14 DAY TRIAL // Martial arts exploit to the maximum feet power.
Indeed, even in trained athletes, feet are at least 3 times more powerful than the arms.
A recent study made by researchers at Cardiff University and using data from Welsh emergency room patients has found that kicks are not more destructive in fighting than other parts of the body, but more efficient even using objects such as knives or bats.
The study processed the medical records of nearly 25,000 people treated in a local hospital between 1999 and 2005, labeling their injuries according to a five-point scale based on the urgency of treatment.
While kicks were less common, their use caused greater damage than either punches or attacks with weapons, because they are more likely to produce head and brain injuries or broken bones.
"Injuries that came from the use of the feet were more likely to lead to a hospital admission," said Jonathan Shepherd, lead researcher.
"It's probably the greater momentum that's generated [by a kick] compared to fists which is most likely to produce more severe injuries," Shepherd said.
Of the analyzed records, 7 % of the injuries were provoked by kicking, 21 % by blunt or sharp weapons, while more than 50 % were due to punches.
"We were interested in taking out of the equation firearm injury, because that tended to dominate the research agenda," Shepherd said.
"We wanted to come at [the study] from the perspective of ordinary, everyday violence in a U.K. and European context."
Overall, severe injuries from violence seem to decrease in the U.K., but there are no precise data.
"We have evidence that shows police records are not a reliable measure of violence, and that reliable measures of violence are crime surveys and injury statistics."
Similarly, "the level of violence in the United States has been on a downward trend since the 1980s", said Fred Rivara, founding director of the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center in Seattle, Washington.
"But rates of lower-level violence in the U.S. have not been thoroughly studied," he said.
"There have been a number of studies looking at the risk of guns versus [blunt or sharp objects] in the United States," Rivara said.
"But we haven't seen anybody looking at feet or fists versus weapons."
Investigators suspect that installation of closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras could be one of the reasons behind violent attacks decreasing, partly because police can arrive at the scene prior to a violent engagement.