 Is it possible to stop a heart with just a single punch? Let's talk about it. So, today's topic is tied to last week's accident in which Buffalo Bill's football player, DeMar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest on the field after what seemingly looked like taking an impact to the chest. Now, of course, there's a lot of questions to play. Was it the helmet impacted his chest that did it? Was it another lying condition? They haven't, you know, we don't really fully know yet, but it does beg the question of can an impact of a sudden force stop a human heart? And of course, you know, we're talking in terms of contact sports that's naturally going to include the martial arts in which striking to the chest is a very, very common occurrence during training and sparring and even in self-defense. So the question is, we wanted to explore is, is it possible to stop someone's heart by punching them hard enough? Now, the short answer is yes, it actually is. But the reason why is interesting and worth taking a look at, and also we're gonna talk about why it's not necessarily the best thing to aim for for self-defense and why it's not a technique you should rely on. So basically it's an occurrence that's incredibly rare. It's called Comodio Cordis and it's mostly seen among adolescent males in sports, but it is extremely rare. But what exactly is happening? Comodio Cordis involves direct impact over the pre-cordium area of the chest, which is the chest wall directly over the heart. And it must be a blunt force trauma, not a glancing blow. And the person must be hit when their heart is in the T wave section of the B. And this is on the ascending part of the T wave phase. And we're talking a very, very specific 10 to 30 millisecond window in which the strike has to occur. So we're talking about a very direct hit, a very strong hit over a very specific part of the chest and an incredibly specific part of the heartbeat. If all those alignments match up, then it is possible to stop the heart. Now, if this does happen, whether you're sparring or in sports, if it does happen, the person needs immediate CPR or defibrillation or medical attention right away. Cause most cases of this happening, most of the time is unfortunately fatal. And it's also something we see a lot when it does happen, it occurs a lot in baseball. Cause a lot of times, you know, baseball is about the perfect size, about the size of a heart. And a lot of times players are trained to try to stop the ball in motion by blocking it with their chest. This can be incredibly dangerous because again, while rare, if the ball strikes at just the right time, it could cause an issue. And there's lots of accounts online. If you do quick research about this, a lot of players talk about being struck in the chest and while they didn't go into arrest, they felt the heart skip or they felt they didn't feel well or they felt something wrong. So it doesn't necessarily have to be a full cardiac arrest to cause a problem, but it's important to be aware of this. Oh, and by the way, doctors say that the chest protector, such as like a baseball chest protector or a taekwondo chest protector doesn't really do much to help because that impact is still traveling inside the heart. You're actually interrupting the heart's rhythm. And it's mostly seen in adolescent males because that's the demographic that plays sports and especially in youth sports, young men, their chest walls have not fully formed yet. So they're a little bit more vulnerable to direct blunt impacts than a grown male and athletic shape would be. Now, like I said, it's incredibly rare and you don't see it very often in the martial arts, but it does happen. It's happened at tournaments before in the past. All it takes is just that well squared up punch. So while this is not anything to incite any sort of panic, this the whole point of today's video is just to kind of bring up an awareness. You know, obviously when we see this happen, it's a reminder that no matter how unlikely a scenario is, it can happen and it's always good to be prepared. And we do train, you know, people who watch this channel, we know we're all martial artists, we all do some form of training and we do have an activity that involves striking the human body. And sometimes it's worth remembering that the human body can be fragile sometimes. No matter how strong we make it, there are vulnerabilities and accidents can happen and there's a lot of impacts and points in the body that have struck the wrong way can cause some serious or catastrophic damage. And it's always good to have it in the back of your mind, train safely, train strongly and properly, but also have emergency measures at hand just in case it happens. And it also asks the question is, well, if it's actually a real thing, is it worth training the punch so if you're in a self-defense situation where you could try to do that to potentially save your life? And the answer to that is no, this is not really an effective method of self-defense. You know, it's not like a death blow or something that you should train for, mainly because not that you don't wanna cause that harm. You know, if your life is in danger, you're gonna do what you have to do to save yourself, but the reason this is not really good to train for is because it's way too unlikely to be unreliable. Unless you know, unless you could pick up a person's heart rhythm, there's no way you're gonna be able to time a shot intentionally to stop their heart on an impact. It's just way, way, way too rare. So it's really not worth your time to practice the death punch because there really isn't such a thing in this regard. So if you're looking for that fight-ending strike, there's a lot more practical and efficient methods that you could take advantage of. For one, the solar plexus, you know, you strike someone in solar plexus, the spot right about here, no matter how much someone builds up, there's always that little button on the center of the chest that, you know, goes far to knock the wind out of someone. Also, you know, lever shots are highly effective. You know, a temple and a jaw are effective knock-out shots. So there's other methods you could train if you're trying to end the fight. Trying to learn a heart-stopping punch is not worth your time. I would just say focus, you know, just focus your strikes and learn how to do them properly, but this is something that is, unfortunately, a freak accident. It does happen. It can happen. And this brings up another question about fight-ending strikes is what about the judo chop or the karate chop? So you wanna check out this video right here. We talk about this. Does the karate chop actually work and knock people out? Check it out. Mr. Hamlin, we wish you a very, very speedy recovery and to all my friends out there, train safely.