Knockout theory
Striking power is often mysticized and rarely understood. The best power punchers are often dogmatic and most of the science on it is ineffective.
Power comes from two wells, force generation and force transfer. You need to create the force then transfer it into your target.
Force generation - This comes from two pillars. Mass and velocity. Kinetic energy is stupid. The formula is dumb and doesn’t matter. Knockout potential is impulse/change in momentum or deformation focused. The formula for momentum is mass times velocity. Kinetic energy is mass times velocity squared so everyone wants to maximize velocity because it is a significantly bigger part of the formula. That’s dumb.
Kinetic energy is relevant in perfectly inelastic collisions. In 100% energy transfer situations kinetic energy is great. Striking is entirely elastic collisions. Momentum dominates elastic collisions, not kinetic energy.
Flyweights have crazy velocity but low mass. Heavyweights have very high mass and modest velocity. Who knocks more people out?
Impulse KOs - you rattle the brain around in the head. A sudden deceleration of the brain rattling inside the skull.
Deformation KOs - brainstem traction, localized neural overload. Breaking their skull (See MVP vs Cyborg). Breaking their skull is pretty rare though. But brainstem traction and localized neural overload are not. Brainstem traction is yanking the brain on the spinal cord from a significant impact. You knee them in the face really hard, head doesn’t whiplash in the air too much but the yank on the spinal cord puts them out. Localized neural overload is big force transmission to the nerves in the brain and face. Or big impact to the deep brain structures. Think dirty boxing clinch KO or ground and pound KO. Deformation KOs are still impulse KOs, they are still beholden to sudden acceleration of the brain. But it’s more about perturbing deep brain structures than it is rattling the brain around in the head from whiplash.
Impulse KOs are typically big whole-head acceleration. Deformation KOs are typically short but massive rotational or local acceleration.
Alright, back to force generation.
Mass - Mass is positively correlated with knockout power. The more mass you put into a strike, typically the more damage it’s going to do. This means whole body strikes are superior to arm punches. Generate momentum from the hips, get a lot of body language in your strikes. You’re hitting them with your body, the arm/leg/elbow/knee is just what’s delivering the impact.
Velocity/Acceleration - Velocity is positively correlated with knockout power. If you throw the same strike faster it will hit harder. Acceleration leads to more velocity, so you want to be able to accelerate fast. Blah blah blah everyone knows this.
Plyometrics kind of suck for velocity/acceleration. You’re better off with more orthodox power generation. So explosive land mine training, throwing a heavy medicine ball, skater jumps.
Plyometrics train acceleration too briefly to be useful for accelerating your strikes. In plyo training you’re looking at extremely brief windows of explosiveness.
Force transfer - Force transfer is a tremendous part of knocking people out. There’s not enough information about force transfer and this is a big reason why I wrote this post.
Rigidity of impact - Technique is the number one focus for rigidity of impact. If you’re weak on impact you bleed power from the strike and increase the elasticity of the impact. You want to transfer the energy into your opponent, not transfer it back into your wrists, shoulder, core, etc.
The other half of rigidity is maximal strength. The total strength your body can support during a resistance exercise. This is part of why heavyweights hit so hard, they transfer a ton of energy into the target. So you’re going to want strong wrists, strong legs and ankles, strong and stable shoulders, strong elbows from arm strength, and a strong core. Conventional strength training is your friend here.
I like hollow body progressions and torture twists/one armed planks for core and rotational strength. You can train the core for hypertrophy or stability. Core hypertrophy is not really necessary for a strong core.
Impulse - rapid deceleration - This is the other side of force transfer and couples with rigidity. Impulse is the change in momentum. A big change in momentum in a short amount of time is devastating. Big change in momentum coupled with a highly inelastic collision leads to massive deformation. And expression of force into the target. Basically snap your punches. Elbows, knees, kicks, and ground and pound you don’t really need to worry about intentionally creating impulse.
Create momentum and transfer it into the target. This knocks people out whether it’s to the head, the body, or the leg. Shots to the head typically knock people out by rattling the brain in the skull. Shots to the body and leg cause damage by deforming the tissue. You need to strike through both, but punches to the head typically do better if they’re snappier. This is a characteristic of punches. Elbows, knees, and kicks don’t necessarily have to snap when targeting the head.