physics based platformer help?

I am working on a physics based platformer and i have my character running left, right, jumping and gliding.

i also have idle, jump, fall and running animations.

but my problem is that because i have set my character to go to his idle animation when he is on the floor and not moving i cannot add any new actions like a punch because he stays idle no matter what.

i was just wondering if there was a way around it? thanks :).

I guess this could work:

On ground

+ Not moving

+ Animation "punching" not playing

Or, when he punches, you add some number to a variable 'timer' and subtracts from that variable over time, and then only let the 'idle' animation play when this timer is 0