The difference between striking with your bones vs. your muscles

To the untrained eye, striking in combat sports like mixed martial arts, boxing or kickboxing can be simplified into just punching and kicking techniques but there’s actually a lot more that goes into it than that.

In this instructional video from martial arts YouTube channel fightTIPS, we get a crash course in striking mechanics and find out the difference between striking using your bones with what’s called ‘bone stacking’ vs your muscles using what’s technically called ‘elastic recoil.’

Striking with elastic recoil is much more of a full body movement compared to bone stacking where you follow through much more and engage many more muscle groups into your strikes, including your core and your lower body (both very important when it comes to striking power). With elastic recoil, you wind up and rotate much more into your strikes which produce more ‘pop’ on your target.

Striking with your bones, otherwise known as ‘bone stacking,’ is pretty much just what it sounds like. Think of it like lining up all of your bones and joints in a much more tighter compact movement but penetrating deeper into your target much more. Bone stacking may not produce as much ‘pop’ on your target but according to Shane from fightTIPS it can be just as effective.

Whether you use bone stacking or elastic recoil very much depends on the situation and both have their share of pros and cons. It seems to be more of a preference/style thing but like Shane says in the video it is good to practice both ways and see what works best for you.

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ABOUT FIGHTTIPS:
fightTIPS teaches you how to fight with street fight and anti-bullying self defense, including martial art technique and fitness tutorials to win a fight and increase confidence. Avoid a fight at all costs, but when you can’t — avoid injury. New uploads every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday![Source: YouTube]