So you are saying that punching/impact can make bones fuse. At the same time you aren't mentioning that grappling can cause things to separate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cauliflower_ear :bang:
Cauliflower ear is easy enough to avoid, just wear a wrestling cap? Same with your hands, buy some gloves
In the end, it all comes down to "What are you training for?" It is funny that most times, those that tell us how stoopid what we do is, always have soft hands... Osu!
Thanks for that. It would have been helpful if you’d provided a link direct to the page you were thinking of, rather than some other page. However, when I searched for the text you quoted it came up on a page about rheumatoid arthritis, which is a systemic autoimmune disorder, not a condition caused by physical trauma. So this information is completely irrelevant to the discussion in hand. I don’t mean to be rude but it seems your hypothesis has holes in it so big you could drive a bus through them. You seem to argue that fist conditioning (are we talking about knuckle push-ups, makiwara or something in between?) is categorically a bad thing to do. Yet I’ve already come up with examples of 2 individuals who have engaged in very robust hand conditioning regimes for at least 60 years each, who experienced no significant ill effects. Clearly that demonstrates that ‘fist conditioning’ is not automatically injurious. So can it be detrimental in some cases? Obviously it can, but I would argue that this is generally due either to: a) following an inappropriate conditioning regime b) aggravating a pre-existing medical condition (whether that be an old injury or perhaps a systemic disease) If you can provide documentary evidence of examples of injury that do not match this pattern then I’d be interested to hear of them. 2 points spring to mind: 1. By wearing gloves you’re not completely removing the compressive forces applied to the metacarpals and the small wrist bones, you’re just lessening them. Do you really think that say, knuckle push-ups, puts more stress on the hand/wrist than impact training with gloves? By hitting with gloves on you’re still conditioning your hands, just to a lesser degree. 2. By training only in gloves I think you’re increasing the risk of injury if at any point you have to actually punch anyone without gloves in a self-defence situation. So one has to balance the risk of overuse injury in training against the risk of traumatic injury at a time of genuine crisis. It’s a personal choice to be honest. I’m not going to try to tell you which you should do, and I also appreciate not being pontificated at. Personally I think that - as long you understand what you’re doing - the risk of overuse in training is far easier to control than the risk of traumatic injury in actual combat. Mike
Good post Mike. Exactly. Most deformities due to hand conditioning typically tend to be from those who trained for striking with the fingers moreso than the fist. Even then injury can be minimized with proper training under a good instructor. I don’t mean to be rude but it seems your hypothesis has holes in it so big you could drive a bus through them. Let's not forget Tak Kubota either. I would never recommend doing anything as extreme as him, but it doesn't seem to negatively effect him. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH8xH_CrwvY"]Soke Takayuki Kubota 10th dan Gosoku-ryu - YouTube[/ame] Good point. With a push-up you're only getting a percentage of your body weight on your arms. So for a 200 pound man this could be upwards of 140-180 pounds depending on the angle and other factors. A punch, meanwhile, can deliver hundreds of pounds of force if you know what you're doing. Mike Tyson busting his hand after one punch in his street fight with Mitch Green is a perfect example of that. In fact, if you're not careful punching with gloves, wraps, and tape can actually build bad habits as you can get away without having a tight fist and still hit without injury. Gloves has their uses though, especially for improving stamina and working full power shots without fear of injury, so it's best to use both.
Not to mention Pan Qing Fu, I don't think there is anybody as conditioned or flexible out there as him. He walks around striking steel all day and has callouses everywhere but can pull his toes to his shin.:jawdrop: Supposedly putting weight on the bone leads to more density so just getting in the pushup position on the knuckles and holding it should do the trick. The question is how long would you have to hold the position to get any benefit?
This about sums it up. For me, some simple exercises are sufficient and I wouldn't like to go beyond that. Some examples posted here are just to extreme for me...
I will add I have very bad wrists. I have repetitive moton issues as I have been grooming/showing/training dogs for 20 something years. I am ambadextrious sp? and can hold a 80 lb dogs face closed while clippering it with the other hand. I have iron strong hands from many years of this. However it does effect my ability to do some exersizes push ups being one, I can not with stand the force of weight on my bent wrists. I do them on my knuckles, I did talk to a pro about this and he did tell me to put a small(golf size) ball in the palm of my hand to distribute weight better it works sometimes. However through trial and error the inflamation in my hands is less when I do gluten free diet. Might be something you may want to try and see, my hands are much better since. I do aviod all push up... perfect push up activities they just don't feel good any way we do have alternitives to these exersizes and maybe someone can share some ideas.... I do wrap my hands for workouts only and ALWAYS use gloves.
Im new to martial arts, but im not new to lifting, and ive always done knuckle pushups, always. whenever i do pushups on my hand, i tried every type of way of doing it, and it starts off ok, but after a fwe weeks i get wrist pains. I did knuckle pushups for about 5 to 6 months constantly, with added weight, like backpack pushups on knuckles, trying to do handstand on knuckles, practicing planches on knuckles... guess what? no pain.... And i didnt do the knuckle pushups for the benefit of knuckles back then, i did them to avoid the pain, and it worked like a charm. Later did i find out that it benefits the knuckles, some guy told me, i didnt believe it at firs tthough, might be true though. anyways knuckle pushups imo are good.
I know this is an old thread but I just wanted to add my bit to it and see if anyone feels different from when they first posted their thoughts on it. So part of our training workout for my karate class, we do knuckle push-ups. My thoughts: 1) Yes, it does hurt but as I continue to practice doing them, the pain has actually gone away..... 2) I like them more than traditional push-ups mostly because they don't strain my wrists 3) I've found it easier to punch things harder without a lot of pain, which also includes the fact that I do punch the punch bag often now and do knuckle push-ups more often now. But to me doing knuckle push-ups is just another hard version of doing regular push-ups and I like challenges so I am going to continue doing it. Pretty pwease? :3
interesting article....going back to the OP so may be considered off-topic now ;P LIVESTRONG Lol at the injury risk
