Your size vs punching power

Cool, I like to hear stories like that. I wish you would have kicked his ass.


twoblink said:
I wrestled 119lbs.. I've even wrestled 112lbs before.. So all my life, I have been picked on, for being the scronny kid.

So learning how to punch was a high priority in my life.

I've gotten picked on often in the gym; I have no idea why...

There was one time, a 6'4" fat bald guy, with his bottle blond trailer trash girlfriend were at the gym. He had his boxing gloves on and was trying to teach her how to punch. I was warming up, and they get started talking trash. "See honey, aren't you glad you don't have a boyfriend like that, who'd get his ass kicked all the time?" He then stared me down. I rolled my eyes and kept warming up. He didn't take too kindly to the eyeroll, and so he walked over.. Started pushing me. "What boy, you don't think I can kick your ass any time?" I told him, he he wanted to fight, that's ok with me... But I just got in, and so the only thing I asked for was 5 minutes to warm up. He said ok, and he started to laugh. Now the entire gym was surrounding us.. I walked up to the heavy bag to warm up.. he did too.. "tap, tap.. tap" he was trying to show off how hard he could punch. I walked up, and "tap..tap...SPLAT! SPLAT!" The entire gym dropped their jaws, and just couldn't believe how hard I could punch. The guy took a hard swallow, because I don't think he was ready to face someone who punched that much harder than him. His gf looked really nervous. At the end, I said "I'm ready.. I'm all warmed up" and he walked away saying "Oh, it's no fun beating up someone smaller than me.." and took his gf and left.. Everybody called him a chicken and started booing him..

I firmly believe, that punching is 95% scientific, and 5% God given talent. Look at Bruce Lee, he punched and kicked like a freight train, and he was small..

As far as Bob Sapp, I don't think Bob Sapp punches hard, when you take into account the two side of beef he calls arms. If he KNEW how to throw something more than an arm punch, he'd kill every guy. He's got a long ways to go before he can punch well.

You compare Roy Jones or Mike Tyson to Bob Sapp, both probably punch harder than he does.. I think 2 Roy Jones = 1 Bob Sapp as far as weight.. (and I'm not joking)
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Hi, sorry for responding to a pretty dead thread but i just signed up and this thread caught my eye. I wanted to respond to the first couple guys saying that the bigger you are the more power potential you have... while it sounds good on paper i kinda wanted to hear their take on speed equalling power, not just size.


personally i have been training in one martial arts form or another since i was 12 (just about 6 years)

from personal experience i would have to say compareing big vs small guys strikes are like comparing apples and oranges. Bigger people from personal experience (and this isnt always the case of course exceptions to every rule) seem to hit with less initial impact but more follow through while smaller guys are just the opposite (which i find leaves me with a brain jarring effect).


from personal experience i think speed plays a big part of it, though i think you need to find a happy medium to prevent getting man handled in the clinch...though i guess thats a different issue
 
it all depends on your techique, how you snap, how you rotate your body
 
size changes your strategy & what technique you use,

a mouse who hones his weapon is gonna have a deadly weapon.
an elephant who hones his weapon is gonna have a deadly weapon.
 
Twiztedbydesign said:
from personal experience i think speed plays a big part of it, though i think you need to find a happy medium to prevent getting man handled in the clinch...though i guess thats a different issue
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id have to agree with this. plus, the bigger guys are easier for me to spar with because they are slower.
 
I'm a bodybuilder (245 pounds) with limited matrial arts experience. My sparring partner used to be a boxer (180 pounds), he hit harder and faster than me. A lot faster, not much harder.
Momentum is speed*weight if I remember correctly, so a big guy creates the same momentum using weight as a smaller guy using speed. What gives a guy with more speed the advantage is that he can hit twice in the time the slower guy takes for one punch.
 
Bruce lee had probably more punching power than anyone ever, look at him.
 
TapDammit said:
Bruce lee had probably more punching power than anyone ever, look at him.
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Punched harder than Mike Tyson did he? Bruce was undoubtedly powerful but a powerful light weight isn't going to punch harder than a powerful heavyweight. Or perhaps you are just on a wind up.

I weigh 80kg and punch harder than any of the heavies at my Boxing club. But the hardest puncher I have met was a guy at Vale Tudo class who was a solid 240lb and 6'3" and had amazing power whilst not brilliant technique. His friend who was about the same size couldn't punch anywhere near as hard. I'd say alot of it is natural. Some people are just born with power. Bigger people with natural power will hit the hardest e.g. George Foreman.

Technique counts for a lot though. With better technique I dread to think what guy at Vale Tudo class could do to anyone!

