I’m a combat sports fan, and I have always wondered why there are matches where a heavyweight boxer has a significant weight advantage over his opponent, but then his opponent still hits way harder, despite the 40+ pound difference. But that was just one of my examples, what are almost if not all of the factors that determine how hard a person can hit?
I know that weight and actual punching technique are the two main ones, but I can’t think of much more, other than say your bones in your hands, and maybe just being explosive in general.
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The most important thing is actually just mass. Big fat people (with a bunch of muscle underneath) actually punch extremely hard, even if they don’t seem to be punching as hard visibly. But apart from that, using your mass effectively by driving with your whole body in a kinetic chain, the speed and power of the muscles throwing the punch, and even just using your bone structure to support the punch properly, are all factors. In general, if two people are both combat athletes, the bigger one will hit harder, just by virtue of mass x acceleration, but if they are not evenly matched, I’m sure a lightweight boxer would hit much harder than tubby couch potato with much more mass.
Punching also takes a lot of energy if you are driving with muscles and not just sticking your hand out in a jab, so some people expend a lot of energy and others try to conserve it. And if one person is much more cardiovascular fit, they will be able to keep throwing harder punches while the other one will tire out
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