Why Lifting Weights Won’t Increase Punching Power. There’s a popular misconception that lifting HEAVY weights guarantees increased punching power. Every month I see endless emails, forums, and websites full of fighters trying to rationalize the benefits of weights for fighting. Not surprisingly, many are written by guys with limited fighting experience. Weight training CAN build powerful muscles but won’t guarantee you powerful punches. I’ll give you 5 reasons why. In middle school, I lifted weights to impress the girls (it didn’t work, by the way). In high school, I followed an explosive weight training routine in track & field to increase my sprinting power. After track & field, I spent 5 years in powerlifting developing my strength and power through intense weight training. It was during my powerlifting phase that I discovered boxing. I TOO, thought my powerlifting background would give me an advantage in boxing. If lifting weights made me a more powerful lifter, shouldn’t it make me a more powerful puncher as well? I heard about old school boxers staying away from weights but I refused to give up my self- proclaimed “advantage”. When comparing myself to other beginners, I could see that I was stronger than all of them. My boxing trainer and all the pro boxers in the gym told me to stop lifting weights. They all challenged my theories stressing that weights would make me slow and stiff, and get tired faster. They told me the back- in- the- days boxing champions never lifted weights. Yet still, I resisted. I couldn’t understand how a power exercise could ever be dentrimental to a power- sport! The turning point came when I started losing sparring matches against faster, skinnier guys. They carried a slender build but hit so much harder than me! I kept thinking their technique was better or that maybe I hadn’t been boxing long enough. I finally got sick of losing and decided to obey my trainer’s every word. I stopped lifting weights among other things and within weeks, I was punching faster and harder. What shocked me was that I wasn’t only punching harder, my boxing skill had also improved. Looking back, I can see clearly that lifting weights really held me back. It makes a lot of sense when you understand punching technique. Why Lifting Weights Won’t Increase Punching Power. REASON #1 – Punching is a snapping motion, NOT a pushing motion. Lifting weights is a PUSHING MOTION. You exert as much force as possible, as consistently as possible, to lift the heaviest weight you can. During a pushing motion, the object is moved by you first establishing contact and exerting force over a relatively extended period of time. The natural progression of lifting weights is to lift heavier. Of course, everyone tries to lift fast but once they’re able to lift something, the next step is to lift HEAVIER. Speed is not the focus, strength is. To narrow search results, use the any character symbol % in the names. Search the world's information, including webpages, images, videos and more. Google has many special features to help you find exactly what you're looking for. Location David Herzog Ministries P.O. Box 2070 Sedona, AZ 86339. Phone Number 1.888.38.GLORY (45679) Email [email protected]. Nikolay Valuev. To prove that height and weight don't matter boxing fans sometimes use ·Nikolay Valuev as an example of a boxer who is tall'n'heavy yet is bad at boxing. David Haye v Tony Bellew; Venue: O2 Arena, London Date: 4 March Time: 22:00 GMT approx: Coverage: Full commentary on BBC Radio 5 live and live text updates on the BBC. Unfortunately many beginner fighters falsely believe punching to be the same pushing motion. These beginners think the goal of punching is to push their fist with as much force as possible to penetrate their opponent as hard as possible. Examples of sports with PUSHING motions (all of these also have snapping motions): sprintinggymnasticsfootballwrestlingweightlifting. Punching is a SNAPPING MOTION. A snapping motion is to exert as much force as possible in the least amount of time. With a snapping motion, you accelerate your hand towards the object and then use the IMPACT of that acceleration to exert force. Suppose you want to punch fast. The goal would be to explode on your opponent with the fastest punch possible and make contact with your opponent with the shortest amount of time. A punch is not a push, it’s a quick explosion, an accelerated force that reaches maximum power upon contact. When lifting weights, you can take a few seconds to exert your strength. When punching an opponent, you don’t have this luxury of time–he has to feel your power right when you touch him. Your fist must SNAP upon impact and return quickly so you can throw other punches or go back on defense. The speed requirement of punching increases the explosive damage your opponent feels. Lifting weights has far less emphasis on speed, which costs you EXPLOSIVE power. Examples of sports with SNAPPING motions: tennisbaseball (hitting, not throwing)golfvolleyball. BOXING! Pushing vs Snapping. The main difference between a pushing motion and a snapping motion is the amount of contact time made and the consistency of energy committed. Compare the bodies of these different types of athletes. If weightlifting improved snapping movements, wouldn’t professional volleyball players be lifting weights so they could spike the ball