Today, let's ponder a little ground floor info that may allow you (if you aren't already) to put a little more power and speed into your striking and takedowns. Before I bore you with a smidge of technical info let's take a pop quiz to see if we're already on the same page; if you you are, you can skip reading (unless you like redundant reinforcement--which, after all, is the backbone of training).

POP QUIZ

No worries, it's only two questions and the score won't count on your final grade.

1. You're evaluating a prospective fighter and you start observing from the floor up (as you always should) and you see a nice solid stance for all of his strikes. He's got both heels down with good mat contact to really get those hips behind those strikes.

Is this a good thing?

2. You've now seen your fighter shoot five consecutive takedowns and on each one he has a nice back-step to really load the hips and you notice that, again, he's got good heel contact with the mat to provide complete take-off/drive power.

Is this also a good thing?

If you haven't already peeked at the answer, I'm here to tell you that this is a no-no on both counts. A flat-footed fighter is a slow fighter in two regards.

The first, evasive footwork (both offensive and defensive) requires a paradoxical "light/heavy" interaction with the planet. Think elephant with full-hoof contact and any large predator feline such as a leopard with forepaw-only contact. (We'll not go into footwork today but much of what follows will still apply).

The second count, and this is a contrary notion--you actually decrease your striking/shooting power by flat-foot loading. This is where I want us to focus our attention today.

If we return to the elephant and leopard am I saying that the smaller animal is more powerful than the elephant? If we could scale for size and get these critters in the same weight class, then the answer is yes.

When we refer to powerful strikes or a powerful double leg we, to be a technical pain in the butt parser of words, actually mean forceful strikes or a double with a lot force behind it. Power, technically, refers to the amount of work done over a period of time whereas force, as some of us may recall from high school physics (I'm lying here as I did not take physics in high school) is mass times acceleration due to gravity  (F=mg).

In other words, to have powerful strikes we need to use force and, to use force we need to apply as much of our body-mass as quickly as possible to get the job done.

Back to that heel position in our opening pop quiz.

Stand-up, right now. (That is if you are in an environment that permits). Now find yourself access to a plyo box (24" will do nicely) or some other such landing surface that will support your weight and the "force of your landing" (see we're using what we just learned in school, kids).

You ready? I want you to do two sets of 10 box jumps from the floor to the top of the box. On both sets go as quickly as you can using the following guidelines.

On set one, you must step down from the box and re-set with heels flat at the beginning of each jump (yes, this will hamstring your speed a bit but, pay attention to the speed of each takeoff from heels-flat nevertheless).

On set two, you are allowed to re-bound, that is, jump off of the top of the box landing on the balls of the feet on the ground and re-bound (using the elastic loading of your calves and Achilles tendons) to return to the box for your second set of 10 jumps.

OK, now that that's out of the way we know that set one was slower, not just because of the step-down rule but because of the lack of elastic loading. Each flat-footed jump required you to get a slight knee dip to, guess what? Elastic load so you could make the jump.

In our second set our 1st jump required purposeful elastic loading for each that followed (assuming you did them rapidly off of the rebound) the mere act of landing heels-up placed you locked and loaded.

In both sets the same mass was moved (your bodyweight + clothing--hopefully) but the second set had significantly more force due to the greater velocity.

If we apply the same idea of the box jump (both flat-footed and elastic loading) and place an opponent in front of us, which do you think will apply more force into your opponent? Yeah, you know the math on this one, the second one.

Now, let's take our revised understanding of force and power and apply this heels-up/heels-down rigamarole to our striking and shooting.

If we strike from heels-flat we must (just as with the box) apply a knee dip to elastic load the calves and tendons to fire the strike. This goes for kicks and punches as all good boxers know punches are fired from the feet up.

If our stance is assumed with the rear-heel up (never the lead heel unless your game is all about retreating) you have essentially pre-loaded your striking. (For fun, on your next fight night, watch the feet--the fighter with the rear-heel up--when you can find them--fires faster and with less effort. Really, give it a shot it will make you a believer).

When we back-step to shoot, because we all know never to fire a shot straight from your stance (and if you don't know why we do it that way, we'll get all technical on that topic another day) we will, wisely, place our back-step foot with the heel-up locked and loaded.

By going rear heel-up or pre-loaded or whatever you want to call it we will be faster. By being faster we can more forcefully deliver our body mass (or at least portions of it) to our opponent. Accessing more speed, means greater force and greater force means, whether it's the textbook definition or not, your opponent will feel significantly more power.

RAW Subscription Update

For our current and considering RAW Subscribers, beginning with volume 123 (January 1st, 2013) we will begin unveiling The Combination Man Home Study Course in which we (finally) present in an ABC/1-2-3 manner the steps from, 0-120 MPH how to become the best Boxer-Pugilist, Shooter-Stuffer, Par Terre Wrester-Submission Technician you can be.

Each volume will tied-in to the inTENS PREMIUM CONDITIONING SERVICE (free to subscribers), will be accompanied by a printed syllabi of drills for gym use, and will then be keyed to a foundation text (The Combination Man) that will be released at a later date. In other words, some good methodical let's get better stuff coming your way.