Are Feet More Dangerous Than Fists?

Study Says Feet Are More Likely Than Fists To Cause Severe Injuries When Used As Weapons

(WebMD)  When used as weapons, your feet may be the deadliest part of your body. They may do more damage than blunt objects or sharp objects, a new study shows.

Data came from nearly 25,000 people treated over six years at an emergency department in Cardiff, Wales. The researchers included Jonathan Shepherd, Ph.D., a professor at Cardiff University's School of Dentistry.

Their study only includes nonfatal injuries, unrelated to guns, that were severe enough to send someone to the University Hospital of Wales' emergency department between 1999 and 2005. The university's emergency department serves 1.5 million people in the Cardiff area.

Seven percent of the patients' injuries were inflicted by kicking, compared with 15 percent by other body parts (such as fists), 11 percent by blunt objects, and 10 percent by sharp objects. Patients who came to the ER because they had been kicked had the most severe injuries, followed by patients hurt by blunt objects, other body parts (such as fists), and sharp objects. Most of the injuries were to the face, head or neck.

Three-quarters of the patients were men. Patients in their late 40s were most likely to be seriously injured. One in four patients said they had been attacked by three or more people.

"Preventing the use of feet in violence, and preventing group violence should be major priorities," write Shepherd and colleagues.

Their study appears in Injury Prevention.

SOURCES: Brennan, I. Injury Prevention, December 2006; Vol. 12: pp. 395-399. News release, BMJ Specialist Journals.

[ender18-2009]

Surprising that getting kicked by a group of people when on the ground causes more injury than getting punched. Brilliant research.

[olgreyghost]

Boy, slow news day, huh?

As an instructor in both Karate and police defensive tactics, I have long known the superiority of the leg over the fist for inflicting pain upon violent people. For men, the leg is generally twice as strong (though less coordinated without special training) than the arms and for women that ratio increases to 5 to 1. The leg also is 1.5 times longer than the arm so one can use the foot to keep attackers at bay who are using their fists.

Well, medical science now backs me up. So will Schumer, Clinton, and Sarah Brady want to deny me my right to keep and bear feet because I might use them improperly?

[olgreyghost]

Where in the U.S. do people have to register their hands and feet?!?

I used to work with a guy that could kill with his feet, all he had to do was take off his shoes....the office would empty faster from the smell than if you yelled anthrax

[gladys_over]

The feet are deadlier weapons IF they can connect with the target. That takes much more training than the use of the hands, which are faster and closer to their intended targets. A professional boxer will land his punches faster and more accurately than a martial arts black belt will score with his kicks.

Then there's the legal aspects of using deadlier weapons in what might be just an ordinary fight. Instead of giving the opponent a black eye with your punches, you may maim or kill him with your kicks, and wind up facing prison time if the damage wasn't justified by the situation.

It's never as simple as it sounds.

[gladys_over]

Also, even when delivering a low kick, you are standing on one leg for a moment, and your balance is temporarily impaired.

[gladys_over]

An unarmed man or woman facing a knife weilding assailant is taking a terrible risk by trying to use kicks.

You'd better be very good, not be kicking high, and your assailant had better be unskilled.

[olgreyghost]

Gladys_Over:

You might want to learn how to kick before you start giving such blatant misinformation.

[gladys_over]

OlGreyGhost:

I was only giving out accepted information that anyone knowledgeable in the martial arts would agree with. You ARE standing on one leg when you deliver a kick, and balance is reduced. The recoil from a kick can throw an inexperienced kicker off balance.

And it WOULD be risky to attempt a high roundhouse kick against a skilled and experienced knife weilder.

But you keep your opinion, and I'll keep mine.

On the Internet there's nothing cheaper than talk.

[gladys_over]

"I was only giving out accepted information that anyone knowledgeable in the martial arts would agree with."

But don't believe me, OlGreyGhost. Ask Masatoshi Nakayama, Tak Kubota or Hidetaka Nishiyama.

I doubt any of them would bow to your superior knowledge and experience.

[gladys_over]

Drew Barrymore...

In the Charlie's Angels remake, Drew Barrymore is bound to a chair, her arms tied behind her, and surrounded by five or six huge muscular villains. Using only her legs (which are 1.5 times as long as her arms, and 5 times as strong) she knocks them all unconscious and escapes.

Don't confuse that movie with reality. If you make that mistake, you may never make another one.

[olgreyghost]

"A professional boxer will land his punches faster and more accurately than a martial art(ist)...with his kicks." FALSE, a low kick to the shin just below the knee can stop a boxer in his tracks before he can land his punch, and since most boxers temper their upper body through training they are more likely to feel the attack to their legs.

"...(E)ven when delivering a low kick...standing on one leg...your balance is temporarily impaired." FALSE, if that were true humans wouldn't be able to walk on two feet as that requires the ability to balance on one foot. Of course you change your words in your second posts.

"And it WOULD be risky to attempt a high...kick..." It's always risky to use high kicks, that's why I teach people to stay away from them, but you didn't qualify your statements as well as you do now. Talk IS cheap and you would have people to believe they should just dry up and blow away in the wind if their attacker is able to give the appearance he's a better fighter.

And Drew was wearing a wire harness with the just adds to the theatrical appearance but a person of such naivete as youself must have missed that. It was a movie and not reality and reality is where I choose to work and live.

[gladys_over]

OlGreyGhost: ""...(E)ven when delivering a low kick...standing on one leg...your balance is temporarily impaired." FALSE, if that were true humans wouldn't be able to walk on two feet as that requires the ability to balance on one foot."

I said "impaired," not crippled. Standing on two feet is more grounded and balanced than standing on one, pareticularly when the other is thrust forward in a kicking motion. That's one reason martial artists practice kicking constantly. But don't ask me. Ask any world recognized expert.

OlGreyGhost: "And Drew was wearing a wire harness with the just adds to the theatrical appearance but a person of such naivete as youself must have missed that. It was a movie and not reality and reality is where I choose to work and live."

That Drew Barrymore reference was intended as a joke, Sherlock.

Man are you dumb.

I bet you'd like to give me a few good kicks right now, wouldn't you, Bruce ? Don't even think about it. I'm a fourth degree black belt in Feng Shui.

[gladys_over]

Hey, no hard feelings, OlGreyGhost.

I must exit from this thread before I say something that will really hurt your feelings.

I think I'll go pound my official Drew Barrymore makiwara board for a while.

Peace, Grasshopper.

[olgreyghost]

You can give a joke and not receive one in return? No, you're not dumb just naive. 4th degree, huh? Good for you but you make one mistake, I've studied all the styles and I've taken on people from all of them and they all go to jail for whatever offense that brought them to my attention in the first place. If they get hurt in the struggle then they were also charged with resisting arrest.

Your problem is that you state something and then when someone challenges your statements, you reverse or adjust course without notifying the passengers and you engage in arguments of semantics because you use faulty terms to begin with. Don't worry, time and maturity should correct this tendency on your part.

Kick you? Why would I waste the time? Someone else will do it for me one day, but challenging me to a fight shows a certain degree of immaturity on your part. Go and grow in peace, grasshopper. One day you might be able to take the pebble from my hand...and you'll be charged with theft :)

[olgreyghost]

And your use of a Japanese ranking title for a Chinese form of mysticism was a nice touch, too :)