harder? If weightlifters had punching advantages, they would all be strong punchers, right? Pushing definitely allows you to move heavier objects because you have more time to apply force. Snapping allows you to apply more explosive force (damage) because you have the freedom to accelerate. You could say that pushing is like throwing a baseball, whereas snapping is like spiking a volleyball. Both are powerful movements but punching is definitely more like snapping than pushing. REASON #2 – Powerful Punches Require Relaxation, NOT Strong Muscles. Many fighters don’t know how to punch. Without the proper technique, all you can do is use your strength and power. This is why lifting weights actually helped me punch harder as a beginner. But the difference was only marginal, I was maybe 2. Learning proper technique maybe tripled my power. So how DO you punch? I won’t go into specifics right now but here are some simple concepts: Punching power (damage caused) = acceleration (hand speed) x force (muscle strength & body weight)You punch harder by using committing more speed and more force. How do you increase power WITHOUT using more energy? Now here’s the trick to punching RIDICULOUSLY HARD. There are 2 ways to accelerate more force into your opponent. One common way is to spend more energy. It’s logical, it works, but is it effective? Using more energy increases your punching power but it doesn’t increase the explosion effect. It feels like a harder push and it doesn’t give your punches that *BANG!* effect. The OTHER way (the only way) to generate explosive force, is to DECREASE the “weight” so that your punch travels faster. Then you add the weight at the very end of the punch when it lands—this makes your punches faster and use less energy! So what is “the weight” and how do you decrease it? The weight in this case is the TENSION in your body! The more tense and the heavier your body is, the heavier your punching weight becomes. You decrease this weight by RELAXING YOUR BODY as you punch, allowing your punching weight to accelerate freely towards your opponent. Right before your punch lands is when your foot finishes the pivot, your hip rotates, and the shoulders turn over to form the punch. In this final moment, you need only a short compact contraction to SNAP your entire body (like a rubberband) into one unified explosive punch. The better you are at relaxing your body, the more powerful you will be! Relax to aid the snap. The relaxing motion is a critical aspect of punching power. Relax the body by letting go of your muscles. This relaxing motion, this “release” of your body allows your punch to accelerate faster creating a far more devastating explosion when you finally add weight. If you think about it: the punching motion is relaxing your fist as much as possible towards your opponent, leaving only the final moment of impact for your muscle contraction. Learn how to exert force through relaxation and you will have mastered 9. Now of course, relaxing your body doesn’t mean letting your body flop all over the place. Use proper punching form to relax your body INTO the motion of the punch. Then contract all your muscles simultaneously at the very end to finally add weight to the punch. Mastering this split- second timing of punching with your entire body all at once, is what makes the punch incredibly powerful. If you’re so use to exerting force over a period of several seconds, how will you be able to exert maximum force in only a split second? The simple answer is that you can’t (or you won’t be as good at it). Proper punching requires snapping movement (exerting maximum force in the shortest time possible). Unfortunately, most fighters are only taught the proper punching form, which is easy to teach because you can see it. Technique on the other hand, has to be felt and has to be taught. It’s a special skill requiring a combination of timing and visualization. Now you understand why an old skillful boxer can still punch harder than a young athletic kid. It’s because he’s mastered the timing of relaxing his body and then contracting his muscles in the right moment to deliver the explosive power. Beginner punchers increase power through effort. Skilled punchers increase power through relaxation. REASON #3 – Lifting Weights Can Decrease Your Muscle Relaxation Capacity. This is where the old school arguments against weights come in. I’m sure you’ve heard them all before. Lifting weights: makes you slowmakes you stiffmakes you tire out faster. Is it true? Well, let’s think about the extremes. Suppose I was to compare two guys– one being a weightlifter and the other being a dancer. How might their bodies look differently? How might their bodies move differently? Which body do you think would better mimic the movements of a boxer? In my case the old school arguments were true. Powerlifting limited my speed and endurance, while making me “stiff”. I didn’t feel disadvantaged against other beginners but against experienced fighters, they were all MUCH faster and punched harder with more endurance. They didn’t use any weights and begged me to do the same. Suppose you don’t care about being slower or having less endurance. You should still consider the chances that lifting weights might HAMPER your relaxation capacity and thus your power punching ability.
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