In one experiment, experts in karate, boxing, kung fu, and tae kwon do all took turns striking the dummy in the face.
The researchers were surprised to find that boxing is the fighting style capable of delivering the most force in a single punch.
Boxer Steve Petramale delivered about 1,000 pounds (453.6 kilograms) of impact force, the equivalent of swinging a sledgehammer into someone’s face…
The tae kwon do spinning back kick delivered more than 1,500 pounds (680.4 kilograms) of force, while the kung fu flying double kick produced about 1,000 pounds (453.6 kilograms) of force.
But the undisputed winner practices a discipline known for its ability to deliver a knockout: Muay Thai, also known as Thai boxing.
Melchor Menor, a former two-time Muay Thai world champion, uses a simple technique to incapacitate his opponents: a knee to the chest at close quarters [TC: I guess that doesn't count as a "punch" Oh well.].
Menor himself was surprised at how powerful this move can be.
"I wasn’t expecting to have the highest force. When he said the power of the knee [kick] was equal to the power of a 35-mile-an-hour [56.3-kilometer-an-hour] car crash, it was humbling."
It also turns out that a kung fu punch is as fast as a snake. Who would have known? Here is the full story, which perhaps explains why I prefer tennis.
Tyler,
Your post is making a mistake somewhere. First you say
“The researchers were surprised to find that boxing is the fighting style capable of delivering the most force in a single punch.”
BUT THEN YOU provide evidence that Tae Kwon Do is the most powerful:
“Boxer Steve Petramale delivered about 1,000 pounds (453.6 kilograms) of impact force, the equivalent of swinging a sledgehammer into someone’s face…
The tae kwon do spinning back kick delivered more than 1,500 pounds (680.4 kilograms) of force. . . ”
I’d be surprised if Tae Kwon Do wasn’t the most powerful.
The post contains a basic phsyics mistake that is covered in the first month of most general physics classes: pounds measure force, kilograms measure mass. Thus, “1,000 pounds (453.6 kilograms)” is incorrect. The correct metric unit is the Newton. The original article commits an additional sin by taking a number with one significant digit (“1,000 pounds”) and re-expressing with with four significant figures (“453.6″).
More importantly a physical analogy would be more useful than the metric mis-conversion: “1,000 pounds, the equivalent of having two Harley Davidons on your face….”
Jerry, that’s not surprising at all. The techniques with the most force aren’t necessarily the most effective. Spinning back kicks create huge force but they are slow to execute, easy to dodge, and easy to counter.
A comment on your post concerning martial arts: In the sport of “mixed martial arts,” participants can use any technique they want, with a few exceptions. Over time, the most competitive MMA athletes use a combination of boxing, thai kick boxing & grappling/wrestling (either brazilian ju-jistu or Greco-roman). Kung fu, tae kwon do & karate techniques are not considered as affective as
these alternatives. Thus, the “real world” test of what is the most effective combat technique matches the scientific experiments you reported on today’s MR.
Cool to se fellow mma fans here, i allso train mma though and for what its worth the most painfull technique (by far) are the Muay Thai low kicks, those are nasty! For the non initiated, a muay thai low kick is a kick that strikes with the chin bone and is aimed at your thigh.
As for Marks post, yeah its been proven again and again that Muay Thai / Kyokoshin karate and San sho aswell as western boxing tend to be the best styles for standup fighting.
Tae Kwon Do and Kung Fu can generate a lot of force, but that force is seldom useful in combat. Almost every fight goes to the ground almost immediately, and it’s there that wrestling and jiu-jitsu dominate.
Interestingly enough, I studied aikido for a while and learned the misdirection and blocking techniques. After becoming a fan of MMA, I asked my sensei, “If these techniques are useful, why don’t the world’s best fighters use them?” He gave me some mystical crap which basically said, “They don’t work.” I never did see the aikido defence for a football tackle.
- Josh
“Interestingly enough, I studied aikido for a while and learned the misdirection and blocking techniques. After becoming a fan of MMA, I asked my sensei, “If these techniques are useful, why don’t the world’s best fighters use them?” He gave me some mystical crap which basically said, “They don’t work.” I never did see the aikido defence for a football tackle.”
