Thread: Punching

When your punching, what muscles are you mostly using? I'm going to get into weight training and I want to know what to work out so my punches can get harder. Also punching with dumbells in your hands, is that good or bad for your arms?

Chest,shoulder biceps,triceps also your using your hip(flexors?)and legs if you punch right

Originally Posted by Mathias

Chest,shoulder biceps,triceps also your using your hip(flexors?)and legs if you punch right

jep these mostly
and almost every other muscle in your body.
punching with weights is good, though i heard somewhere that it would not be so good
as the gravity pulls down so your muscles react on this and what not, but i think it is good, my trainer does,
and alot of otherboxers do amateur or pro.
so i dont think it would be bad

Punching with dumbells, does that make your punches faster and harder?

I know it doesn't increase power, but I think it might increase speed. Only use dumbells between 1-3 lbs.

Oh, maybe thats what I was doing wrong, I was using the 20lb dumbells

I'm not an experienced boxer, but here's my 2 cents.

Punching power comes mainly from 3 things: Form, Muscular Strength, and Body Weight. Big people hit hard. Strong people hit hard. And people that know how to throw a punch properly hit hard. Improve any of these 3 things and in theory, you should be hitting harder.

With that said, punching while standing up with light weight dumbells in your hands probably won't make you hit much harder. The dumbells are weighing your fists down so if anything, it will help you keep your hands up when your hands would otherwise feel heavy after a long round. Has anyone here tried "punching" with dumbells while laying on a bench? I guess it would be very similar to a dumbell benchpress, but the form would be slightly different. I would imagine that if someone who was roughly my weight and my skill level, could benchpress twice as much as me, he could probably hit a lot harder than me (everthing else being equal).

The muscles used when punching depend on the punch but the most active muscles are probably in the chest, shoulders and triceps. But if you're punching with proper form, nearly every muscle in your body is tied in. Imagine that your legs were made of jello. Sounds crazy, but if that were the case, throwing a powerful punch at your opponent would knock you over backwards. Or imagine if your forearm and wrist muscles were too weak to keep your fist firm on impact. You might as well be hitting with him with a pillow. Or if your abdominals were too weak to turn your body into a right cross... virtually every muscle in the body is involved in a proper punch.

Originally Posted by Mathias

Chest,shoulder biceps,triceps also your using your hip(flexors?)and legs if you punch right

The legs are mainly for the advanced.

Whenever I punch, I usually feel it in my shoulders and traps (I think that's where it is, the upperback), and somtimes my chests. My biceps and triceps will also swell for a little bit, too.

one thing to remember...speed equals power. If two (hypothetical) people are exactly the same mass and have exactly the same form, then the one who is faster will have the most power. That's why you often see a smaller person who can hit harder than a larger one. Some things that help increase punching power:
i) use the legs and hips to generate torque, adding to power
ii) turning the wrist to generate torque
iii) staying relaxed until right before the moment of impact...helps give the whip-like snap

as far as which muscles to work, work all of em. Having a lot of forearm, wrist, and hand strength never hurts.

You use your legs, core, chest, forearms, shoulders, and triceps. Strengthen all those and I guarantee you you'll punch harder. Another thing I just started doing is balling up my fists right as I turn my hand over, this adds snap too.

What about your biceps? Or are they just for show?

biceps aid with holding the arm in the correct position, aswell as some (and thats a big some) of the power and speed in hooks and uppercuts.
triceps are important for that last extention of the arm, and can add power and speed.
bicpes keep the hooks and uppercuts in position so you can drive them through without breaking your arm.

Biceps also look damn scary, and are a large part of the intimidation factor

However big your biceps may be- and if they are so integral to punching power, could somebody explain Arguello, Danny Lopez, Saddler, Ricardo Lopez, etc...- and no matter how well you master technique, it is physically impossible to punch hard with weak wrists and forearms. Your wrist must be straight on every punch or you will be slapping or cuffing- catlike- and not punching. Turn your wrist one time on a full leverage left hook and you'll see what I mean. And on every punch the first place the shock of impact goes is right up the forearm. You don't need huge muscles here; a good exercise, and very simple and inexpensive, is to tie a cord to a wight, say 5 lbs or so. Tie the other end to a pipe or something similar, in the middle, so you can grab either end and roll the cord in, slowly, which lifts the weight. Roll it up, then back down slowly, about 100 times very day.

BBoxer if you want to hit hard hit the bag often, spar and weight train every once in a while in that order.Put down the dumbells when punching, that is detrimental to your power and speed.