Measure the impact force

[void_man]

There are different opinions on how to measure the force of impact. Some even believe that it is a fiction. Many different interpretations can be found in the internet: the impact force of 3 tons Tyson! Shot Power Tyson 800 kg.
There are different simulators:
Kiktest -

Makiwara.KickPower -

Slam man -

Who believes what these simulators worth, or all - nonsense?

 

[Transk53]

The technology of the day I guess. The top one looks he is tickling it. Suppose as a personal aid it would be a useful tool, but as a general training aid, or aids, can't see it taking off. Then again though, who would have said years ago, you will be able to order your shopping with an iPhone.

 

[Midnight-shadow]

To quote a league of legends character called Lee Sin (who is inspired by Muay Thai): "force is meaningless without skill". To be honest I've always seen these kinds of tests as more of an ego-trip than informative information. "look at me, I'm so strong, my punch has enough force to break someone's ribs!!!!"

 

[void_man]

How do you know his strength? You can train a lot and only six months to know that trained properly. It is necessary to measure the targets: strength, speed, reaction. Otherwise it will be self-deception. You will think that you - cool.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

There are different opinions on how to measure the force of impact. Some even believe that it is a fiction. Many different interpretations can be found in the internet: the impact force of 3 tons Tyson! Shot Power Tyson 800 kg.
There are different simulators:
Kiktest -

Makiwara.KickPower -

Slam man -

Who believes what these simulators worth, or all - nonsense?

The actual number isn't much help. Do you want me to hit you with 400 somethings of force? I will say that having the ability to actually measure can be useful if you are trying to increase power by technique. You can experiment with different adjustments to see what they do to the number, which is more accurate than trying to estimate it in other ways. Then you can try that new variation on a more realistic target like a heavy bag to see how it feels (for structure and protection of your hand, etc.). The number is also good for comparing your different strikes: is my elbow strike more powerful than my palm-heel?

All that said, it's a fine-tuning thing and a tool for exploration. I doubt it's a great use to most in their training. Most coaches and instructors already know how to increase power within their system without sacrificing too much speed or stability. Getting overly focused on the number could easily lead someone to striking in a way that creates a huge opening or slows them down.

 

[void_man]

athlete runner knows the exact time at which it ran. weightlifter knows exactly how much it raised. How to have accurate data on the characteristics of the shock in the martial arts?
Of course, the coach and the athlete knows that strength and impact speed has improved, but how much better? Whoever trained, knows that in a few years of studying hard to understand how you become better.

Maybe you know some simulator to measure the force of impact?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

athlete runner knows the exact time at which it ran. weightlifter knows exactly how much it raised. How to have accurate data on the characteristics of the shock in the martial arts?
Of course, the coach and the athlete knows that strength and impact speed has improved, but how much better? Whoever trained, knows that in a few years of studying hard to understand how you become better.

Maybe you know some simulator to measure the force of impact?

Those are competitive numbers for the other athletes, and are the significant metrics for them. A weightlifter is either working for competition numbers (where the measurement will be those same weights), for strength (where the measurement is how much weight he can lift), or for appearance (where the weight he's lifting is the second best way to measure progress toward that goal, behind only a measurement of the muscles themselves). For a runner, how fast he can run is the primary measure of his progress.

For a boxer, how hard he hits isn't a good final metric if he's slow. The final measurement for a boxer is how well he handles an opponent, and there are examples where the harder puncher was simply outclassed. I'd argue that measuring the power in cats-per-square-ironing-board (or whatever unit you prefer) is a partial measurement (ignores speed and exposure) at best, and not even a secondary point of measurement.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Who believes what these simulators worth, or all - nonsense?

lol. the red kicking pad looks nice. I like the idea of that. For me these things would be more like a toy for me than a training tool. I probably wouldn't care about how it tries measure the force. To me it's a video game. I got 200 this time I'm going to kick again and I'll try to get more than 200. From a training point it may do more harm than good, as it may cause people to think more about hitting with power than about hitting with technique. I know my Sifu was always putting the importance of technique over power and the other instructor and I are the same way.

I would probably get little use of beyond those rare days of "Lets see how hard I can hit." I already know I can hit hard enough to the point where I will damage my hand so I have no interest in hitting harder than that. But read kicking pad looks like fun. Not sure how the red light dummy works. If a person doesn't plan to fight then I can see where that will help someone to stay in shape, just not sure I want to train my mind to react to a red light flashing since that's not what I'm looking for in a sparring match or a real fight.

I know in kung fu everything isn't about delivering the strongest force. Many styles actually train to deliver smaller amounts of force at the right time and against where the opponent is weak. This makes it possible for force that's equal to hand clapping together, enough force to break an arm. My personal say is to always fight someone where they are weak and not where they are strong. If I do that then I just don't need a lot of force to get the job done or to cause great harm to my opponent.

 

[JowGaWolf]

athlete runner knows the exact time at which it ran. weightlifter knows exactly how much it raised. How to have accurate data on the characteristics of the shock in the martial arts?
Of course, the coach and the athlete knows that strength and impact speed has improved, but how much better? Whoever trained, knows that in a few years of studying hard to understand how you become better.

Maybe you know some simulator to measure the force of impact?

Martial arts is different because the techniques allow a small amount of force to do great damage. For example, I can punch you in stomach with 200 lbs of force (or however force is measured) when you are waiting for it, but you can totally take that away from me by simply moving forward and having the impact occur sooner than I expect. By doing so my structure will not be ready to deal with the impact, cause more damage to me than to you. If you get it correctly then you won't feel much of anything other than something bumping into you. If you get it right then I break my wrist. So in that scenario (which is realistic) what was the value of you punching at 200 lbs of force?

