Where is the proof that 'Bone Conditioning' isn't BS?

[Petter]

First off I think it's undeniable that this type of training can result both in the deadening of nerves, and the strengthening of bones...

Your opinion on it being "undeniable" doesn’t further the argument—that’s an Appeal to your own Authority... Me, I think it’s deniable—after all, there are people denying it in this very thread! (The strengthening of bones part, that is, not the nerve deadening.) I’m not denying it, but I certainly consider it questionable.

...its a medical fact.

That may be so. If it’s a "medical fact", there must be medical evidence. If that is so, we don’t need to argue hypotheticals—you can just reference it. Where’s the medical evidence?

When you cause small fractures in bone, the bone recalcifies stronger.

So I hear (or denser, rather); now, do you have any evidence that typical hand conditioning regimens cause such microfractures? We’re not just talking about the very edge of the knuckle, after all, but the bones of the hand—presumably the metacarpals, which are thinnest and therefore weakest not at the knuckles, but in the middle of their lengths. The classical boxer’s fracture occurs at the neck of the fifth metacarpal. Does your hand conditioning regime cause microfractures there?

Not only that, but its evident that this type of training is beneficial to many fighters.

No it isn’t—it’s just evident that lots of people believe that the training is beneficial to them, but people (even smart people, even successful people, even people who are both) often believe all kinds of weird and irrational ****.

What does this argument really amount to? "Lots of people do it, therefore it must be right"? Or perhaps (only marginally better) "Successful people do it, therefore it must be right"? Lyoto Machida drinks his own urine and he’s a terrific fighter, yet I wouldn’t recommend the practice...

No, ultimately, we’re still stuck at the observation that a set of people practice in ways that include what you classify as bone conditioning; that the training regimen as a whole produces good fighters; but that no evidence has been provided to support the claim that this bone conditioning aspect is a useful part of the practice.

We can see that simply by looking at the training practices of kyokushin karate, and muay thai, and boxing, and pretty much any other striking art. In KK they condition their fists, in muy thai they condition their shins, in boxing they work on the heavy bag for their hands.

Whether or not the Thai conditioning helps with bone density, I’d say it does have practical value—as plain old nerve deadening. I would also say that if this bone conditioning stuff works, it’s probably more likely to work on shins than on hands, because (logic suggests) you can more easily cause these supposed microfractures along the length of the tibia, and especially the thinner "neck" parts, rather than just at the end.

As for boxers, well, of course they work the heavy bag, but I don’t get the impression that most boxers believe that the purpose thereof is to condition the bones in their hands. Rather, once again, I think it’s about working technique, for which tactile feedback is necessary, and practicing to hit things hard. I’m not banking any money on this bone conditioning working, but I’d still like to get a heavy bag when I have somewhere to hang it.

[maxthegeek1]

I get what you're saying. Of course I agree that just because certain training practices are prevalent in all of the major striking arts doesn't PROVE that they are effective, as you said, it only proves that they believe they are effective. However I do find it unlikely that bone conditioning should be believed to be effective in all of these different combat sports just by coincidence. This is anecdotal evidence, but I personally think its pretty convincing.

I agree that if bone conditioning were to be a valid training method, it would probably be more effective on the shins than in the hands (being composed of small bones).

Kyokushin kareteka smash their hands on rocks. I'm pretty convinced that smashing your hands on rocks fractures your bones. I don't know if it specifically fractures the bones which are most frequently broken in boxing.

Your example of Lyoto Machida I think isn't really getting at what I was talking about. Drinking ones urine isn't a training method which is accepted across cultural borders and in most combat sports. If it was I still wouldn't drink my urine, because there's a reason it isn't accepted at large (being disgusting and unhealthy).

Again this is referencing anecdotal evidence, but its been my personal experience that boxers I've met have really thick heavy feeling hands. Of course that could be just because people with bigger hands gravitate more towards boxing, but I think theres something to it.

My guess would be if you did a study on the shins of muay thai practioners, you'd find that they would be really fucked up and calcified. I mean, I know people who have had their shins calcify from accidentally hitting themselves with a hammer, i can only imagine what itd be like for the muay thai guys.

[IMightBeWrong]

Are there? How do you know? I would argue that once again, you have not separated two distinct variables in this argument (and it may not be possible to separate them): The people who participate in breaking competitions have proper technique for breaking. It may very well be that their success (and lack of fractures) is simply because they hit in the right way—that is, they hit hard enough, in ways that put no undue lateral stresses to the bones, don’t collapse the wrists, etc. I think we’ll all agree that without proper technique, it doesn’t matter how conditioned your bones are: You’re liable to **** up your hands.

But with proper technique, does this conditioning matter? How could you possibly tell, when in the breaking contest example, the very practice of proper technique also comprises this purported conditioning? In order to agree with your claim—“a lot of people would break their hands in these contests because their hands are unconditioned”—I’d have to be convinced that people with similar degrees of skills at breaking, varying only in hand conditioning practices, exhibit systematically different rates of hand fractures.

And let’s not forget that learning proper punching technique requires hitting something—it doesn’t have to be concrete; I’d much rather advocate the heavy bag; but without tactile feedback, you’ll never lean to hit right. Some people here seem to be a bit in love with mumbo-jumbo like chi, meridians, midichlorians, and such, but let’s not for a second dispute the claim that air punching will leave you incompetent at actually hitting things.

