Hello, everybody! My name is Fernando, I'm 23 years old and I've recently started on boxing. I looked around, but I couldn't find anything related, so I'm sorry if I'm bringing this up on the wrong place. My situation is the following; I was training on the heavy bag last week and everything went just fine, except for the fact that I'm feeling this mild numbness on the palm of my pinky finger, it covers all of the phalanges and half of the metacarpus area. I didn't give much attention at first, since there were no swallowing or visible haematoma, no fracture and no dislocation. So I'm wondering, what might have happened to my left hand? P.S.: I'm a lefty, but I fight right handed.
Pinched a nerve, cut off circulation, anything really. Were you training bare knuckle, hands wrapped, or fully gloved? How were you landing the punches? Were your wrist rolling? Do you have a history of shoulder issues?
At first I was fully gloved, but then, I might have thrown a dozen of hooks without the gloves but with 120' wrappings and not using full power. My workout were composed of the classic three minutes rounds with one minute rest, so I was throwing several kinds of combinations. I don't recall having my wrist rolling at the time. Most of the punches were pushing punches instead of snapping ones. I've never had any kind of shoulder issues.
Actually, I noticed my left hook (damaged hand) was coming a little upwards, so the point of contact was between my 3rd and 4th finger instead of the 2nd and 3rd ones.
I used to be a powerlifter, and at one point had ripped by rear delt. The resulting scar tissue puts enough pressure on my rotator cuff and nerves that I find my pinky and ring finger (sometimes that entire half of my hand) going numb. Another possibility which I have seen in others has been wrapping their hands improperly, or too tight, or both, so that when they tighten their hand into a fist it results in reduced circulation, which leads to fingers going numb. Finally, another common thing I see, is when people are punching with bad form, whether they are rolling their wrists, landing the punches on their pinkies or even "hammer punching", etc, it pinches nerves and causes numbness. I know that I personally could hit a steel beam bare knuckled all day long and not have any issues in my hand, ironically, though, when I am holding the mitts for someone else, I notice that my nerves start to get goofy and my fingers will begin to shake.
Sorry called away. With you Boxing Dominant Eye at the front, over a short period of time it will affect the Hips. Put them out of line with the Dominant side in front. Which makes the muscles surrounding the upper Vertebrata, to work overtime to keep the Head stable. Trapping the neurological pathways to the Shoulders and Arms, at least you havent got the Headaches yet.
Sorry, I failed to inform that the numbness isn't only present when I'm training, but it has persisted for the last week. It hasn't gone away, so I don't believe it's due to some kind of poorly applied wrappings or even the gloves, except for the possibility of it being a injure related to the the fore mentioned. Like I said, it is very mild and I can't even notice it during the day, except when I'm typing or when I take a time to feel it.
Maybe it's from doing too many push-ups. Good ol'e Carpal Tunnel. If you think that may be the case.. switch to doing pushups on your knuckles instead to keep your wrists from being all bent up.
I just came back from the physician... It seems like I've got something called Ulnar Neuropathy, it's something very much alike the Carpal Tunnel, but on the Ulnar nerve instead of the Radial one. I've been prescribed with anti-inflammatory and physiotherapy, but I might have to get it open. Anyway, thank you all for the attention and explanations, you guys were really helpful! :thumbsup
He couldn't tell me exactly what caused it, but I believe it was originated from some mislanded left hooks I threw at the heavy bag. I noticed they were landing between my 3rd and 4th knuckles instead of the 2nd one, that might have caused my wrist to put enough pressure to compress the nerve but not enough pain or discomfort for me to notice at the time. The gloves I was using were brand new, so I wasn't quite adjusted to it's own peculiarities.