We can even make it easier. You punch with 200lbs of force with gloves on, you get into a fight and you throw that bunch but it catches your enemy's or opponent's elbow and it breaks your hand? How helpful was the 200 lbs of force?

Martial arts has a tendency of trying to use the least amount of force to cause the greatest amount of damage.

 

[Transk53]

Those are competitive numbers for the other athletes, and are the significant metrics for them. A weightlifter is either working for competition numbers (where the measurement will be those same weights), for strength (where the measurement is how much weight he can lift), or for appearance (where the weight he's lifting is the second best way to measure progress toward that goal, behind only a measurement of the muscles themselves). For a runner, how fast he can run is the primary measure of his progress.

For a boxer, how hard he hits isn't a good final metric if he's slow. The final measurement for a boxer is how well he handles an opponent, and there are examples where the harder puncher was simply outclassed. I'd argue that measuring the power in cats-per-square-ironing-board (or whatever unit you prefer) is a partial measurement (ignores speed and exposure) at best, and not even a secondary point of measurement.

Curious. If a lifter was actively taken steroids, just hypothetical here, do the effected muscle groups have a tell tale marker for steroid abuse?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Curious. If a lifter was actively taken steroids, just hypothetical here, do the effected muscle groups have a tell tale marker for steroid abuse?

I've had people tell me steroids have a visible effect on how muscles look (other than the size), but I doubt it, given how many people have gotten caught only after many years.

 

[Transk53]

I've had people tell me steroids have a visible effect on how muscles look (other than the size), but I doubt it, given how many people have gotten caught only after many years.

Yeah pretty much what I thought. I one fellow doorman who started getting spots that looked like Chicken Pox.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Yeah pretty much what I thought. I one fellow doorman who started getting spots that looked like Chicken Pox.

I wonder if he was using some testosterone-boosting supplement. You start messing with hormones like that, and all kinds of odd stuff can happen.

 

[Transk53]

I wonder if he was using some testosterone-boosting supplement. You start messing with hormones like that, and all kinds of odd stuff can happen.

Probably. So many artificial supplements around, despite the jargon on the tin.

 

[Ironbear24]

To quote a league of legends character called Lee Sin (who is inspired by Muay Thai): "force is meaningless without skill". To be honest I've always seen these kinds of tests as more of an ego-trip than informative information. "look at me, I'm so strong, my punch has enough force to break someone's ribs!!!!"

Hypothetically speaking let's say I kicked over a banana tree. Should I be happy about this? At first I was but in the grand scheme of things people aren't going to just stand still and let me murder their legs.

 

[Midnight-shadow]

Hypothetically speaking let's say I kicked over a banana tree. Should I be happy about this? At first I was but in the grand scheme of things people aren't going to just stand still and let me murder their legs.

In the words of Bruce Lee "boards don't hit back"

 

[Balrog]

I kind of like the impact meters. They do give you immediate feedback and allow you to monitor and adjust. It's a constant challenge to find the balance between strength and technique, and this is just another tool to do so.

 

[Ironbear24]

Yeah pretty much what I thought. I one fellow doorman who started getting spots that looked like Chicken Pox.

Not so much the muscles themselves. More like what surrounds them. Hypertrophy is a very common side effect of steroid abuse along with excess fat around the pectoral muscle. Hives and rashes are another common thing too.

When most people use roids they usually only do one cycle then stop, even then that is still frowned upon for obvious reasons.

 

[KangTsai]

It's just under as accurate we can get without wasting a lot of time. Something like this is just pure chaos theory, and have to be put into hypothetical, strictly controlled environments to take consistent results. We want to measure how hard I kick -

Let's start I kick a bag.

We need to measure the mass of my body, the volume and mass distribution of my body which includes my height, the density of the floor, air pressure, altitude, the influence of gravity into the experiment, the velocity of my leg, the torque occuring from my toes, ankle, knee , hip, spine, arms, the lot, the resultant surface area of the struck surface... Etc.

See? Way too many factors at play. We can never be 100℅ accurate. Frankly these tests are accurate enough.

The only serious problem is that pressure should be the unit of impact force, which those sets of apparatus can't measure. There are lines between accurate and, well, chaos.

 

[KangTsai]

Martial arts is different because the techniques allow a small amount of force to do great damage. For example, I can punch you in stomach with 200 lbs of force (or however force is measured) when you are waiting for it, but you can totally take that away from me by simply moving forward and having the impact occur sooner than I expect. By doing so my structure will not be ready to deal with the impact, cause more damage to me than to you. If you get it correctly then you won't feel much of anything other than something bumping into you. If you get it right then I break my wrist. So in that scenario (which is realistic) what was the value of you punching at 200 lbs of force?

We can even make it easier. You punch with 200lbs of force with gloves on, you get into a fight and you throw that bunch but it catches your enemy's or opponent's elbow and it breaks your hand? How helpful was the 200 lbs of force?

Martial arts has a tendency of trying to use the least amount of force to cause the greatest amount of damage.

Good point - I just 'disagree' with the biomechanical/physical stuff there.
*Martial arts has a tendency of trying to use the least work to generate the most force.
Using less force to do more damage comes in when you're talking about weak points in the body E.G. the groin.
*The impact force(over the striking surface squared, which is product of the resultant acceleration of the punch and the mass of the object) is at the end of the punch. It's how much work (joules) was exerted by your body throwing the punch.
*The reason you can break your hand is because it's not the same pressure that results as wearing gloves. The way that a glove has larger surface area than a fist and how it is easily displaced under impact results in less pressure. But the pressure exerted on the fingers when punching is enough to make the bones break.

These tests are prime examples of chaos theory: small differences in variables can present great divergences in results. So the tests have to be conducted under strict physical factors to get the most accurate results. Every single "what if" has to be settled in a new experiment.

Sorry if I sound pretentious - I just like physics very much.