It's actually impossible to gain punching power through gaining weight and "putting on" muscle

[max baer]

Some good responses here from posters I havenāt heard from in a while.

outside of this, my own personal experience I have never met someone who lifted and bulked up and started hitting better. I have never dealt with it in my own experience and I have never seen it in the millions of fights I have watched over 15 years. This has to amount to something. At least its supporting evidence

can i ask is punch power like runnning power. because i grew up so gifted at long distance running i coudn't be beat at 7-14 years old and i loved pushing the limits and enjoying the endorphins and i would sing to myself while running and i would spend my time trying to compose new songs using the rythym of my stride as a beat. I loved long distance running but i was below average sprinter. even at school i'd get beat in sprinting by classmates. over the years i kept running and i built up muscle to try and improve explosive speed but i was unable. i'd still come 5th in a sprint. no matter what i did training i was just average sprinter but building muscles slowed me down over distance running. i just add this to expand the thinking about weight and power. maybe we are born with gifts and we should work with what we have been given and forget the other side.

[Willie Pep 229]

can i ask is punch power like runnning power. because i grew up so gifted at long distance running i coudn't be beat at 7-14 years old and i loved pushing the limits and enjoying the endorphins and i would sing to myself while running and i would spend my time trying to compose new songs using the rythym of my stride as a beat. I loved long distance running but i was below average sprinter. even at school i'd get beat in sprinting by classmates. over the years i kept running and i built up muscle to try and improve explosive speed but i was unable. i'd still come 5th in a sprint. no matter what i did training i was just average sprinter but building muscles slowed me down over distance running. i just add this to expand the thinking about weight and power. maybe we are born with gifts and we should work with what we have been given and forget the other side.

Evolution spent 200,000 years building us into long distance runners. A marathon runner is what all Neolithic men looked like.

Mankind can run longer than any other creature on the planet. Wolfs, horses, deer can all out sprint us, but not a single one can run (at a 4 to 7 MPH gate) for 25 miles. Only us.

Even horses who can walk 20 miles with a man on its back, can only gallop for a few miles, at best, before needing to rest. We are the best long distance runners on the planet.

We can run down, long distance, any animal on the planet; BUT every top predator on the planet, bear, wolf, big cats, Etc. can catch us in a sprint.

Point being, nature never meant for us to build big muscles. We can never get strong enough to match the strength and power of the large predators so evolution didn't bother with it.

So, while today, we look at large muscles as a positive thing I suspect that the power and strength gained with muscle building, probably functions in a relationship of diminishing returns.

My conclusion: Larger muscles probably do gain more power but not as much as we would hope.

[billeau2]

Evolution spent 200,000 years building us into long distance runners. A marathon runner is what all Neolithic men looked like.

Mankind can run longer than any other creature on the planet. Wolfs, horses, deer can all out sprint us, but not a single one can run (at a 4 to 7 MPH gate) for 25 miles. Only us.

Even horses who can walk 20 miles with a man on its back, can only gallop for a few miles, at best, before needing to rest. We are the best long distance runners on the planet.

We can run down, long distance, any animal on the planet; BUT every top predator on the planet, bear, wolf, big cats, Etc. can catch us in a sprint.

Point being, nature never meant for us to build big muscles. We can never get strong enough to match the strength and power of the large predators so evolution didn't bother with it.

So, while today, we look at large muscles as a positive thing I suspect that the power and strength gained with muscle building, probably functions in a relationship of diminishing returns.

My conclusion: Larger muscles probably do gain more power but not as much as we would hope.

Thats an interesting take Willy. Some say we are an aquatic creation that found land because of certain features involving skin and hair, boyancy, etc.

[max baer]

Evolution spent 200,000 years building us into long distance runners. A marathon runner is what all Neolithic men looked like.

Mankind can run longer than any other creature on the planet. Wolfs, horses, deer can all out sprint us, but not a single one can run (at a 4 to 7 MPH gate) for 25 miles. Only us.

Even horses who can walk 20 miles with a man on its back, can only gallop for a few miles, at best, before needing to rest. We are the best long distance runners on the planet.

We can run down, long distance, any animal on the planet; BUT every top predator on the planet, bear, wolf, big cats, Etc. can catch us in a sprint.

Point being, nature never meant for us to build big muscles. We can never get strong enough to match the strength and power of the large predators so evolution didn't bother with it.

So, while today, we look at large muscles as a positive thing I suspect that the power and strength gained with muscle building, probably functions in a relationship of diminishing returns.

My conclusion: Larger muscles probably do gain more power but not as much as we would hope.

yeah we gotta outsmart the sabre toothed tiger not just run away and sometimes reading someones post i wonder how their ancestors survived. queeny not only survived but his ancestors managed to gain more tigers and lions then in the whole of africa. but he can't outwit this poster as i came up hard!

