As an avid weightlifter, I am all for resistance training and what it can do to improve your martial arts. It undoubtedly assists in increasing your strength which is a component of creating power in your techniques. However, it is not the only, or even main part, in the quest for maximizing the force of your strikes. Other factors such as coordination, flexibility, relaxation, and speed are of the utmost importance. Perhaps, nowhere is this more evident than in the “one-inch punch.”
Bruce Lee didn’t “invent” the one-inch punch, but he certainly was a catalyst for its popularity the world over. I would bet dollars to donuts that you have seen a video of Bruce displaying the massive power he could generate in seemingly only one inch of movement. Here is a man of relatively small stature, at roughly 140 pounds, who through a punch at only finger length, could knock a man backwards off his feet into a chair that would proceed to slide across the wooden floor. If the only factor was strength, like that of the barbell bench press, then undoubtedly, many gym goers should have a much more impressive one-inch punch as they can surely lift more weight than Bruce. However, that is not the case.
How did Bruce generate much more power than men twice his size?
Bruce accomplished such an impressive feat because of his amazing ability to coordinate the movement of his entire body mass with extreme acceleration. To look at this scientifically, let’s consider just a couple of physics equations. If you hate physics equations, then feel free to skip to the following bullet points.
F = m a
(Force = mass x acceleration)
Where: a = (v – v0)/ t
(Acceleration = change in velocity divided by time)
This means: F = m x (v-v0)/t
Force = mass times change in velocity divided by change in time
All of this boils down to a few simple rules in the creation of Force:
The more mass is moved, the greater the force.
The greater the change in speed, the greater the force.
The shorter the time in which this happens, the greater the force.
Let’s explore these bullet points to see how Bruce was able to generate such force. First, I already mentioned that Bruce was only about 140 pounds, so that was all the mass he had to work with. Compare his size to a man weighing 280 pounds, and you would assume Bruce would only be able to use ½ the mass of the bigger man. However, most people are unable to coordinate their entire body and consequently use only a small portion of their total mass to back up their strikes. In other words, the 280-pound man may only be able to coordinate 25% of his mass due to poor technique and trying to punch “strong.” As a result, he is only using 70 pounds of mass. Contrast that with Bruce, who mastered the coordination of his body. You can see his whole-body spring into action in perfect unison. Bruce was able to capture and use all of his 140 pounds of mass and deliver more force to the target than the larger man. This explains half of his incredible force creation; but there is more to the equation.
Now, it’s time to consider the acceleration portion of force generation. As mentioned before, acceleration is simply change in speed (velocity) divided by change in time. The faster you increase your speed and the less time you do it in, the greater the acceleration. So how did Bruce maximize this acceleration compared to the layman?
Bruce was an expert and understood that to increase speed, we must be strong but also flexible and able to move from a relaxed state. Strength is necessary to induce the movement necessary to create speed. It is however limited by opposing muscle groups holding excessive tension. To combat this, improved flexibility and relaxation are paramount.
What does this mean? Imagine your arm biceps and triceps both pulling as hard as possible. The arm will be stiff and unbending in either direction at the elbow. Now, imagine the biceps complete relaxed and the triceps flexing 100%. You can see that the arm extends with ease. In this instance, the triceps is the agonist muscle whereas the biceps are the antagonist. So, if you want to maximize output, the antagonist must be as relaxed as possible allowing the agonist to exert its maximum power with the minimal resistance. This coordination between the antagonist and agonist muscles is facilitated through improved flexibility and relaxation via breathing exercises, amongst other practices. When this coordination, flexibility and relaxation is mastered, the practitioner’s speed is maximized. When you combine this maximized speed with the coordination of total body mass, the resulting force production speaks for itself.
When you understand the components of force creation, Bruce Lee’s one-inch punch is no longer some mystical phenomenon. It is, however, an excellent example of full-body coordination of both mass and movement. We should all aspire to gain such control over ourselves through our Martial Arts pursuits.