For those who learn Boxing and regularly compete in combat, there is a conception that putting a lot of force into the punch will bring great results. However, the strong or weak punch must also depend on many other factors besides force. If you are wondering how to take a punch in Boxing, we will give you full instructions today.
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Why Do You Need to Punch Hard?
A strong punch is significant in any sport, especially Boxing.
A powerful punch can knock-out, causing the opponent to pass out or unable to get up for a certain amount of time to continue the match on the ring. This is one of the criteria to decide the victory of a fighter.
The match referee usually declares the game after counting from 1 to 10). When the referee declares that one fighter is knocked out, that means the match is over, and the winner is the one who knocked out his opponent.
How To Take A Punch In Boxing
Relax
Many people wish to possess a punch that is both fast and strong. However, you should understand that strength is not just speed, but you need to have a parallel force with every strike.
Keep in mind that a quick punch won’t be a strong punch unless you carry it with some of your body weight in it.
For speed and power to “exist” together, it requires extremely flexible coordination and hard work.
Relaxation allows maximum body movements. This result is based on a very natural body reflex: “Cross stretching reflex”, which is an interaction between opposite limbs.
When you relax, you make the most of this reflex of your body. Example with a left punch: You pull your right hand and right shoulder back and push your left shoulder and left hand away. The cross stretching reflex unifies this movement, contributes to the body parts’ resonance force, and delivers the fastest possible speed.
Conversely, when tightening muscles, this reflex is inhibited because the brain focuses only on the muscle group you are contracting, making your body stiff and unable to punch hard.
Keep Eye Contact
For a professional boxer, keeping an eye on your opponent is a must.
In a duel, you will make the most of your advantage when your opponent loses concentration or doesn’t see your attack. When attacking at the moment when the opponent loses their guard, their consciousness will not be able to recognize and control their body to prepare for a ‘hit,’ so your attacks will easily knock out the opponent.
Moreover, when looking at the opponent, you will recognize his movement rhythm as well as anticipate his attack movements, thereby increasing the effectiveness of his punch.
Prepare Yourself
Heating your body helps your cardiovascular system. It will also increase blood circulation, making the body ready. This preparation step required a training session of the boxers.
As more blood reaches the muscles, tendons, and ligaments, they become more elastic. This will make processes like stretching easier and more efficient. The gradual increase in body temperature will make the muscles and connective tissue more flexible, helping your punches to be fully energized.
The standing position is also crucial; the boxer should hold the legs, lean slightly and straighten the back. Standing in the right posture, the blow will have more force. It would help if you also practiced head movements, a necessary boxing technique.
Head movement with the right technique in each case frees your hands. Even without covering your head with your hands, you still can adapt to any situation when practicing competition.
The mental preparation for the training session is also an important factor for the training session as well as increasing the effectiveness of the attacks for the boxers. This will improve the technique, skill, and coordination of the shots. Besides, mental preparation is the best way to develop an awareness of your body’s abilities.
Strengthen Your Core
In Boxing, a number of factors such as the ability to balance, power, or move mainly originate from the lower waist area. At the same time, the skill of accurately attacking or defending comes from the upper body.
Depending on the fighting style that the boxers are pursuing, they will focus on strength, speed, accuracy, ability to withstand the blow or combine all of those elements with their muscles.
The hip is responsible for controlling the lower body’s activity, simultaneously transmits the legs’ force to the upper body. Another part of this muscle group is balance.
Balance may not be the most important factor, but it is like the core of all other activities. If you cannot keep your balance, all movements of attack, defense, movement, etc. can not achieve maximum performance, even causing harm to the user.
A remarkable point in the ability to transfer the hips’ force is thought of the hips as the point where the total body weight is placed. If you exercise and use the hip muscles well, you can transfer all that weight into the hit for maximum efficiency.
The abdominal muscles work with the hip muscles to control the main body movements. They are the muscles that synthesize all the muscle movements together to convert into one attack. Besides, the abdominal muscles’ most visible function is to help control breathing and increase the tolerance to body shots from the opponent.
When performing punches, the back muscles are also an important group of organs that determine the punches’ speed and force. The back muscles also have the same job as the abdominal muscles but have a very important function that a few people know about.
It is the back muscles that help a lot in controlling the punch, namely the ability to recoil. It can help you move your hands back to the initial defensive position faster or to perform two consecutive blows with one hand.
Roll The Punch
First of all, when it comes to punches, you have to hold your fingers tightly. Right wrist straight: The index fingers’ wrist bone, the middle finger must be straight with the carpal tunnel. When you do a straight punch towards the competitor, make sure to use all your strength, and your wrists, hands, and arms should be in a straight line.
If you bend your wrists down and your index finger pops up when punching, you will inevitably be injured. The lightest one is a sprain, and even more severe, a fracture of the wrist and finger joint is a common injury in Boxing.
As you can see, in common punches like straight punches, cross punches, and hook punches, they all need both left and right combinations. Pay attention to your torso, shoulders, and hips, or your punch will not have any strength at all.
In boxing techniques, the distance from the fist to the target is very important. Straight punches have the ideal distance to be an arm, while hook punches are a little closer. Choose the right distance so that the punch you release has the strongest punch.
Watch Out For The Attack
For boxers, dodging is very important to avoid losing or serious injuries that could affect their career. Therefore, when launching strong punches, you should prepare carefully and pay attention to the opponent’s tactics, avoid subjective coordination, and get hit.
When you discover that your opponent is about to strike the decisive blow, be wise in dodging, avoiding, and keeping your strength to prepare for a counterattack.
Go For A Boxing Course
The best way to get the right punching technique is to learn Boxing with your coach.
One of the great things you get from training with a coach is learning from them and developing your knowledge of Boxing.
Personal coaches are experts in the health and sports fields who can help you adjust and achieve your goals. Coach’s knowledge and skills are of great value in helping you improve your punching abilities.
Besides, if you are a person who often has problems creating motivation while practicing alone, then training with a coach will be the best investment to help you maintain that momentum. They are the people who help you change your mindset and the ones who guide you towards the most positive training.
Also, self-exercise has a lot of risk of injury, plus many exercises that are too safe for you. When practicing with the instructor, they will instruct you to practice the right form, correct mistakes that can lead to unnecessary injury, and increase your strength.
>>Also read: Basic Boxing Combinations.
Conclusion
There you do, all things you need to know on how to take a punch in Boxing. To hit an effective punch, it can take years to practice, and you need to use the strength of your whole body. We hope that you can achieve your goal through our instruction above. Thank you for reading.
With a passion for combat sports and a wealth of experience, Mike Colon stands as a seasoned figure in the world of martial arts, hailing from the vibrant city of Las Vegas, Nevada. Mike has honed the skills of numerous fighters, guiding them through the intricacies of the sweet science of Boxing and the multifaceted challenges of MMA.
