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Fight Like a Physicist

By: Jason Thalken PhD
Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
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Publisher's summary

Fight Like a Physicist provides an in-depth, sometimes whimsical look into the physics behind martial arts for sport and self-defense. Whether you are an experienced martial artist or a curious enthusiast, this book can give you an "unfair advantage" by unraveling the complex science of effective fighting techniques and examining the core principles that make them work.

In addition to breaking down the principles behind the punches, Dr. Thalken, a computational physicist with a long history of martial arts across various styles, applies the mind-set of a physicist to a number of controversial topics in the martial arts:

  • Making physics your "unfair advantage", in the ring and on the street
  • Examining center of mass, pi, levers, wedges, angular momentum, and linear momentum for martial artists
  • Protecting the brains of fighters and football players from concussions
  • Reducing traumatic brain injury in contact sports
  • Overturning conventional wisdom on compliance during an assault

Dr. Thalken invites listeners to take a scientific approach to training and fighting, and provides all the tools necessary to get the most out of their experiences and make their training count.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2015 Jason Thalken, PhD (P)2019 Tantor
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What listeners say about Fight Like a Physicist

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Insightful

Great listen and very insightful. Dispels A lot of the mystics with pure science behind it. Great tips to employ in my journey of training.

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very insightful

Great book for understanding fighting and combat sport physics. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to better understand martial arts.

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thank you

Excellent study and preparation for the adversity in life. A must read for all martial artists.

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Great Book

Good fighting information. It made me understand different styles of fighting. The book covers attack stats.

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    3 out of 5 stars

A good overview of rudimentary fighting physics.

However, it gives very little specific advice on how to train to become a better fighter. I would have loved to hear more real world examples of real fights, and an analysis of how to train for them.

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Awesome Information

alot of great information in this book. I could have done without the tangent on disproving ki and mysticism and wish he would have focused more of the later chapters on the physics that make strikes locks and throws effective. the parts on traumatic brain injury were very good though I think they warrant their own book.

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Fun read

Interesting application of physics to explain techniques and best practices of fighting. Short and sweet.

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A fun listen

There is a lot of humor and information in here. As a former fighter I really enjoyed this title.

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Classic Example of Judging a book by its cover

Judging by the cover you’d expect this book to be about force production and punching power, then you realize it’s about applying science to a myriad of martial arts topics and training modalities. Overall not a bad book. I plan on listening to it again. 👍

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OLD INFO- didn’t help with Martial Arts

This Author quotes old out dated research and fails to present current research from respectable Universities from around the world.
There are way better books out there that can teach the Physics of Martial Arts and be more effective at it. This audio book repeats itself a lot and spends a lot of time talking about denying the existence of Chi when it could have just simply been a 30 min audio book on frigging balance and center of gravity. It took forever to make his point and he complains endlessly. The narrator has a very nasal voice. I had to play it at speed- 2x so I could get through it. Very disappointed.

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8 people found this helpful