Hand size punching power

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Nick diaz, lunch box fists but no power
 
Well if they are delivering the same force, they need to have some combination of m & a that has the same output. So there is really no way to do this with all things being equal (a premise not laid out by me; merely one I am trying to work with) if you want to get pedantic about it. Having their mass be the same just seemed like the simplest way to compare. But even if the other guy is more massive by like .1 kg because of bigger hands, the difference is negligible, so it's not a point worth harping on.

You can add that negligible bit of extra weight anywhere you want. It's the mass of the HANDS that matters to this discussion. The HAND is what is gathering momentum and making the impact. The larger HAND has greater inertia and gathers greater momentum. Are you really still not getting this, or are you just having trouble admitting that you've learned something today.

Learning is good. Don't run from it. Accept it. Be grateful for it. You life will thank you.
 
Mike Tyson has small hands, and layed fools out with boxing gloves.
 
Well if they are delivering the same force, they need to have some combination of m & a that has the same output. So there is really no way to do this with all things being equal (a premise not laid out by me; merely one I am trying to work with) if you want to get pedantic about it. Having their mass be the same just seemed like the simplest way to compare. But even if the other guy is more massive by like .1 kg because of bigger hands, the difference is negligible, so it's not a point worth harping on.

That's pretty much what's underlying the argument I'm making. I don't think the .1 pound is going to be a huge deciding factor in the force behind a punch. If you had two people who were exactly the same in every single way except fist size, there would have to be an awfully large difference in hand weight before it really factored in significantly.
 
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Nick diaz, lunch box fists but no power

Nick doesn't throw with anywhere near full power. And yet he still makes guys' heads spin when he lands a few in a row. The large hands actually explain a lot.

Edit: Plus his whole left forearm looks freakishly large in this pic... perhaps because it's closer to the camera. Should I explain perspective and foreshortening while I'm at it?
 
You can add that negligible bit of extra weight anywhere you want. It's the mass of the HANDS that matters to this discussion. The HAND is what is gathering momentum and making the impact. The larger HAND has greater inertia and gathers greater momentum. Are you really still not getting this, or are you just having trouble admitting that you've learned something today.

Learning is good. Don't run from it. Accept it. Be grateful for it. You life will thank you.

If we are talking about angular momentum, the hands aren't gonna contribute much to the moment of inertia. The majority of the body is going to make that contrubution.Like I said, it's negligible. Do the integral for moment of inertia for both people if you don't believe me. You keep harping on how little the difference in pressure matters, but you can't get over how little the difference in moment of inertia is.

I find your insults amusing considering I'm probably more educated than you.
 
I'll have another go;

Who has bigger hands, Roy Nelson or Brock ?

Now who do you think hits harder ?
 
A smaller surface area would damage the tissues more, like an elbow from The Crow, or the bones like Jones vs. Vera, but may not slosh the brain around like a big heavy fist.
 
That's pretty much what's underlying the argument I'm making. I don't think the .1 pound is going to be a huge deciding factor in the force behind a punch. If you had two people who were exactly the same in every single way except fist size, there would have to be an awfully large difference in hand weight before it really factored in significantly.

Ugh... The Mass x Acceleration of the HANDS is what we are discussing. The HANDS build momentum. The HANDS make the impact.

What am I even doing in this inane conversation?
 
Nick Diaz has some big ass hands but he doesn't have crazy KO power or anything. And I guess that's 'cause he clearly doesn't throw as hard as he can.

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A smaller surface area would damage the tissues more, like an elbow from The Crow, or the bones like Jones vs. Vera, but may not slosh the brain around like a big heavy fist.

This, this, this, this, this.

This.
 
Mike Tyson has small hands, and layed fools out with boxing gloves.

Awesome. Now imagine the kind of power he would have had if he'd had large hands.

That should be a scary thought.

But to make it so, you'd have to believe in science.
 
Anyone saying smaller hands would be better for generating punching power in any form is wrong. First off, in a properly thrown punch you're not landing with your whole hand, your landing with two knuckles, so the difference in surface area is much smaller than people are thinking. Second, the skull absorbs the impact and distributes it no matter how large or small the hand is. That's the whole point of a skull.

What matters is the momentum of the striking object, not the force of it. Force= mass x acceleration, Momentum = mass x velocity. A car traveling at 60 mph with no acceleration is going to hit a lot harder than a car that is accelerating from a dead start, but only hits you going 5mph. So what you want in order to hit the hardest, regardless of technique, punch placement, timing ect is to put the most momentum behind your punch, and since you can't change the mass of your hands, a bigger hand is inherently going to allow you to have more momentum.

Now, you might say "a smaller hand would be easier to get going faster!" Possibly, but a big guy like Carwin's hands are probably twice the size of MM. However, punching twice as fast as another person is much harder to achieve. So a bigger hand would still generate more momentum. Brass knuckles hurt because they added a ton of mass to your hand, but you can still punch pretty fast- they don't cause you to start moving in slow motion.

