Grandmaster Ken MacKenzie - Taekwondo Times

force, then a given amount of force applied to a
larger mass must result in a slower speed. True,
fat does burn to provide energy, but it does not
translate to strength or speed of our strikes. To
illustrate this, consider the following analogy: if
you are exerting your full force, can you push a
car with two loaded fuel tanks faster, or the same
car with one full tank and one empty tank? If we
drop that extra fat we’re lugging around, then the
same exertion in our martial arts practice would
result in significant gains to the speed of our
punches and kicks.
The second conditioning factor to consider is
the impact of adding extra muscle to your frame.
Now it is true that this will add mass to your
strikes, but in this case, you will not be adding
dead weight, like the fuel tank example. Adding
muscle is more like putting a bigger engine
in your car, because while it adds weight, it also
generates more speed and power. If you look at
research data on boxers, power-lifters, even if you
just compare the example above of kicking versus
punching, you will see that the increased mass
has an impact. But because increased muscle
mass affects the same fast-twitch fibers that help
determine muscle speed, there is the added result
of increasing our speed—which means a squared
result in energy delivered.
Naturally, there are many other equations that
come into play in the quest to perfect our various
martial arts. In addition to energy delivered,
there are factors like distance (a kick has to travel
farther than a jab), the probability of landing
(hence fewer spinning back kicks in certain kinds
of competition), the relative energy expenditure
of high-power versus low-power strikes, the
effects of centrifugal and centripetal forces, and
so on and so on. We hope this has given you a
new line of thinking that can help you bring out
more of your potential every time you hit the
mat to tweak the variables of your solution to the
ancient physics problem of using your mass to
generate maximum energy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Erik Richardson is a Certified
Sports Nutritionist in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He teaches math
at the elementary and college level, and he is currently the Director
of Richardson Ideaworks, which focuses on personal and
small business consulting.
taekwondotimes.com / November 2009 67