrespective of how the elbow is used to finally accelerate the fist (there are a number of ways), just prior to the contact of the fist with the target there should be a sense of the summation of all those forces generated within the kinetic chain (including the scapula and shoulder) being used to drive the elbow rather than the fist into the target, irrespective of the blow or position. It's rather like focusing on driving the hilt of the blade of a knife into a man instead of focusing on driving in the blade. Following through with the elbow in this way greatly enhances an accelerated follow-through of the fist.
I remember once hearing Tyson talking about how shrugging his shoulders was the key to his big hitting power and how, as part of his workout, he did shrugs with weights to enhance this process. I've been a great believer in scapular and shoulder development ever since. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0ONHZmsF
I often tell guys that by dynamically shrugging or rolling at the shoulder when they punch, or at the hip when they kick, they can generate and impart to the target a greater magnitude of force for a longer period of time than if they don’t use the shoulders or hips in such a way.
Some points about the knockout specialists
Marciano at just over 13 stone really knew how to throw a shot, and the effect of his blows were often described as being hammer-like, having rocks thrown at you, being hit by a billy jack or a baseball bat. These are analogies I've always tried to emulate and I've encouraged others to do so. Funny enough, Marciano's first sport was baseball and it was only after failing to make it as a professional baseball player that he turned to professional boxing. His baseball background might partly explain why his opponents likened his shots to having rocks thrown at them or being hit with a baseball bat. Although he often missed the head, which was his major target, he nearly always made up for it by hitting other parts of the body, usually the shoulders and arms, hard enough to cause damage or break his opponent's alignment or disrupt their balance in some way. And when you consider the relentlessness of his attacks (he was throwing 80 to 100 punches in a 3 minute round) that’s a lot of damage to sustain as an opponent. It was also requiring of an unbelievable destructive determination and stamina on the part of Marciano.
Hitting with this kind of power and relentlessness, it's not surprising that Marciano's opponents were always instinctively trying to get away from him, but only six opponents out of Marciano’s 49 fights and 49 wins ever succeeded. Something else about Marciano that’s worth noting is that he had pretty good timing and defensive skills, and the stories about him having to take a shot in order to give one are nonsense. When you consider he was throwing over 80 punches a round, if he'd had to take that many shots he'd have been beaten to a pulp. Just watch his fights and you'll see what I mean.
When I watch Marciano and Tyson hit guys in the head with their full weight behind their shot and with so much explosive bad intent, I often wonder if it was their intention to see if they could detach their opponent's head from his body and see how far they could propel it into the crowd. Tyson and Marciano were seriously big hitters, so if you want to knock out guys or seriously hurt them, then emulate the best--forget the rest.
Something else that should be remembered about knockout specialists like Marciano and Tyson is that when they climbed in the ring it wasn’t their intention to dance around the ring trying to score points or wait for the opportunity to throw a counter punch, but to knock the other guy out as soon as possible. The only reason they didn’t do that in the first seconds of the first round is because their opponent was not some rank amateur but a skilled boxer/fighter, often of world class level, who knew how to neutralize their knockout attempts and who often had the intent and skill to try and knock them out as well. Let's not forget, their opponents had the whole ring to try evade the pursuit style of Marciano and Tyson. If they had fought in a smaller ring, their knockouts would have been occurring much earlier in the fight because being able to crowd their opponent and working in restrictive pace suited their style.
And this is a style that could easily be transferred to the streets. So for those who say that boxing wouldn’t work on the streets or in some other kind of close combative situation, I'd answer that it rather depends on what type of boxer we're talking about.
More about the hammer and its applications in my next post.
When I’m training people, we work a lot on training the CNS to produce explosive power for fighting. This means that a given move has to be performed not only with power, but rapidly, repetitively, and in broken time.
When I tell guys within training sessions to close their eyes and listen, you can hear regular beats created through the vocalisation of explosive efforts and their feet on the mat and hands on pads/bag. The efforts are explosive, and even rapid in their repetition, but the timing is predictable. And that's not what we want.
Of course you need to be able to set a beat for your opponent to follow, and equally you need to be able to synchronise with your opponent’s beat. But a key factor in timing is being able to syncopate upon your own beat, or on his. And that requires a perception of interval of time that is very, very fine. And it also requires a sense of rhythm that is almost musical. The whole body is working in relation to this beat: the feet, the hands, the breathing/vocalisation, the head.
But the beat is not a military beat that is regular. It's a beat that is broken, as in jazz, African, Afro-Caribbean, and Latin music, for example.
A lot of the guys I train have real difficulty with this sense of broken rhythm. They may get it for a moment, but they quicky revert to a regular beat. It's more familiar and more comfortable. I don't know whether people who listen to more syncopated music would find this process easier, but I know that most of the guys I train find it difficult. Kishen, who is one of the youngest guys in the class, seems to pick it up easiest.
