One of the most basic attacks is probably the good ol' straight knuckle punch. But you may be wondering, a punch, which is supposed to hurt another hurt yourself?
The laws of physics dictate that "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction". This means that if a person inflicts X amount of force to the face, he too will receive X amount of force on his fists. Therefore the damage to the attacker himself depends on how well the arm is positioned to receive the force of the impact. Improper alignment of your wrists and elbow could result in injuries.
Figure 1: Improper wrist alignment
Figure 2: Improper contact point
Figure 3: Correctly aligned wrist and knuckles
Figure 1: The first image shows the wrists improperly aligned. When a very strong force is applied, the wrist will bend downward and may injure the wrists of the attacker.
Figure 2: An improper contact point such as the above may very well hurt the attacker's fingers as well as bending the wrists backwards towards the attacker, hurting himself.
Figure 3: The alignment of the wrist is perfectly straight, and allows for a better absorption of the force of the impact. A good alignment would allow the body to absorb the force instead of focusing on the wrists or elbows.
Contrary to popular believe, such injuries are actually more common among the experienced instead of novices. While the amateurs demonstrate wrong punching forms, they lack the force to generate enough force to actually hurt themselves.
So, check your punching forms, correct if necessary before you risk a long term injury.
How your punch can hurt yourself
Posted by mun at Saturday, December 01, 2007
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5 comments:
i've recently enrolled in a Budo Taijutsu class and it is amazing, unlike the Karate and TaeKwonDo classes I've taken in the past. It's an art that focuses on movement in which you fight without exerting force. It's kind of like tai-chi except ten times cooler lol. nice finding you on blogcatalog, stay in touch on the blogosphere!
-gale from maleadvicecolumn.com
Hi,
I very good point. Although very comman with beginners, you also see lots of advanced fighters not punsching correctly. Also I think training without gloves sometimes is a must. Getting to used to punching with a glove allows for sloppiness and injury, when punching without a glove. Good post!
markschat.blogspot.com FIGHTING AND TRAINING METHODS FOR UNARMED MARTIAL ARTISTS.
I recently purchased a punch-bag and strung it up in my garage, as no decent 'public' equivalents nearby my house. It's great for using up energy, aggression (etc) and much more useful training than shadow-boxing! In particular, it's highlighted that my punching technique is flawed, as I tend to hurt my thumbs when I hit very hard and follow through. I do have rather long thumbs and find it difficult to 'hide' them behind/under my knuckles.
I find I can punch as hard as I like with a straight jab/cross without pain, but a strong hook tends to jar my thumb :'(
Should one have to change one's fist 'shape' when applying different techniques (to save damage to thumbs)?
Follow up:
Turns out I was bending my wrist quite sharply inward when hooking to ensure power was delivered from the side. Correcting this poor technique means I need to twist on the balls of my feet a lot to still ensure power is delivered from the side; a powerful hit under the arm, to the weaker ribs, can be devastating!
Cheers
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