[aries]

Your legs produce the majority of your power IMHO. If you want to answer this question seriously trying kneeling in front of the punch bag and see how hard you can hit. It's all about getting your body weight behind the punch. Without your legs to move your body you've lost nearly all your power.

[likkuid]

Originally Posted by Chinaboxer

if you watch animals in the wild or even a solid muay thai fighter, you'll notice they sink their chests and "push" the back like a cobra or a crouched tiger about to attack. This helps to "lock the core" which has many benefits while fighting. The most obvious is of course, more power as a result of being able to use both lower(leg) and upper(shoulders) as one unit. another benefit is that it also rolls the muscles over the intercostals and ribcage. This also applies to grappling. when a grappler takes your back, he will bridge to break your "core" while maintaining his core for the rear naked choke or what have you. that's why so many grapplers also get rib or intercostal injuries due to being stretched backwards when they lose their core.

With all that said, don't misinterpet the "locking of the core" as tightening the muscles. this isn't the case at all. think of it like dynamic stretching. when you do this, there is a tension from doing the action but it doesn't come from tightening the muscles, but more from the tension created by just doing the stretch.

Thanks for the answer - big help; very informative! Though, I still don't understand what you mean by "sinking the chest".. I'm trying to lock my core standing, and from my understanding I'm pulling my back a little (so I have really straight posture) and then I'm supposed to sink the chest - how do I do this when my posture is straight? I'm probably misinterpreting what you said :S Do you have a picture on hand? (I looked at cobras/crouching tigers but I can't make the translation of their bodies to a humans).

[Rudy Richter]

Originally Posted by waikru101

the force goes up through your legs, up through the glutius maximus(dont ask me how u spell it) through your torso down your arm and into your opponent. at least 80% comes from the legs and hips. or as rampage jackson says you punch from your ass.

Agreed 100%

[Rudy Richter]

Originally Posted by aries

Your legs produce the majority of your power IMHO. If you want to answer this question seriously trying kneeling in front of the punch bag and see how hard you can hit. It's all about getting your body weight behind the punch. Without your legs to move your body you've lost nearly all your power.

Nice...

[Michael Wanaka]

70% or so I'd say.

[Tabris]

Pretty sure it is just physics, your body pushes against the ground and the ground pushes back to equal the force. This is why someone heavier hits like a mack truck. That is speaking to a correctly thrown punch... arm punches are totally different.

Talking about rotation, you have to have your feet planted on the ground first. That is where the power comes. Just turning your hips means that if you were hanging from a rope you could hit just as hard as if your feet were on the ground and that is not so.

[likkuid]

Interesting - never thought of this stuff in that way!

[Yanoush]

Originally Posted by Michael Wanaka

70% or so I'd say.

I remember reading a Soviet study done the 70s or something and it concluded that like 63% of the power comes from the legs and like 20% comes from the core.

Or something, you know.

[vince89]

Id say about 60% of the power comes from the Glutes and the Hips this is the biggest area of muscle in the whole chain in which the power travels through so it makes sense to me that it would play the biggest role. Probably a good 20-25% from the abdominal muscles.

[Jalukas]

As a percentage? I don't know, but you can check youtube under fight science or human weapon for statistics.