If you work at a regular rate, you can get through the session. You can pace yourself. This other way, the broken rhythm, is very challenging physiologically is well as mentally. For me, ever since my father taught me about timing in the boxing ring as a young man, the ability to time a full-power shot 'out of time' (when the opponent doesn't expect it) has been a skill that has served me well. It's an area that I've sought to understand and improve, and I've written about it before. I refer to this on the new Primal film, and it's even on the clip that I've posted. I mention that this ability to time the shot makes me seem faster than I am. It's the timing as much as the speed that matters.
When I talk about movement that is rapid, random, and repetitive, by random what I actually mean is syncopated. You are actually intending to fire the shot in between the your opponent's beats. You could hit him in the split second before he moves. You could hit him during his recovery--that's the space after he moves. You could also hit him during the development of his movement. The last example is what I mean by the interval of time within a movement; i.e., how long it takes for a move to develop from initiation to finish. So for example, you might sense his rhythm and you know that there's a moment when he's setting up. You break that rhythm with your insertion. That's a syncopation.
Some martial artists practice syncopation, but the problem they have is that the insertions of offensive moves are usually just touches. There's not much power going into the delivery. By contrast, usually the guys who can really deliver the power don't have that timing to go with it. So they're very predictable. The best fighters have both, but it has to be trained.
Again, we're down to adapting the CNS to a particular need. Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard, Sugar Ray Robinson, Floyd Mayweather, they all have a natural sense of this moment of opportunity and they develop a devastating blow within it. And some of their training addresses this syncopated timing. But I'd like to take it a step forward and address the syncopation work directly, combining it with explosive work.
When it comes to total body movement, that means I need to be able to work the feet, the hands, the head--everything--in this syncopated way. It's all connected, but not in a regular or predictable rhythm. The beats are complex, and this takes a higher level of coordination than it takes to simply work off a single, repetitive beat with regular subdivisions. It requires a change in your brain's processing of time perception.
For many, syncopation can be a difficult skill to pick up. But it's worth the trouble, because once you get the idea of it, then it's easy for you to 'go through their doors' and difficult for them to come through yours. As a fighter, you want to control space, time and motion. If you can syncopate, you're starting to control time. Having a working knowledge of syncopation gives you a big advantage, as a fighter and as a trainer.
I recently saw two comments regarding clips of guys working a bag. The comments came from two of the top guys in their respective MA specialities. Essentially what they both said is that somebody working a bag isn’t proof that they can fight, which is pretty obvious. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t see the fight, or the conditioning for the fight, in the bag performance of the individual. Just look at clips of Tyson on the heavy bag
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92dOMYoo5
or Buakaw training
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZMVetEi-b
Closer to home, look at Dennis Jones’ latest clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TYI3ClpP
It’s pretty obvious from these guys’ performance that their bagwork/padwork reflects at least one aspect of their fighting ability within their respective arenas. There’s a quality within the performance that doesn’t come from just hitting the bag around to put on a show.
These guys are hitting with bad intent, whether they are conditioning or working on the tactical elements. You can see how they’re using the bag to reinforce that violent intent to destroy their target, which will be human in the fight but for the moment is only a bag that they imagine as a man.
Sometimes the people who look at this footage don’t know what they’re looking at when they say, ‘It’s only a guy hitting a bag, it doesn’t necessarily apply to the fight.’
When Dennis Jones put up his clip on my old forum on Self-Protection.com, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnfldrDjo
I privately heard from a number of people who criticized the clip on the basis that it wasn’t anything much. I put them straight as to what actually was going on there. What they’d failed to see was how close the bag was to the wall, and how Dennis had to angle out (just as he might on the door) to get his shot in. And what they also undoubtedly didn’t realise was just how hard the bag was that he was hitting.
When I phoned Dennis up to thank him for the clip and told him about some of the criticisms and my reply to them, he said, ‘Steve, you’re the only one who’s seen that.’ The reason I’ve seen it and others haven’t is because I’m always looking analytically at movement, based on my experience. The way I work a bag might not on the surface of it look the same as the way Dennis works a bag, but we’re both working it either for conditioning or for a specific tactical application. And we both work heavy, hard bags.
On a light bag, you can hit it more or less any way you like, even with a badly-formed fist, and you’ll get an effect. You can’t do that on a heavy, hard bag, and you can’t do that on a man.
We’re hitting the bag with the idea of breaking bone (a rib, a nose, an eye socket, a jaw) or getting a knockout. When I’m working a bag I’m also doing it with an awareness that I’m going to get hit back at about the same time. I’m set to take a shot as well as deliver it.
I remember at
When I was in
And for that energy to be any good to me, I had to give it a very specific direction, technically speaking. I had to make it into ‘the bullet’ so that I’d be having an effect on the bag and not the other way round. On a light bag, you can get away with it. The hard bag, in a sense, does hit back. It will hurt you.
