Taekwondo punches

[Areaboy]

I'm a black belt in Taekwondo, and the captain of my schools Junior Olympic Team. I compete heavily in tournaments, and I'm striving to be the best I can be. I've gotten first at many tournaments, including a few state tournaments, and I was the AAUs national champion for my division last year. I havent been training for a while, and now I want to get back into it.

My promblem is my kicks are extremely hard, but by punches are very wimpy. I am thinking about lifting weights to improve my arm strength, but I dont know what muscles I should work. I really do not know very much about lifting, but I would like to learn.

My punching technique for when I spar is to punch 'over the top' punching DOWN on the persons chest protector, and putting my wieght into it, this is a very effective technique, and one that I would like to continue doing.

thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

 

[Legion Kreinak]

Then you probably already know, being involved with the arts, the strength of a punch comes from your entire body, from your toes, up to your waist to your fist. You rotate your torso and slam your fist into your opponent, so you'll want strong abs. I'm sure your legs are fine. Work every part of your arms, never leave anything lacking. Build the biceps, triceps, and I'd stress the shoulders just because they're a big driving force being the punch (the entire arm throwing the punch connects to that one area, remember)

Try doing upright rows, overhead presses, curls, and some chinups. That should strengthen your arm quite a bit. Maybe vary your curls with some hammer curls too, to build the forearm more.

 

[CrimsonKing]

Ask BFold. He's has several black belts an used to compete.

 

[Areaboy]

Then you probably already know, being involved with the arts, the strength of a punch comes from your entire body, from your toes, up to your waist to your fist. You rotate your torso and slam your fist into your opponent, so you'll want strong abs. I'm sure your legs are fine. Work every part of your arms, never leave anything lacking. Build the biceps, triceps, and I'd stress the shoulders just because they're a big driving force being the punch (the entire arm throwing the punch connects to that one area, remember)

Try doing upright rows, overhead presses, curls, and some chinups. That should strengthen your arm quite a bit. Maybe vary your curls with some hammer curls too, to build the forearm more.

awesome. Thanks a LOT!

 

[b fold the truth]

You mean that TKD punches now?

Just kidding. I got my first black belt in TKD and went to the Jr. Olympics twice. Once in Tulsa and another in Tampa and got bronze medals both years. It was a lot of fun but eventually I found that it was not the Martial Art for me at all.

Don't you have to punch to the body only? And through a chest protector?

You need to strengthen your entire body with exercises like bench press, clean and press, barbell rows, deadlifts, and squats. If you have to punch with your hands to the body then you need to be able to use a lot of body speed to get past the opponent's kicks. You can only punch so hard to the body so total body movement will be very important as well as "shooting" speed.

Does this make sense?

B True

 

[Areaboy]

Yes it makes since, and yes you can only punch through the body and on the chest protector. Even though at my level people always punch on the unprotected areas. Not cool, but I play fair.
I read that serious sparrers should only lift weights a certain way, so they dont get slowed down. Like I said, I dont know to much about lifting. How should I lift weights so I dont get 'slowed down', if this is even true, but many masters have told me this. I dont really know what they are talking about.

 

[Legion Kreinak]

From what B and Suston told me, you should be able to maintain speed so long as you stretch often. Be flexible.

 

[b fold the truth]

You can see some good pics here:
http://www.clintdarden.com/pics/Martial Arts/

There are some video clips there also of me doing Kata, fighting and such at a bodyweight of 220 or more...

B True

 

[babymonkey]

B Fold.... So you were 150lbs before you started powerlifting (if I read properly) Can we see some pics? I would also like to see a pic of your big musclebound ass doing a spinning jumpkick. HA,HA,HA . Just kidding.

 

[b fold the truth]

B Fold.... So you were 150lbs before you started powerlifting (if I read properly) Can we see some pics? I would also like to see a pic of your big musclebound ass doing a spinning jumpkick. HA,HA,HA . Just kidding.

There are some pics I recently posted on THIS board "progress pics" somewhere. Recent ones first...old ones much later.

I did some 540's not too long ago. I may start training hard again after my contest...for fun.

B True