The reason momentum is important is because you want to generate a force on your opponents skull/body part. The technical definition of a Force is the derivative of momentum, ie dp/dt, or the change in momentum. Since we can assume that the "time" of a punch contact is pretty much the same, the more you can change the momentum of the object you are hitting, the "harder" you hit. If you assume a completely elastic collision, then all of the momentum you generated in the punch will be transferred to your opponents skull. Now, your skull is going to rapidly accelerate in the direction of the punch you just threw. But your brain, which is not connected to your skull, will stay in the same spot due to inertia, until it impacts against your skull. THAT is what causes a concussion. So the more momentum you can generate with your fist, the greater you can cause your opponents skull to accelerate, and the greater concussive force you can generate.

Aside from angular components, that is part of the reason looping punches hit harder. They have a longer path to travel, so they are accelerating for a longer time. Once they finally hit, these looping punches are traveling faster, so they have more momentum.

The reason Anderson knocked Griffin out with that tiny little jab is because Griffin was running towards him. The change in momentum of his skull was much greater because he was already moving into the punch. Going from -10 to 10 is a greater change than 0 to 10. This is an example of how timing and technique is important in a knock out, but if we're looking at just generating momentum to inflict damage, then yes greater hand size will allow you to generate more punching power.
 
If we are talking about angular momentum, the hands aren't gonna contribute much to the moment of inertia. The majority of the body is going to make that contrubution.Like I said, it's negligible. Do the integral for moment of inertia for both people if you don't believe me. You keep harping on how little the difference in pressure matters, but you can't get over how little the difference in moment of inertia is.

I find your insults amusing considering I'm probably more educated than you.

This would be quite a feat.

And if you are suggesting that increasing the weight of the object delivering the impact (i.e. the HAND itself) by 30 - 70 per cent is going to have a negligible effect on the force of that impact (whether that impact is the product of rotational/angular momentum, as with a hook, or linear momentum, as with a straight right) you need to redo your calculations.

But if you are simply doing your calculations as if it is the entire body of the fighter that is building momentum and making impact, then you just need to go back for more education.
 
Well i'll use myself as an example,i have big legs/back and small ankles/wrists/fists.In training,i would punch the heavybag barefisted working on some alignment patterns and i leave some marks on it,it moves a little to the side but nothing major.Once i wrap my hands up the swings become bigger and finally,with gloves on,the bag is doing full swings from side to side.The actual glove mass is minuscule in comparison to the force output on the bag.So yes,having more mass at the hand/wrist region is a huge advantage for more powerful punches.

A lot of things contribute to punching power,core strength,leg strength,body/hip/shoulder torque,arm leverage,speed,etc and having small/brittle hands
is definitely a disadvantage.Most likely ending in a hand break.
 
Anyone saying smaller hands would be better for generating punching power in any form is wrong. First off, in a properly thrown punch you're not landing with your whole hand, your landing with two knuckles, so the difference in surface area is much smaller than people are thinking. Second, the skull absorbs the impact and distributes it no matter how large or small the hand is. That's the whole point of a skull.

What matters is the momentum of the striking object, not the force of it. Force= mass x acceleration, Momentum = mass x velocity. A car traveling at 60 mph with no acceleration is going to hit a lot harder than a car that is accelerating from a dead start, but only hits you going 5mph. So what you want in order to hit the hardest, regardless of technique, punch placement, timing ect is to put the most momentum behind your punch, and since you can't change the mass of your hands, a bigger hand is inherently going to allow you to have more momentum.

Now, you might say "a smaller hand would be easier to get going faster!" Possibly, but a big guy like Carwin's hands are probably twice the size of MM. However, punching twice as fast as another person is much harder to achieve. So a bigger hand would still generate more momentum. Brass knuckles hurt because they added a ton of mass to your hand, but you can still punch pretty fast- they don't cause you to start moving in slow motion.

The reason momentum is important is because you want to generate a force on your opponents skull/body part. The technical definition of a Force is the derivative of momentum, ie dp/dt, or the change in momentum. Since we can assume that the "time" of a punch contact is pretty much the same, the more you can change the momentum of the object you are hitting, the "harder" you hit. If you assume a completely elastic collision, then all of the momentum you generated in the punch will be transferred to your opponents skull. Now, your skull is going to rapidly accelerate in the direction of the punch you just threw. But your brain, which is not connected to your skull, will stay in the same spot due to inertia, until it impacts against your skull. THAT is what causes a concussion. So the more momentum you can generate with your fist, the greater you can cause your opponents skull to accelerate, and the greater concussive force you can generate.

Aside from angular components, that is part of the reason looping punches hit harder. They have a longer path to travel, so they are accelerating for a longer time. Once they finally hit, these looping punches are traveling faster, so they have more momentum.

