The Mechanics Behind Hook Strikes


Technique Review 

Today it’s about the mechanics of hooks. So, when we have circular attacks or if straight and circular so if straight and circular attacks we needed this one joint for example for the elbows, and then in this case the strike is strong not so versatile.

Video transcript

Hello everyone, welcome to this week’s technique review. Today it’s about the mechanics of hooks. So, when we have circular attacks or if straight and circular so if straight and circular attacks we needed this one joint for example for the elbows, and then in this case the strike is strong not so versatile. With a hook it’s more, so when we talk about the hook that several things are the ingredients that components of the good hook especially if you would like to not show intentions not to reveal your intentions that’s one hand and on the other hand to have a very powerful, energetic, destructive attack.

So we talk about a few types of motions here, First is the arm so the arm has to go in and out, it can be a little bit angles obviously the family of the upper cut and the hook same family. Little bit like, although it’s a reverse position of the main joint little the regular kick and the round kick. So regular kick and round house kick are very very similar motions like this is the hook and upper cut, upper cut and hook.

So the arm is one thing then the rotation of the body is another thing but then you have to move maximum mass, mass needs to move in the direction of the attack. So in this case that’s the hand that’s the torque of the body that’s the movement of the mass and one more very very important thing that is contracting the relevant muscles that are sending or supporting this strike when there is impact and you need the ground behind the impact. For this you need the contract the abdominal area and the glutes all the rest is usually working good enough, like the leg, the calf muscles, the quads, the shoulder, biceps sometimes even. This is the idea so we need to have whatever strike, whether back hand, front hand, passive stance, ready stance whatever we need to have the hand we need to have the body, we need to have the shift of the weight and the crunch of the abdominal area and don’t forget the glutes.

The strike itself has to go around the circular action it’s a bypass, so there’s an object here, I need to go around the object then I am able to create a circular strike inward. I need to raise the elbow to above a certain level you know to create a good strike especially to the jaw, to the head. So here is example that I’m doing towards the bag. If you look at my back in this position you will see passive or starting from semi passive or from the fighting I need to do the hand, the body torque, the body shift, the crunch. So if it is left or right, doesn’t matter, I have to do exactly the same from one side to the other side, that’s the idea.

If I were not to be contracting the abdominal area any impact, any pressure inward will send the upper body out or backwards so I need to make this press it’s extremely important, glutes the same, leg the same, obviously. Hitting with fist or hitting with the open hand. Now from this position remember I have to open and go in, open a little bit, the more you open the more you show your intention the more time it takes the more you’re vulnerable but also the stronger you are usually, the fastest you are. So you can see excellent world champion boxing, boxers who are doing sometimes huge strikes but there don’t be a target for that huge strike. When they have little time less intention can be shown then they will have much of a shorter strikes. The strike can be of different level and also a little bit of different angles usually what we say that the regular hook is always open so the elbow and the forearm to the two knuckles form the line of direction of attack so if that’s the attack, that’s the line this is the direction of the attack, that’s the line that’s the direction of the attack.

If the line is downward that is the direction of attack because the arm, the uppercut which is going vertically upwards and forward and strikes like this that are practically elbow went as high as possible then the body also turned, so now we can strike downwards and surprise an opponent who thinks that the attack is going horizontal then it goes between the hand and the empty space towards the head. So, many attacks like this, this type of overhead hook surprises the opponent, the enemy.

So this is the basics now when we look at striking hooks with the rear hand or with the front hand if you want to reach longer we have to shift the weight forward it’s not the strongest strike if we have a target at the close range we turn the front heel and then the strike is obviously stronger because I shifted the weight in the direction of the attack. If I do an attack more forward and I shift the weight to my front leg I do not have such supporting leg for this strike, that’s much more for supporting leg that’s much more for shifting of the weight in the direction of the attack this one is much less, obviously.

And the last thing about hooks is that we can do hooks at different ranges, how much we open the elbow and then if it’s a long hook we put the thumb up above the fist, so we don’t hit the thumb while striking and then [inaudible] second knuckles that we are hitting with these knuckles, so strike like this that’s the idea about the long hook the basic hook as I said with the regular two knuckles a bit longer a bit shorter this you play with the shifting of your weight forward then backwards.

That is the mechanics of the hook strike. All the best guys.

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