Kicks Speed vs. Punches Speed

[Inquisitus]

yeah I agree due to the kick having more distance to travel.

Kicks are also more complex motions than punches due to the having to balance onto one leg. Saenchai could never kick as many times as Dawson was able to punch in the same time period due to this even if Saechai used both legs and used teeps to the leg. IMO, this makes kicks inherently slower in terms execution & time to target.

IMO, execution & time to target are what people mean when they say the speed of punches or kicks.

 

[JWP]

Punches are faster, less body mass to move through the air compared to a leg.

But.........if you are talking what works best for fights then that depends on the fighter and timing. If a kicker fights a boxer, all depends on who has the better timing and distancing. You can have the fastest punch in the world, not going to help you though if you fight someone who has perfect legs like Buakaw who is going to catch you everytime you step into his range. Head/middle/leg are all the same speed when done by a professional.
Punches are faster, but kicks are going to hurt more against someone like Yodsanklai who let's go with full power everytime. You won't be able to do more then two punches once Yod lands across your ribs.

 

[Sturmgewehr]

Punches are faster, less body mass to move through the air compared to a leg.

But.........if you are talking what works best for fights then that depends on the fighter and timing. If a kicker fights a boxer, all depends on who has the better timing and distancing. You can have the fastest punch in the world, not going to help you though if you fight someone who has perfect legs like Buakaw who is going to catch you everytime you step into his range. Head/middle/leg are all the same speed when done by a professional.
Punches are faster, but kicks are going to hurt more against someone like Yodsanklai who let's go with full power everytime. You won't be able to do more then two punches once Yod lands across your ribs.

Yeah timing is definitely very important and as you said if u have bad timing and ur opponent keeps catching u coming in there is no speed that is gonna help u.

We came to a conclusion that Kicks are faster in terms of Miles per Hour they have greater acceleration, greater velocity and greater speed (mph) but due to the distance a kick will land later than a punch since the kick has more distance to do, I mean that is simple logic, we didn't come up with the speed of kick, measurements in the lab showed those results, plus it makes sense since a kick is more powerful than a punch logically it travels with more miles per hour to generate that force.

Thanks a lot for your honest opinion JWP

 

[PoundUmOut2]

tough one to call, it really varies on every kick and punch. generally speaking, a high or mid kick is going to take longer to throw than a punch to the head, just due to the longer distance and turning the body further.

now if were throwing haymaker hooks, the speed is comparable.

other than a very fast, short leg kick, its going to be really difficult to match the speed of a fast jab. a jab is a shorter distance, smaller amount of mass being thrown.

kicks should generate more force, generally speaking.

 

[Sinister]

Punches are faster, less body mass to move through the air compared to a leg.

But.........if you are talking what works best for fights then that depends on the fighter and timing. If a kicker fights a boxer, all depends on who has the better timing and distancing. You can have the fastest punch in the world, not going to help you though if you fight someone who has perfect legs like Buakaw who is going to catch you everytime you step into his range. Head/middle/leg are all the same speed when done by a professional.
Punches are faster, but kicks are going to hurt more against someone like Yodsanklai who let's go with full power everytime. You won't be able to do more then two punches once Yod lands across your ribs.

I agree with JWP here. It all depends on who you're fighting, and how good that guy is at what he does. Speed is a relative thing. Plenty fast guys get the crap kicked out of them and get timed because while they are fast, they are not good. Those are two different things.

There's speed, then there's practical application. A guy may be able to kick as fast as someone can punch, but the question is what happens when that kick lands, if it lands. Is it going to hurt? Just make you angry? Etc.

IMO the most excellent thing about Combat Sports is the notion of being able to control chaos. But regardless of how good one gets, it IS still always chaos. Now, a common misconception about chaos as a theory is that it has no applicable point. That's not true. Even in nature chaos works as part of a system. Same thing in fighting. If what you do doesn't work as part of an overall system that allows you to win, then it's not relevant. Here's a good classic example:



The speed advantage in that bout was HUGE for Patterson. Hand speed and foot speed, as well as over all movement. Didn't mean diddly-shit at the end of the day.

 

[TheBOO]

All that is needed is practice, speed will develop as you repeat. Like throwing over 100 kicks

 

[Sinister]

What does that have to do with the thread?

 

[Sturmgewehr]

I agree with Sinister and also JWP and PUO2.

I don't agree with the fact that a smaller mass has to be thrown that is why it has to go faster, I think that is a very flawed logic, so what if there is smaller mass to be thrown ???? just because the Rabbit is 20 times lighter than the tiger it doesn't mean that he is faster than the tiger or leopard but I do agree that a fast jab is faster than a kick or any kind of kick in terms of who hits the target first, a fast jab usually has not even 50% of the speed of a round house kick but due to its short distance it has to travel it will reach the target first.

|The punch does have less mass to be thrown but the punch has less power behind it and also weaker muscles compared to the muscles of the leg which are WAY stronger than those of the arm ( the Rabbit and leopard argument ).

