Technique is Speed, Speed is Strength

Well, I know a lot of people, guys especially, have a tendency to want to build muscle in order to look tough and stuff. You know they think that power is derived from muscle mass.

Yes this is partially true, but that works better for heavy lifting. Now if you get into an actual fight. It quickly becomes apparent that the thing that trumps all is speed and technique. After all, generating power and momentum is essential to combat, and physics is essential to generating power.

Many people have the misconception that simply adding muscle mass will give you more of a bang behind your punch or kick. while the fact is that having proper technique. Using the concepts of angular momentum, levers, conservation of momentum, center of mass, and a bunch of other stuff that a lot of people learned in highschool physics and forgot soon after the final exam.

Anyway if you read up on these, and apply them, it will pretty much make sense that the trick to fighting is actually a science that is far more sophisticated than purely bulking up.

Also as a bonus think about this. Velocity * mass = momentum

so v*m=p

so say you can generate a velocity of 10, and have a mass of 2. That gives you a momentum of 20.

Now if you have more mass, chances are you will be a tad bit slower.

say, you have double the mass, but only 3/4's the velocity. yes, you will have 50% more momentum, but the faster person will land the hit first. Also this is where technique comes into play. If you properly apply the laws. Then you can increase your momentum several fold.

So yeah. Once Again, I emphasize. The trick to being a good fighter is having technique, speed, and being in good shape. However, just bulking up will get you usually only a false sense of confidence.

Edit: As it was pointed out, by a reader, this isn't foolproof. There are flaws in this argument and yes, having no muscle will prevent you from generating powerful strikes and such. Also muscle is needed to generate velocity, however it is unwise to think that getting musclebound will make you a good combatant, which unfortunately is something I find many people think. basically don't judge someone's fighting capacity simply by their bulk. A muscular, 250 pound, 7 foot guy might actually have a weaker strike than someone who is half his weight, not as well built, and around 5 feet tall.