How is it you can punch someone and not break your hand? The human skull is pretty hard, is there a certain technique that is used?
Use a 2x4.
Strike with the palm of your hand. In karate, you work on building some strength in the support for your wrists by doind pushups on fingers and on your knuckles. You also need to make the fist right and very tight. Ideally, if you use a fist, you strike with the first two knuckles of your punch, they stick out like nubby hammer heads. But there are a lot of small bones in your hand, so it’s hard to transfer all the force into the target.
Essentially, don’t punch people.
The general rule when hitting stuff is “Hard to soft, soft to hard.” So if you’re going to hit someone in the head, either a fist to the cheek (hard to soft) or palm to forehead (soft to hard.)
Or as my physics teacher once explained it, “the cushioning effect”.
Short answer: you can’t.
Long answer: you can if you get lucky. Broken bones in the hand are commonly enough associated with the action of punching that they’re even called a boxer’s fracture. I frequently see X-ray reports where someone punched another person or a wall and broke this bone, or the doctor orders the X-ray on a suspicion for this kind of injury.
Interesting link. Which of the “finger bones” and which part of it are they talking about? Too much jargon in there for me to figure it out.
I’ll second the short answer.
Most people who get in real fights (as opposed to Hollywood fights) are either lucky, not swinging hard enough or hit the jaw (which has a lot of ‘give’).
I have broken hand bones hitting someone in the head.
See the UFC. In the early years many fighters broke their hands until 'Tank"Abbot started using gloves to protect his hands. Many followed, then it became mandatory.
In some ways, i think boxing would be more interesting, and maybe even safer, if it went back to bare-knuckle style. You have to be a lot more careful about placing your punches, because there is a very real chance that you’ll break your hand. A lot of people seem to think that having the boxers wear gloves makes things safer for them, but it actually allows them to smash away repeatedly at each other’s heads without worrying about any consequences for their hands. As a result, the blows to the head are come harder and more frequently than they would in bare-knuckle fighting.
Avoid hitting the skull.
How do you punch someone without breaking your hand? Well for starters, don’t punch them in the forehead. If you can manage strikes in key places, you can use the back of your hand, the side of your fist or your forearm. For example, witness the “brachial stun”, delivered with the left forearm and very little set-up:
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/karatechop.html
Hard to land, but devasting if you do.
Heh. Thanks, Scruloose!
My uncle’s two-punch method: a hard swift strike to the forehead with his left palm to force his opponent’s head to snap back, then either a punch or slashing chop with his right hand to the exposed neck/throat. It’s extremely brutal because it leaves the victim gasping for air.
Simple answer: punch a soft spot or strike with the heel of the hand or an elbow.
Answer of the adequately prepared: use a two by four or a piece of gas pipe.
NRA answer: knock 'em down at 40 yards with double ought buck shot.
The bones in the human hand are pretty delicate. What ever you do don’t put your thimb inside the fingers.
Try this picture.
For those of us whose knowledge about fighting comes entirely from movies…
if it’s so easy to break your hand while punching someone in the head, does this mean that you’re not doing as much damage with a punch to the head as you could with a punch to some other part of the body?
That depends on a lot of variables, but very broadly, yes. The problem is that a breaking bone is acting like a crumple zone in a car, it absorbs the force of impact, menaing that your opponent is taking less damage while you take more. Neither is good for doing damage. That’s not to say that punches to the head are always or even usually ineffective, or even that a punch that breaks your hand isn’t effective, but there are far better places to punch, and far safer ways to attack the head.
But like I said, it’s complicated and for every generalisation there;s a myriad of exception. Punching muscles might be really good at disabling the muscle (massive charleyhorse), but diabling a muscles is rarely as ‘effective’ as knocking someone down or even closing there eye.However if you aren’t built like Mike Tyson punching someone’s head in most places will simply annoy them. It’s hard to say in simple terms what is ‘effective’ but very broadly punching to the head is less effective than a punch elsewhere, or using an laternative means of hitting the head.
