Man's Take Magazine

Athletic Power Generation Guide – Part Two

This article continued from the Athletic Power Generation Guide Part One.

Analyzing the Punch

Every instinct-driven, brawling man’s dream is to have more punching power, right? We admire athletes like Mike Tyson (despite his general disposition and squeaky voice) and Chuck Liddel from the UFC® (despite his past few losses) because they have demonstrated awesome punching power by knocking out opponents.

If we spent some time analyzing the root of all punching power we would find that it flows from the toes to the hips, shoulders, and finally through the arms, wrists, and knuckles.

The first thing to realize when doing this analysis is that there are many styles of punching. I’m not even talking about martial arts styles, but just personal adaptation of punching technique. For example, Mike Tyson was very good at lead-hand left hook punches and huge uppercuts springing up from a crouched posture. Chuck Liddel on the other hand likes wide arcing shots that seem to drop from overhead. He swings his whole arm and shoulder using gravity to speed up his technique.

Other fighters prefer to use straight punches where they can utilize a reach advantage. In this case they get a strong push off that back foot, turn the hips sharply, and create a straight line from the point of impact (the fist) down to the ground through the rear leg. In the case of a front-hand punch (a jab) the power often comes from a pushing step off the rear leg, or from the opponent moving forward into a grounded fighter as he completes the jabbing motion.

If you watch the average person throwing punches at a heavy bag you can quickly identify areas where the power is leaking out of his or her technique. For example many people throw hook punches without placing the same-side foot in a position where it can be used to get a solid push off the ground.

Likewise new fighters tend to lean away from their punches (because they are concerned about counter punches). This removes much of the bodyweight from the motion, and it puts the puncher off balance. If the punch were to land solidly, it could knock the puncher backward instead of the opponent.
Basic Steps to Achieving Massive Power

Our goal is to achieve massive physical power, and we can break down the steps required as follows:

1. Connect with the ground

All of your power originates from the ground. If you cannot connect with the ground first, power will leak out of your technique. You need to use the large muscles in your legs and core to generate the power. Everything must center around the hips. Though it may seem strange at first, the hips actually initiate most powerful motions.

In most cases you can feely truly powerful motions on the ball of your foot. You can actually feel the energy transfer from the ground through your body. Your core muscles stabilize your body as you allow the energy to flow through you.

2. Coil like a spring

 Most powerful motions involve twisting the body, squatting down, or coiling up the body in some way to trap potential energy in the body’s core muscles. At the right instant this potential energy will be unleashed as the strongest muscle group in the body (abs, lower back, glutes, quads, and hip muscles) explodes as one unit into sudden, coordinated motion.

There are a few motions that rely heavily on gravity. In these cases you will create potential energy by lengthening and elevating the body. For example if you were chopping wood with an axe, instead of coiling up you would extend your arms and legs, holding the axe high overhead. Next you would initiate by retracting the hips and accelerating the axe head downward as the body folds.

3. Initiate from the hips

When the time comes to pull the trigger, the hips move first. Once the core is loosed, the rest of the body is pulled along. We often think of power as something to do with our arms (like swinging a golf club for example), but the reality is the true power starts by untwisting the hips and allowing the rest of the body to rotate around the hips. In some cases, as is the case with the golf example, the weight must shift in a specific pattern to achieve optimal force.

4. Find your perfect path

The force generated by the uncoiling body is not very useful unless it’s directed along the perfect path. Power may be delivered through a curve, arc, or straight line, depending on the technique. Various other forces also come into play such as gravity, centripetal force, and so forth.

In the golf example we uncoil the hips and allow the body to rotate around its center to hit the golf ball. But if the path of the club is perfect, the ball will never go in the direction we want. It will hook or slice, depleting the action of accuracy (and usefulness) and also losing additional power we could have had with the optimal arc of the club and contact with the ball.

5. Follow through the target area while keeping connected to the ground

If you try to stop your motion too early, you will lose a great deal of force and accuracy. For this reason you must follow through even when the technique appears to be done. For example, if you try to break a board and stop just after you contact the board, you will lose much of the power. You must focus on driving your hand several inches beyond the board. Likewise if you’re striking a ball you must keep the club, bat, or raquet in the perfect path well beyond actual contact with the ball in order to achieve full power.

It’s vital that you find the right technique for your action and refine it until it’s highly efficient. This is a major part of finding your perfect path. A skilled coach familiar with body mechanics can go a long way in refining technique until it’s optimal. Whether you’re lifting a weight, punching a bag, or taking a swing at a ball, you need to follow through the point of impact or the intended resting place for the resistance. You must fully commit your body to each technique.

Before you fire a pistol you load it with potential energy (gun powder & primer), then you coil it up (cock the hammer back against a strong tension spring. Once that’s done, you aim the thing (find the right path for the bullet) and stabilize your body to take the recoil (connecting your feet with the ground). You’ll find that these steps are roughly the same although the order is a bit different since we’re playing with actual explosives here and not just explosive movements.

In an actual athletic movement the hips serve as the hammer for the gun. When you pull the trigger in your mind, the tension holding the hips back is released and the hips suddenly swing into motion, just the like the hammer of a gun on its way to strike the primer of the bullet.

The big difference between the gun and the athletic motion is that if you fire the gun without being connected to the ground, the power is still present because the potential energy was in the explosive powder. If you don’t connect with the ground in an athletic motion, the power is lost as the body sways off-balance.

Conclusion

This has been somewhat of a philosophical discussion of how to generate physical power, so now we need to spend a couple of minutes on practical aspects. First of all, it’s important to understand the power-generating motions can be dangerous by their very nature. You should always have a properly training coach nearby to evaluate your form as you begin. You can put significant stress on your back, neck, or joints if you execute powerful motions improperly. 

Aside from the activities mentioned already, there are a number of ways to practice generating power through various movements. I personally suggest you and a training partner start out by throwing around a medicine ball. In order to throw the heavy ball you will need to be connected to the ground. It’s possible to get some velocity on a baseball with only arm motion and no ground connection, but it’s nearly impossible with a twenty pound medicine ball.

Some different motions to practice with the medicine ball include regular throw and catch back and forth (check your balance and stability when you catch the ball), sideways throws where you need to rotate your body and push off your back foot, and bounce passes where you slam the ball into the ground from high overhead.

With a little coaching you can also learn to generate power using dumbbells or kettlebells. You should start with basic swings (between the legs) where you hinge the body and thrust forward from the hips to elevate the weight to shoulder height. You can one step farther into one-arm snatches where you elevate the weight all the way overhead in one motion. I suggest you consult a coach or trainer before you attempt any of these exercises with weight.

So now you know how to generate great power. In the words of Uncle Ben from Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

So use your new power wisely and practice it often.

Related posts:

1. Athletic Power Generation Guide – Part One

One Response to “Athletic Power Generation Guide – Part Two”

1. Mariana Delonais says:

   September 13, 2010 at 1:12 AM

   Kettlebells are the greatest method to get fit. I by no means bother with any other gear nowadays, just several kettlebells and I look in prime form.