You were only a kid? I was living in St. L then and I was a young adult. Shit.
I was those guys play, too. I bet we were at a same game sometime!
Taking off on what I said earlier, and what gobbla said, too, what about a fighter punching a heavy bag? I don't care how small a guy it, I'm not sure he can get the bag moving like a bigger guy, who is probably slower. Is it, then, mass?
OTOH, I've also seen small guys hit hard. Well known example would be Bruce Lee.
Sounds like a National Geographic special needs to be done.
I believe a punch is mass and speed. The smaller guys have (usually) superior speed but lack the mass. The bigger guys have more mass and less speed. In order for the light weight to match the heavyweights power the lightweight would need to either increase his mass, or increase his speed. I believe that the the more mass you have the less speed you need to have a greater impact. Example, a semi at 30mph will have more force then a compact car at 30mph. In order for the car to match the trucks impact it would need to increase it's speed by a lot. I think you just look at it this way, A bowling ball at 5 mph is going to hurt more than a tenis ball at 10mph.
Im not saying that little guys can't hit hard, but there are more knock outs in the heavier divisions. And for the smaller to have knockout power, the speed, timing and technique of the strike has to be better. If you ever watch featherweight fighters, they are more skillfull in their strikes, which also helps generate the power, where as the heavier weight classes are less technical in the execution of the strikes.
It's different displays. A guy hits a bag and he can still produce additional force AFTER impact. There's going to be more kinetic energy delivered because like you say there's more mass (assuming it's the same speed), but like we were saying earlier he has additional time to get to the maximal display of force. The punch stops accelerating when it stops accelerating not on impact or a breaking point (like a board). That quarter of a second might be be a pretty huge difference.
It's different displays. A guy hits a bag and he can still produce additional force AFTER impact. There's going to be more kinetic energy delivered because like you say there's more mass (assuming it's the same speed), but like we were saying earlier he has additional time to get to the maximal display of force. The punch stops accelerating when it stops accelerating not on impact or a breaking point (like a board). That quarter of a second might be be a pretty huge difference.
Yeah, and it is not just the additional mass of, say, an arm, but if using the whole body properly, the mass of entire the body is transferred through the punch, kick, or swing, in baseball even. (or a pitcher's throw).
A knowledgeable and helpful acquaintance sent these to me:
Zatsiorsky - Rate of force development, rather than absolute force itself, is the crucial factor in successful athletic performance
Zatsiorsky - The ability to produce maximal forces in minimal time is called explosive strength. Strong people do not necessarily possess explosive strength
Verkhoshansky - An extraordinary development of absolute strength has a negative influence on speed.
Siff - Verkoshansky and colleagues has established that excessive maximum strength training can impair speed-strength and technical skill in boxers.
Siff - Filinov has established that excessively heavy strength loads diminish the force and speed of boxer’s punches
Siff - Considerable research has established that voluminous strength loading is detrimental to the technique of the weightlifting movements and punching speed in boxing
These three guys are pretty much "the" source of information on this subject, yes, and its where I got most of my info on the topic.
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Im not saying that little guys can't hit hard, but there are more knock outs in the heavier divisions. And for the smaller to have knockout power, the speed, timing and technique of the strike has to be better. If you ever watch featherweight fighters, they are more skillfull in their strikes, which also helps generate the power, where as the heavier weight classes are less technical in the execution of the strikes.
This goes back to trainability, though. Can you really take a lightweight and build him up to a heavyweight, *while retaining his skills*?
Sure you could force-feed him and drug him up, but that's not always the best environment for preserving skill (see previous comments from Zat/Verk/Siff) and overall athletic ability.
The trick is how much of this can be trained, where the emphasis should be, and distilling effective, practical training prescriptions.
I have my own ideas about this, and it's not so simple as making a blanket assertion about a specific quality in a vacuum. It has a lot to do with the individual, his/her background, and the specific goals at hand.
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That is a HUGE variation for what are the best of the best elite level sprinters. A sub-10s 100m can be done by like 20 people; so obviously there's something going on there that's independent of pure "trained" strength/power qualities.
How fast can you run the 100m?
