How to Increase Your Punch Power

Everybody wants to increase their punch power. Even when I tell students that there’s more to fighting than just power, they still yell in my face—

I WANT MORE POWER!

Okay, okay… stop yelling! Here’s a tip that can help you add power to your punching, kicking, running, jumping… everything.

Check out this video or scroll down to hear all about it. Keep punching! 🙂

How to Increase Your Punch Power

To be a great martial artist, you need to put as much of YOU into every technique as possible. Not just psychologically and emotionally, but physically. Consider this—

It ain’t how much you got, it’s how much you can use.

You probably already know that, don’t you? Okay, hotshot. So, let me ask you this—do you really put 100% of YOU into every one of your techniques? I’ll bet you don’t!

Guess what? I don’t, either. But here’s one way I’m trying to fix that…

Pick a technique. Let’s say an elbow strike. If you want to increase the power of that elbow strike, or your punch power, or any power, look at one single part of your body and ask it this question—

How are you helping me?

For example, look at your back foot…

Are you starting with the weight on the outside of your foot, the inside, or is it evenly distributed?

Is your foot flat on the ground or is your heel raised? If your heel is raised, how much?

Are you shifting forward or drilling down on impact?

Now that you know what you normally do, we can start the fun part… experimentation!

Throw elbows as many ways as you can think of, changing how you move. Your goal is to figure out the best way for your back foot to help you increase the power of your elbow strike.

Hang on–you’re not done. You’re actually just getting started!

Now look at your back ankle and ask it, “How are you helping me?”

Is it stiff or loose? Is it straight or bent? Does it pivot a little, a lot, or not at all?

What about your back knee? Your back hip?

How about your front foot? Front ankle? Front knee? Front hip?

Your lower back and upper back? Lower abs and upper abs?

Your breathing, shoulders, elbows, wrists, fingers, face, neck…?

QUESTION EVERYTHING!

And all of that was just for one elbow strike! Now you’ve got to do the same for every punch, kick, knee, takedown, and throw you know.

Of course, different styles and different people will have different ideas about how to use your body. That’s okay. The point of this article is not to tell you how to throw a punch, it’s to tell you that if you don’t know what every part of your body is doing when you throw a punch, you’ll never be using full power.

What makes this drill so simple (not easy, but simple!) is that when you ask a part of your body, “How are you helping me,” it can only give you three possible answers…

It’s either helping you… it’s doing nothing… or it’s hurting you.

If it’s helping, see if it can help more. If it’s doing nothing, see if it can start helping. And if it’s hurting you, see if you can fix it.

For example, throw a straight punch and look at your front hip. Maybe it’s pivoting and helping you, but could it pivot more?

What about your other hip? Are you using it like a hinge or are you pulling it back to add to the rotation? You should know.

Look at your shoulder and neck. Maybe they’re both tense before you throw the punch and slowing you down. Train yourself to relax your shoulder and you’ll immediately increase your punch power.

How about your head? If you saw my video on Bad Head Movement, you know that letting your head rock back and forth like a bobblehead can hurt your balance and restrict your ability to see what’s going on. In that case, your head is hurting you and should do less.

The big idea here is to turn on the body parts that should be helping you and turn off the body parts that are hurting you.

When you find that sweet spot where your whole body is helping your technique and nothing is holding you back, that’s when you’ll be punching and kicking at full power.

So, in a nutshell, the secret to punch power is awareness. To put 100% of you into a punch, then you have to know what 100% of you is doing… or not doing.

But don’t kid yourself—this is a process. Awareness takes time. So, be prepared to do some work and spend some quality time with yourself…

Light some candles, put on some soft music, and hey—flowers are always nice! 🙂

Keep questioning your body, your heart, and your mind until you can put 100% of you into everything you do… then you’ll be a master.