This is something I've been thinking about lately and I felt like I was onto something, so I wanted to throw it into the group. Punching power comes from the mind-muscle connection. Logically speaking, the more muscles you can effectively and efficiently include in your punch, the heavier the punch will be. This is why it's important to first learn how to use your legs to support your punch, because our legs are the strongest part of our bodies. From there you would logically move on and step by step start including more and more muscles to support your punching power. The problem with this is that it takes many years before you even come close to using every muscle possible that can support your punch. This is why talent beats training. It takes less time since you're born with the talent for it, so you can achieve actual results before you're past your prime. And if as a martial artist throwing a punch was all you had to worry about, this wouldn't be such a tough nut to crack. But you need to spend a lot of time on his physical condition and also needs to learn how to deal with the punches of his opponent. In simpler terms, defensive skills. Focusing on the mind-muscle connection when it comes to something as dynamic as a punch takes up a lot of time and there's just no room for that. There're just too many other things a martial artist has to focus on. Technique is probably the easiest way to improve one's punching power, because it teaches a bit of the mind-muscle connection and most of all it teaches leverage. Leverage is responsible for not letting any of your power escape, which is crucial in reaching your "hardest punch" potential. Focusing all of your power on a single point while wasting a minimum of power along the way is the single most effective method to increase your power-output. Does this make sense to anyone?
Not really, power I would say has more to do with mental and physical aliment and connection working together to focus energy very accurately from support to target with long energy.
Not so far, to be honest. It's decent brainstorming though. But as a thesis statement goes, I got to the end of it without the vaguest sense of what you're actually thinking. I think clarifying your terms would go a long way. Defining the mind-body connection you're talking about, for instance.
A thesis for an exam? I'd just stick to whatever the uni recommends if so. Martial arts in particular are not the best for someone trying to get an "A" in anything.
No. You're not saying anything new here, you're just combining everything people normally talk about (technique, timing, balance etc) and bundling it up and rebranding it 'the mind-muscle connection'. There is no insight there. The same can be applied to just about any sporting motion: Tennis serve - all about the mind-muscle connection Fastball - all about the mind-muscle connection Snooker shot - all about the mind-muscle connection Walking up a flight of stairs - all about the mind-muscle connection
I think the premise of the thesis is flawed, mostly because it seems to make no mention of weight as a variable, unless you're equating the mass of muscle into the initial hypothesis, as opposed to the sheer number of muscle groups at work.
uhm i was just looking for a way to word it, so i googled some stuff thesis statement seemed to correlate with what i had in mind, i didnt know it was a uni thing lol im a bro-science type of guy, so i probably shouldnt use words studied folks use haha
Well in body-building the term mind-muscle connection is often brought up. The point of it is that while you're doing an exercise, you can't just move the weights around. To fully maximize the benefit you get from doing the exercise, you need to establish a "mind-muscle connection". So say you're doing a lat pulldown exercise, you need to activate your lat muscles with your mind to get the most out of the exercise. Just pulling the bar down won't do much. Some describe the mind-muscle connection as putting your 'mind' in the muscle you're trying to work. From there I got the idea that in martial arts we kind of do the same thing. MA movements are dynamic, so it feels more like a motor skill when you're practicing a move. But I felt that there was some correlation between the two. And while I was comparing different boxers hitting a heavy bag I obviously noticed a difference in technique, but it seemed like the boxers with the heavier punches just used "more" of their body to throw a punch. Sometimes when a heavy-hitting boxer throws a seemingly light punch, there's still a lot of impact on the heavy bag. So from there I kept my train of thought about mind-muscle connection going.
This to me describes conditioning of the body in isolated areas. I think this is very important for general health and physical therapy. Isn't there also a body-mind-body version of this, such as when you massage an area, your body can then focus on the area being massaged more intently to help increase the effectiveness of the massage? One the biggest inhibitors to seeing technique is "your eyes". People see what they expect to see and expectations are based on knowledge and experience. For example, someone might look at a palm strike and see the shoulders roll because that is what they expect to see. On the other hand, someone more knowledgeable might see the movement at the waist (e.g. the belly button moves in circles). The first guy is seeing an isolated movement. The second guy is seeing whole body movement. Then there might be a third guy that sees something else. Hoping what we see is a progression towards perfection. This isn't always so, but keeping the eyes open means keeping an open mind.