I studied both Tiajitsu and Hapkido for a while, and both Aikido and jujitsu for a few months. My take is that arts like Aikido are more for fighting multiple attackers. A excellent ground fighter that tries to fight 2 people will be demolished. Against one person, ground fighting rules. 2×1 or 3×1, going to the ground will insure that the 1 loses. The kick to the head is so hard to defend against, when you have someone else grappling with you.
Additionally, Aikido and other arts like it, are useful when you get old and slow, or if you are weak or small. Learning how to wrestle as a 130 pounder is great, but when you go up against the 250 pounder, you’ll lose unless you are college skill level.
Actually, I believe there was a study done a few decades ago where Thai kickboxers paired off against karate and kung fu experts. Unsurprisingly, the very linear Thai practioners easily defeated their more fancy pants opponents.
What styles of karate or kung fu were involved in the study above, I don’t know. Some styles of kung fu, such as Wing Chun, are rather simple and linear and might be as effective as Muay Thai.
I am singularly unimpressed by Tae Kwon Do, in spite of the constant claims of superiority made for it by its practioners. I once saw a Tae Kwon Do expert fight against a guy practicing Shotokan karate. The Shotokan guy drilled the Tae Kwon Do guy in the back of the head when he attempted to execute some sort of roundhouse-style kick knocking him unconscious.
It seems like a lot of martial arts theory hasn’t been street tested for effectiveness.
Rather than kneeing a man in the chest, I’d suggest kneeing him in the groin.
I think it’s worth pointing out that in general, a boxer or thai boxer will be in *much* better physical condition than someone who does other martial arts, and I would be surprised if this simple fact did not end up being much more important than stylistic differences.
Dsquared also makes a good point. Boxers have a saying: “90% of fighting is conditioning, and 90% of conditioning is running.” Boxing obviously has fewer techniques to master, and there’s only so much polish on your footwork you can do. So when you open up a contest to more than just a few types of punches, that 90% might become 80%, but 80% is still a lot.
I did tkd for 13 years, competed nationally. I can say with no hesitation that I have never done anything as hard as dropping in on a boxing class. Jesus, boxing works you. I don’t understand why they chose to fight with their short little limbs, but they are in incredible shape.
Also, that tkd guy from the article? He is HUGE! I’ve never seen a tkd guy that big. The high-level tkd guys I saw were all tall, skinny and long limbed, to have a long range in their weight classes. Maybe there is a new look to the sport since I left it ten years ago.
(Also, I totally believe the force estimates. I’ve seen people kicked through the sheetrock on the walls.)
On the Aikido front, I am used to seeing folks (in UFC, etc) who have Aikido training as part of their other training (along with Gracie/etc).
Personal background is aiki-jujitsu (infinitely many techniques) & shotokan karate, where I got the impression that you only really want to know 1 punch, 1 kick, a couple blocks…then get good at it.
I think Krav Maga hasn’t quite caught on in the U.S. yet. I am fortunate enough to live near two very fine KM studios (in Maryland — and one membership gets me in to both!). I have trained in a lot of different systems, and KM definitely has a lot of great stuff. Very effective and practical and the classes are serious workouts. I’ve lost a good chunk of weight doing it. I also like how varied the classes are. You never know what you’re going to do, which prevents it from being boring. I’ve been training for ~6 months and in the last class I went to we did a drill I’d never seen before.
Ah, a thousand martial arts arguments in a microcosm. agbar, the short answer to that bit is “sometimes.” I suppose that the MMA format diminishes the effectiveness of things requiring precise hand strikes. But really, you’re chasing a mirage. Do you want a table in the middle of the ring too?
I too would like to know how Krav Maga stacks up numerically. Also Wing Chun.
It’s not real surprising that the most force comes when you have a straight something with the force coming from your abs and your shoulder. Big punch power differences from training seem to me to largely just moving your shoulder at the right time to punch somebody – and increasing bone density in the wrist or wherever – and exercising those muscles and your abs. Not real surprising to see wushu as the fastest either – more focus on speed, and makes you good at whipping your hand around real fast.
Megan, would you happen to know just how much force vs thickness breaking drywall takes? I don’t. Doesn’t seem to be that tough though…I hit through half inch stuff during a rennovation, these guys could probably break inch thick or more and I’ve never seen it that thick.
Agbar wrote “In a real no-rules fight, I’d suspect that styles designed for actual no-rules fighting would dominate.”
