Q for biomechanical people and trainers of female boxers

I've been googling Q angle etc to make sense of my knee MRI results (which are at the end of this post in case anyone happens to have any comments :)) and I read the on average a female has her body weight sitting one inch lower and behind that of a man. A woman will tend to have her body weight over her heel whereas a man will have his over his toes. Thinking about it I'd be surprised if a female can really train exactly the same way a man can and have the same power/balance. What adjustments would the trainers recommend for a female boxer that are not applicable to the guys?



MRI results:

A routine MR protocol demonstrates normal appearance to the anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments. The medial and lateral menisci also appear normal. No abnormality is seen in the medial or lateral collateral ligaments. The chondral and subchondral surfaces appear normal and there is no increased signal within the marrow space.

The infrapatellar tendon on the sagittal PD images appears normal. There is increased signal within the marrow space of the inferolateral patellar facet. The overlying patellar cartilage thickness does however appear normal. The appearances would be consistent with some patellar marrow oedema and probable early chondromalacia. There is no significant joint effusion.

Hey Sharla
Notice how I have Feur moving to the sides to load up,rather then planting
Lots of side to sides and crossovers
Memo to self,throttle her sparring partner blue,idiot made her bleed trying to prove he could hang with her with a potential fight in less then a month.Dipsh$t is ten years her junior,4 inches her senior,and 60 pound her heavier,dingbat she was,she gave him the lighter gloves,and he might have broke even.
Sorry just bitching,Im seriously PO'ed
Go for lots of side to side movement to load your power punches,its easier on your knees,and for some reason most female fighters find it elusive.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Trainer Monkey

Hey Sharla
Notice how I have Feur moving to the sides to load up,rather then planting

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Trainer Monkey: where can i see that? Is there a topic on that?
thanks for the answer ;)

Thanks Monkey. I'll play around with that nest time I'm in the gym and see if I understand what you mean. I get the impression moving sideways works well but I didn't think of it in terms of female biomechanics. Thanks for the new perspective.

Bitching is healthy to a point I think. Otherwise you'll just want to kill him even more if you don't get it off your chest right? Hope he didn't break her nose. She'll have to put on the light gloves herself one day when he's tired but she's fresh and bash him herself :) I guess some beginner dudes just don't understand that bashing the midget capitalizing on brute force alone doesn't make them the greatest .... or even better - just wankier!

Perhaps he might even understand the importance of demonstrating control a little more if his sparring is reduced until he has it. Still some people have a screw loose somewhere too.

I had my nose broken in sparring ages ago by a heavyweight who could tap away gently until he felt embarrassed and then would just rip in a few hard ones. I sparred him three times and every time it ended in me bleeding. This was in a past club and he has since been banned by my current club because he loses his temper with everyone.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Trainer Monkey

Hey Sharla
Notice how I have Feur moving to the sides to load up,rather then planting
Lots of side to sides and crossovers
Memo to self,throttle her sparring partner blue,idiot made her bleed trying to prove he could hang with her with a potential fight in less then a month.Dipsh$t is ten years her junior,4 inches her senior,and 60 pound her heavier,dingbat she was,she gave him the lighter gloves,and he might have broke even.
Sorry just bitching,Im seriously PO'ed
Go for lots of side to side movement to load your power punches,its easier on your knees,and for some reason most female fighters find it elusive.

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Were you supervising? Then you or whomever should have been watching should have stopped it right away.

I think the first is probably the best source

To help prevent injuries, women athletes should make sure they are strong in the quadriceps, hamstrings, hip abductors, hip external rotators, abdominals and obliques. The neuromuscular coordination of the knee joint deceleration movement should be trained with landing, cutting and hopping drills. The correct techniques for landing and cutting should be practised and the correct shoes should always be worn.


http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0150.htm

http://www.easyvigour.net.nz/fitness...us_max_leg.htm
http://www.bahshe.demon.co.uk/public...le-athlete.htm
http://www.nismat.org/ptcor/female_knee/index.html


I don't think there is anything specific that should be taken or added from a female/male routine however being aware of our differences I think is important but being aware that every person training will have different needs is just as important.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sharla

I've been googling Q angle etc to make sense of my knee MRI results (which are at the end of this post in case anyone happens to have any comments :)) and I read the on average a female has her body weight sitting one inch lower and behind that of a man. A woman will tend to have her body weight over her heel whereas a man will have his over his toes. Thinking about it I'd be surprised if a female can really train exactly the same way a man can and have the same power/balance. What adjustments would the trainers recommend for a female boxer that are not applicable to the guys?

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That may hold true when you're standing upright, but for boxing the same biomechanics apply. You'll have to shift your weight, find an angle and create enough leverage for your punches. Everyone's musculature and weight distribution is different. A good trainer may have a good eye for this when make a minor adjustment in his fighter's stance. Maybe scrap can reiderate this since he background in this.

