Strength for the ground punches.

[first123class]

I would like to respond to that but, after careful examination, it is all so obvious that I feel I must be quiet now.


*crickets chirping*

Funny

 

[Kembudo-Kai Kempoka]

If a guy hits me while we're standing, I can allow my body to "ride" the force of the blows penetration, and lessen the effect. On the ground, with naught but concrete behind me, there is nowhere to go. My head becomes the watermelon caught between Gallaghers sledge hammer and the smashing block, making the argument of "are blows from a standing position inherently stronger?" moot. There's a target effect in there too. In this case, a pinned target.

My buddy Eric used to make this point this way: "I'll stand here, and you can hit me in the head with your hardest reverse punch; I'll keep my chin thrust forward, and my hands behind my back. If I don't get back up, you win. If I DO get back up, then it's my turn...and I get to pound your head from the mount. Deal?" Eric had a 400+ pound bench. As a power-lifting champ in Cali 2 years running, he also had a helluva squat. Still, despite his leg strength, he preferred to pop from on top. And yes, he was trained in upright fighting, as well.

Regards,

Dave

 

[first123class]

I guess it's how you are trained and what you are used to.
Immagine throwing a side kick standing. Now imagine throwing a stump on someones head, who is on the ground. Which one is better? Which one would hurt more.
I would say an average not trained person or a novice would want to stump on the head. But a master kicker would take the chances with the stand up kick. Same goes for punches. A boxer would prefer to throw a punch at a standing opponent. but a novice would probably rather ground and pound. Why do you think we instinctively want to down a person.

 

[first123class]

Dave,
what happened to strike often? lol

 

[Kembudo-Kai Kempoka]

Dave,
what happened to strike often? lol

I figger...if you beat the guy to the punch and land some thunder where it counts (first, hard, fast), the follow-up hits implied by the "often" part will hit air...unconscious, horizontal targets harder to hit on an upright, horizontal plane of attack.

Thanks for asking!

Dave

 

[FearlessFreep]

I will admit that I really don't like 'ground and pound' as a technique for a few reasons other than the technical reasons I went into as far as efficient use of energy and power. Both derive from the idea of self-defense situations

1) Legal - getting on top of someone in a ground-and-pound I think gets awfully difficult to defend on ay sort of legal grounds. "He pulled a knife on me so I punched him in the face." is one thing. "He pulled a knife so I sat on his chest and pounded his face to pulp" I think gets a bit harder to defend under grounds of 'self-defense'

2) Partners - In my school's self-defense training, we do practice takedowns, but they all end up positional such that the defender (us) is still on his feet in a balanced controlled position. The reason for this is partially so you can control the person as needed "He cries uncle, let him up, he resists...put a bit more pressure on that elbow.." but a lot of it is based on the assumption that he could have friends and you need to be ready to move on...maybe breaking guy number one's arm in the process to be sure. So I'll admit I'm not a big fan of fighting techniques that end up with having to be on the ground yourself to control the other person as it seems like a vulnerable position to be in

Sorry if I hijacked this thread away from its intent

 

[arnisador]

I think the big thing is to know how to defend against it, as best one can. It certainly can occur in a self-defense situation!

 

[Epson]

I was contemplating. It sort of seems to me that the strength of the ground and pound strikes comes in the order.
Hammer/bottom fist the strongest
straight punches
hooks the weakest.
In a standing position the straight punches would be the strongest, but with the vector of gravity is the main advantage, the hammer may be the best bet.
Let me know what you guys think.

 

[KenpoPastor]

But mass doesn't cause damage...weight, which is the magnitude of a force, does. If an elephant sits on you you don't get crushed because of its mass, but because of its weight. The difference is academic in one sense--as long as g is constant, the (magnitude of the) force is just a constant multiple of the mass--but forces are what act to move things (like ribs, say).

What you are saying just validates Force = Mass X Acceleration in this case gravity = force.

The real question is does the 9 feet per second acceleration resultant from gravity add to the speed of your punch in the ground and pound scenario or does the the torque you can generate using your body acheive a greater acceleration of the punch.

The punch that is faster is harder because either way mass is constant.

I beleive that a trained stand up fighter will generate a harder punch on his feet than the guy trained in ground and pound will generate on the ground. My argument is that a mediocre major league pitcher easily generates an initial hand speed of 132 feet per second to throw a 90 mph fastball. That is all torque my friends. This leads me to the conclusion that the 9 feet per second assistance from gravity with lower torque can not possibly match what a trained fighter's punch with higher toque can produce in terms of force.

 

[arnisador]

Unless you can align yourself to get more mass behind it on the ground than you can standing up. I think you can. You can get "over" the punch in a way that you can't do when standing.

Certainly, torque matters. But you can raise up and come down in the ground-and-pound situation in a way that you can't when standing. The baseball example is a good one, though baseball picther gets a lot of wind-up, but now imagine standing up and using a bowling ball held in your hand to smash a wall in front of you. Compare that with smashing that same ball onto the ground. It'll hit with more force on the ground.

I think we both agree that in most cases martial artists over-estimate the "boost" they get from gravity. It isn't that big. If it's all arm, there's little value to it. Standing toruqe can be very powerful. But as I G&P, I'm getting more than just arm into it.

 

[Andrew Green]

Simple test:

Lie someone on there back, mount them, push down on them as hard as you can. They just relax and measure the discomfort.

Same test standing, don't brace them or you against anything, stand still and push, have them relax and measure the discomfort.

Two things are on your side, gravity and the floor. Punches while mounted hurt, lots, lots more then standing, even more then standing on your head and definately more then when doing a hand stand underwater. Whether it hurts more then while sitting in a fully reclined lazyboy and eating nachos is questionable, but if you take the nachos out it is a clear win.

 

[arnisador]

Oh yeah, the floor/ground is a big factor here--I thought we were speaking only of the other aspect, but the fact that you have no where to go and must absorb the blow is surely a bigger factor than the force itself.

 

[Epson]

The mat is pretty soft under them, I guess. Plus how many punches get a clean A-B path.