Rodillas fuertes y poder de KO

Knee Stability and Punching Power Part 1

Picture for a moment that you’re standing on a tightrope… As you can probably imagine, it’s pretty wobbly.

                  

You’ve got absolutely no stability and at any moment it might feel as if you’re going to fall off. Now imagine throwing a punch while you’re standing on this tightrope. How powerful do you think this punch would be? Obviously, not very powerful and it definitely wouldn’t knock anybody out. So how does this all relate to your development of explosive KO power in your hands, you might be asking?

WHAT’S SAPPING YOUR POWER?

It has to do with the stability you have in your lower body, particularly the lateral stability of your knees. The first thing you’ve got to understand is the problem. The proper term is ‘valgus’ knee, which basically means your knee buckles inwards. It looks like this:

It can either be postural, meaning your knees are buckled in while just standing still, or it can be dynamic, meaning during certain movements, your knees buckle in. While both are issues, we’re going to address dynamic valgus of the knee, because it’s more important and more common in MMA fighters.

TESTING FOR DYNAMIC VALGUS

I look at 4 exercises to test for dynamic valgus:

1. Squat
2. Reverse Lunge
3. Squat Jump
4. Lunge Jump

The tests get more difficult as you go down the list, so  you can see exactly where the problem starts. The jumping exercises show the condition under explosive movements, which most relate to MMA and in this case punching power. What you’re looking for during these exercises is any buckling inwards of the knees. It may not be big, but it’ll definitely be noticeable in that your knees will almost tremble and shake at the bottom of the movements.

So check yourself out in the mirror when you do these exercises and if you notice the centre of the kneecap moving inside of the second toe (the one right beside your big toe) during any part of the exercise, you’ve got some work to do.

HOW VALGUS KNEE AFFECTS PUNCHING POWER

When you throw a power punch, such as a straight right (or straight left if you’re a southpaw) you should be throwing your whole body into it – starting from the hips, to the core, to the shoulders and finally through to your fist and into your opponent’s jaw. Here’s a great example from of what it looks like in action (my man Jeff Joslin):

But to give you true KO power, you need to create ’snap’ in the punch. The snap comes from your lead leg suddenly stopping this powerful rotation of your hips, core and shoulders, causing the whiplash effect. If you don’t quite get this, think of when you’re driving and you suddenly hit the brakes.

Your seat belt locks your pelvis down while your torso and head gets whipped forward violently. In this case, your head is like your hand during the punch and the seat belt is like your lead leg, suddenly stopping the motion and creating the snap. Now if you tested yourself and you have valgus knee during any of the tests above, you won’t be able to stabilize the rotation of the punch and you’ll lose snap and ultimately power. Your knee doesn’t lock you down and ground you, so it’s like braking slowly instead of stopping suddenly. Much less violent. Stay tuned for part 2...