Anyways how's your training coming along? Is that floppy tendon coming around yet? :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Trainer Monkey

Hey Sharla
Notice how I have Feur moving to the sides to load up,rather then planting
Lots of side to sides and crossovers
Memo to self,throttle her sparring partner blue,idiot made her bleed trying to prove he could hang with her with a potential fight in less then a month.Dipsh$t is ten years her junior,4 inches her senior,and 60 pound her heavier,dingbat she was,she gave him the lighter gloves,and he might have broke even.
Sorry just bitching,Im seriously PO'ed
Go for lots of side to side movement to load your power punches,its easier on your knees,and for some reason most female fighters find it elusive.

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I don't know how things work over there, but If I was the fighter I'd be more "PO'ed" at the trainer or seconds that were supposed to be watching and keeping things under control. What's your excuse?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Missy

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Trainer Monkey

Hey Sharla
Notice how I have Feur moving to the sides to load up,rather then planting
Lots of side to sides and crossovers
Memo to self,throttle her sparring partner blue,idiot made her bleed trying to prove he could hang with her with a potential fight in less then a month.Dipsh$t is ten years her junior,4 inches her senior,and 60 pound her heavier,dingbat she was,she gave him the lighter gloves,and he might have broke even.
Sorry just bitching,Im seriously PO'ed
Go for lots of side to side movement to load your power punches,its easier on your knees,and for some reason most female fighters find it elusive.

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Were you supervising? Then you or whomever should have been watching should have stopped it right away.

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I send her to a different gym once a week to get work in.
Somebodies got to watch the son though,so Im stuck here,believe you me,if Id seen him loading up on her,it would have ended right there
Guy's 6'4" 220 and he's loading up on a 165 pound woman,in freaking sparring no less
Trust me,all involved parties now know,that,that is to NEVER happen again
Ive calmed down to the point were the vein in my forehead isnt visible anymore at least

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Killerqueen

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Trainer Monkey

Hey Sharla
Notice how I have Feur moving to the sides to load up,rather then planting

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Trainer Monkey: where can i see that? Is there a topic on that?
thanks for the answer ;)

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There is one,but to hit you quick
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc2hgbnvbgY
Its dark,so youll want to hit the bigscreen button to watch it better

CC :coolclick: 8)

fun to see. Looks a bit like my fight :D

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Originally Posted by Killerqueen

CC :coolclick: 8)

fun to see. Looks a bit like my fight :D

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Back at you :coolclick:
I have to give Ronnee the girl she's fighting,credit for being game
She had absolutely no reason at all to get up in the third,shed been down twice,the one in the third looks like her lights are out out,and completely outworked in the second.She got up out of pride and heart. I appreciate that,because you cant teach it,either you have it or you dont.

Even when a coach is watching there's no guarantee that they can prevent something like this happening. It only takes one over-zealous combo out of a moment of annoyance for a big guy to bash a smaller person. Embarrassment of a novice guy getting hit by a girl can be an unpredictable factor sometimes.

The article I read about female body weight was focused on skiing which is not an upright sport either. Since we spend so much time on our toes surely the fact that our body weight tends to be further back behind our toes than for guys must make a smidge of a difference?

More push off the back toes to help keep the centre of gravity foreward perhaps? Which might mean we have to bend our knees a little more so we're not barging in chin first? Does that make any sense to anyone or is this just BS? I guess it could all be irrelevant if doing Scrap's balance exercises since you'd naturally find the best stance anyway.

I agree with what you said about injury prevention Missy but having my experience with this injury I think flexibility plays more of a role than I thought aswell. Tight ITB and groin/hips might be where my issues came from.

I'll check out those links aswell so thanks for those :-)

Perhaps he shouldn't have been in with her? I also think much of what happens in the ring comes from the top. There are only one or two guys I would feel comfortable sparring without supervision because all the lads respected each other had a great club spirit and never went mad like that, they knew they'd a, probably get done over by someone else in the club and b, get thrown out for good. Other places I would feel very uneasy.

When I started to spar it was always with a more experienced guy.


I don't think where we have our weight when in stance should play apart unless your technique is bad. Weight distribution is different due to weight round our hips and a guys across his shoulders, probably why we wiggle when we walk, try this little exercise, try walking like a man.

I just saw a video of myself running and saw a whole lot of hip action and really don't think i even need to attempt to walk like a man to see your point here :-)

I guess the main thing that gets me - since I was a kickboxer before being a boxer - is the fact that I can't stop anyone heavier from walking straight through my punches. I could as a kickboxer with a well timed straight kick to the body that would work against guys 20 kg heavier than me.

