Knuckles

En · Posted On: 5/11/2004 5:35pm

Originally posted by mike reese
Yes you must learn to hit gently...:rolleyes:

Everyone knows that being a martial artist means pain, sacrifice and more excruciating pain.

your knuckles will naturally toughen up and callous over if you are stimulating them on a regular basis, if they don't, just smash them into something hard, like a brick wall.
sure, it will hurt for a while and someone else may have to feed you, but when they heal they will become huge, unfeeling, calcified clubs of doom.

Don't take this seriously xD. Clubs of doom don't fair too well when you need to go about daily life. Like eating. And driving.

**Spunky** · Posted On: 5/13/2004 2:46am

You have to start slow anyway, don't begin by hitting brick walls and **** like that, you'll only mess up your hands. Even doing hardcore conditioning like days of yore, you don't start off like that.

Methods I know of are something like iron fist: begin by lightly plunging various fists into a bin of sand. When you can reach the bottom with ease, replace the sand with progressively larger rocks. I've actually been told to start with dried beans before sand, becuause it is highly porous but very light. Even sand will grate way at your skin.

Alternatively, or in addition, get a makiwara, which is a thin pad you can mount on a wall or a two-by-four wrapped in padding at the top and bolted to the floor. The board is flexible enough to have some give. Another method, also a poor-mans punching bag, is to afix padding around a medium-sized tree. I have duck-taped a thick sweater to a solid doorframe.

In either case the point is NOT to hit full force. Make your hits light, steady, and well constructed, paying close attention to your body, wrist, and hand alignment. The point is to develop instinctive proper alignment and strong internal structure in the joints and ligaments, moreseo than build up an exoskeleton (though progressing to solid rock or brick walls can do that). Some people say you should be doing upwards of 1000 strikes a day, but that is probably overkill. And like was mentioned you absolutely must use proper ointments: White Tiger Bone Bruise immediately before and after, and Dit Da Jow in periods between is a good combination.

EDIT just to clarify this is mostly for developing your fists and is especially useful for strengthening some unorthodox and understandably questionable fists (like finger drives), and is not a replacement for heavy-bag workouts.

**Xango** · Posted On: 5/13/2004 12:38pm

Work a sandbag without gloves or wraps?

I'm afraid I went the 'get angry at a door, bust a couple knuckles, and allow to heal' route, but it wasn't exactly on purpose. Made my knuckles a little bigger, but they do have a full range of movement..since my musical instrument of choice is the hand-drum, having tough hands doesn't get in the way there.

**Moleculo** · Posted On: 5/13/2004 8:41pm

In my opinion if a person trains with wraps all the time he trains himself to rely on them for protection and support.

To me it's no different than say, always sparring with protective gear .

A person should know how to hit full force without wraps.

In the ring it's a different matter as it is all too easy to tire and or use sloppy or relaxed punches and do serious (permanent) damage to the hands and wrists.

I do about half my bag work without the benefit of either gloves or wraps and in case anyone's wondering I don't really advocate the smash and heal method. It was a joke you morons.