How to Palm Heel Strike Without Breaking Your Wrist!

The palm heel strike is a simple and effective self-defense technique. Unfortunately, when I see many people practicing the palm heel strike, they actually make it look awkward and ineffective!

Here’s one quick tip to make sure that your palm heel strike is not only devastating, but safe.

If the video won’t play, there’s a summary below. Happy hitting! 🙂

How to Palm Heel Strike Without Breaking Your Wrist

A few years ago, I was playing the part of the “bad guy” at a women’s self-defense workshop and I saw a woman break her wrist using a palm heel strike.

How could that happen? I mean, isn’t the palm heel strike supposed to be the safe alternative to using your fist to punch somebody in the face? She thought so!

The answer is yes. Generally speaking, a palm heel strike is safer than a fist, but you still have to do it right. That means two things…

#1. You must hit with the bottom of your hand.

Not the middle of your palm. Not the fingers. You want to connect with the strong bones at the bottom only.

#2. You must line up your body behind your hand.

Ideally, your arm should be set as if you’re doing a push up—elbow behind your wrist, shoulder behind your elbow. But this where many martial artists make a mistake.

When some people practice the palm heel strike on a heavy bag or pads, they typically square up and strike on the center-line with a flat hand. That’s not a natural position! Try this…

Raise your arms in front of your body keeping your hands in the center. You’ll notice that your arms form a triangle, not a square. That means your hands are facing across on angles, not straight ahead.

So, if you want to strike the nose straight on or palm heel the chin straight up, you have to twist your wrist. Don’t do that!

If you twist your wrist, you’ll break your wrist.

You might see the same problem in some styles of traditional Karate or Kung Fu when they warm up firing punches down the center-line from a horse stance. Yikes!

Again, if you lift your arms up naturally, you’ll see that the knuckles do not point at the center-line. The only way to hit flush with the knuckles is to twist your wrist, which is dangerous.

So, how can you use the palm heel safely when attacking on the center-line? Here are two answers.

Answer #1: Don’t obsess about hitting straight into the nose or straight under the chin. Hit on a natural angle.

When you practice the palm heel strike on a heavy bag, instead of twisting your wrist, just let your hand fit the contour of the bag. In real life, on a real head, if that means you make contact with the cheekbone, the side of the nose, or the eye, so be it. If instead of driving the point of the chin straight back you move the head up on an angle, that’s fine, too.

Is hitting on an angle still effective? Hell, yeah!

As a matter of fact, it might be more effective. Why? First, because when a technique feels good, you won’t hold back. I see many martial arts students put themselves into awkward positions and then hold back because they can instinctively sense the danger of striking too hard.

Second, because you won’t be as likely to hurt your hand, you can keep hitting the bad guy as many times as you need to in order to survive. You don’t want to be “one and done” in a self-defense situation.

For more information on hitting safely with the hand, check out, How to Punch in a Street Fight.

Answer #2: Move your body off the center-line.

If you absolutely must palm heel strike the nose or chin straight on, step to the side. That’s a good idea in most self-defense situations anyway!

When you move your body to the side, you’ll line up your elbow and shoulder behind your hand just as if you were executing a proper push-up. That bone alignment will allow you to deliver a far safer and more powerful palm heel strike than a twisted wrist.

If you don’t believe me, try this experiment. From a push up position with your hands under your shoulders, try balancing on just one hand. In that set up, your wrist probably feels just fine.

Now, put your hand in the center of your body and try to balance on it. Actually, DON’T DO THAT. I don’t want you to break your wrist!

When it comes to the palm heel strike, just remember this—if you twist your wrist, you’ll break your wrist. Which calls to mind an even bigger lesson…

There’s really no such thing as a “safe” fighting technique.

The truth is that every move you learn in the martial arts, even a palm heel strike, has the potential to hurt you, not just the bad guy. So, listen to your body and train smart!