It's certainly interesting, but it's kinda obvious isn't it? Or am I missing something? I would certainly expect an expert to out punch a novice, precisely because they've done more training and are more accustomed with the technique.
Yeah, very much so! I found this just now, bit more detail on the study there. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120815102852.htm They should really have had a third control group of other MA'ists or something like that.
I think the point they're trying to make is that the greater speed/power of punching in trained people is (at least partially) a result of co-ordination rather than muscle power. So the training hasn't necessarily made their "punching muscles" stronger, but has improved their ability to make their muscle groups work together.
But still, isn't that a bit obvious? Regardless of my initial strength when starting, and assuming that strength stays constant, after a year I would expect to be able to throw a much better straight punch than at the beginning, where I'd probably be all over the place, not using the right knuckles and not concentrating the power to a particular point etc. It's certainly a confirmation, but not a revelation or anything.
I thought that the point of the research wasn't to show that punching power comes from the brain as this has already been suggested by several previous studies, but to look at what the function of certain brain adaptations is. It's known that there are discipline-specific functional specialisations in the brain but what isn't known is how these brain changes might contribute to individual differences in motor control. This study is particularly looking at white matter structure and whether there is any 'fine-tuning' between the connectivity between different areas of the brain and thus suggest their function.
