I am often asked online “Which knuckles should seek to land when punching?”
The knuckles on the left side of the fist? The right side? The centre pair of knuckles.
Interestingly I am never asked this ‘offline’, not sure why.
When you throw a punch, you have 3 primary responsibilities:
- Making the punch technically excellent. This includes driving the shoot from the feet, getting the appropriate body rotation and delivering the shot with acceleration.
- Landing the punch. This is about getting your range right and using the appropriate shot for that range.
- Minimizing the risk of injury to yourself.
In boxing we are fortunate to have lots of protection on the hands.
Wraps, gloves that are generally excellent quality with good padding to the front of the glove and solid support around the wrist.
Given the level of padding across the fist it feels a little academic to think about which knuckles to land – a bit like suggesting that the colour of a car has any influence on how fast the car goes.
So, keep it simple.
Aim to land the punch with the full face of the fist.
What does matter is ensuring that you align the bones of the hand with the bones of the forearm.
This alignment will minimize the risk of wrist injury.
What about on the street then, without the benefits of protection on the hands?
I am not a street-fighting expert, nor a self-defence expert.
That being said, I reckon that when an unprotected human fist hits a human head it’s 50/50 whether that fist ends up with broken bones – this is even if the punch lands on the jaw where there is a bit of ‘give’.
If the punch lands high up the skull, then I reckon it’s pretty much certain that the hand will break.
Probably another of the many good reasons not to end up in street fights, and if you do, maybe consider going for body shots 🙂
Cheers
Fran
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Excellent Fran, boxing is a gentleman’s sport and street fighting is grappling and biting. A serious street fight these days is at least a knife fight. Either win it within seconds or as you suggest, avoid it, unless you are equipped for war. That being said, I gave up street fighting long ago – I have not hit a soul for at least two weeks (-: …
If you have to fight bare-knuckle, throw only short arm shots with a tight fist – something is going to give and it’d better be the target. Even a jab could cause serious harm and bloodshed. Speed and precision is the key and only use fists when you can’t use elbows, head buts, forearms, open hands, low kicks and knees. This has nothing to do with boxing.
Take care.
2 whole weeks Ivan, aren’t you doing well 🙂
Yes, I always encourage the avoidance of such situations…seldom does any good come of it.
I read about some guy bringing a Court Case where he accused another bloke of deliberately damaging his fist by hitting it with his head. Apparently he wasn’t taken seriously. But it seems some experienced Street Fighters actually can achieve this. Which is an interesting Self-Defence move, as an X-Ray would show that the injury resulted from punching somebody in the head.
The top of the skull is incredibly tough Frank for obvious reasons. Even with all the hand protection, boxers damaging their hands in this way is not uncommon.
Ha, ha…quality advice, Fran…’in street fights…maybe consider going for body shots’ 🙂
🙂
Always feel awkward talking about street altercations mate – I spend my life urging the boxers to steer well clear…as I’m sure do you!
Nice one Fran.👍
Looks like you have had new flooring in your gym?
Are you replacing the lines for your foot drills?
Have just had our wooden floor cleaned and polished (looks great by the way!).
However our lines have been removed and am looking at replacing them.
I’m after some ideas, going to put a couple of circles on there for the kids when carrying out technique on the floor.
And will put down some straight lines for beginners drills but was after some ideas for advanced footwork markings?
Cheers
Jimmy
Hello Jimmy
Nice to hear from you mate, glad all is well at the gym.
We’ve had carpeting laid. We are going to have to lay taped lines down and regularly replace them, it’s a bit of a pain but in the winter we have bad problems with condensation and it was only a matter of time before one of our boxers hurt themselves by slipping (explosive footwork on a film of water is a recipe for leg injuries).
Circles are a great idea. I’ll email you a template that I use lots – multi purpose set of lines.
Thanks Jim