Now one of my coaches drills me on keeping my guard up. He walks through as many as 5 consecutive punches to put pressure on me and force me to use my guard. His nose gets messed up but his momentum is not altered.

I tend to think that if my weight distribution was as a guy's is I could transfer weight into my punches more easily because it's already higher and more of it is upper body. I guess there may not be any way to combat this but as Monkey said there is nothing to stop us transferring our body weight sideways for hooks etc just as well.

I also tend to feel that most of my sparring is counterpunching and usingangles moving backwards because guys are all able to come foreward through my body weight more than the male kickboxers used to. I guess I shouldn't attack head on a lot anyway and should use my angles even more. Sideways movement as Monkey says.

I know what you mean about the sparring beginner guys. They don't know what a hard punch is yet so every punch is scarier than it really should be and they strike out - out of intimidation more than an experienced guy. I think experienced guys also put more worth on training time and effort than beginners and are less likely to be embarrassed if you get one in on them.

Can,and do you plant at all?
Im not asking a silly question,but I know alot of trainers,and alot of boxers think power is driven by the shoulders or even worse just muscle,when the really scary power is actually driven by the hips.If your driving your hips in to the shot,they shouldnt be just walking through,or even wanting to play with you anymore.

You might have a point there! I did naturally plant my weight down more and push my hips through for front kicks more than I ever do punching. My current gym has been better than past gyms because they have taught me to move out the way but I haven't felt a lot of power and maybe that's the difference. I'm having one of those days when you realise you've missed something really obvious - like looking for something in the fridge and missing it because it's only one shelf higher than it normally is - at eye level! Thanks Monkey CC.

Man i get your issue totally now
What you should be doing,isnt pushing from the hip,but snapping and exploding from it,and traveling it to the shoulder and the arm
Go work the heavy bag,and do what I was saying,and youll feel your power jump,and jump hard
Im glad I could be of help

Right thanks Monkey :) I think I need to take it to the gym and muck around a bit to completely understand what you are saying but you've been a big help :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sharla

I've been googling Q angle etc to make sense of my knee MRI results (which are at the end of this post in case anyone happens to have any comments :)) and I read the on average a female has her body weight sitting one inch lower and behind that of a man. A woman will tend to have her body weight over her heel whereas a man will have his over his toes. Thinking about it I'd be surprised if a female can really train exactly the same way a man can and have the same power/balance. What adjustments would the trainers recommend for a female boxer that are not applicable to the guys?



MRI results:

A routine MR protocol demonstrates normal appearance to the anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments. The medial and lateral menisci also appear normal. No abnormality is seen in the medial or lateral collateral ligaments. The chondral and subchondral surfaces appear normal and there is no increased signal within the marrow space.

The infrapatellar tendon on the sagittal PD images appears normal. There is increased signal within the marrow space of the inferolateral patellar facet. The overlying patellar cartilage thickness does however appear normal. The appearances would be consistent with some patellar marrow oedema and probable early chondromalacia. There is no significant joint effusion.

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Hi, Sharla. If you're still trying to figure out the MRI results, the best I can decipher is this:
The main ligaments that hold your knee together look good. The cartilage pads in between your leg bones where they join to make the knee joint look good. The tendons of your knee look good. The cartilage in your knee is not wearing thin. In MRI's increased signal seems to mean possible damage or areas beginning to show some wear so they are detecting some swelling and inflammation in the marrow of you patella (knee cap). Chondromalacia is the softening of the cartilage. They are most likely referring to the cartillage on your patella (knee cap) and that it may start to wear a bit.

Hope this helps a little.

Thanks Feuer :) CC I appreciate your help :)

You've got it right. I also asked the physio and knee surgeon about it and the basic idea was that I did damage the cartilage enough to let too much pressure through to the knee bone and give myself a bruised bone.

The MRI results are a bit misleading since they can tell how much the cartilage has narrowed if at all but it can still be damaged enough to not protect the knee well. They say the only way to really check just how damaged the cartilage is is with an arthroscopy but I probably won't need one (fingers crossed).

The freaky thing is that you don't have pain receptors in your cartilage apparently so by the time I started feeling knee pain I had already done the damage because it was my bone being bruised! I was just happily running along messing myself up!

Im a big fan of breaking down fight tape,you allways learn something,even if what your learning is "Dont do that"

First go and watch the tape on the first two Holyfield/Bowe fights
Bowe is clearly the more powerful fighter,and usually gets off with the same speed.But he cant take him out,and other then the uppercut,he rarely hurts him.Its enough to drive you distraction really,but then look at his hips.Its like the bottom half of his body isnt particularly interested in what the upper half is about.
Then go and watch just about any Ann Wolfe fight,and notice how her entire body explodes in to her power shots

Power is generated from the posture of the head

Thanks Monkey, I'll go and chase up those videos. It's always good to be able to see female examples of how to do things correctly since it's easier for me to get my head around how it's done.

