If power = speed squared x mass. Why arnt the fastest boxers the hardest hitters?

[billeau2]

Roy Jones, Macho Commacho, Tyson, Pacman, Sugar Ray, these guys had power dont get me wrong but they wernt the MOST powerful.

Guys like Earnie Shavers, Julian Jackson, Hearns, Prime Foreman etc were and these guys are significantly slower, and its not like they are carrying more weight either.

What gives?

When applying this formula you cannot isolate one component as predominant in the equation. in other words Speed and mass are interrelated.....They must be efficiently converted to become power....

Now lets look at power.... In fact the thing that converts speed and mass to power in a punch is.....Torque. A great analogy would be your car....I had an old Bmw (1976) that was only 186 horse power but was wickedly powerful...why? because horse power, like raw speed and/or power is not the real measure of how powerful an engine is....Torque, the CONVERSION of engine strength where the rubber meets the road IS the real measure....The torque generated by my old Beemer was why it was so powerful....

A punch is the same....Technique is really another way of saying the torque, i.e. the circles we make with our spine to legs, with our hips, with our shoulders and with our arm CONVERT linear qualities of speed and mass into power.

The best punchers have the conversion down with the most efficient use of the body and with the least loss of energy through the process of converting torque into power.

The deception comes with linear qualities that we observe. For example because we see how straight Floyd's punches are, we assume that a punch is converted along a straight line....NO!! remember the second law of thermal dynamics here matter in motion will stay in motion until it meets a force equal or greater along that same line of force.... If a punch were truly linear we would launch ourselves without moving our arm (already extended arm) and have no means of stopping oneself. A punch must be controlled through muscles pulling in an opposite direction. So a straight punch, like Floyd's is in fact an example of very efficient use of torque because there is no such thing as a truly straight punch from the perspective of physics.

Now why are some able more than others? Try to imagine how many muscles pull and how much variation there is in timing, delivery, efficiency, relaxation, etc and you will see that there are a tremendous amount of movements to master in punching effectively. But alas all these movements are towards teh same purpose of converting speed and mass through torque into power, or specifically impact on a target (for a punch).

[Jam Jars]

You answered it in your own question, speed x MASS. If the boxer is not putting his full weight into the punch due to his technique then the MASS is not going to be very large. It really is that simple.

This ^^^

It's all about transferring your bodyweight into the punch. The jab is a fast punch but you don't put as much weight behind it as you do with other punches, which is why it doesn't do as much damage.

[New England]

You cant tell me guys like tyson and comacho didnt sit down on their punches can you?

Also dosnt sitting down on your punches develop more SPEED and therefore power? Since your leg especially your calves assist the hip rotation?

tyson was an incredible puncher. camacho could hit, but he wasn't a puncher like mike tyson.

tyson is among the three hardest punchers of all time at HW.


foreman, shavers, tyson.



and then you've got joe louis, who i believe to be the greatest puncher of all time, who couldn't hit as hard as those three, but was a much more effective knockout puncher.

[sdcluser]

Roy Jones, Macho Commacho, Tyson, Pacman, Sugar Ray, these guys had power dont get me wrong but they wernt the MOST powerful.

Guys like Earnie Shavers, Julian Jackson, Hearns, Prime Foreman etc were and these guys are significantly slower, and its not like they are carrying more weight either.

What gives?

Sigh.....

have you taken basic physics?

Kinetic Energy = Mass * (Velocity)^2 this doesn't equate to power.

Think of more for change of momentum or change of impulse

[hectari]

Roy Jones, Macho Commacho, Tyson, Pacman, Sugar Ray, these guys had power dont get me wrong but they wernt the MOST powerful.

Guys like Earnie Shavers, Julian Jackson, Hearns, Prime Foreman etc were and these guys are significantly slower, and its not like they are carrying more weight either.

What gives?

Bone density.