A big guy versus little guy story. One time there was a big athletic black guy who turned up a the boxing club, who bore quite a resemblance to a young Jack Johnson but alot bigger at 6'5". He was a pretty imposing guy. He'd only been a couple of times but nobody wanted to spar with him due to his height and reach.

A young light middleweight pro-boxer who been doing some coaching that night said he'd take him round. This guy who had just started out on the pro circuit and had knocked out all three of his opponents inside 3 rounds. But even so I think everyone was worried what would happen if Jack Johnson connected even once!

Needn't have worried. For the first half minute the pro effortlessly avoided all the big guys shots by standing right in front of him and slipping without even throwing a punch in return. Then he started to let go with some of his own snapping the big mans head back with sharp jabs and straights.

Then he started letting go with crunching body shots sinking them in at will. All the time the big man was trying his best to hit anything other than air or gloves.
Then nearing the final 30 the big man getting frustrated and in some discomfort started throwing off the younger man who had been working the inside. This annoyed him and he let go some big bombs which landed with pin point precision on his opponents jaw. The big man wobbled visibly, his legs buckled and if it had been for real he'd have been seconds away from slumberville.

The pro being merciful then called time. The whole gym had watched this boxing masterclass and were in total awe at this real life demonstration of David and Goliath, myself included. It really gave us all an appreciation of how technique can overcome size and strength. He could have knocked out the big man at any second of his choosing it was a real eye opener!
 
As it has been explained to me, bigger people have more potentialto hit hard; they have more weight that they could, if trained, push into a punch.

The issue is, unless you train chances are you won't figure it out on your own. And since few people train, few people can throw a good punch. A guy who weighs 250 pounds but only arm-punches a target will simply not hit as hard as you at 150 pounds using your legs and hips. If he used his legs and hips too, he would hit harder than you, but if he doesn't know how than he simply can't.
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This is correct - probably 97% of the people in the world don't have the first clue about how to throw a proper boxing punch - its completely unintuitive. You pretty much need a solid year of boxing training to start getting things right imo.

As I've also posted before, some boxing trainers claim that about 230 is the optimal weight for power assuming technique is constant (I think Mike Tyson was about 227 or so?)....above that, people begin to lose speed more than they gain in power due to the added mass...

*Newton's second law is f = ma -- that is force is mass (your weight) times acceleration (your speed).

Thats just a rule of thumb I have heard boxing trainers talk about, and in my experience it seemed to be true. I dropped from 247 to 235-237sh due to a period where I focused very intensively on boxing cardio and cut out all extra fat in my diet, and my power also went up quite a bit since I was a lot faster (or as my trainer put it after we were working the pads - "thats it, you are done eating sausages" since I gave up eating sausage with breakfast to help cut down for cardio).

By the way, I also did one of those punching machines in Taiwan on the boardwalk and got 1000lbs of force....I could do better if it was actually at my height since I had to partially bend over to hit it straight on, as the machine assumed most users in Taiwan would be shorter than me (and who really knows how accurate an arcade machine is)...but I was pretty happy with it regardless.
 
possenti said:
Good story. Not only does this apply to punching power, but all fighting skills in general.

I'm average sized - 5'11" at 175 lbs. - and I HATE to hear people talk about big guys..."He's a pretty big boy. I bet he could whip some major ass." Well, I've seen some of the "big boys" fight, and the ones who are untrained punch like sissys and flop around like beached whales if they go to the ground.

I'm not being cocky or overconfident in my fighting skills - or maybe I am. But I'd rather be cocky about what I KNOW about fighting than being overconfident just because I'm a big guy.
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LOL Good Point. im about 5'5 or 5'6 and i have beat the shit out of guys that are are 5'8 - 6'0. most of the time they didnt come out for the second or third round of sparring. funny thing they all called me out. aint that some shit. Given this was in my high school years but you dont forget what your learn.
 
Its the way it always was and always will people, people think that size can determine so much. Im pretty big 6'1, but i know for a fact that size doesn
 
bigger u are the stronger u are. if ur smaller and have beat up bigger guys im pretty sure any bigger guy with close to ur skill cud beat u up. however being big is just a hindrance if not paired with skill so a mix if both is best. Most people are not in training and without any training bigger guys usually are better fighters
 
Hammer Time said:
bigger u are the stronger u are. if ur smaller and have beat up bigger guys im pretty sure any bigger guy with close to ur skill cud beat u up. however being big is just a hindrance if not paired with skill so a mix if both is best. Most people are not in training and without any training bigger guys usually are better fighters
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Generally that is fairly true but some smaller people are stronger than people bigger than them. And sometimes people are natural born fighters and can fight way better than another untrained individual. Mike Tyson for sure was one of those guys.

