Most Important Muscles for Fighting

Any fight like boxing or MMA needs work done on muscles. Every fighter does a lot of exercises and drills to strengthen his muscles and prepare his body for the fight. This is because, muscle power and strength plays an important role in the fight. What are the most important muscles that are used in fighting? It is important to get answer to this question before fighting so that you can focus on that particular set of muscles.

If you want to know answer to aforementioned question, you have landed in the right place. In this article, we will explain the role of each muscle in fighting or boxing.

Legs

Leg muscles, specifically referred to as quads and calf muscles are perhaps the muscles that are used in any powerful thing you do. This is because power comes from ground and your leg muscles can help you transfer it throughout your body. Your leg muscles are the biggest muscles in your body. This is the reason all hard and powerful boxing punches are thrown using proper leg and foot movement. Legs generate the most power that can’t be generated even by chest and triceps.

Hips

Hips is the body part that holds your lower body and legs together. Like legs, they also generate a huge amount of power during fighting by pivoting your body. Since hips are very close to the center of gravity, they mean a lot for controlling balance. Balance is an important factor in boxing. It determines the effectiveness of your offense, defense and movement – in fact, your overall fighting ability. Using your muscles in the legs to move your hips can help you throw powerful punches.

Abs

The abdominal muscles are the most powerful set of muscles. They hold your whole body weight together. Your abs allow you to combine the force generated by limbs to one total force. In simple, your abs connect the force generated by your limbs to make one hard and powerful punch. They also help you take frontal body shots.

Back

Your back functions as total body core muscles. It holds your body and combines the power generated by your limbs. Another important fact is that your back helps in punch recovery. If you don’t work on your back and rear shoulder muscles, you will have weaker recovery muscles.

Shoulders

Shoulders are the most important part for punch endurance. They do help generate power but are more important for endurance. When boxer’s arms become too tired to punch, it is because shoulders are tired. So, if you want to throw more punches or hold your hands for longer period of time, you should work on your shoulders endurance.

Arms

Arms are the most important because their function is to connect power to the opponent. They don’t generate power rather they connect the generated power to your opponent. A fighter must have fast arms rather than powerful to throw speedy and snappy punches. Triceps help throw straight punches and biceps help throw hooks and uppercuts.

Chest

Your upper body core muscles are the chest muscles. Their function is to connect your shoulders, arms and lats to combine force. They help generate punching power out of your upper body muscles.

Small muscles

Other small muscles include from neck, forearms, and hand. Many fighters workout to strengthen their neck because it is for punch resistance. Forearm muscles help you tighten your fist harder while punching, which generates more solid punch. This also reduces the risks of injury.

Bottom line

There are many muscles that help during a fight. Some are less important while others are more but a fighter should work on each and every muscle of his body.