hooks

[Yuzo]

heres how to throw your hook with whip. to hook with whip, your hip rotation must pull your arm, and, for your hip rotation to pull your arm, your arm must start behind your hip.



with your forearm by your hip, and the tip of your elbow sticking out behind your back, rotate your hips. you will feel your hips suddenly yank on your arm. your arm will now whip.



heres a hook thrown with no whip. whip will not occur because the arm does not start behind the hip.



heres a hook thrown with whip.



with your arm behind your hip use your hip rotation to pull your arm and then follow all the way through.

[boxbible]

To add to the whip...

The whip works because when a muscle is suddenly lengthened, it develops potential energy which, if immediately followed by a contraction, multiplies the force of that contraction. Just like when you jump, if you dip quickly to elicit a sudden stretch in the thighs, it multiplies the immediate followup contraction of those thighs, and the jump.

So if you stretch the shoulder and chest muscles by yanking the elbow back and then punching, it adds that whip. But it's not only the shoulder and chest muscles you wanna lengthen and whip. Great left hookers also work the torso's oblique muscles with a pre-stretch and multiplied contraction.

This is done by loading the front leg by dipping into a hook position, then rotating the hips into the punch first, followed by the upper body. The left hip goes first while the left shoulder stays back thus stretching the torso's obliques. The follow up multiplied contraction of those muscles rotates the upper body and left shoulder around whipping that hook into motion. Then, by throwing the shoulder ahead of the arm, you also elicit a further pre-stretch in the shoulder and chest muscles without actually having to crank the arm back and telegraphing it.

[m1kee50]

I always get the novices to start their left hook after throwing a straight right or slipping a straight right, to over-emphasise the rotation, if they are going to throw it as a lead, feint the straight right first.

That said it winds me up no end to see a lead left hook automatically thrown by moving the hand out from the guard. If you aren't relying on it for its power, i.e if its to set up a combination, or just to score points, there's no need to 'cock it' and expose yourself longer than necessary, IMO.

[Yuzo]

you must be a trainer. one of the outcomes of the modernization of boxing is the hands have come up. the trainers think when you have your hands up you wont get hit. but a byproduct of the hands coming up is the arms have separated from the hips.



when the hands come back down the arms return to the hips.



the arm, and therefore the punch, become an extension of the hip.



there the hip can pull the arm. but when the hands come back up the arms are separated from the hips. now the hip can only push the arm. that is why so many guys bring back the hook to their hip and get yelled at by their trainers. that may be a mistake, or, that may be an ancestral recall. that is a trade off of the modernization of boxing.

[m1kee50]

I always make the case that its about minimising the hits not eliminating them.

The way I look at it you can best defend by being out of range, which has its own limitations on your attack. Second best is being in range but stepping/twisting your feet to move your body. Third is moving your hips. Fourth is placing your hands/arms in the way. Being ready to do all of them is best.

[Yuzo]

thats pretty good. but i am unconvinced that way is best.

[m1kee50]

Yuzo, where do you stand on turning the front foot in when you throw the lead hook?

[Yuzo]

this may sound crazy but i dont think you have to. the same mechanics we try to apply to every other punch may not actually apply to the hook at all because the physics of the hook are very different than the physics of every other punch.



there is one constant. the arm must have whip action.

[margaret thatcher]

F@cking gem of a knockout that, great gif work in this section, you the man Yuzzy