But in a betting world if I had to choose between two opponents not knowing anything about them I would go with the bigger guy.
 
can i just mention on bruce lee's punching technique
it wasnt genetic or god given it is scientific
ving tsun scientific
you guys might not believe it but the ving tsun punch is the most powerful and quickest
but to perform the punch you must maintain correct structure
 
This just happened to me like a week ago. I know a kid that wrestles and I wanted to join wrestling so I told him and he said we should wrestle because I could beat you easily. Then I said we should Box cause I could beat you easily, then he laughed. So we boxed after school I got my gloves and my mouthguard and an extra one for him. OH yeah he weighs 196 pounds and I weigh 141. So we started and it lasted about 15 seconds. I let him me but it didn't rock me at all. then he came in to hit me again and I hit him so hard he just fell on the ground and laid there for about 5 minutes or so. I told him I was sorry. Then the next day we wrestled and i got my ass beat. Classic striker versus grappler situation.
 
society as a whole still suffers from the "football-player syndrome", in that big men are always superior to smaller guy no matter what right off the bat. U'd think w/ all the experience people have, seeing that "idealogy" is pure bullshit, they'd change, but nope. Always will bigger men be seen as superior than smaller ones, until the smaller one beats up the bigger and those watching minds change just for that guy.

it's true that a big guy w/ training will always hit harder than a smaller guy w/ training (altho exceptions like Kostya Tszyu and Felix Trinidad can make a case for themselves against bigger trained men) b/c they have more mass and more potential for power. But being a small guy myself, those who know me are aware that i hit like a mack truck, those who don't kno me think i'm just some little scrub. That's just how it is.
 
This thread cracks me up it's all the little guys trying to make themselves feel better. Everyone telling stories and saying little guys punch harder, big guys suck and I can kick there ass. Come back to reality guys. Why do you think we have weight classes in MMA, because the HW's would smash the lightweights.......bottomline. I would rather fight or be punched by a 150 pound guy any day of the week than a 250 pound guy. The rational here is flawerd, you can't compare a trained 150 pound guy to a non-trained bigger guy like your doing. You have to compare them at equal levels and the bigger guys wins almost everytime. Even a trained small guy would have a tough time against a much larger person with less skills.
 
honestly GNPU some points you make are decent but imho this whole argument is flawed... Yes a bigger person with proper technique can hit harder then a smaller person (assuming they have good speed). But my point is knock out power is indescriminate...i dont care if mr 6'3 240 can hit with 200 pounds more pressure then mr 5'11 200. if the smaller guy is good enough and fast enough to land a strike on a damageing target then they are going down (if they havea really good chin they might not go down but they are going to feel it)

Honestly this fight game is all about balance and working with your strengths...
If your big you have size/ weight on your side
If your small you are faster and more mobile
If your tall you can strike from father distances
If your short you work better from the inside and have a lower center of gravity


As far as the divisions go GNPU i can tell your probably a bigger guy who recently started training and before that didnt follow MA of anykind. Since there used to be no Weight devisions... let me tell you in the early days of the UFC it wasnt the big guys winning a bouts.

As far as the heavy weights of today i cant name one that has superb technique and strategy. They are bigger guys they have always been bigger guys so in a since they are one dementional fighters (like tyson was...). But hey the UFC hasnt been the place for superb striking since the early days... K1 strikers> then UFC/Pride strikers (btw dont inform me that "omg the cro cop is in both" cause im retily aware)
 
GNPU said:
This thread cracks me up it's all the little guys trying to make themselves feel better. Everyone telling stories and saying little guys punch harder, big guys suck and I can kick there ass. Come back to reality guys. Why do you think we have weight classes in MMA, because the HW's would smash the lightweights.......bottomline. I would rather fight or be punched by a 150 pound guy any day of the week than a 250 pound guy. The rational here is flawerd, you can't compare a trained 150 pound guy to a non-trained bigger guy like your doing. You have to compare them at equal levels and the bigger guys wins almost everytime. Even a trained small guy would have a tough time against a much larger person with less skills.
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All true but whilst little guys realise this, untrained big guys do not realise that a trained little guy could actually kick their ass.

You'd rather fight a 150 pound guy than a 250 pound guy. Just in terms of power so would I but what if you knew the 150 pounder was an out of training Kostya Tszyu? And the 250lb was some average joe of the street.
I bet you most 250lbs out there even knowing it was Kostya would still think they could take him easy. And they most probably think they can punch harder!
Fact some little guys can punch harder than bigger trained guys, Jeff Lacy for instance was the hardest punching boxer of the 2000 US Olympic Boxing Team but he was a middleweight.
 
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