When I was kickboxing years ago and first learning to check my trainer was getting POed trying to tell me how to do it but his huge frame and odd hip shape was just too different for me to emulate. I got it immediately when I was able to see another girl in the club do it. Unfortunately I'm the most experienced girl in my boxing club now.

So the posture of the head Scrap. I might have to video myself sparring the guys to see what my head's doing. I get the feeling my head might go back too much when sparring the taller guys more than the shorter ones.

One of my coaches always tells me to look at my opponent in the eyes but he's 6 foot something and looking up at him just makes my chin come up. Need to improve my peripheral vision I guess. Still I don't want to be looking down either I guess so if I just aim to keep my chin in but my head only tilted slightly foreward would that be what you mean. Is there another way to feel / see if your head posture is correct? Thanks for the input :)

If when if Boxing you feel your dorsals in the upper back are tight the postures wrong and it affects breathing and the lower back which affects the biomechanics of the hip adductors .

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sharla

Thanks Monkey, I'll go and chase up those videos. It's always good to be able to see female examples of how to do things correctly since it's easier for me to get my head around how it's done.

When I was kickboxing years ago and first learning to check my trainer was getting POed trying to tell me how to do it but his huge frame and odd hip shape was just too different for me to emulate. I got it immediately when I was able to see another girl in the club do it. Unfortunately I'm the most experienced girl in my boxing club now.

So the posture of the head Scrap. I might have to video myself sparring the guys to see what my head's doing. I get the feeling my head might go back too much when sparring the taller guys more than the shorter ones.

One of my coaches always tells me to look at my opponent in the eyes but he's 6 foot something and looking up at him just makes my chin come up. Need to improve my peripheral vision I guess. Still I don't want to be looking down either I guess so if I just aim to keep my chin in but my head only tilted slightly foreward would that be what you mean. Is there another way to feel / see if your head posture is correct? Thanks for the input :)

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Allways,and I mean allways,take the opportunity to get tape on yourself.Even if your trainer isnt as hands on as I am with Feur,you might catch something you missed in the heat of the moment.
Hell,email me them,and Ill break them, down for you if you wish,I watch tape constantly anyway,might as well be doing it for someone I like

My upper back is always tight. I'm not sure how much of this is from computer work and how much is from training. Sometimes I think I'm tense at training because I'm thinking/ concentrating too much.

There are still days when I just can't loosen my neck and shoulders up by relaxing mentally which came easily to me a few years ago. So maybe I am holding my head the wrong way in training.

So would i be holding it too far forewards or back?

Thanks Monkey - I'm limiting myself to water sports for the rest of this week (running to check my biomechanics with the physio has bothered my knee) but I'll try to get hold of a camera and send you something over the next couple of weeks :)

I'm constantly amazed at how many of my issues Scrap and Monkey can diagnose easily over the net when I've been bashing my head against the wall trying to figure it out and my trainers can't tell me!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sharla

My upper back is always tight. I'm not sure how much of this is from computer work and how much is from training. Sometimes I think I'm tense at training because I'm thinking/ concentrating too much.

There are still days when I just can't loosen my neck and shoulders up by relaxing mentally which came easily to me a few years ago. So maybe I am holding my head the wrong way in training.

So would i be holding it too far forewards or back?

Thanks Monkey - I'm limiting myself to water sports for the rest of this week (running to check my biomechanics with the physio has bothered my knee) but I'll try to get hold of a camera and send you something over the next couple of weeks :)

I'm constantly amazed at how many of my issues Scrap and Monkey can diagnose easily over the net when I've been bashing my head against the wall trying to figure it out and my trainers can't tell me!

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Computer work is death for your shoulders,back,and neck,just a serious heads up there.
The angle just sucks for loosness
Yeah,when you get tape,Ill break it down and tell you what Im seeing,as you quickly pointed out something I was missing in Feur's fight.An outside perspective allways helps

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scrap

If when if Boxing you feel your dorsals in the upper back are tight the postures wrong and it affects breathing and the lower back which affects the biomechanics of the hip adductors .

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100 % agree here
If your shoulders slump forward because of muscle tightness,it cuts off a good chunk of your lung capacity

Yep an outside perspective is always good. I've heard that if you proof read one piece of your own writing more than a few times you won't pick up your mistakes after that because your brain just glosses over it. I look foreward to getting your input and Frei's aswell if she doesn't mind spotting it too :)

I'll be annoyed at myself if I've been reducing my own lung capacity after that effort building up my aerobic fitness just to make it dissappear plus wreck my knee! I have to laugh at the irony though!