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Strongman shatters karate chopping record

telegraph.co.uk — A karate-chopping strongman from Cornwall has smashed the record for breaking concrete blocks with your bare hands. Ed Byrne, a 40-year-old martial arts master, chopped through 55 granite and concrete edging stones in 4.86 seconds using only the power unleashed by the palm of his hand.

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  • Digg413, on 03/20/2008, -1/+32He's got a tough hand, but I bet he's got a soft heart and probably needs a hug.
    • WaxenPith, on 03/20/2008, -1/+0hahaha
      • IglooBurner, on 03/20/2008, -1/+0hahaha Digg413 sound like Bruce from the Family Guy.
    • surKaz, on 03/20/2008, -0/+2not with that attitude he won't.. I thought all those skilled Martial Artists get more humble and wiser by the time thye reach their level.. "I make it look easy" etc... Dude, where's the "The power is derived from the chi in my palm" stuff that most masters say?..
    • ayeroxor, on 03/20/2008, -0/+1"record for breaking concrete blocks with your bare hands."

      I wondered why my hands were so sore...
  • Jeebbus, on 03/20/2008, -3/+14But concrete blocks don't hit back...
    • dayalsoap, on 03/20/2008, -3/+2Randy Couture, Fedor, Crocop, Nogueira, etc, would all OWN him.
      • cJw314, on 03/20/2008, -0/+4"40-year-old martial arts master" != NHB competitor
        • dayalsoap, on 03/20/2008, -4/+2Randy is 44. *****, Ken Shamrock and Mark Coleman would beat this guy.
        • cJw314, on 03/21/2008, -0/+1English comprehension's not your bag, huh?

          != is not >, or
    • freedomwv, on 03/20/2008, -2/+4People in dig just love to talk ***** about anyone doing something that most of you will never be able to do, give the guy some credit.
  • theAlice, on 03/20/2008, -1/+5Hey man...bet you can't do 56.
  • yowhat2002, on 03/20/2008, -11/+4*Chuck Norris Joke*
  • zmjone2992, on 03/20/2008, -0/+27lame. no video?
  • Synapse84, on 03/20/2008, -3/+16In Soviet Russia, Concrete Blocks shatter you..... oh wait... never mind thats pretty much everywhere.
    • shadowsurfr1, on 03/22/2008, -0/+1Including Boston in the tunnel.
  • snareguy17, on 03/20/2008, -2/+7What'd the 5 fingers say to the face?
  • robotto, on 03/20/2008, -3/+3Chuck Norris says: talk to the hand
  • theAlice, on 03/20/2008, -6/+4witty comment
  • apache2, on 03/20/2008, -0/+5Concrete has a critical strength of about 3 MPa or 435 psi. When taking into account the transfer of energy from one block to the other, this seems realistic. I have no idea what amount of initial pressure is needed, but for that many blocks we could be looking at 700-1000 psi. (Seem reasonable for trained human strength?)
    • RyomaNagare, on 03/20/2008, -0/+2compression= 30 kg/cm² but that's for pure compressión, since this this no armed concrete its flexotraction strengh is maybe 1/10 of that maybe less.
      the trick then is making the pile so the minimum amount of energy is wasted between tile to tile, and at the same time avoiding that the blocks collaborate with each other, I'm not saying this is not hard since we are still talking record amounts of technique here, but its not that impressive strengh wise.
    • cJw314, on 03/20/2008, -0/+3/agreed

      It's not generally about the strength while doing 'breaks' (although it helps, heh) it's about technique, form and speed.
    • NailToTheX, on 03/20/2008, -1/+2I would like to see him break a high strength pretensioned concrete block... just 1 even!
    • Bertu, on 03/20/2008, -0/+2Sorry but impact effects on materials cannot be explained by tensile strenghts. For instance, even if a plank of carbon steel had less "critical strenght" (I'm sorry my engineering is in spanish so I may translate it wrongly), this guy wouldn't break it, the plank would bounce and break his hand. Ice, Glass, Concrete are hard but rigid and fragile. Hitting them correctly would break them. The same steel, bathed in liquid nitrogen, would be as fragile.
  • xeyne, on 03/20/2008, -3/+2yeah, but can he blend?
  • ace5p1d0r, on 03/20/2008, -0/+4WANT VID.
    • surKaz, on 03/20/2008, -0/+1seriously, world record is set and all.. and no video?.. It's not an obscure sport or anything.. Where's the Video?
  • doublejay1973, on 03/20/2008, -2/+4no vid means it didn't happen.
    but don't tell him i said that
  • NateTheApe21, on 03/20/2008, -0/+1i wounder how much strongbad could do
  • trenchfever, on 03/20/2008, -2/+7It is actually easier than it looks. It works because of the space between the blocks. He would ***** breaks his hands if there was no space. Gravity does the majority of the work for him. But yeah.. there is a lot of skill but not as much as most people think.
    • cJw314, on 03/20/2008, -1/+2"Gravity does the majority of the work for him."