[Willie Pep 229]

yeah we gotta outsmart the sabre toothed tiger not just run away and sometimes reading someones post i wonder how their ancestors survived. queeny not only survived but his ancestors managed to gain more tigers and lions then in the whole of africa. but he can't outwit this poster as i came up hard!

It's about the 'group.' Not the individual.

A guy on Ted Talks offered an interesting analogy.

Put one man and one chimp on an island with food and water. Come back in one year. There is a 50-50% chance the man surrived. There is a 100% chance the chimp surrived.

Put a 100 men and 100 chimps on the same island and come back in a year.

The men will be thriving; half the chimps will be gone and the other half in cages.

The community is smarter than the individual, and simultaneously the community can act dumber than the individual, but the community is always more powerful than the individual.

We humans thrived because we functioned as a group, we were never meant to be lone predators.

That is something lost in the American temperament today.

The ideals of the NRA are a testament to the denial of the 'group.'

[max baer]

It's about the 'group.' Not the individual.

A guy on Ted Talks offered an interesting analogy.

Put one man and one chimp on an island with food and water. Come back in one year. There is a 50-50% chance the man surrived. There is a 100% chance the chimp surrived.

Put a 100 men and 100 chimps on the same island and come back in a year.

The men will be thriving; half the chimps will be gone and the other half in cages.

The community is smarter than the individual, and simultaneously the community can act dumber than the individual, but the community is always more powerful than the individual.

We humans thrived because we functioned as a group, we were never meant to be lone predators.

That is something lost in the American temperament today.

The ideals of the NRA are a testament to the denial of the 'group.'

very well said

[cyril layman]

Mostly false but with an element of truth to it. You can absolutely be taught to increase your punching power. Very few fighters actually fully maximize their kinetic chain and improving technique will improve punching power.

That being said, sometimes people come into the sport with instinctive technique, and there's certainly a component of power that's genetic, things like length of lever, where the tendons attach, density of bones/muscle, etc. So all things being equal, people will have different maximum levels that they can achieve. But all things aren't equal, and most people don't ever reach their maximum, and can absolutely be taught to increase their power.

Besides, knockouts come from punches that you don't see coming. Certain styles really don't lend themselves to being able to knock someone out, sometimes because you're right in front of them and they can see the punches coming, other times because you're fighting off the back foot and it's much harder to generate power off the back foot with most punches aside from check hooks because your mass is moving away from the opponent. There's a whole host of reasons aside from power that keep people from being able to get knockouts. Most knockouts are TKO's anyways.

The main truth to that truism is that it's very rare to get someone who can really get one hit KO's, especially as the level of opposition goes up, because opponents at higher levels have better defense and are better able to see the punches coming, and it's correspondingly less likely for them to miss a punch enough that they can really get one hit KOed. But you can still teach a boxer to get the angles and use feints and advanced punch selection, or counter punch timing, to increase the likelihood of them landing a punch that the opponent didn't see coming, and thus that's another way that someone can learn to get KO's when they didn't before.

Power is an incredibly misunderstood concept.

There are boxers like Hagler,Duran & Chavez who have been hit by punches they didn't see coming & ate the punches,it's called having an iron chin.Let me rephrase punchers are born with knowing how to maximize their kinetic energy.You are right the best ko punches are the ones the opponent do not see coming but fighters are still Koed even with the punches they do see coming depending on the power of the punch & the chin of the opponent.Hearns at 147 & Julian Jackson are the 2 boxers under the HW division that could Ice you with 1 shot & against good boxers.

[cyril layman]

can i ask is punch power like runnning power. because i grew up so gifted at long distance running i coudn't be beat at 7-14 years old and i loved pushing the limits and enjoying the endorphins and i would sing to myself while running and i would spend my time trying to compose new songs using the rythym of my stride as a beat. I loved long distance running but i was below average sprinter. even at school i'd get beat in sprinting by classmates. over the years i kept running and i built up muscle to try and improve explosive speed but i was unable. i'd still come 5th in a sprint. no matter what i did training i was just average sprinter but building muscles slowed me down over distance running. i just add this to expand the thinking about weight and power. maybe we are born with gifts and we should work with what we have been given and forget the other side.

Could be.You are born with punching power if you have it you have it can't be taught.

[crimsonfalcon07]

can i ask is punch power like runnning power. because i grew up so gifted at long distance running i coudn't be beat at 7-14 years old and i loved pushing the limits and enjoying the endorphins and i would sing to myself while running and i would spend my time trying to compose new songs using the rythym of my stride as a beat. I loved long distance running but i was below average sprinter. even at school i'd get beat in sprinting by classmates. over the years i kept running and i built up muscle to try and improve explosive speed but i was unable. i'd still come 5th in a sprint. no matter what i did training i was just average sprinter but building muscles slowed me down over distance running. i just add this to expand the thinking about weight and power. maybe we are born with gifts and we should work with what we have been given and forget the other side.

