I always thought that you could only hit the liver if you hit under the rib diagonally from bottom to top, a classic liver hook or a left liver kick, but on the anatomy it looks like the liver is directly under the solar plexus? it doesn't look protected either? Can you also hit the liver if you hit the middle under the chest? I don't understand that? My trainer never talked about it, we just learned the classic liver hook? than from which angles can the liver be hit?
I am guessing that a big part of the liver is very close underneath the lower ribs on the right side, and when getting punched into the ribs, they flex a bit and hit the liver; so minimal "damping". Any strike that flexes the lower ribs, goes into the liver. The lower smaller ribs are i guess also more likely to flex than the mid-ribs?
Blunt Liver Injury with Intact Ribs under Impacts on the Abdomen: A Biomechanical Investigation
"...Liver injury may be caused by a direct impact with a certain velocity and energy on the abdomen, which may result in a lacerated liver by penetration of fractured ribs. However, liver ruptures without rib cage fractures were found in autopsies in a series of cases. All the victims sustained
punches on the abdomen by fist. Many studies have been dedicated to determining the mechanism underlying hepatic injury following abdominal trauma, but most have been empirical. The actual process and biomechanism of liver injury induced by blunt impact on the abdomen, especially with intact ribs remained, are still inexhaustive. In order to investigate this, finite element methods and numerical simulation technology were used. A finite element human torso model was developed from high resolution CT data. The model consists of geometrically-detailed liver and rib cage models and simplified models of soft tissues, thoracic and abdominal organs. Then, the torso model was used in simulations in which the right hypochondrium was punched by a fist from the frontal, lateral, and rear directions, and in each direction with several impact velocities. Overall, the results showed that
liver rupture was primarily caused by a direct strike of the ribs induced by blunt impact to the abdomen. Among three impact directions, a lateral impact was most likely to cause liver injury with a minimum punch speed of 5 m/s (the momentum was about 2.447 kg.m/s).
Liver injuries could occur in isolation and were not accompanied by rib fractures due to different material characteristics and injury tolerance."
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Blunt Liver Injury with Intact Ribs under Impacts on the Abdomen: A Biomechanical Investigation