The weight of the bones is what gives those guys power, look at slow ass Angulo and Kelly Pavlik they look like they are barely throwing shots but they have heavy hands that can wobble or rock guys with those slow punches.

[cixthree]

Roy Jones, Macho Commacho, Tyson, Pacman, Sugar Ray, these guys had power dont get me wrong but they wernt the MOST powerful.

Guys like Earnie Shavers, Julian Jackson, Hearns, Prime Foreman etc were and these guys are significantly slower, and its not like they are carrying more weight either.

What gives?

Doing something fast and doing something quick are two different things.
Pacquiao=Fast and that=Power
Floyd=Quick and that=Pop.
Broner=Fast and that=Power
Garry Russel=Quick and that=Pop

You sacrafice power to be quick cause you shoot it from where it is, straight right without setting, planting/telegraphing.

[hectari]

tyson was an incredible puncher. camacho could hit, but he wasn't a puncher like mike tyson.

tyson is among the three hardest punchers of all time at HW.


foreman, shavers, tyson.



and then you've got joe louis, who i believe to be the greatest puncher of all time, who couldn't hit as hard as those three, but was a much more effective knockout puncher.

Tyson wasn't a TRUE heavy handed puncher, he would be included in the same category as Pacman Pacquiao an Explosive puncher., quick burst punches coming from speed and angles that people couldn't see. I never seen Tyson really knock guys dead cold, he would catch them with punches they couldn't see.


They say punching power is the last to go, when Tyson was already washed up he had no more power because his speed went, once that speed went the power was gone and he couldn't hurt guys like Danny Williams or Kevin Mcbride and he hit them flush too.

George Foreman is an example of true power, slow as a slug when he got older but his punches were heavy, he knocked out Moorer with an arm punch and would rock his younger opponents with slow looking jabs.

[cixthree]

Its very rare to have both power/fast & be quick/power.
I hate to use this guy as an example, but Roy had both (But he may have been on the roids)
And Manny had both at one point in his career (From 35 on up....Wink wink)

[Syf]

Aside from the basic assumption that power in a punch(knockout power) is the same as the energy you are referring to, it is the mass part that is the most important variable. How well can a boxer put their weight into a punch. Some just punch with their arms. Some don't have destruction in their intent which means they pull back or don't commit fully to an attack, because they are defensively minded or just plan on playing a numbers game in the ring. Then there is the question of placement. Depending on where the punch is landing, it wreaks more or less damage. Finally you have the opponent's momentum. If your punch enables you to add your opponent's momentum to your own, then your punch power is magnified exponentially. Like Marquez did to Pac.

But all in all, you are over simplifying. Add more variables. Having powerful punches, and the way of being a ko artist is far more complex, even as it appears elementally simple.

[Simurgh]

Torque is not the good analogy as torque power means there is a rotational movement involved. I can't see much rotational movement in the punch (there might be some).

The formula you quoted is the formula for the kinetic energy and it is a good approximation for the punching power, but...

The question is if the punching power, alone, determinate how much damage is caused?
The answer is no.

100 tones body hitting you with the speed of 1cm/s, would hardly cause any damage. The same power has a baseball bat that would probably kill you (we take that both are of the same material).

The figure of merit here is not how much power the punch intrinsically has, but how much of that power can be transferred during the punch. It comes to collision of bodies. When a football player hits the ball with his head, ball has a lot of energy/power but it hardly does any damage. Same goes for the tennis ball (which has a lot of power) It's called elastic collision. Barely any power is transferred to damage.

Now when car hits you it's pretty much inelastic collision and lots of power is lost (transferred to the damage caused).

Same can be related to the damage one punch causes. If you watched Bruce Lee or Van Damme movies (right they are movies, but still there is some merit) you can notice how the palm punch has a special form to produce the inelastic collision. Those punches produce the most damage. It's not just important how you throw the punch but also what you do during the collision (do you take your hand immediately after the punch, do you keep your hand for some time).

Bottom line - it comes down to technique.