Hitting the Liver

The liver is a large organ that lies under and behind your right lung, and extends down to your bottom right rib. (Contrary to what many MMA champs say, it’s not on your left side—never has been and never will be.) It’s surrounded by a capsule that is extremely sensitive to trauma, e.g., a powerful left hook punch or a left roundhouse kick with the shin.

Judging by boxing and MMA fights, the most popular point of impact is that small space just above the right hip bone and just below the bottom rib. But hit too low and you will hit the hipbone and possibly trash your hand.

Look at my pic above. Draw an imaginary line from just above my right hip up to my left shoulder. That is the best path (meaning not the only one) your punch or kick should travel when hitting this target. Don’t just hit the surface, but dig your fist or shinbone deeply into the target so that all of its energy shoots up to the opposite shoulder. That’s called penetration, and that’s what will buckle the man’s legs and send him to the ground.

The second best place to hit the liver is higher up on the right side, about even with the man’s pectoral. A doctor friend and a 3rd dan, told me, “The liver lies deep to the right of the right nipple and extends to just past the lower rib cage. Hit either location and you jar one of the most vascular organs in the body. Of the two sites (straight across from the right nipple and just above the hip bone), hitting under the floating rib is probably more direct and will result in more damage.”

For sure, a hard blow to the liver causes instant nausea, rubber legs, and the absolute inability to go on. Even a person seemingly impervious to pain will pause for a second before he bends backward or to the side and drops to his knees.

Here is a YouTube clip showing winning body blows in 10 fights, most of which are liver shots. The four-minute clip has a tendency to start near the end so check to see if you need to return it to the beginning.

Loren Christensen is the author of two dozen Paladin books and videos, including Deadly Force Encounters, Fighting in the Clinch (with Mark Mireles), Fighting Power, Fighting Dirty, and The Brutal Art of Ripping, Poking, and Pressing Vital Targets. Loren was a military policeman in Saigon during the Vietnam War and retired from the Portland, Oregon, Police Department after more than two decades of service. He can be contacted through his website at www.lwcbooks.com.