This gets into muscle fiber type. Distance running (and gas tank in boxing) is about endurance. So distance runners who train primarily that will develop predominantly slow oxidative muscle fibers (type 1) that are slow to fatigue and produce low power contractions. The other two fibers are fast oxidative (type 2a) and fast glycolytic (type 2). Most types of lifting focus on low reps and "building muscle" eg muscle mass, which will develop type 2 fibers. Generally what that means is lots of slow power. You're training to move a lot of weight, sure, but if you're doing so slowly, the movement itself will be slow.

Muscle fibers can adapt to the type of training. Depending on the style of fighting you do, you need to develop either explosiveness (which will come at the expense of endurance), or endurance (which will come at the expense of explosiveness).

Remember how power is determined by mass times acceleration? Acceleration is the biggest component that we can affect, so if we want to increase power (or sprint speed), we need to develop explosiveness. Lifting weights doesn't do that. Plyometric training does. So if you're trying to maximize your speed in running, or your power in boxing, you do various types of plyometric training that are relevant to the movement you do. But, since you don't want it to come at the expense of endurance, you train it over longer sets and with less rest. Plyometric interval training is generally going to be one of the best ways to do that.

But you can sabotage your plyo also by using too much weight. Think about how high and fast you can jump without body weight vs how much slower your acceleration will be if you immediately throw on a weight vest. You don't want to use so much weight that it slows your acceleration down. So you start with body weight and work your way up with relatively light weights. Doesn't take a whole lot. That's one of the reasons jump rope is so helpful for boxers. As a general rule, you train specifically for what you want to do. If you want to move a lot of iron around for brief times, you lift weights. Otherwise, it's going to be counterproductive.

There's some relatively new research out about training things like tendons and nerves as well, but in broad strokes, that's what we're shooting for.

[DeeMoney]

This gets into muscle fiber type. Distance running (and gas tank in boxing) is about endurance. So distance runners who train primarily that will develop predominantly slow oxidative muscle fibers (type 1) that are slow to fatigue and produce low power contractions. The other two fibers are fast oxidative (type 2a) and fast glycolytic (type 2). Most types of lifting focus on low reps and "building muscle" eg muscle mass, which will develop type 2 fibers. Generally what that means is lots of slow power. You're training to move a lot of weight, sure, but if you're doing so slowly, the movement itself will be slow.

Muscle fibers can adapt to the type of training. Depending on the style of fighting you do, you need to develop either explosiveness (which will come at the expense of endurance), or endurance (which will come at the expense of explosiveness).

Remember how power is determined by mass times acceleration? Acceleration is the biggest component that we can affect, so if we want to increase power (or sprint speed), we need to develop explosiveness. Lifting weights doesn't do that. Plyometric training does. So if you're trying to maximize your speed in running, or your power in boxing, you do various types of plyometric training that are relevant to the movement you do. But, since you don't want it to come at the expense of endurance, you train it over longer sets and with less rest. Plyometric interval training is generally going to be one of the best ways to do that.

But you can sabotage your plyo also by using too much weight. Think about how high and fast you can jump without body weight vs how much slower your acceleration will be if you immediately throw on a weight vest. You don't want to use so much weight that it slows your acceleration down. So you start with body weight and work your way up with relatively light weights. Doesn't take a whole lot. That's one of the reasons jump rope is so helpful for boxers. As a general rule, you train specifically for what you want to do. If you want to move a lot of iron around for brief times, you lift weights. Otherwise, it's going to be counterproductive.

There's some relatively new research out about training things like tendons and nerves as well, but in broad strokes, that's what we're shooting for.

You are right about most of this, except for the premise I bolded. Lifting heavyweights has been proven to develop fast twitch muscle fibers, thats why sprinters squat, deadlift, and even RDL heavy. So while many here are arguing that being bulky and having heavier muscles does not increase your punch power (focusing on the mass portion) they are ignoring that you can recruit more fast twitch muscle fibers by lifting weights. In essence, muscle are what cause the acceleration.

Now, before ya'll jump down my throat about supporting just having bigger muscle bound fighters, thats not what I am writing. I am simply stating that all else being equal, more fast twitch muscle fibers increase acceleration (thats why sprinters are very muscular), and you can & do recruit more fast twitch muscle fibers by lifting heavy weights.

Of course, boxing is not a sprint sport, and thats why there needs to be a balance between developing muscle (being built like a sprinter) and building for stamina (being built like a distance runner)