How Useful Is Super Strength (for punching)?

Comics are full of superheros with super strength. These heroes punch through walls, lift and throw tanks, and wrestle with buildings.

But that's superhero physics. The fact is that without leverage, you'll likely knock yourself back from a significantly strong wall before you break it - it weighs more than you. You may punch hard, but you're not going to send people flying like meteors, because your arms just aren't that fast. And trying to lift a building is a good way to bury yourself in the ground.

Now for this question, I'm mostly concerned about how hard you punch/hit. So:

If some humans are a million times stronger, but not any faster:

* What factors would be most important for how hard they punch? Is it still strength, or do speed or mass become more important?

Bonus questions:

• How hard would they actually be able to hit? Is there a formula you can use to determine this?
• How much of a difference does it make if they're braced and can apply full force, vs not being braced?

Assumptions:

• They're tough enough to take out the damage they would do to their bodies. So these humans aren't going to rip apart their bones and cartilage just by moving around.
• Define the strength of a punch as the amount of force impacted to the target.
• Obviously these humans would have incredible lift and grapple capabilities - I'm just concerned here about how much force they can put into a single impact.

posted over 8 years ago

Dan Smolinske‭

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