Body Hardening / Conditioning

[a45b22chp]

Various posts on this site have been about body hardening.

Some claim that repeated light strikes to shins, forearms, hands, feet, etc, allow for more bone growth and callouses to develop, thus hardening the body.

Others say that these light strikes, over time, deaden the nerves, so one feels less pain when striking or blocking.

It seems that more talk about the bone formation, but what about the nerves? It seems to me that thickening the bones, even developing calluses, would not be permanent unless continued indefinitely - that over time the body would reabsorb the excess bone, since bone is constantly being formed and reabsorbed to fit the body's needs. By contrast, I would assume that damaging the nerves would be a permanent act, and while it wouldn't leave the body any stronger structurally, it would lessen the pain felt when force is applied to the "hardened" bone.

I am not saying that either one is not true, just looking for clarification.

Thoughts?

[Kante]

Well, when you're doing punches on the makiwara (A wooden post) your goal is actually both. To peel your knuckle skin off so you could form another one, and to fill the gaps in the bones.

Imagine how stupid it would be to only have killed the nerves in a certain area of your body, but having it still as strong as before. Now where's the point in that? You'd be hitting without pain but one day you'll wake up with your forearms only hanging with a small piece of skin.

So to sum everything up, you kill the nerves/form callus so you wouldn't pass out because of the pain or bleed fountains of blood. And you strengthen the bones, well... to not break them.

And usually both things come together with your conditioning and as you can see, you pretty much need both and you do usually get both depending on how your conditioning is.

And as for if it's permanent or not, callus is permanent. And the thicker/stronger bones. I'm not sure. But I suppose there is a reason that 90 year old karate grandmasters are even still practicing on the makiwara (proof that it does not give you arthritis) but it could be just for technique.

[Iron Arahat]

There is a lot to proper conditioning/body hardening. Use of medicine, training practices, etc. When I used to train my hands for breaking you could tell the difference, but there was no perminant damage to my hands as I trained them properly. I haven't trained my hands in such a way for some time and there is no nerve damage, etc.

Problem is is that often people do not have a full understanding of how to train properly, and while gaining results do more harm than good.