Anatomy of a Jab

The jab is your most basic punch. Utilized by many forms of unarmed combat, the importance of a jab is more defensive than offensive. It is one of the least powerful punches, but no less important. The jab allows you to keep your distance from your opponent, which is especially useful when you have a long reach. It is used to distract your opponent while you are setting up another more powerful punch, such as the cross, hammer fist, or uppercut. The power or pivot jab is your most powerful jab. In pivoting your forward foot and turning your hips into the jab, you increase its power. In competitive boxing, the fast jab or ‘jabbing the fly’ is a move utilized to score more points from the judges.

Performing the Jab

Perform the jab with the lead hand. Make a sideways fighting stance. Push off with your rear foot and snap the arm out quickly, connecting the lead fist to your opponent’s cheek, eye, nose, temple, mouth or chin. Avoid the forehead. For maximum power, twist the lead arm in a corkscrew motion before landing.

Muscles Involved in the Jab

It is best to utilize the entire body in any strike, creating maximum force. However, the precise muscles involved in the jab are:

Exercises to Increase Jab Power

The best exercise to increase power is repeated jabs to a punching bag or dummy. Additionally, pull-ups and chin-ups, knuckle push-ups, and plyo-push-ups.

A good weightlifting exercise is the clean and press, which can be performed with both a barbell and dumbbells.

Too Fat to Fight?

As you can read on my website and here on my blog, I am currently training to enlist in the Army National Guard. The National Guard uses the same standards for enlistment as the US Army does. Among other qualifications there is a body fat % requirement. I offer a body fat % calculator on my website http://patrickmccoyonline.com/fitness if you're interested in seeing where you stand.

http://www.nationalguard.com/careers/become-a-soldier/height-and-weight-requirements tells you that the average male entering the Guard must have 26% maximum body fat and a female to have 32% Both these numbers are at the high end of overweight, and for men is considered obese. At my age at almost 32 years old, I can have 28% body fat. I'm about that now, techincally I can enlist, though I have more training to make the push up and running qualifications. However I am still in the obese category.
Getting back to the topic Too Fat to Fight, BBC News put out an article http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8655651.stm the Headline: US youngsters are too fat to fight, warn generals. John Shalikashvili and Hugh Shelton, both former chairmen of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote: "Obesity rates threaten the overall health of America and the future strength of our military." They say more than a quarter of young americans are too fat to fight. Given the qualifications of the army enlistment for men are already allowing obese men to enlist. Females are still required not to be obese, but given obesity for women is 33%, these generals are not painting a pretty picture for the future of america.
I applaud and support these generals who have joined forces with 130 other retired or senior armed forces members to take action against the growing epidemic of childhood obesity. They are calling on congress to pass legislation to turn back the tide of childhood obesity.