Conditioning knuckles?? True or False?

[Reklats]

Are you worried a brick wall/tree is going to attack you or something? Learn to punch correctly and you won't break your hand in the off chance you have to throw a punch in a real fight.

[Rich67]

I will never understand this fascination with conditioning the knucles.

 

First, nerves don't "die a little". They die. If you kill the small sub-cuteanous nerves, you fell less surface pain. You may also lose some of the finer motor skills.

 

The human hand is a marvel of engineering, why do you want to destroy it?

 

Bones aquire more mass when the body deposits calcium to fill fractures. The larger the knucle grows, the more restrictive the range of motion. Also, arthritis is not inevitable. It is a degenerative joint disease. Why help it by destrouing the joints first?

 

Unless you make a substantial living out of bare knucle striking, it's just not worth it.

This is right on the mark. I know why people have the fascination. It is almost a "macho" thing to do, since someone feels tough at telling everyone how he punches slabs of concrete and can plow his fist through a car window and emerge without a scratch.

 

First of all, you can "condition" your knuckles all you want. Punch walls, punch into sand, etc. ad nauseum. But the bottom line is, if you have ever punched anyone in the face, you will mess up your hand. Whether it be cutting the flesh or breaking the bones, you will injure yourself. Punching bone and teeth is a lot different than hitting a cinder block. If you really want to simulate hitting a human head, glue shards of broken glass and nails to the cinder block and punch away! In the original UFC (pre-gloves) guys were pulling out of matches due to hand injuries. And you can't tell me a lot of those guys didn't condition their knuckles through years of training!

 

I am not bragging here, so don't take it the wrong way. I did knuckle pushups for 10 years, broke boards and broke cement blocks. I think I had pretty tough knuckles. But when I idiotically punched away at a car window because I was mad one day, I chipped a bone in my knuckle and cut my hand up real bad. And when I got into a couple fights, I seriously tore my hand up from hitting teeth and jawbones. No amount of conditioning will prepare your hand for that. Skin is very fragile. It's not like in the movies: you can sock a guy in the kisser all day, and walk away unscathed.

 

And arthritis is no laughing matter. Not everyone gets it. And why hasten the process?? Why get arthritis at 40 because you wanted tough knuckles, when you could have got it at 70 without going through all that?

 

I am telling you this because, unlike years ago, I consider myself older (and maybe wiser) than I was in the past. It's not effective to "condition" knuckles. Regular training will do that just fine.

[YoungGrasshopper]

A strong person who is trying to punch with weakbone hands is like a strong baseball player trying to hit a baseball with a hollow bat to me.

 

So are you saying that the martial artists who pounded their hands against wood, cement and iron have gained absolutely nothing but a shortcut to arthritus?

 

And so Discovery Channel lied about the fist, wrist and arm recieving trauma when breaking objects, and then rebuilt stronger?? That's a bit strange.

 

Then how are those martial artist able to perform such massive object breaking? By intaking more calcium?

[Reklats]

A strong person who is trying to punch with weakbone hands is like a strong baseball player trying to hit a baseball with a hollow bat to me.

 

It's called "Corking" the bat when you do that. It's illegal to do because it makes the bat lighter and springier, so the ball goes furthur.

[Drunken Monkey]

and a lot of the demonstations you see in the media are carefully set up tricks.

 

a common misconception is that the punching into a vat of sand etc is for knuckle conditioning.

 

that exercise is more for developing 'short bridge strength' than anything; the action of pushing your hand into something that resists getting you used to going through your targets...

[ang_soo_do_guy]

i thought u had to condition hands for breaking techniques like roofing tiles or brick and so u dont feel the pain wen u do break techs. thats the only reason im doing knuckle conditioning so i can do break technique without damaging my knuckles more than if condtion. (if u can do break techs without feeling pain or damaging knuckles please say and explain thanx)

[TheDevilAside]

I don't really know about all of this conditioning stuff. I kind of bought it for a while, but I never really tried it much. I think it's simply genetic, some people just have strong hands, some have weak hands, and I doubt conditioning will repair the gap very much, without some unwanted 'side effects'. Also, conditioning to avoid pain, I'm not so sure about this, I'd say work on it mentally. Just get used to it. Stop killing your nerves, just start conditioning your head so it won't allow pain as a distraction.

 

I think my hands are genetically superior Because I used to (bah, never do this) punch concrete, wood, trees (especially don't do that), etc. because I was a pretty angry and stupid person at the time. However, I never had much of a problem with the pain. My knuckles would be swollen for about a week (not really sure why, though, because it'd happen even if I didn't break the skin) and it would hurt like hell to grab things, but pain was never really stopped me, and I didn't permanently damage my knuckles, I think. Except for when I punched trees, I ripped off a substantial amount of flesh doing that... stupid!

 

Anyway, I think it's genetic. No?

[Kumite2004]

pushups on a hard floor are good... I used to do that and the muscle started moving but now i got a bit lazy and i stopped doin knukle pushups and now it is worse. wat i did b4 is i stood in a pushup pos. and just jumped up very lightly so that my knuckles would get hit a bit....

[Vito]

bagwork with properly padded bag gloves on is all you need.

[Etybolik]

I asked this question of my sensei once. The stucture of the bone itself is made so that when the impact of the punch damaged the bone it builds the calcified area over the knuckles and actually strengthens the bones in the wrist, elbow, and shoulder if you're punching correctly. I don't remember his exact explanation on the structure of the bone itself, but he suggested working up from softer materials to harder ones. I read someone suggesting gluing nails and glass to a cinderblock, if you train hard enough that may actually be a good idea after a long time. only after a long time...