Which leg muscles create the most punching power and how to strengthen them

Question

It's well known that the legs generate most of the power in your punches.

My question:

What are the most important leg muscles for power, and what is a recommended routine to work them out using resistance or functional training.

Answer 1

The proper power association in punches is not just a leg muscle, but the pivoting of the body behind the punch. This being the case depending on which side you are using most of the leg muscles are utilized, but the leg muscles themselves aren't the powerhouse, but the pivot torque power is what contributes to the force of the punch.

That being said if you want to strengthen your punching then practice weighted pivots to evenly strengthen all the muscles related to pivoting instead of focusing on a single leg muscle. You can do this in a number of ways:

1. Medicine ball holding and twisting at the hips to build strength (practice both directions)
2. Stretching bungees (workout, not tieing things down) and then put one loop on on the opposite foot from where the strike is going and wrap around your back under the butt to the hand that is punching, then go through the pivot punch motion as the tension pulls back the hand and the hips during the turn. Don't allow the foot with the bungee to be pulled out of position. Practice both sides. (i.e. left foot forward with bungee, right foot back, punch with the right hand while pivoting the right foot and the tension is around the body including the extension of the punch.)
3. Sometimes the one above is hard to get to work right, so optionally you can get in position and use a wall mount(or machine) bungee or weight pull and practice punching with full pivots against the weight. I have seen ones that hook to a belt too in which case you can feel it pull your hips during the pivot more.
4. Sit on a bench straddled and pick up a weight on the back right and bring it up and over the front of your legs to the back left and set down, then repeat from the back left to the back right. This puts the turning muscles under workout to build them up.
5. Pullup bar pick up your legs together with knees forward and swing full swing to the left with your knees and stop, then again to the right side. You must put force into the left/right movements and put resistance to stop the momentum. This repeated alot builds endurance to the twisting motion as well strength.
6. chopping trees is the motion to think of, and doing this for real alternating sides helps as well.

I'm sure other people have exercises as well, but the goal is the pivot strengthening so that when you pivot your full weight of the lower body muscles gets put behind it. Anything that helps the body move in the motion you are pivoting and adds resistance without hurting yourself is a good choice.

Answer 2

I found the short answer is : "your back foot big toe"

This is because a properly thrown technique is helped at some point using your back foot toe to move your body forward while delivering a punch or kick.

So any explosiveness training to propel your body forward would work. Sprinter block starts, leaping mobility, tyre work ... I found forefoot striking running really improves ankle and calf strength and mobility as you're keeping on your toes all the time.

also try cutting the big toe out of your training and see how much difference it makes. this is really obvious during an injury on the back foot toe.