Going through all this thread and different people giving their opinions i learned that the word fast has a couple of definitions.

Fast in Terms of MILES PER HOUR a kick of course is WAY FASTER than a Punch.

Fast in Terms of Execution a Punch of course is faster and will be executed before a kick due to its close distance to the target ( head ).

I am not saying this cuz I like it, I just say this basing my opinion and backing up my opinion by scientific data taken from labs and also a couple of other logical explanations that many members gave here.

 

[Sinister]

Many people don't know how to throw fast punches that have force on them, though. And that's the problem. If you want to see a guy with two different jabs, check this out:



Finito Lopez applies two different types of jabs here in what a friend of mine described as a "pet, pet, slap" manner. The first type of jab has nothing on it, just a tapping applied from the shoulder, with the elbow still connected to the left iliac area of the hip. Thus, always threatening some force despite it not being there. Basically petting his opponent into docility. Then, every now and again he drops some weight on that left foot and shoots the jab upward with the "slap." Taking advantage of the initiative given to him by the opponent complying with being petted into docility.

The hard jab moves faster than the soft jab at least half the time. And his body jab also moves faster. This is because Finito was very well-schooled, and knew how to push subtly off of the back foot. He did have a problem of throwing his right hand from the front foot, and that's what got him floored against Rosendo "Bufalo" Alvarez, who threw his own right hand with the same speed and velocity that Finito throws his harder jabs with.

 

[thelyricalmaste]

Another way to increase speed is to focus on the efficiency of your strikes. Carlos Monzon possessed decent speed, but his one-two was incredibly fast. The right smoothly followed the jab so that even Napoles level fighters were caught flat.

Watch some of the great Lumpinee champions. Their feet are not always faster than a good K1 fighter, but their kicking technique is near perfect. They give very little information between staring at you from a high guard to digging a heel into your face.

 

[Sturmgewehr]

Many people don't know how to throw fast punches that have force on them, though. And that's the problem. If you want to see a guy with two different jabs, check this out:

Finito Lopez applies two different types of jabs here in what a friend of mine described as a "pet, pet, slap" manner. The first type of jab has nothing on it, just a tapping applied from the shoulder, with the elbow still connected to the left iliac area of the hip. Thus, always threatening some force despite it not being there. Basically petting his opponent into docility. Then, every now and again he drops some weight on that left foot and shoots the jab upward with the "slap." Taking advantage of the initiative given to him by the opponent complying with being petted into docility.

The hard jab moves faster than the soft jab at least half the time. And his body jab also moves faster. This is because Finito was very well-schooled, and knew how to push subtly off of the back foot. He did have a problem of throwing his right hand from the front foot, and that's what got him floored against Rosendo "Bufalo" Alvarez, who threw his own right hand with the same speed and velocity that Finito throws his harder jabs with.

Very interesting.

I knew there were a couple of different types of jabs and there is not only one way how to apply a jab.

Saw the video, both guys knew how to jab.

When you say many people don't know how to jab I will agree with you on that matter but I think Chad Dwason knows how to jab ( Obviously since he has held a belt in boxing ), and his speed of the jab or that punch he threw was measured not more than 30 Mph, now let's say Lopez's jab is 2ice faster than Dwason's or lets say 3 times which will make it 90 Mph even though I think that is highly unlikely since still a jab is thrown by ur hand and even the back foot push off won't give it 130 miles per hour, I mean Sprinters are the ones that should have the hardest back foot push off when they start and their maximum speed in some point reaches 40 mph ( just guessing ), plus the push off of the back foot is more complex motion and I don't think it will add as much power to the punch as there is power in a kick where the whole power of the body is only concentrated to ur leg while in the case of the jab the power and energy has to travel through ur hole body in order to transition into the power of the hand plus the whole power of the leg muscles is transited to the kick directly, still even Chad Dwason's jab which was not more than 30 MPH was 3 times slower than Lopez's Jab which we can say was the fastest with 90 Mph is still not faster than the TAE KWAN DO guy kicking with a Speed of 135 Mph and the Muay Thai guy kicking with a speed of 130 Mph.

Plus you can't move ur body faster than u can only move ur leg or foot even the kick by itself or when kicking depending on which part of ur leg u kick with, different parts of ur leg travel with different speed and velocity.

 

[Laduger]

So 8 pages later it all came down to Einstein's theory of relativity? Nice.

Good read, I enjoyed it and the geeky musings back and forth. I am serious here too. I dig it.