"Woaaaaah... who hecked up Aster's bag?"
When a character manages to tear open a punching bag just by hitting it. Punching bags are made to withstand a lot of physical punishment, so for a character to tear open one with just their physical strength is a good indicator that they're strong. Either that, or they're just frustrated.
See also Practice Target Overkill. Usually occurs as a result of a character Working Out Their Emotions too well. Compare Dartboard of Hate, where a character takes out their aggression by throwing darts at a picture of someone they hate, and Stab the Picture. See also Does Not Know His Own Strength.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Dragon Ball Z:
- Videl kicks a punching bag for a straight hour,
while a group of men more muscular than her watch in awe. When she decides to take a break, the punching bag tears open. She then casually asks the onlookers if they could put up another one.
- Later during the same arc, the cast all use a strength-testing machine to qualify for a tournament, and get ridiculously high scores despite holding back. Vegeta doesn't bother with restraint and demolishes the thing with a single punch.
- Videl kicks a punching bag for a straight hour,
- How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?: When Nana asks Hibiki to work out with a punching bag since she's in a boxing gym, she punches the bag off the chains to show that she is much stronger than what even she thinks herself being.
- A heavyweight boxer in One Pound Gospel enters the hero's gym and breaks a punching bag with one hit, much to the shock of onlookers... because he didn't notice the sign saying, "Broken, do not punch," and now they have to clean it up after him.
- In One-Punch Man, Saitama destroys a punching bag by smashing it, and the frame it's attached to, into a wall.
- In Sonic X episode "The Adventure Of Knuckles & Hawk", after escaping a landslide from the night previous, Knuckles is so incensed at losing the chaos emerald in the landslide that he takes his anger out on a punching bag. Punching it so hard that the whole thing and the wooden beams supporting the punching bag come crashing down onto Knuckles making a mess.
Comic Books
- Batman:
- Batman is shown doing it in Detective Comics #526, leading Alfred to worry that Bruce is pushing himself far too hard.
- Done in the story "Video Nasties" (Detective Comics #596) by the bad guy's henchman, Tonka. To show off his freaky strength, he punches the bag so hard it breaks off its chain, flies across the room, and bursts open.
Fan Works
- In the Discworld and The Big Bang Theory crossover The Many Worlds Interpretation, Discworld Assassin Ruth N'Kweze arrives on Roundworld, visits Pasadena and Los Angeles, and discovers how black people have historically been treated in the USA. Having been accepted as a postgraduate student at Caltech, she is entitled to use its sporting facilities. With a lot of anger to work off, she does her absolute best to destroy a hanging bag with kicks and punches. note
- Child of the Storm In the sequel Ghosts of the Past, Carol has already done this to an extra-strength bag and nearly destroys a second before she sprains her wrist with a misaimed punch. The reason being she's really, really upset about hearing Belova sexually assaulted Harry, and Carol can't do anything to help him.
I'd tear the world apart [...] starting with the bitch that did this to you.
- In The Bridge, Godzilla starts his training with the royal guard by teaming up with another guard on a punching bag, only for him to burst it in one punch. It's stated he went through several more before they decide to switch.
Films — Live-Action
- Marvel Cinematic Universe: An early scene in The Avengers has Captain America practicing on a punching bag, all the while thinking about the life he had to leave behind because of his decades-long ice nap. Eventually he gets so worked up that he punches it across the room with a hole in it. And then he just picks up the next one of a half-dozen spares he has prepared, implying that he's been at this for a while.
Live-Action TV
- On Hill Street Blues, Detective Belker (a bit of an Axe-Crazy loose cannon) destroys a punching bag in the workout room by biting it.
- At the end of the M*A*S*H episode "Rally ‘Round the Flagg, Boys" Father Mulcahy suggests that B.J. Hunnicut use his punching bag to work out his frustrations. B.J. hits the punching bag so hard he demolishes it, leading Mulcahy to suggest B.J. take up needlepoint instead.
- In one episode of Modern Family, Cam and Mitch run into the latter's ex-boyfriend Teddy, who isn't bitter about the breakup and invites them to a fundraiser he's hosting at a roller rink. When they get there, they find that he has asked the whole Pritchett clan to come as well, and Cam becomes extremely envious when he sees how much everyone likes Teddy. He vents his frustrations on a punching bag arcade game—and proceeds to knock the bag off its moorings in a single blow.