The reason Anderson knocked Griffin out with that tiny little jab is because Griffin was running towards him. The change in momentum of his skull was much greater because he was already moving into the punch. Going from -10 to 10 is a greater change than 0 to 10. This is an example of how timing and technique is important in a knock out, but if we're looking at just generating momentum to inflict damage, then yes greater hand size will allow you to generate more punching power.

You made alot of good points that I was going to make in relation to velocity and acceleration and also the ability to move a heavier hand.

But imo big or small hands is inconsequential, given a proper punch involves torquing and using the momentum in your entire body, a 100g-200g difference in hand mass is inconsequential, it would probably be a 0.5% difference in the grand scheme of things.
 
Anyone saying smaller hands would be better for generating punching power in any form is wrong. First off, in a properly thrown punch you're not landing with your whole hand, your landing with two knuckles, so the difference in surface area is much smaller than people are thinking. Second, the skull absorbs the impact and distributes it no matter how large or small the hand is. That's the whole point of a skull.

What matters is the momentum of the striking object, not the force of it. Force= mass x acceleration, Momentum = mass x velocity. A car traveling at 60 mph with no acceleration is going to hit a lot harder than a car that is accelerating from a dead start, but only hits you going 5mph. So what you want in order to hit the hardest, regardless of technique, punch placement, timing ect is to put the most momentum behind your punch, and since you can't change the mass of your hands, a bigger hand is inherently going to allow you to have more momentum.

Now, you might say "a smaller hand would be easier to get going faster!" Possibly, but a big guy like Carwin's hands are probably twice the size of MM. However, punching twice as fast as another person is much harder to achieve. So a bigger hand would still generate more momentum. Brass knuckles hurt because they added a ton of mass to your hand, but you can still punch pretty fast- they don't cause you to start moving in slow motion.

The reason momentum is important is because you want to generate a force on your opponents skull/body part. The technical definition of a Force is the derivative of momentum, ie dp/dt, or the change in momentum. Since we can assume that the "time" of a punch contact is pretty much the same, the more you can change the momentum of the object you are hitting, the "harder" you hit. If you assume a completely elastic collision, then all of the momentum you generated in the punch will be transferred to your opponents skull. Now, your skull is going to rapidly accelerate in the direction of the punch you just threw. But your brain, which is not connected to your skull, will stay in the same spot due to inertia, until it impacts against your skull. THAT is what causes a concussion. So the more momentum you can generate with your fist, the greater you can cause your opponents skull to accelerate, and the greater concussive force you can generate.

Aside from angular components, that is part of the reason looping punches hit harder. They have a longer path to travel, so they are accelerating for a longer time. Once they finally hit, these looping punches are traveling faster, so they have more momentum.

The reason Anderson knocked Griffin out with that tiny little jab is because Griffin was running towards him. The change in momentum of his skull was much greater because he was already moving into the punch. Going from -10 to 10 is a greater change than 0 to 10. This is an example of how timing and technique is important in a knock out, but if we're looking at just generating momentum to inflict damage, then yes greater hand size will allow you to generate more punching power.

The cavalry has arrived.

Thank you.
 
I'll have another go;

Who has bigger hands, Roy Nelson or Brock ?

Now who do you think hits harder ?

Wrong question.

The correct question is:

If Roy had bigger hands and Brock had smaller hands. Would that increase or decrease their respective punching power?

Mir's strawberry face is courtesy, almost entirely, of Brock's big ol hands... unless you think he somehow perfected some crazy hammer-fist technique.
 
You made alot of good points that I was going to make in relation to velocity and acceleration and also the ability to move a heavier hand.

But imo big or small hands is inconsequential, given a proper punch involves torquing and using the momentum in your entire body, a 100g-200g difference in hand mass is inconsequential, it would probably be a 0.5% difference in the grand scheme of things.

According to a less than reliable source I just Googled, the average mass of a human hand is somewhere between about 300-600g. That, to me, sounds like a 100-200g difference would be huge in generating momentum. Yes, you use a lot of angular momentum as well, but even then L = r x mv, so mass still has a great effect on momentum. Generating torque with your body is about increasing the velocity of your punch, so while your legs/core help with moving your hand as fast as possible, it is still your hand that is landing on your opponent and causing the change in momentum. I think the difference is much greater than 0.5%, to be honest.
 
TS
given the choice, would you prefer to get punched in the face by Mike Tyson wearing a boxing glove or Mike Tyson wearing an "MMA" type glove

Gloves are a different question altogether. To begin, there's a hell of a lot of debate about whether a small glove actually creates greater punching power (although there are reasons to prefer a small glove, such as the ability to get between an opponent's guard).

But even if we accept your assumption that the large glove delivers a less devastating impact, the reason would be that the large glove is also the more padded glove and, thus, absorbs more of the impact.

Fashion those gloves out of wood or metal and see what happens.
 
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