BOOM! (Revisited)

 

 

The simple return to this post is because of its importance, as was brought to my attention recently after a discussion with a student.

 

Question:

‘What is the secret to explosive energy?’

Answer:

‘Relaxation’.

How simple was that!

 

Strength, is the result of building big muscles whereas speed is not, and in order to generate explosive power we need speed more than we need muscle.

 

Mother nature tells us that in order to hurt someone you must throw all your bodyweight behind the punch, however science would disagree with this statement.

Now don’t get me wrong, throwing the big punch will indeed see great results, IF IT LANDS.

 

But what if you miss?

 

MUSCLE is mono-directional, meaning of course that it only goes one way, and in this case, the direction of the target, BUT, if the target moves, that muscle driven punch will continue uncontrolled.

 

ENERGY is multi-directional, meaning that it spreads outward, like sound waves or the ripples in a pond when disturbed by a stone

For an answer to:

‘What is energy?’

I’m sure you can find that in our library of older blogs and videos, but what I would say is that we do not really

SEE energy, but more the EFFECTS of it.

 

So the original question was,

‘What is the secret to explosive energy?’

 

In simple physics it breaks down like this;

MASS (Your fist) x VELOCITY (The punch) = MOMENTUM (The movement of the punch)

ENERGY is equal to the CHANGE IN RATE of momentum (How fast it moves and then stops).

 

So therefore

Using muscle, a mono-directional muscular force (which is difficult to stop), would be like driving a car into a pile of straw.

Result = An abrupt but steady stop with little application of explosive energy

 

Using energy (stopping immediately on contact), would be like driving a car into a pile of bricks.

Result = An immediate stop with a massive application of explosive energy.

 

So by NOT RELYING solely on the use of bigger muscle groups, but instead using small muscle groups linked to fast twitch fibers etc. will result in the short, sharp, shock treatment we feel when using explosive energy.

 

Less muscle, more power.

The secret is simply this:

It is not how fast you switch it ON, but how fast you can switch it OFF.