Thread: How fast does a punch generally travel?

In another topic, Andre said a man can throw a punch travelling faster than 8 to 10 ft. per second. How many mph is that?

taking 9, the average, that's 32,400 ft/hr.

5280 ft/mile

so, 6mph.

after thinking about it, that seems rather slow. I mean, my calculation is right but the stat is off. GOTTA punch faster than THAT.

Has anyone ever hear of guys being clocked by radar?

Nope First Time Ive heard Of Even Calculating A Punch By MPH

lol that does sound very slow, considering a man can run up to 22/mph, a punch which is a sudden burst of speed should really travel faster than 6/mph.

Ali apparently threw a punch that travelled 400 hundredth of a second, any maths wiz here who can convert that to mph? lol.

You're all forgetting quantum mechanics ( ).

If a man was sprinting at 22 mph and threw a punch at 6mph, the punch would be going at 28mph. I suppose that is why fighters going forward tend to be known as bigger punchers? Also, if that punch landed on someone coming in at 20 mph, the concussive force would then be 48mph.

I suspect that the weight behind the punch (the 'mass') also makes a difference - ie if it's an arm punch, or if it is a blow thrown properly that started around the ankes?

I'm not a mathematician or a phycisist (as you can see, I can't even spell it ) , but this seems to make sense??

X thats fast when you consider eye memory is only a 6th of a second

X, very good point. You're talking about impulse and momentum, just to be exact.

[quote=X ]
[color=blue]You're all forgetting quantum mechanics ( ).
quote]

Can a punch be in two places at the same time? Do you really know where it is or how fast it's going? Or does Heisenberg's uncertainty principle make that impossible to measure?hmm.

And how did that just happen?

i LIKE THAT CC MD

Cheers Scrap, welcome back.

Spot on earlier X, Force = mass of an object x change in velocity over time

One study clocked punches on average at 9.14 meters per second which is 20.44 mph.The end force was 3427N, which is 770.4 pounds force.

yet nobody appreciates me doing the initial math.... so many conflicting emotions....


20mph sounds more like it.


and since the acceleration is constant over time, we'd have to find the first derivative of the curve to get the slope of the tangent....er....velocity...at point x.

F=MA.

Yep and that's why big guys who don't have half of Floyd Mayweather Jr's hand speed still hit a lot "harder."

You've just made me think about something Von. Scrap talks a lot about the eyes slowing punches down. The acceleration may not be constant throughout the delivery of the punch because on a subconscious level we could tighten up too early. Firstly because we're conditioned to get the hand back quickly and secondly to protect it from injury.

What do you think? Finding out if the punch slows down at all before the target might be useful in finding the peak velocity.

sure, that's a major pbloem with punching power...especially shadow boxing.