On a side note, I’m not convinced that hitting hard things is worthless for bone conditioning—I don’t claim to know (maybe it increases bone density in a manner similar to that gained from weights; maybe it doesn’t). You might call me agnostic on this. What I’m saying is that your argument fails to convince me, and the example is insufficient to prove your point.

tl;dr: That’s not evidence.

Just for reference, I mentioned in an earlier post already that I'm not arguing for the side of those practicing "bone strengthening" techniques. Since you read my post, you should be able to realize that I'm actually not even arguing about the subject. The point of my posts is to offer friendly criticism to the OP. He wants a group larger than himself to prove specifically to HIM that this form of conditioning works, but instead should be doing the research on his own to prove otherwise. That's where my Galileo comparison comes from. He never told those who believe the earth was flat to prove it to him, but came up with his own ideas and after enough time had it proven. You can't disprove something without doing some work and expect the source biased toward it to offer you anything significant.

To put it in a nutshell, I'm not arguing for either side, but saying that by starting the debate in the way it was started in this thread is ineffective.

The best way to go about this in my opinion is to use an "innocent until proven guilty" sort of approach. The theory isn't BS until proven BS. After all, we aren't commies here, or at least not most of us. So if a skeptic wants proof one way or another, he should be the one to find it.

All commies are free to try to change my mind on the best way to approach this here, though...

[Tom Kagan]

This is different than trying to prove a negative, which is essentially what you are asking Cache to do.

In and of itself, there is no logical fallacy committed by expecting proof of a negative.

Actually you can prove a negative, Kempofist. - No BS Martial Arts

[Cannon_6]

Muay Thai shin conditioning is of questionable benefit. I've only ever seen Muay Thai fighters break their shins.

I'm not saying you're wrong, because I'm sure it has happened and you may have witnessed it in person, but...

On another forum, Khun Kao recently pointed out that, of all the "Muay Thai Leg Break" videos floating around on YouTube, none of the guys are actual Muay Thai fighters. They're all K-1 and MMA guys/gals.

[Snake Plissken]

Does noone else see anything wrong with this? Is your internal culture so messed up that you'll fall in a squirming heap to polish the balls of anyone who says he aliveicises his TCMA even if he thinks he can knock people out with his fingers?

Maybe I missed the "finger KO" part but this is what you quoted from his post:

it is about being able to hit and not break the hands and use every part of the hand. back of the hand, knife edge, fingers, hammerfist.

Back of hand was emphasized by you. For that, I would offer up a cutting or extending back knuckle or spinning backfist as a strike using the back of the hand. Don't know if that is what Dale is referring to or not, but those are legitimate strikes.

Finger, is more of a grey area. My interpretation of it was the curling of the fingers when making a fist. Since you are using your fingers as part of the striking area they need to be strong and/or conditioned. This was my take on it, but Dale can state his own case.

As for "proof" of Bone Conditioning, I don't see this as an area of great concern for Medical Science. And what factual support there 'may' be, would probably be tainted or skewered.
I suspect we will have a bunch of anecdotal evidence and nothing much more.

[MrBadGuy]

As the western world has been unsuccessful in treating Fibromyalgia, the doctor's at Shands Hospital in Gainsville have been sending people to be treated by acupuncturists. They have actually been getting better results than new treatments like Cymbalta and Pain Management Clinics.

I don't have much to add about bone conditioning.

But citing that something worked better than Cymbalta for Fibromyalgia is misleading. Cymbalta is an adjunctive treatment; it's not supposed to work by itself. Lyrica, on the other hand, IS a frontline treatment, and is specifically for fibromyalgia, while Cymbalta is primarily for panic/depression ; comparing treatment A to a small gun drug is kind of ridiculous.

Also, cymbalta is relatively old compared to it's successors, Lyrica for Fibromyalgia, and Pristiq for Depression/Panic.

[Torakaka]

Muay Thai shin conditioning is of questionable benefit. I've only ever seen Muay Thai fighters break their shins.

The only "conditioning" muaythai fighters do is running, hitting the bag, hitting pads, swimming, climbing rope, sit ups... etc.. actual muaythai fighters do not bang their shins or kick palm trees or poor acid on their legs. Actual fighters spend their time doing ACTUAL FIGHT TRAINING, not this silly iron body bone hardening nonsense that only weekend warrior, non fighters bother wasting their time with.

[Rivington]

We are not neighbors.

https://www.boltbus.com/

DC to Boston for $5, albeit in two legs.

That's for either one of you, natch.


To whom should I Paypal the fin to get this thing going?

[maxthegeek1]

The only "conditioning" muaythai fighters do is running, hitting the bag, hitting pads, swimming, climbing rope, sit ups... etc.. actual muaythai fighters do not bang their shins or kick palm trees or poor acid on their legs. Actual fighters spend their time doing ACTUAL FIGHT TRAINING, not this silly iron body bone hardening nonsense that only weekend warrior, non fighters bother wasting their time with.

Like, what i've been exposed to as being a "bone hardening" program for muay thai is just kicking the heavy bag with 20 jillion reps, that doesn't seem that out there. Even if you doubt the bone hardening aspect of that, kicking a heavy bag has other benefits.