- The Orville episode "Firestorm" sees Lieutenant Alara cope with the death of one of her officers by destroying Hard Light sandbags with her Super-Strength. After getting chewed out by her First Officer and the Chief Medical officer, she can just restart reset Hard Light projector and re-create the sandbag and punch it apart all over again.
- In Soap, Jessica goes to a therapist with a punching bag in his office. He tells her to hit it to release her frustrations. She hits it and punches a hole in it.
- Stargate SG-1: After putting on an alien device that amplifies his physical abilities, Jack punches a hole in a punching bag, and pulls out a fistful of foam.
Video Games
- Jan Lee's Dead or Alive 4 ending movie is him in his gym thinking back to his hard childhood and how he was inspired by Bruce Lee movies to get stronger. It ends with him leaving the gym, but not before destroying a punching bag with one flying Roundhouse Kick.
- In Fahrenheit, an optional sequence has the protagonist working out with a punching bag. Because of his newfound supernatural strength, he kicks it so hard that it flies off its chain and lands on the other side of the room.
- Rhythm Heaven: "Figure Fighter" features a boxing figurine that has to puff up in order to successfully hit a punching bag. As the song progresses, the toy will begin to knock the bags off the chains prompting replacements to be immediately implemented to keep the song going until the end.
- Tekken 2: Bruce Irvin's ending has him breaking a punching bag off its chains while a little boy watches in amazement.
- Wii Sports: In the Boxing game, one of the training sessions involves seeing how many punching bags you can break off the chain and send soaring to the back wall within the time limit.
- Yandere Simulator: In the "Raising the Strength Stat" video, Ayano tapes a picture of her romantic rival Osana to her punching bag when she starts working out. When she's gotten strong enough, she's able to punch the bag so hard that its chain snaps.
Web Animation
- Final Fantasy VII: Machinabridged: At Gold Saucer, Tifa shows off by punching a punching machine so hard that the bag breaks off and goes flying offscreen, much to the shock of the two men watching her.
Web Comics
- El Goonish Shive: Nanase destroys a punching bag while working through the stress of being beaten in a fight as well as her being attracted to Ellen. Thankfully, Sensei Greg buys them in bulk. Sensei Greg himself later destroys one by swatting a fly, just as Justin is wondering why he never spars with them.
- Questionable Content: Bubbles the retired Robot Soldier has a habit of Working Out Her Emotions on punching bags in her early appearances. Having both Super-Strength and some pretty heavy emotions, she tears through a lot of them in the process.
- After Aster gains the Shooting Star gloves in Star Impact, she tests it out on her punching bag, sending it off the chain and into the wall, and leaving a star-shaped dent on both. The page quote comes from when Teddy and Remy saw the damage to the gym (from when the gloves arrived via Comet of Doom) and saw the Star Punch's first victim in ten years. This gets a Continuity Nod four chapters later when her latest punching bag has a sticker on it that says "DON'T BREAK THIS ONE".
Western Animation
- DuckTales (2017): Donald Duck is revealed to have gone to anger management classes in "What Ever Happened to Donald Duck?!". A broken punching bag is seen in the office, where Donald had gone to "vent his frustration".
- The Spectacular Spiderman: Tombstone punctuates a conversation with Hammerhead with blows to a punching bag until it bursts in several places and fills the room with sand. This was apparently intentional (in any case, he's completely unconcerned).
- In Superman: The Animated Series, Lex Luthor is discussing a job with a mercenary while the latter works out at a punching bag. In the middle of the talk, the merc decides to hit on Lex's chauffeur and assistant, Mercy Graves. She naturally shoots him down; and when he doesn't take the hint, her response is to aim a high kick next to his head and send the bag flying all the way to the far wall.
Real Life
- Inverted by one Darwin Awards winner, an electrician who'd somehow connected his punching bag to the power grid, electrocuting himself when he punched the bag. The veracity of the story is somewhat doubtful, however.
- This Reddit post shows off the remnants of a $20 punching bag with its fillings all over the floor. Turns out it was filled with actual garbage.
