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Power, in the Martial Arts, especially martial arts like Tae Kwon Do or Gung Fu is often measured by how hard you can hit. Thus, people strike the punching bag and the Makiwara, and they do push ups to strengthen their arms, and…and they are doing it all wrong. You see, there is one critical factor that they don’t understand, and so all their push ups and punches are having less effect than they would wish.

I want to point something out here…and I can only do that by asking you one exact question. Where, when you throw a punch, do your arms bear the most weight? The answer is plain to see, they bear it when the arm is nearly extended at the end of the hit.

So why do you need to work your limb across the whole range of motion from the floor? Being strong at the beginning or middle of the hit is not where you need the strength. Concentrating your work out through the whole range of motion is not putting energy into the exact part of the punch where you need it.

So, do a work out, make it gentle and general, and build up your arms as a whole unit, then focus your work out on the end of the punch. This is easy to do, you can do it for virtually any exercise. All you have to do is isolate the part of the exercise where the arm is nearly extended, and put weight on that part of the exercise.

Let’s say you’re doing that mainstay of all exercise, a simple push up. Do the push up until your arms are almost full length, and that’s where the real work out starts to occur. Do as many six inch push ups with the arms almost at full length, as you can, fast, concentrating on keeping your belly taut and having excellent form.

Here’s the trick, you need to concentrate the work out, and feel the strength, in your shoulders. When you punch, you see the jolt of impact is going to go up your arms and into the shoulders. Thus, it is the shoulders that must become dense and strong, it is the shoulders, as focused on by the last six inches of the push up, that must be built up.

For a good punch you have to make the shoulders thick and dense, so perform the six inch push up as much as you can, and do it at various times of the day, until the muscles of the shoulders become as matter of fact and strong as the leg muscles of a marathon runner. It’s odd that people have never thought of this type of exercise, and I scratch my head at it, but it is common sense. I suppose the problem is that people are taught how to work out one way, and never actually look at the exact goal they are trying to accomplish.

So do those ‘end of the arm six inch push ups like they are going out of style. Do them and breath and put your awareness in your shoulders, letting your shoulders lightly bulk and become densely strong. This is the way you develop a punch that is stronger than the next fellow’s, this is how you have the most powerful punch in the world.

Al Case, The Doctor of the Punch, has studied martial arts 4O years. If you want the straight goods on how to build the most powerful punch in the world, pay him a visit at Punch ‘Em Out.