Gutpunching give/take/trade

The easiest way is to weight your fist. Try holding a roll of quarters in your fist or a lead fishing weight. This was always considered cheating in a fair fight because of the extra power it puts in the punches. One of many examples of this can be seen in the Charles Bronson move Hard Times, when the bad guy gambler's fighter is losing the fight to Bronson he slams a pair of weights on the floor and tells his fighter to use them.

Ankle weights on the wrists are also good.

The easiest way is to weight your fist

Be vary careful doing this, if you have bad technique, the chances of damaging the wrist is greatly increased.

Last thing you want is to tear or rupture a wrist tendon, these take 6-18months to recover and rarely do they recover 100%

Interesting idea Jay, thanks!

There are plenty of instructional video's on you tube about this, but remember good technique is more about delivering a high impact strike without damaging yourself.

Some tips which should help: -

1, always keep the focus of the punch on the two inner knuckles, if you trace the bones back you'll see these expand and are supported by 2/3 of your wrist, where as the other two become narrow and are more prone to fracturing or splintering, even when wrapped and gloved.

2, keep the two prominent knuckles, wrist and elbow in a straight line on both planes of movement, thus will gratly reduce wrist injury.

3, stop aiming to hit your target, aim to hit behind the target passing through the target, thus accelerating into your target. By nature when striking a target your fist will decelerate for the last 10cm's, this is an autonomic response and you want to fool your body to avoid.

4. The more body weight behind your punch the greater the impact, most untrained people punch with just the arm and a bit of the shoulder, you need everything from the feet up, all moving in the direction of the punch at the moment of impact.

it will take practice, get yourself a heavy bag and go for it. That's enough to get you started, just focus on technique for safety first.

Thanks andrewj, I really appreciate the tips. Regarding #3, I have sometimes thought about trying to hit the wall that's behind my target, but it's not easy to keep a clear mind about this when there's an amazing physique in front of me and it's the abs, not the wall, that I'm really looking at. I've never thought about 1 & 2 before, so that's really interesting. I've attempted to consider 4 before, but I don't think I've had much success. You're right, I really need to get a heavy bag.

Does anyone have any links to share on how to improve the power in a punch? I'd like to present more of a challenge to some of my punchees. I'm working out to increase my muscle strength, but I'd also like to improve my technique.

Here's an example of my work.

I wish you could practice on me, especially if you took AndrewJ's advice. I'm not much of a challenge, but you'd probably enjoy seeing my reaction to well executed punches.

I think the simplest way is if you learn proper boxing technique and buy a proper sized heavybag (about 60-100% your body weight) and regularly work out on it. you will soon work out what technique you need to use to have more power in your punches/kicks.

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately I live in the middle of nowhere, with no training gyms or anything like that around, so what I was hoping to get out of this post was some links to online vids that would give me some pointers. I've thought about getting a heavybag, and I see your point, I should probably start there. (Wonder what the shipping cost on that is!)

some great advice from andrewj there.

also, before and until you get a heavybag, you should develop some functional strength/power.

so start a conditioning regime, say something like the ladder described here: https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/exercise.html

because as andrewj described, a powerful punch comes from "putting the bodyweight behind it", which comes from being able to turn your body into one a solid/rigid mass (think a statue made of steel or stone) on command for the moment you are making impact.

and for that you will need strength developed in your core (torso) and in the limbs attached.

That's great advice, thanks! I got in great shape when I turned 40, but didn't really feel like myself and didn't keep it up. Recently however, I've been more into it. I've dropped more than ten pounds since Dec., without even trying, and I've been doing yoga and a bit of weight training. your fitness ladder is worth a careful look, thanks!

Very good punches, and an awesome punchee