Kickboxers and hand conditioning

[Stranger]

I was just wondering how (or if) the Muay Thai, San Da, and Savate practitioners on this forum train to condition their hands for bare-knuckle strikes?

[bodhitree]

I would advise against bare nuckle for sport, even in training not a good idea. A buddy of mine who is a former professional muay thai fighter severly broke his hand hitting a pad. He has had to undergo 3 surgeries, and has metal pins in his hand now. I used to hit bags barenuckle, not anymore.

[Slade]

What the hell??? the worst I get from punching bags without mits is serverly grazed knuckles if I do it too much. Ive heard of people breaking wrists from hitting pads without wraps but I have never hurt my wrist from that personally, but a broken hand that bad?? ****!

And why is the word D.A.M.N a censored word, its not even a swear word at all!!

[bodhitree]

Yeah, he's been doing the stuff for a long time too, after that he changed sports to doing triathelons (sp?). The angle that he hit just pushed his knuckles into eachother and his hand. crazy stuff.

[Wong Fei Hong]

Its cause of the lack of chi in those arts
But seriously, i ve seen people njured who ****ed themselves severely with the weirdest movements.
Someone who got out of bed, their feet were cold and they cracked an ankle as they stepped out of bed. People who hit the bag really weak at an angle and their wrist bent and they damaged it etc.
Ive even hurt a tendon in my ribs whilst bench pressing, cracked a rib from a knee to the ribs in a demo that was really really weak.
And other times ive been hit so hard on a knee that people thought i would need surgery and i just got up and im like im fine i didnt even feel it.
I guess its the same with anything though , i know someone who crashed into a car at 220kph with a bike, he flew a few hundread metres into a field where people were looking for him for half an hour and yet the guy had a few bumps and bruises, and i know someone else who crashed at 40kmph and they were in hospital for 8 months.

But to reply directly to the post i dont think a lot of pure sports martial artist use conditioning in the method traditionalists do, unless they come from another art background. They use the term conditioning for things like running getting cardio up etc.

[Stranger]

TTT for 7*, Coach Ross, etc.

[Stranger]

The question came to mind when I was watching TUF (season 2). Luke Cummo, everybody's favorite Muay Thai nerd, was shown conditioning his hands using the iron palm bag and performing iron palm chi kung. I have also read comments by Bas Rutten where he claims that his kyokushin background (5th dan) helped strengthen his hands for his bare-knuckle/MMA career.

So it got me wondering if all kickboxers had similar routines. Is punching the bag and pads enough, much like roundkicking the banana bag and Thai pads does all the shin conditioning one needs, or is specific bare-knuckle conditioning required as a supplement?

[lkfmdc]

Hate to break it to the traditional "die hards", but you can't make the bones and ligiments of your hands any stronger. No matter what you do, they are still going to be small bones that are easily broken. You can beat your hands until you break stuff, it calcifies, you develop calused hands, etc.... but then all you are doing is making your hand into a foot.

[MasterKiller]

Hate to break it to the traditional "die hards", but you can't make the bones and ligiments of your hands any stronger. No matter what you do, they are still going to be small bones that are easily broken. You can beat your hands until you break stuff, it calcifies, you develop calused hands, etc.... but then all you are doing is making your hand into a foot.

Actually, that's not 100% true. Hitting the bag makes your bones more dense.

Baseball players have more dense bones in their right arm than left (if they are orthodox) from batting. Bones respond to repeated hard contact by thickening.

You'll still get fractures and whatnot, but there is evidence to suggest boxers have more dense hand and arm bones that non-fighters.

[Wong Fei Hong]

Well from what ive heard even people who have nothign to do with martial arts believe that running densens the bones .
On another note i believe the hittng practise is twofold for traditionalists

1 the constant hitting draws chi to the fist thus coverign it and protecting it
2 it causes microfractures in the bone which heal and the gaps fill up, making the bone denser.

[Stranger]

If we rule out the possibility of strengthening the hand's internal workings, how about training to toughen the hand's exterior protection, the skin? Jack Dempsey soaked his hands in brine to toughen them. I'm not saying that a martial artist needs or should condition their hands. I am not saying a kickboxer would hurt his/her hands in a streetfight. I just noticed something I had never seen from a kickboxer in Luke's training. I then wondered if it wasn't really uncommon, and my lack of familiarity with kickboxing was leading to a misperception. Just curious.

[SevenStar]

What the hell??? the worst I get from punching bags without mits is serverly grazed knuckles if I do it too much. Ive heard of people breaking wrists from hitting pads without wraps but I have never hurt my wrist from that personally, but a broken hand that bad?? ****!

And why is the word D.A.M.N a censored word, its not even a swear word at all!!

because d@mn is a swear word, but is a socially accepted one. Now, ass is not a swear word... Also, it's more than just swear words that are censored. For example, we censor the word d0rk. on karate forums, they censor the word bullshido.

Broken wrists can happen if your wrist alignment is wrong. I've heard of it happening, but don't personally know anyone that it has happened to.

[SevenStar]

Yeah, he's been doing the stuff for a long time too, after that he changed sports to doing triathelons (sp?). The angle that he hit just pushed his knuckles into eachother and his hand. crazy stuff.

hmm... was he throwing a spinning back or bottom fist?

[SevenStar]

Actually, that's not 100% true. Hitting the bag makes your bones more dense.

Baseball players have more dense bones in their right arm than left (if they are orthodox) from batting. Bones respond to repeated hard contact by thickening.

You'll still get fractures and whatnot, but there is evidence to suggest boxers have more dense hand and arm bones that non-fighters.

in the arm, yes. What ross is saying is that even if the hands become more dense, the bones of the hand are so small that it still won't make much difference.

[SevenStar]

If we rule out the possibility of strengthening the hand's internal workings, how about training to toughen the hand's exterior protection, the skin? Jack Dempsey soaked his hands in brine to toughen them. I'm not saying that a martial artist needs or should condition their hands. I am not saying a kickboxer would hurt his/her hands in a streetfight. I just noticed something I had never seen from a kickboxer in Luke's training. I then wondered if it wasn't really uncommon, and my lack of familiarity with kickboxing was leading to a misperception. Just curious.

Nah, what you saw was uncommon. We advocate wraps and gloves at all times. I personally don't use gloves all the time, but advocate that my guys do. I've never seen or been taught any specific hand conditioning method via boxing or thai boxing.

Pre 1920's there were no gloves, but even then, I've never heard of any specific hand conditioning.