Past tense alternative for "wind up"

Question

I am writing an action scene and trying to stress that a character is winding up a punch. For clarity this means frames 1-3 in the image below.

At the moment the sentence is : She winded the first punch.

But this doesn't look grammatically correct to me, and winded also means to be winded from a hit which makes this confusing to read. Two alternatives I'm considering:

(1) She wound the first punch, (2) She loaded the first punch.

With (1) since "wound" also refers to the injury I think it can be a bit confusing to read correctly. What would be a grammatically correct way to say the above?

Answer 1

You mean making preparations to throw a punch?

That's usually called "drawing back"

"She drew back her fist. " or "She drew her fist back" either is acceptable.

“Striding up to him, Wilhelm drew his fist back and landed a clean blow to Rupert’s jaw. Rupert reeled, and after two wobbly backward steps, hit the floor on his backside. He raised a hand to his face. “Feel better?” “No. Get up so I can hit you again.” ― Melanie Dickerson, The Healer's Apprentice

They had breakfast in a hotel and were walking to the passport office when they were caught up in a riot. A huge man with a red beard drew back his fist to hit Phileas. Fix stepped in to protect Phileas and he was hit instead. A large bump soon appeared on this head.
― Jules Verne, Around the World in 80 Days