Vertical vs horizontal fist

Horizontal - palm up or palm down? Which provides a more solid bone structure to the elbow and hence the rest of the body? Can there be a difference of fist position between impact and final placement? i.e. Impact - vertical moving into horizontal at the final position? Again palm up or down at the end? Finally what is the range of your final placement? I.E. how far from your body is your fist upon final placement of the punch? Very key to penetration results.

MJ

Rumble, I know the answer lies within each person. Reread my post. I gave example of the answers he was likely to get from others. Then I gave him my own opinion which was a 3/4 turn.

Now on to Mark,

I dont know the answer to your question about which position provides better structure. Its an arguement that has gone on for ages. The rest I can answer. In many traditional arts you see the position change throughout the strike. In karate the strike often ends horizontal but starts vertical. The twist is supposed to help impact and cutting of the skin. Personally, it is my belief that this slows the fist down and accomplishes nothing as far as gains in impact or damage.
When it comes to distance, your answers will vary with each person you ask Im sure. Some people want to hit with the end of a strike so as to get a whip like effect. Others prefer to go deeper. They hit and intend to go past or through you with the punch. I prefer the whip method for two reasons. The first is power. When you punch an opponent with the kind of intent to punch past him, much of your power is absorbed. Thus robbing you of stopping power.Too much surface area. The second point is recovery time. If you strike like a whip you strike wwith the intent to return quickly and strike again. If you intend to go through the opponent there is a moment in your strike where you either go through the opponent or you do not. There is still damage caused but there is at least a full second wasted with each blow. A second doesnt sound like much but when you are talking about speed in combat you are very rarely talking about more than a few hundreths of a second difference between one man and the next. All of a sudden that second is an eternity and you already know that you cant beat every man with one punch. Why waste the time? Penetrate hard and fast and repeatedly. Thats my thinking. Whip like.

interesting vintage material:

Corkscrew punch:
http://www.bullworks.net/virtual/newstuff/boxer.htm

The vertical fist definitely feels faster and looser, which can give the capacity for much more power, but the horizontal fist allows for stronger contraction of the arm and shoulder muscles in my opinion so it's morestable. I htink it's a matter of personal opinion but the vertical fist has it's advantages. And this is coming form a traditional tae kwon do and boxing practitioner.

Wow, this is silly. The answer is that you can punch effectively vertical, horizontal, upside down, and every other damned direction. Especially when hitting the head, vertical and pinky side up punches are good to the temple, vertical punches are good to the jaw and neck, vertical or horizontal for hitting the nose or just under the nose, etc etc.

As someone who uses both punches interchangably I feel it would be beneficial to weigh in on the benefits of each.

Horizontal punch
- Corkscrewing it in allows for the muscles of the shoulder to add power to the punch which makes it very powerful at full extension.
- Because the elbow rolls up slightly it also allows you to roll your shoulder towards the neck and chin to protect the side you have left exposed while extending the hand (this is the main reason boxers do this punch as they are not as concerned about a punch to the ribs with 14 oz gloves as they are concerned about a knockout bunch to the button on the chin)
- Finally the slight raising of the elbow makes it easier to punch over top of the opponents gaurd as your arms are less likely to clash.

Vertical Punch
- The vertical punch generates full power at less than full extension because it is not relying on any corkscrewing to generate power. This makes it very effective for close range striking (That's why Bruce Lee's one inch punch was vertical)
- As mentioned on horizontal punch a vertical punch will clash with the opponents arms more often which in some arts (such as Kung Fu) is considered a benefit as ever block is treated as a punch and vice versa, hence if you use sticky hands vertical is the way to go.
- If you punch with the top two knuckles you can add a snap of the wrist into your vertical fist to add force over a very short distance.

I have also noticed that most people on this board are implying that a horizontal punch is always done with the first two knuckles and a vertical punch is always the last three. This isn't true. It is a matter of bone alignment, those arts which are punching with the first two knuckles are alligning the wrist to the radius and those that are punching with the bottom three are aligning with the ulna. I personally prefer the top two as I would not trust my little finger to survive any amount of force. In fact when I teach a hook punch I teach it with a vertical fist to avoid leading with the little finger. I heard a story once about Tyson breaking his little finger in a brawl because he threw a hook and without the protection of the wraps and the gloves it broke.

So the punch you choose will depend on your style and situation. I tend to use my horizontal punch at range because it better defends my chin and then the vertical punch when I zone in to short range. I punch with my top two knuckles but if you are doing sticky hands where you are rolling your punches in this is likely going to cause you to punch with the lower three.

*end dissertation *
*begin flames *