The head is a good target in a fight because if you disable the head you have essentially disabled the opponent, whether because he’s unconscious, can’t breath, is blind or whatever. But there are far better and less dangerous ways to do it than punching, from the palm that others have suggested to elbows, headbutts and a good old-fashioned thump to the side of the head using the base of the fist as hammer, rather than the knuckles.
In contrast punches work well to soft areas as others have said, not just because it’s less dangerous but because the breaking bones don’t absorb any of the force. it all goes into the opponent.
As a martial artist for 12 years I can safely say that yes, there is a way to punch someone anywhere without breaking your fist.
The majority of laymen, and suprisingly 99% of the martial artists i’ve observed use the standard “roll up your fingers and put a thumb over 'em” fist. Do that, and now look at your knuckles. Notice how they don’t line up? Does your index finger stick out more than the rest of your fingers? Now gently pat the wall with that silly fist you have. Feel the weakness in your wrist and the difficulty to have more than two knuckles touch the wall at the same time? Therein lies the problem.
Most often when a person reports a “broken hand” the broken part would be the little bones that run from your knuckle to your wrist. This would be the result of one knuckle absorbing the majority of the blow and pushing back against the smaller (and much weaker) bones.
I’d love to show you all how to make a proper fist, but after several attempts to describe it i’m falling. Stop by a few different martial arts schools (i would NOT recomend anything Tai-Kwon-Do) and see what they have to say.
I’d just like to reiterate that there’s nothing wrong with bodyshots. I’ve seen boxers dropped by what appear to be liver shots (IIRC de la Hoya was done in thusly and I’ve seen it at least once live. FWIW, Black Belt magazine recently had an article on this, or at least focused on it.
IME, while headshots leave me feeling groggy the next day while I’ve had body shots knock the wind out of me and effectively end the bout.
“In some ways, i think boxing would be more interesting, and maybe even safer, if it went back to bare-knuckle style.”
My point was that before using gloves there were a lot ot hand injuries, after they decreaced dramatically.
“if it’s so easy to break your hand while punching someone in the head, does this mean that you’re not doing as much damage with a punch to the head as you could with a punch to some other part of the body?”
This is a complicated issue. A little back ground, I grew up in a ‘bad’ part of town. Fighting was an acceptable way of settling disputes. I am not proud of this, but I have been in and seen many brawls.
The bones in the hand are weaker but not weak. I have seen fights where someone pummels their opponent ruthlessly in the head with no damage. But I don’t advise it.
Uppercuts, for example usually work great. Elbows are better.
The idea is to hit the head in such a way that you jar the brain inside of the skull to daze (or knock-out) the other guy. This means not hitting the jaw or the nose for example Of course the problem in a real fight is that the head is a moving target and for the laymen hard to direct your punches to the desired spot. This assumes you are going for the knock-out and not worrying about your hands.
I have also been involved in martial arts for a good long while. I know I will get flak for this, but really in the martial arts a little bit of knowlege is a dangerous thing. Fghts do not happen in kata (practice) the way they do in real life. Fights usually turn into a brawl. Check out the early UFC fights (1-5, say) and it becomes very clear. I especially do not recomend the back of the hand.
The best way to use the fist is to make sure the knuckles-to-the-wrist bones are aligned with the arm.
Fists to the throat or the solar plexus are a better target than the head.
Here’s the reality of a street fight. Drugs, adrenaline, fear, etc dramatically affect the effectiveness of technique to the hitee. As does the familiarity of said tecnique by the hitter. I have been kicked repeatedly in the gonads in a fight to no effect (but was mightily sore the week or two after). In the above mentioned fight where I broke hand bones, I won the fight.
The best strategy is to knock the other guy out so you don’t have to fight. There’s the rub. Most people do not relish the idea of hitting another fellow human being. Myself included. But the first strike advantage cannot be overstressed (see the above video). It is the best tool in your arsenal. If threatened, and you know that you will have to fight, that is the time to strike. No John Wayne posing, no letting the other guy finish talking - strike when you know the fight is inevitable. It’s not a good thing… but it’s better than the alternative.