SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The One Inch Punch is an ancient martial arts move of kung-fu. In this popular mechanics article the neuroscience of the punch is explored.
While the biomechanics behind the powerful blow certainly aren't trivial, the punch owes far more to brain structure than to raw strength...
By the time the one-inch punch has made contact with its target, Lee has combined the power of some of the biggest muscles in his body into a tiny area of force. But while the one-inch punch is built upon the explosive power of multiple muscles, Rose insists that Bruce Lee's muscles are actually not the most important engine behind the blow.
"Muscle fibers do not dictate coordination," Rose says, "and coordination and timing are essential factors behind movements like this one-inch punch."
(Score: 2, Informative) by dvader on Monday June 02 2014, @12:11PM
That is a pretty good description of it. I have both felt it and tried similar techniques to it. You don't even need 1 inch to generate the power since it is all about body mechanics. There's also nothing mysterious about it, it just requires practice.
Basically, it is just a fast version of a push. You can practice it by putting one or both hands against a solid object or an opponent/friend and then simply pushing. Notice how your legs, waist, chest etc get involved when you push hard. To practice a punch, try to activate all those muscles from the bottom up. That is, start with pushing with the leg, then waist, back, chest etc and lastly arms. After a lot of practice, it becomes a "snake like" movement from the ground up as the parent described.
(Score: 1) by bootsy on Monday June 02 2014, @05:19PM
The way I best heard this described is that you don't push a car with your arms, you use your legs.
There are in fact several different ways of generating force from a small distance. I've done 17 years worth of Wing Chun but Bruce Lee added a lot of fencing footwork and the like so his short range punch was slightly different to the stock Wing Chun punch although the "core" body muscles are involved along with the legs which are by far the post powerful muscles in body. Also don't forget that biceps slow a punch down and the muscle you want for punching is the tricep.
It also depends on what you are trying to do, if you want to hurt someone with the hardest punch or make them stagger backwards. The technique is slightly different. Making someone stagger backwards can actually be done close range without even moving the arm or elbow at all. You simply walk forward and integrate the push with the back leg moving. A short range push from the legs causes you to lose balance and most people don't know how to recover from this so tend to stagger backwards quite some distance. It can look very impressive especially if the fall over at the end of it.
If you then add extending the arm and trying to punch through the object you generate more power. If you snap the punch back immediately the force of the punch isn't lost as push action and the energy is absorbed more by the body and the soft flesh.
Wrist flick is an interesting one, another response mentions it protects the joints which is true but it also has a pinning or deflecting action so even if the blow is blocked you can create space. Of course all the above assumes a passive non-reacting opponent which in real life is unlikely.
Just like other muscle memory and co-ordination tricks it can be practised and mastered. There are different ways of doing it but they all involve integrating the muscle movements and suppressing the natural reaction of pulling the punch due to the short range.