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Time it fatty! See if you need to work on that 600lb deadlift or not :p
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"The strongest steel goes through the hottest fires."-Anonymous
"When you begin to believe nothing is heavy, all weights become light." -Rossbow
"Just remember, somewhere there is a little Chinese girl warming up with your max."-Jim Convroy
"It's a round hole, dammit. Everyone fits."--Anonymous Mod at Strengthmill
How about 400? Perhaps you should challenge Mr. Boots to a wager :p
__________________
"The strongest steel goes through the hottest fires."-Anonymous
"When you begin to believe nothing is heavy, all weights become light." -Rossbow
"Just remember, somewhere there is a little Chinese girl warming up with your max."-Jim Convroy
"It's a round hole, dammit. Everyone fits."--Anonymous Mod at Strengthmill
I'm gonna talk outta my ass for a minute here and throw out a theory. It kinda fits with what dmw, PMan and gobbla have been saying. This is all baseball specific, because that's what I know and have seen.
My own example and plenty of other players have shown you don't have to be big to hit the ball a loooong way. When I was a kid (1980s) we all loved the St. Louis Cardinals. Jack Clark was the undisputed power hitter on the team, and he had the big, burly body stereotypical of the role. But every year, the longest team home run wasn't hit by him... it was hit by Willie McGee. He may only hit five home runs a year, but they were bombs. His weight was usually listed as 175, but he was probably 160. Jack was listed at 205, and was probably closer to 240. Yet every year Willie would hit a longball that Jack couldn't match......................... .............................. .............................. ...
So my theory is that my 50 pounds of mass gain hasn't helped me hit the ball any farther on an optimal, batting practice swing. But I'll hit more home runs every year because my less-than-optimal hits will go farther.
Hey, it's a theory.
I think it's a pretty good theory. However, I think we may just remember the thin guys hitting a bomb because like you say, it's impressive when they do it. This link has the longest in game homers this past year SI.com - MLB - Home Run Tracker and the names that are at the top and on there multiple times are Dunn, Howard, Fielder, and Teixeira. Those four guys are beasts. Sure, you might have a Eric Byrnes pop in there once, but by and large the longest hitters are the biggest guys.
I'm not ignoring the b.p. aspect, but guys like Sosa (after he got on the gas) put on a show in b.p.
So, I'm disagreeing with you a little, and agreeing a little. Young wiry guys like Felix Pie and Cameron Maybin can hit the ball a long way - as long as big guys (I've read) and I don't doubt that people of that talent level can deliver long, long homers. But, I think more muscle not only leads to more consistency, but to length as well and that's where I disagree a little.
(it's apples and oranges comparing me to you, but part of why I think what I think is because I couldn't hit a softball over a 300 foot fence before I started lifting and now I can easily, so it's helped me, and though baseball swings and softball swings are different, they both need bat speed)
Anyway, back to my point- your all-time homerun distance guys are more often the Mickey Mantles who are bigger and stronger than the wiry guys.
Cool link to the SI.com home run tracker. It's very impressive to hit a ball 500-feet with a wooden bat. Those would be absolute moon shots with aluminum. Scary.
I think we can agree that for you the extra strength added length to your home runs. But that may not make a difference for everyone, depending on their power source (i.e. how they use their body to generate bat speed). You've also got the strength/hypertrophy issue, as those two don't always go completely hand in hand.
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for some odd reason i think this kind of fits in this discussion:
Quote:
Coaches that down-play strength
It seems as if many coaches have recently started down-playing the role of strength training for athletes. These coaches will say that “athletes only need a certain level of strength -- once optimal strength is achieved, future strength gains may be counter-productive to their sport.” Guess what? I agree with that statement! BUT, how many athletes have walked into your weight room possessing optimal strength? I can tell you in my 10 years of experience, two athletes have joined my program that were “strong enough.”
The moral of the story is the majority of athletes that you’re going to train are weak! Get them stronger and everything else they do will become easier.
Talk about interesting, some of the comments under his crack me up. Some people just can't let it go.
It reminds me of a couple of weeks ago when I was pulling. An older gentleman told me I was gonna cripple myself doing deadlifts. Then he told me he was coming off of hip replacement surgery from years of jogging!
I almsot joked about how you can't win and might as well stay home, but he meant well and I just nodded and smiled.
Fascinating discussion. Pulling a 405 deadlift on a first try is pretty freaky. It reminds me that talent like that exists in many fields. I had the good fortune of attending a good university, and I worked with some truly brilliant people. Most were aware of their brilliance in an abstract way, but the majority were often just confused that others could be baffled by things that came to them so easily.
".....If you are ever wondering why our world is so out of shape, here is one reason. We live in a world where everyone wants to tell you what to do. The bodyweight exercisers want to diss weights, and the weight lifters want to diss bodyweight exercise. The newbie who is uncertain of what to do sees nothing but hostility between the exercise community, and decides to opt out."
This goes into my all-time favorite file. I might even write it on a card and carry it with me whenever I'm in the gym.
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