the kinetic chain and punching for the ufc and mma gloves

I get the feeling some people think I’m just teaching one type of punch? I’m not, the kinetic punching I teach is a Style of punching with the hands designed specifically for MMA Gloves fully utilising the kinetic chain. This punch can’t be thrown in Boxing or Muay Thai gloves, because the thumb position and doesn't allow you to land using the most efficient power line. boxers use swings in allot of punches, it’s normal and can’t be helped when you train in the big gloves and can build some real power. there is a more efficient way to build power is to rotate the body and bring the hand of on a smooth curve so that the forearm is driving every punch in which simply can’t be done in most modern boxing gloves. you would break your thumb trying, well I nearly did the first time I put boxing gloves on and threw a punch, thinking there would be loads of padding and my thumb landed first,!spiked the end of my thumb good style, I started in big gloves but quickly conditioned my hands to hit bare knuckle for self defence originally ,So I also noticed how I couldn’t make a proper fist with my hand in boxing gloves, and my punches weren’t as strong in boxing gloves because I couldn’t land on the strong powerline that I used when bare knuckle.

 So that means unlike boxing were you train in the same hand position that you fight, meaning the same type of glove same fist and thumb position. But when you train in boxing or Thai gloves for mma most of the striking leant for mma is in grained in bag work, pad work and sparing in the bigger gloves, when you fight with the hand in a different position, there’s different angles and more powerful positions available for mma punching. So while the kinetic punch can be up to 40% harder a standard MMA punch, that’s a standard mma jab v a kinetic jab same with a hook or cross etc because its more efficient it also takes much less energy to throw and because of the change in angles and power you can use all your boxing and Muay Thai tactics, but with a much more effective punch suited and designed specifically for mma gloves

This brings me to the second part of the kinetic chain the yin to the yan so to say, what do you need to do to build explosive power on the end of the punch? Because you can build as much speed and power with a punch as you want, but if you’re not doing anything on landing it then it’s only ever going to be a fast heavy push, or a dull thud, and even an eighteen stone guy (114 kilo) who had punched all his life, never had any explosiveness on the end of his punch. To be honest I’ve met allot of people who can put all their weight into a punch and if that’s 18 stone then with that on the end of a dull thud it’s usually plenty. And let me tell you that big guy hit with the most powerful dull thud I had ever felt! Now there’s another type of puncher that’s a real rarity and I’ve met less than one handful on my travels, hold a pad for these guys and you will instantly understand what I mean, no matter how you hold the pad it’s that explosive it nearly always over extends your shoulder, when you decided to met the punch with the pad which is perfectly normal to protected the elbow and shoulder then you hand felt like it had no padding.
One guy who’s number two on my explosive punching list, martin used to thrive in directing his explosive punch down the bone of my forearm deliberately and even though you would be in a strong position, and you didn’t feel it in your shoulder. You could feel what could only be described as a shockwave of pain shooting down your forearm bone marrow and it really hurt when it came out the back of your elbow? However This guy once held a Thai pad for my main self defence teacher (Dennis Jones) throwing a big kinetic hook, he told me it felt like he had snap his forearm bone and commented at the time “any harder and it would have cut my lip” this is where the shockwaves come in and the kinetic chop, there’s 3 shockwaves the light snapping shockwave, the deep snap, and the ripping snap and each one steps up in power but the king is the kinetic chop and it’s a mix of second two shockwaves .
all four of these can be used on the end of most punches,hammer fist or backhand and anybody with any explosive power say a boxer or kickboxer already has started to develop these types of explosiveness just through general training and repetition ,will know what i mean.but it’s when you start to isolate and train the end of the punch, the explosiveness really comes into own. because you've really refined the end, you don’t have to try as hard top build power.shockwaves go hand in hand with kinetic punch.and to be honest the shockwave training made the single biggest difference in mine and all my students explosiveness and precision and it just keeps increasing.

oh and its superb for self defence!!