I’m sure everyonce in awhile, you see a hugh musclebound guy, and chuckle to yourself that he could probably kill you with one punch.
I started to thinking about the logistics of getting punched by Gilligan (yes from the island) vs say, Mike Tyson. I would imagine the 2 main factors would be speed and follow through.
In regards to speed, I would imagine the faster you hit someone the more painful, in theory at least, it should be. In regards to follow through, after initial contact is made, continuing to ‘push’ would probably make sure that maximum energy is transfered, thus resulting in more pain.
What I couldn’t figure out was where strength becomes involved. I’m sure a Gilligan with fast handspeed and good technique (form, follow through, etc) could have a more devestating punch then a 300 lb guy, I’m just not sure why.
Sorry. After rereading your post, I guess you’re assuming that Gilligan’s punch has more speed than Tyson’s. Speed is certainly a factor in the amount of force that results.
But I’m sure that Tyson’s arm outweighs Gilligan’s by a considerable margin, so Gilligan’s punch would have to be a helluva lot faster than Tyson’s to exert more force.
Well from a physics standpoint, speed is the greater factor in how much force is applied, not the weight. When doing woodbreaking, you quickly learn that explosive speed is more important than pure strength. Boxers don’t hit hard just because they’re huge, they’re also pretty damn fast. So I don’t think gilligan could cause more damage than tyson. But if you take a small guy that can throw a good punch, and a big guy that can’t, the small guy will do more damage.
It’s a matter of transference of power. A boxer that knows what he is doing doesn’t punch with his arms, he punches with his legs. What this means is that through practice he has learned how to utilize the strength in his legs and body, concentrate it into his fist via proper leveraging, and transfer that energy to the opposing body where it can do damage.
Notice that boxers aren’t musclebound. They are strong, fast and skilled at punching. A light boxer can deliver a punch with much more force than a big, muscled person that has no technical skill. For this reason you should be much more fearful of a skilled boxer than a musclebound weightlifter.
The situation is somewhat analagous to hitting a baseball. A small, skilled hitter can hit a ball a lot farther than a big, unskilled hitter. Speed, (bat speed and/or hand speed) is important. Baseball players try to use a light bat to increase bat speed. However, they have to find the right balance. If the bat is too light it doesn’t transfer as much power. Finding the perfect combination for their swing is the key.
Of course a big guy with speed and proper mechanics is the most devastating combination. Lennox Lewis and Barry Bonds are the best current examples. While size and strength are helpful, its the mechanics that make the differece. The boxer is concentrating the energy into the fist while the baseball player is transfering the energy into the sweet spot of the bat. The greater that concentration is, the more effects you will see.
then density of the target vs density of the projectile and also if its a glancing blow i would imagine friction would come into play
i suck at physics but this all makes sense to me
on the whole heavy vs light thing consider the following:
pressure is something like mass / surface area right?
so a 120 lb woman in high heels standing on one foot generates more pressure than an 250lb man standing on 2 feet while wearing boots.
i suppose this is your argument for why gilligan could hit harder than tyson.
however, bc tyson weighs more, has more speed and strength in his punch (more devloped arms + knolwedge of HOW to hit + a lifetime of training) he will hit harder, and faster thereby causing more damage.
Just for the record. It is hazardous to hit someone in the head with your bare fist. You are quite likely to break your hand. Fighters hands are all wrapped up and protected by boxing gloves and they still occasionally break their hands.
There were some tests done (I might be able to find a cite if it’s needed) with olympic athletes where they found that weightlifters (the superheavyweights) were actually on average faster over 5 metres than sprinters. They’re extremely strong, and most of their training is on speed and explosive power, getting everything to fire at once. This allows them to throw their bodies forward faster than the sprinters, for a short time.
Some of that transfers over to a punch, of course, but the mechanical linkages involved to get maximum power are pretty complex, so raw speed and strength won’t get you the same level of punching power that proper technique will.
