A move that was unexpected in the eyes of Donald Cerrone, “I have never seen anything like the shoulder shot he hit me with” stated post fight after his defeat to the revolutionary fighter Conor McGregor.
How did McGregor generate enough force to disorientate his opponent and break Cerrone’s nose?
When asked about his shoulder strike in the clinch McGregor very simply explains “I change levels with that and come up into it” indeed for McGregor it seemed simple for him to generate power without knowing the technical wording behind. For those who are still interested in what he meant keep reading.
“CHANGE LEVELS” maximal force generation of the shoulder strike is achieved as McGregor first finds his feet placing into the southpaw stance ready to generate power from his feet then he lowers his centre of gravity by bending his hips, knees and ankles. In my opinion, McGregor’s training camp recognises that maximal power would be generated by using the biomechanics of a jump blended in with the biomechanics of the punch. It is inevitable that there has been a lot of work in developing fast twitch muscles, utilising the kinetic chain (Kinetic chain: the sequence, or chain of muscles, coordinated together to perform a certain movement), with repetition McGregor would have sharpened his coordination and proprioception to master the technique.
Karandikar, N., & Vargas, O. O. O. (2011). Kinetic chains: a review of the concept and its clinical applications. PM&R, 3(8), 739-745.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQux7yuIArs
“COME UP INTO IT” once he has loaded his weapon all he has to do is fire it relying on his body mass and acceleration (F=MA) and accurately with his coordination and joint proprioception. “Come up” you can see McGregor’s body act like a whip as he shifts his body weight from the ground up by allowing force being generated through his body to his shoulder. Now how can he inflict so much damage to the point Cerrone’s nose was broken and bleeding without his arms being swung?
The arms can generate roughly 24% of a punch, whereas, 39% was generated by the legs (pushing of the floor), and 37% from the torso (rotational power).
Filimonov, V., Koptsev, K., Husyanov, Z., & Nazarov, S. (1985). Means of increasing strength of the punch.
Strength & Conditioning Journal, 7(6), 65-66.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meUNR0SgSXw
All in all, the body can be a deadly weapon when we can understand how to generate force, sharpen our co-ordination, joint proprioception and the biomechanics of our body. In my opinion, future of fighting will continue to be revolutionised with new moves, techniques and training/coaching staff.
Dr Mintae Kim
Sports Chiropractor
Macquarie Park
Kinetic Sports Chiropractic
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