How much frickin longer??!!

[Viper555]

Ok guys, about a month and a half ago I get ****ed and was hitting my heavy bag as hard as I could(bad form too). I don't know how long I did it for but after I was done my knuckles were swollen up and hurt like hell. Now a month and a half later I still can't hit my punching bag lightly without it hurting. How long should this take to heal and is there anything I can do to speed it up a bit?

[IronFist]

I've done that to a knuckle on both hands. On my right hand it turned dark all around the knuckle for an area about the size of a nickel. That one hurt any time anything touched it, no matter how softly, for like 6 months.

On the other hand (left) I did the same thing (same exact spot on the same knuckle, too) but it never got a bruise. It still had the pain anytime anything touched it, though. That was back in January and it still hurts if I hit something wrong with it.

The funny thing is I had a doctor x-ray both of them and he said he didn't see anything wrong. I can feel a chip missing out of one of the knuckles, however.

Both of mine were done by punching something hard, not a punching bag. I don't know if you have the same problem.

So now I'm finally getting back to hand conditioning, but I'm taking it very slowly.

[Viper555]

I did the exact same thing just with the hands the opposite of what you said. The right feels almost better but still hurts if I hit my punching bag but the left doesn't seem to have healed much. It's really starting to get annoying though because my strikes are going straight down the ****ter. I've tried doing open hand strikes but I cant do those with my right hand either because of a board breaking seminar. Isn't there anything you can do to help them heal faster, like maybe epsom salt or something?

[Vash]

Dit da jow.

Epsom salt soak, warm to hot water.

LIGHT massage.

A metric @$$-load of Ibuprofem.

Time.

Knuckles, they don't like to heal too fast. In that respect, they are like ribs. 'Cept you can hit folks with 'em.

[Viper555]

I've heard of jow before but I have no idea where to get it or anything else about it for that matter. Think you could fill me in?

[Viper555]

?

[Shaolin-Do]

Chinese medicine shops?

[fa_jing]

This is why I've given up knuckle conditioning. Not worth it in the long term.

[yu shan]

Vash has the right approach, try some ice in the beginning. Is there bleeding? Good jow is hard to come by...good luck.

The best thing... you like to hit!

[Samurai Jack]

still hurts if I hit my punching bag

Alot of folks are gonna disagree with this, but I think you should keep up with the bag work. I don't think you ought to hold back either. Soak your hands in salt water that's heated to the highest temperature you can stand both before and after training as well.

I started out doing makiwara using this method, then moved on to trees. I used to stop whenever my knuckles would get sore and couldn't figure out how the old "Iron fist" masters could recommend punching stuff on a daily basis.

After a couple of years of zero progress, stopping and healing whenever I got hurt, I got frustrated and decided to keep training in spite of the skinned and bruised knuckles.

Iron fist training hurts like hell, and probably isn't good for you, but in a year or so I finally had the calloused fists and hard punches I always wanted. You eventually get used to the pain.

My advice is to keep punching unless you actually break something (other than skin). Expect it to hurt, and expect your minor injuries to take a really long time to heal, think at least a year, not in months.

[IronFist]

Supposedly, one of the old karate methods was to go smash the knuckles on a rock until they broke. Then you'd let them heal. Then go do it again. Then let them heal. Then supposedly you had a hard fist that could do a lot of damage. It also supposedly kinda of limited the use of your hand, since you'd broken (each?) knuckle twice.

Anyway, with my knuckles it feels like they cracked but never healed. I can still feel the chip under the skin. I guess the nerves toughened up tho because literally setting a piece of paper on top of it used to produce pain, but now it's pretty much better ,4 years later (knock on wood).

[Viper555]

^^Sounds like a good idea to me. I get the knuckles and punches I want and I get out of homework. :)

Seriously though, I'll just keep at it I guess until I get used to it. BTW, I found some jow on superiormartialarts.com, dont know if its any good though.


Ironfist: Have you tried the thing you posted about punching power(where you hit the sandbag on a wall)and if you did does it seem to work? I was thinking about giving it a shot.

[IronFist]

No I haven't tried it. My wallbag is on the floor right now.

[TigerJaw]

I hurt my right knuckle really badly once and it took about a year to fully heal. I was really woried that it would be permanently purple and enlarged. Even after all the pain went away, it still would change colour whenever I excercised (very strange.) Anyway, time eventually heals all and I think starting to to press ups on them when they were nearly healed helped.

I think what happens is that the ligaments that run over the top of your knuckles rupture and split if you hit something too hard or hit it poorly. Just like ligament dammage in other parts of your anatomy, it take many months even years to heal.

I do ITF TKD and breaking is a big part of it so I punch the makiwara everyday but since hurting myself I've said that I won't try and break until I'm sure I won't damage my hands again. i see guys, even blackbelts with swollen mis-shapen knuckles who think that they;re conditioning them and the size is a sign of conditioning. It's not, my masters knuckles are no bigger than mine and he can break a brick with apparent ease.