      How's that? 0.o
    • Bertu, on 03/20/2008, -2/+0Twin towers anyone? (I'm being ironic)
  • IceUck, on 03/20/2008, -3/+10Every time I see these exhibition-type stunts with martial arts, there is a 'trick' involved. In the case of the board/block breaking, small spacers are placed between each layer so that only one layer is being broken at a time. It's like the trick of ripping a phone book in half - it's more of a trick than a feat of strength.

    Happy Festivus.
    • MacFlecknoe, on 03/20/2008, -2/+2the bricks are also untempered so they are very brittle... its kinda the same with the boards these guys break which is almost invariably made of a very soft, very dry pine. its a lot of showmanship.
    • cJw314, on 03/20/2008, -1/+4So when can we come see your re-creation? -.-
    • phenom2k7, on 03/20/2008, -2/+1Every time I see these types of exhibitions I immediately think, what a douche bag.
    • freedomwv, on 03/20/2008, -2/+4OK then how about all of you do if it is so easy. If you can get your fat asses away from the computer for a minute.
  • iguanapunk, on 03/20/2008, -0/+3Hmmm I wonder if I can get a quote for my patio
  • Wuss, on 03/20/2008, -1/+1" Berry good, but brick not hit back "
  • ahhell, on 03/20/2008, -0/+2Kind of inaccurate. From the picture, it looks like he is using a palm-heel strike not a "karate chop".
    /nitpicking
  • gweedo767, on 03/20/2008, -0/+1Palm based breaks are a bit trickier (and you gotta worry about breaking the more fragile bones in your hand). If you want to easily impress people, do this with your forearm. The key of course is the spacers between the blocks.
  • nightlawyer, on 03/20/2008, -1/+1Photochop?
  • jaxcs, on 03/20/2008, -0/+3Article says that he is a 9th dan black belt. Anyone know what that means other than that he is a bad ass karate guy? What do you have to do to reach that level?
    • robotto, on 03/20/2008, -0/+3Something with concrete I think
    • majin23x, on 03/20/2008, -0/+3Well, 10th is the highest you can go, and supposedly there's only a couple of 10s in the world. So 9th Dan is really high. If he's 40 now, and he started when he was a teenager, then that would be an appropriate amount of time to reach 9th Dan.
    • Bertu, on 03/20/2008, -1/+1Mc Dojo.
      http://www.bullshido.net/
    • boerseun, on 03/20/2008, -0/+1@majin23x
      Every style, and every school for that matter have their own ranking system. The Ninja (Bujinkan) guys have 15 Black Belt Levels (Dan) while other systems might have only 9 or 10.
      The requirements for each is also different of course, and most of the schools, systems, styles do not "test" beyond 5-6th Dan. It is rather a matter of time in rank and contribution to the development and spreading of the school/style.
      To be honest with you. Having a Black Belt does not really relay any level of expertise anymore. With the McDojo era (staring in the late 70's) hitting the USA (and other countries to a lesser degree) Black Belt ranking became very inconsistent.
      There is no regulatory body (state or national) that actually validate every school's claim to authenticity, so anyone in theory can open up a Martial Arts school and rank themselves at any level.

      Time per rank:
      From my experience, the years of training needed between Black Belts is usually the same as the rank (with exceptions like the Bujinkan).
      From 1st to 2nd Dan, the period is 2 years. 2 to 3rd, three years and so on.
      That means that at a min to get to 9 degree would take.
      (2-3 years to 1st Dan) and then 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9 years to get to 9the Dan.
      47 - 50 years to get to 9th degree would be about right, but that is again up to each school/system/style.
  • Lawz, on 03/20/2008, -2/+0Ive seen a slo-mo of a guy using his hand to *chop* a block in 2, thing is, you could see the 'hand of steel' actually just becomes floppy and squishes itself agaisnt the block. Brute force is the key in this fetes.
  • andyd273, on 03/20/2008, -0/+1I've seen the Power Team do this... maybe not as many as fast, but still interesting.
    And yes, I'm sure that spacers make it a lot easier, they had a big guy with a metal baseball bat chop down on a stack, and he only got through 5 layers... so it must take a little bit of skill, besides the strength.
  • alittleroy101, on 03/20/2008, -0/+1He must be using the power of apples.
  • freedomwv, on 03/20/2008, -1/+2He is one tough dude for sure. It can take a lifetime to get that skilled.
  • xStriderx, on 03/20/2008, -1/+0He's using spaces, yes that's still quite a feat. But the spacers make all so much more easier.
    Also, you don't have to be strong to break brick. There is a special training called Iron Palm, where you basically beat your hands nerves numb and with the right amount of force can cause devastating damage
  • kd1s, on 03/21/2008, -0/+1Damn, I took karate lessons as a kid but that's good. Only thing I'm good for is breaking bones. Oh well.
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