Hehe I said pain twice. Anyhoo this is slowly sinking in, I just need a little more time on matters like this, most likely because I’m a complete physics layman.
If 2 boxers with the same proportions and training, but one much bigger, hit something with a proptionally adjusted height with the exact perfect technique, the bigger boxer will inflict more damage, no questions asked. One assumption there is that the bigger boxer will be much stronger, which will be true if his proportions and training are identical. Their fists will fly at the other guys’ head at about the same speed. It will make contact with the guys’ head and since the bigger boxers’ body weighs more, AND because the bigger boxer has a long reach to follow through with his punch, the contact point will be longer and it will deliver more energy. The bigger boxers’ body will absorb more energy from the guys’ head. There is no debating this.
Just looking at someone and saying that they could knock you out with one punch is ridiculous. A very small percentage of the population knows how to hit that hard in an uncontrolled situation. The fact that your head flies backwards when it’s contacted makes a single KO punch almost impossible unless in a controlled situation.
Be more afraid of that musclebound guy grabbing you and ripping your head off, than him knocking you out. He probably has slow hands, relatively. You must train to be able to deliver a KO blow, or be able to hit someone standing still looking the other way.
This reminds of the movie Jackass with Jonny knoxville and butterbean.
I think the first analogy was a little faulty. Try Bruce Lee vs Mike Tyson. Who has the more damaging punch. Gilligan shouldn’t even come into the issue since he is not on a similar par to Tyson skill wise. I wouldn’t want either of the former two people to try to hit me because I know it would hurt. How would you guys compare them on punching power alone?
If tyson hits with optimal leverage, he will inflict probably up to 30-50% more power, if everything is held constant. He’s taller, weighs more, and is way stronger. If they were to punch one of those carnival punching bag things, he would blow lee out of the water. As for punching a real head, it wouldn’t make a whole lot of difference.
I could be wrong though. If Lee really can get his fist moving significantly quicker than mike’s, his power might not be all that far away fro mike’s. But i doubt that’s the case. No doubt he can swing more quickly, but not much more quickly than mike and any quickness he gains would be offset by lack of absorption ability, i would presume.
It would be so cool to see them box! Lee would win a fight, but boxing alone with gloves would be an entertaining match.
Strength and power are two different things. In short, strength is how much weight you can move, and power is how fast you can move it. In general, the more strength you have, the faster you can move a light weight, but in order to produce real power, you have to train for it. Boxers train for power more than strength.
But remember that force is the product of mass and acceleration. The more force you’re outputting, the faster you’re getting your arm going.
The way I’m built makes me look more like Gilligan than Mike Tyson and yet, I can punch phenomonally hard.
It comes down to technique, practice, and blistering hand speed.
When you consider that the formula for calculating energy is energy = mass times speed squared (e=mc2) it isn’t hard to see that an increase in speed will yield greater energy than an increase in mass.
A 100% increase in mass will yield a 100% increase in total energy while a 100% increase in speed will yield a 400% increase in the energy produced.
Bruce Lee was a small man but could have probably out punched many of the world’s best boxers due to frighteningly fast hand speed, training, technique, and the fact that even the best fighters would have trouble hitting him.
His famous one inch punch was dependent on speed and not mass to generate power; he was able to accelerate his hand to an extreme velocity almost instaneously and thereby generate an extreme amount of force.
I’ver seen footage of this and it’s amazing to see Lee put his fist up to the volunteer/victim and have the volunteer be driven back about six feet… Lee barely moves at all to deliver this strike and if you blinked, you’d miss it.
I believe the commentary from the volunteer was that aside from being initially sceptical, was that he had never been hit that hard in his life. Someone else can calculate how much energy is required to drive a 195 pound mass backwards six feet but I am gonna say, it’s a lot.
What’s interesting is that Lee learned this from spying on senior students and never received formal instruction in it’s use. It is a truly devastating technique… I know this from personal experience.
Punching well involves much more than just your arms and once you learn how to bring your hips and legs into the equation your ability to hit will be increased significantly.
