Where does power come from?

Great punching power such as what Louis, Dempsey and Marciano exhibited comes from the ability to put ones weight behind the blow. Linking your feet, legs, hips, shoulders, arms and fists together and in unison. THIS plus speed, accuracy and good hands (as opposed to brittle hands) leads to killer punching power.

The main issue concerning hitting a heavy bag to develop power is its immobility. In my early days I would hit a 150 pound heavy bag 30-60 minutes consecutively in an effort to develop great power. Certainly believe my power was improved but once I started sparring a live moving opponent I found that I had not developed the hand eye coordination in order to land hard punches.

My feeling is the best way to learn how to fight is to FIGHT. Lifting weights, hitting bags, shadowboxing all of this is good conditioning exercises but really meaningless to a great extent unless one is indeed a true fighter.

 

Because the style you prefer to fight with may may not match well with mechanics you rely on to get more power from your punches. Your logic here is too rigid.

 

A lot of it has to do with a guy's nature; that leads him to fight in a certain way. Choosing not to commit to sitting down on punches and committing to avoiding retaliation has a lot to do with it.

 

Right.
How many stories have we heard of non boxers with superhuman punching power?
Never, from what I can recall.

 

Sure. Some street fighters are knockout punchers before they ever set foot in a gym, but most fighters probably can increase their punching power by learning the proper mechanics of delivering a punch. I don't disagree with any of that. But I strongly disagree with the idea that someone like Mayweather or Andre Ward could hit like Julian Jackson if they only spent the time improving their "shoulder snap."

 

That never happens though. There isn't a single fighter that would enjoy greater fame, riches and physical safety if they could punch harder. The time spent on trying to punch harder would be better spent on working on refining old techniques and learning new ones.

 

Said person could squat a house prior to getting tired.

 

You are simply very ignorant.

 

But no matter how safety first you are in most fighting situations, you can still commit to sitting on your punches in training, or when you have a harmless/hurt opponent in front of you. But we can find footage of guys throwing very similar punches in very similar situations producing very different results. Your point certainly explains why certain safety-first guys like Floyd Mayweather don't knock out as many people as they otherwise could but any intelligent viewer can recognize that he has more punching power than his knockout rate would indicate. But do you think that guys like Paulie & Lou Collazo, guys who've spent thousands of hours sparring and hitting heavybags, would likely hit as hard as guys like Matthysse, Danny Garcia, and Randall Bailey, if they just threw caution to the wind?

 

I couldn't disagree more. There are plenty of very highly skilled boxers whose career prospects would be much, much brighter if they'd learned the secret art of knockout punching.

 

Imagine if Ali had hit even 30% harder....,

 

No. And sitting on their punches more would help them generate more power. But it won't help them punch like Golovkin.

When Canelo was training for Golovkin, you could see that he was trying to focus much of the training on one punch power. And even when sitting on his punches, and throwing them one at a time, Canelo could never generate the kind of power Gennady could.

 

Another 2 examples of the hitting thin air debate would be batters in both Cricket and Baseball.
Surely they don't simply stand in the crease and swing their arms empty handed to generate more power when training?

 

That's a different argument entirely. I completely agree that there are fighters who would be better if they had a bigger punch. However, saying that a fighter should change the focus of their training to increasing punching power (provided they know how) is nonsense. A fighters time is much better spent practicing skills instead of trying to hit hard. The chances are that it isn't punching power that they are lacking but the ability to get their fist on the opponents chin. Tell me, do you think there are any highly skilled fighters who for the life of them can't knock out an opponent even if they landed on their chin?

 

Golovkin should be used as an example on how to throw punches to young kids taking an interest. People rave on about his power but to me its a combination of great balance and technique more than power. There are bigger punchers currently at middle but none better. Lemieux for example