How to throw the Left Hook properly to prevent Injury

[Chris Nagel]

Your elbow should be in line with your shoulders when you land the left hook. If your elbow is too far back when you land it, there will be too much leverage on your shoulder (Think about an arm-bar submission from wrestling). Your arm can't go back any more, and therefore your shoulder absorbs a lot of force causing that familiar twinge of pain.

Another thing you should remember is that you don't want your fist to go past your chin because then you would lose power. At the end of the movement you want to pull you right shoulder back, and then immediately get your arm into position to land your hook.

[Scrap]

Chris gave a very good discription there.

[cocobeware]

Sorry to bump this post again but im still having some problems with this.

The problem seems to be when im trying to hook high ie: higher than my own shoulder level i sometimes feel a pinch in my shoulder blade.

Any ideas what i might be doing wrong?

[Peter Som]

There are many contributing factors, thus, there are equally as many questions. So I'll ask one of the most important. What kind of shape are you in?

[nikola_ganchev]

Do you work on a desk and do you make alot of bench/biceps exercises? Do you have internal rotation of the hands at rest? This type of pinching can be result of weak scapula retractors...

[cocobeware]

Thanks guys i'm begining to think that it was down to being a little bit out of shape and throwing with the arm and not getting the legs and hips ect moving first.

I will work on it some more however i came across this video and thought it was quite a good explanation of the mechanics of the left hook what you guys think ?

[cocobeware]

This is also quite interesting although im not quite sure what the purpose of the towel is?