Chinese kung fu fans

Bruce Lee was big on improving his forearm strength. It may be in part because of the style of martial art he was brought up on which was called Wing Chun. This style is more of a close quarters style of fighting and believes the shortest distance between two points is a straight line so it may be more advantageous to have a strong arm to deliver a strong blow from close in.

In Wing Chun, the attack is taken through the shortest path along the center line. The punch is started from the fighters chest area and delivered into the opponents core or chest. Wing Chun fighters have a good understanding of balance and control of their energy to block and deliver a punch at the same time with the same hand. When the punch is thrown, it starts from in front of the chest in most cases so the force needed to deliver it must start immediately from that point.

What all this leads me to is that Bruce Lee may have been using this concept that he studied in his younger years to deliver what was called his One Inch Punch. Bruce first demonstrated this punch at a Karate tournament in 1964. It was a very focused punch from one inch distance from the volunteers chest and would send him stumbling back into a chair that Lee had placed some six feet behind.

There are more fundamentals to the technique in that Bruce used his whole body in such a way that he was able to transfer more energy into the punch. He would use his feet and rear leg to help snap the punch outward. This close in punch with that much power could really have the capability to throw off an opponent.