If you’re developing this explosive force, you have to be able to condition the structure to be able to sustain the greater effort as well as the greater impact. I started off not wearing gloves personally, and I conditioned my hands to be able to take the impact. But in teaching, I realised some of the bags, especially the black bag at
So I now recommend people to wear a bag glove, and then gradually start to reduce the amount you wear the glove as your hands get conditioned. Don’t compromise the power in order to save your hands, and don’t switch to a light bag so as to encourage yourself to develop a follow-through, because it will be the wrong follow-through. Use the glove, go for maximum, and then gradually try to wean yourself off the glove without compromising the release.
Here’s a clue. When you hit a bag, give yourself the command: ‘Ribs: break.’ Say it aloud. And follow your instruction. Become committed to sensing and feeling the effect of what you’re going to do, and then carry it out. Keep repeating that, and then give that release a sound (as I talked about in the post on vocalization) which is reflective of the intensity of the effort and the depth of penetration you’re looking for.
Once you’ve got one shot working, whether it’s a kick, punch, elbow, or whatever, repeat the shot rather like you were repeating the firing of a bullet. Set the tempo by the sound. So if you want to make your repetitions faster, then shout out your sound at a faster rate and the body will do all it can to follow.
In this way, you can condition not only the tool (i.e., fist, elbow) but you can repeat a shot if you need to. And because you’ve built this dynamic, explosive pattern in, it becomes easy then to switch to another move without breaking tempo. You develop that Uzi mentality, and your body really does become a kind of automatic weapon.
Pads are also a really effective tool in training. Repetitive pad work gives you both the conditioning of the tool and the anaerobic fitness that you need for fighting. But their best usage lies in fight training, because the man holding the pad can initiate attacks and counters as well as defend against them. Padwork, unless it is done purely for conditioning, must always resemble the fight as closely as possible, incorporating its emotional intensity, its chaos, timing, and functional skills.
The problem with pads is that they often don’t provide for the kind of impact you would be hitting on a real target. A guy wearing an abdominal protector does provide a more realistic target, but the pads themselves are much more yielding than a real head would be. And so, when you use pads, the pad-man has to know how to present them in a manner which will offer the most physical resistance. And he should add a slight resisting movement at the moment of impact so as to make the impact harder for the striker. Also remember, although the pad is a ‘softer target’ you must still set yourself to hit it as thought it’s bone. Otherwise the practice becomes unrealistic.
The padman can give you feedback about whether your hits are penetrating or not, as well as encourage you, point out technical problems, etc. At
Sometimes I look at guys doing the pad and it looks like they’re standing on the runway at Heathrow guiding a jumbo jet onto the runway. Obviously, the pad man has to stand as he would stand to fight, and not just stand there holding a pad as a target. You might as well just hang up a bag. The pad man has to be representative of the fighter you’re going to fight, whether he’s standup, submission, or ground and pound. In my opinion, the key to producing a great fighter in a professional gym is the pad man. It’s his job to get the best out of that fighter, physically, psychologically, technically, offensively, defensively, and counter-offensively. A major part of padwork is clinchwork, and this is often neglected. The padman should be able to slip one hand out of the pad so he can engage in clinchwork and then slip it back on again at need. Most people have the pad strapped on so tightly they have to stop everything to take them on and off. The padman has to be extremely fluid in the fight; you’ll see it in the gyms in
Sometimes I look at the type of pad being used, as well as the type of bag, and I can’t see how it’s supposed to sustain any real abuse. The pad, like the bag, is a piece of equipment that you want to buy with the idea of using it by abusing it! Tom O’Shaughnessy was telling Trish recently how he used to bring in different pieces of equipment to the gym for me to test out. He said when he got them back, it was like he’d given it to the dog. When I was done with it, you couldn’t recognise it.
When I work anything, it’s like the man. I’m out to destroy it. So the equipment has to be functional, and not something you buy because you like the way it looks.
Pat O’Keefe, the kickboxer, said that when he first came up to
Going back to what we see when we look at heavy bag footage. Here’s the thing. When I finally got the benefit of being able to look at a wider spectrum of training, particularly boxing and Muay Thai, I used that information coupled with my own experience to influence the way I work bags and pads. I don’t try to reinvent the wheel. I just tweak a little bit if I think I can improve it.
I look around at some of the experts, and it doesn’t look as if they’ve absorbed even the fundamental principles of using a bag or pads that you’d see in any decent boxing or Muay Thai gym. Go to the best source for that kind of information and then modify it for your particular needs; don’t make it up as you go along! It’s not necessary. It’s already there.
So when some of the experts look at a guy working the heavy bag, I don’t think they know what they’re looking at. They’re imposing their own limited view of what a bag is for on what they’re seeing. And so they’re looking at the wrong things.
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