All kinds of so called martial arts and boxing experts hand out their advice and opinions on what they think helps build a better punch. Technique aside, it´s not special push-ups or hitting brick walls till your knuckles bleed. If you want to throw knock-out punches that will frankly scare the crap out of your instructors, so much they won´t even hold the pads for you any more, keep reading...

If you want to build strength and power to punch harder it comes right down to practicing punching and how many pounds of power you are packing. Put simply if you put two mixed martial arts strikers against each other, one who can swing a punch with a 4lb weight in his hand and one who can swing a 50 or 100lb weight in a punch who would you rather get hit by?

So you get the idea, without getting into all of the physics behind it, practicing punching motions with weight and resistance is going to dramatically improve your punching power. It also helps to strengthen the supporting muscles as well which make the difference between a hard puncher and a knock-out puncher.

You should switch up your exercises like any others to avoid hitting plateaus. Use both cable machines and free weights. Remember you are going for strength, not size or leanness so keep to a medium number or reps, ideally 3 sets of 10 for each type of punch. Start with a lower weight as these exercises can blow out your elbows if you aren´t used to them. Warm up with free hand punches to a speed or heavy bag and ´cool down´ (burn out) with them too until you can´t lift your arms any more. Remember to work all of your punches including; straights, hooks, upper cuts and hammer fists. Watch both your power and speed grow to some seriously scary punches that will unfortunately have everyone else in martial arts class avoiding being your partner.

Another key to a powerful punch is strengthening you torque strength and speed. Just like when you see Tiger Woods twist to hit a golf ball a boxer or mixed martial artist twists when they throw a punch. Most of the power comes from the core and thighs when a punch is thrown with optimum power. When you look at footage of Mike Tyson you will notice he even is extending his toes on his most power punches. He was able to contain and then explode ever powerful muscle in his body at the same time all moving towards the pinnacle point which was his fist.

So, there you have it some great training tips and some insider ‘torque tips’! So the next time you hit the gym make sure you remember this article and start applying what you learned and you will soon be throwing punches like Mike Tyson or throwing a knock-out punch as well as Tiger Woods drives the ball on the 18th hole of the Masters.