This paper describes the effect of impact configurations on a single robot manipulator. The effect of different configurations of kinematically redundant arms on impact forces at their end effectors during contact with the environment is investigated. Instead of the well-known impact ellipsoid, I propose an analytic method on the geometric configuration of the impact directly from the mathematical definition. By calculating the length along the specified motion direction and volume of the geometry, we can determine the characteristics of robot configurations in terms of both the impact along the specified direction and the ability of the robot withstanding the impact. Simulations of various impact configurations are discussed at the end of this paper.