This is a great point. In these MMA tournaments, prohibited techniques typically include: kicking a person who is down (a person trained in tkd knows several techniques that are likely to be leathal) and kicking to the groin (and on the street people are not typically wearing groin protection as they often are in MMA tournament); also prohibited are finger strikes into the eyes (because these tend to blind people), boxing of ears (which tend to deafen people), and so on. In a MMA tournament, you can “tap out” if you are being choked out; this is not the case on the street. This is another reason to add to those that others mention for staying off the ground in a street fight. Also, in a street fight it would certainly be a good move to pick up any blunt object lying around and gain advantage over an opponent (again, there are no blunt objects being used in MMA tournaments because these tend to drastically increase the chances of fatalities). If attacked while drinking a cup of coffee on the street, one would have a good weapon to throw into the face of one’s attacker (not in MMA tournaments). Etc., etc.
I train in karate, and train daily so I am in brilliant shape. There are SO MANY lethal techniques that would never be allowed in the ring/cage that would drop/kill people instantly. Unless you have years of extensive ‘martial’ arts training like me, then you simply won’t understand this! ‘Martial’ comes from the the God of war ‘Mars’, war = killing people. How many MMA/UFC fights end in fatalaties? Virtually none, therefore aren’t truly martial.
Well, as far as what they said about the Ninja in National Geographics Fight Science, it was that the over all style has the greatest number of “devistating” techniques. They ACTUALLY professed that Gracie may be the greatest master ever, per that he has fought master from so many different styles, and has never lost to any of them.
As far as the numbers go, someone said 1,000 lbs to the face would be liek taking two harleys to the face… well, we are speaking of impact pressure here. The ankle bone can take 2000 lbs of constant preussure, but it can be broken by much less impact pressure. If you were to sit 2 Harleys on someones face then, yes, that would be, perhaps, 1,000 of constant pressure. However, if you were to hit someone’s face with a harley going say, 50 miles per hour, I’d wager to say that it would be CONSIDERABLY more, considering the laws of inertia, and physics in general. The “taking a sledge hammer to the face” annology is considering, obviously, that you average human being was swinging it. Meaning; this boxer’s punch would be like you or I swinging a sledge hammer into someone’s face. The persons who held the testings are the same persons who test car wrecks.
As far as the best martial art… no such thing. Life and existance is chaotic. As was pointed out in the Jui Jitsu vs Akido conversation that occured earlier in these posts; Brazlian Jui Jitsu favors the one on one fight, where as akido defends better against multiple attackers. TKD may have EXTREMEMLY powerful kicks, but it doesn’t matter how hard you kick if you can’t hit someone (not to insinuate that TKD practitioners can’t fight… simply an example) ALSO, in this day and age, so many martial artists train for compitition fighting, placing boundries on their arts.
Every art has its benifits and its deficiencies. What it comes down to is who is the better fighter. Who is the better fighter is determined by who trains the hardest, who has the biggest heart, and who can keep an open mind. The MMA comps are called MMA bc the fighters have come to understand that there is no “best style” so they each take what they feel is the best from each though, again, keep in mind, comps have rules. Real life does not.
Also, martial arts are not a simple expression of fighting. They are an expression of self… an ART. If you really simply want to fight, martial arts are not necessary. As boxers train only punching. Just find yourself your favorite 10 (for example) series of movements, and drill them. THAT is what Krav Maga is, which is why it hasn’t caught on in martial arts circles. Its NOT a martial ART, it is a fighting science, and those are very different things. Not better or worse. Just different.
It doesnt matter who punch or kick harder. It matters most when the practitioner truely exceed himself. Improving each time he/she practice, pick themselves when they fall. The true opponent in Martial Arts are no world champions, but yourself. The reason that competition came was for themselves to know their own weakness and improve on it. Do not focus on beating your opponent and being the best the world has erver known, focus on self improvement, thats when your skills will go all they way up. And true, like what Scooby Doo has said himself, there is no superior styles, its how good the practitioner executes his moves. We throw the punches and kicks, not the punches and kicks throw us.
å¤©æ´¥æ— ç¼ç®¡
æ— ç¼é’¢ç®¡
I’ve seen the show you are talking about on the Science fiction network, it was called “Fight Science” and the idea was to measure the force of different hits from different fight styles. One of my questions was, since physics tells us that where there is an action there is an equal reaction, how comes the one applying the hit doesn’t get equally damaged as his target?
Comments on this entry are closed.