Do Fighters With Broad Shoulders Hit Harder?

It’s a fact that not every fighter out there is able to hit as hard as someone else in their weight class – many try to decode the reason for such power and some think it has something to do with broad shoulders.

Well… it depends

There is really no real clear cut answer whether this statement is true or not. Looking at the bodies of most hard hitters such as Gennady Golovkin, you can definitely see a correlation in regards to a broad upper body, which leads to more or less broad shoulders.

At the same time, there are boxers in the same division like David Lemieux who is arguably smaller in that department, but can still crack a solid punch.

Personally i think that there is some truth to this idea, as having wider shoulders probably means you’ll have more muscle covering the area, which in turn could have a bigger ‘impact’ on punching power.

What i think really differentiates the hard hitter between the one who can only go for decisions is some type of ‘secret sauce’ – no matter how much we analyze the fighter, see his bouts and training, there is something special about him that we don’t quite know, and that might be just his natural thing.

So what can i do?

Again, take my opinion with a grain of salt as i can’t assure you that having bigger shoulders makes you hit harder, besides, you can’t grow your bones larger than the way they are now, although they can develop further if you’re young enough.

What you can do is increase the amount of muscle the target area has – doing compound exercises like overhead press and lateral raises will help in growing the actual shoulder muscle, while doing pull-ups and other accessory back exercises will make your back more thick, and all that will help your shoulders look more broad.

How to actually hit harder

I’m pretty sure you have heard this statement repeated over and over again, but proper technique is actually the most important factor in delivering the hardest blows.

Even if you’re an advanced boxer, going over the basics will let you tweak the areas where you might be doing things improperly – turning your arms too little, not pivoting enough, or simply not thinking of punching as a whole body action can lead to loss of additional energy.

Work on different weight heavy bags, and in general, have more emphasis on this type of bag training in your regime.

Because proper punching requires a lot of body rotation, doing additional core exercises could make your punches have some more power behind them.

In conclusion

I hardly think that you or many other fighters can develop their punching power to match the other world class boxer records, as really there’s probably some natural born talent involved, but anyone can still sharpen up their ways around training and still benefit greatly when it comes down to throwing it hard.