How do i harden my Knuckles?

There is something to hardening bones. You strike, cause microfractures, and you heal stronger.

Same with lifting weights, you do heavy squats, you create tiny fractures in your bones, your body tears down and rebuilds bone, stronger than it was before. It is a process in adapting, in order for the body to compensate for your activities.

The process is extremely, extremely, extremely gradual. You aren't going to make breakthroughs in bone strength or density through months of training, the process really does take years.

If you don't believe me, look up osteogenesis. Ostetoblasts are responsible for rebuilding, Osteoclasts are responsible for breaking down..

This explains osteosclerosis, when Osteoclasts tend to maintain activity of your younger years, and Osteoblasts start to slow activity.. It may also be influenced by a lack of cacium intake..

 

ok well guys take a lesson from kickboxing in its truest from, the harder the first the more damage, to harden the fist is from constant use, to quicken this process i would try hitting layers, upon layers of sand, dont hit hard hit fast, as fast as you can not as hard as you can, yes there is a difference. do this constantly when i did martial arts i did it for at least 15-20 min, i had an old school teacher. so just try it actually i think someone already sad this earlier in the thread, kudos to whoever that was

 

my point is that almost all masters in any disciplines think they are doing somthing miraculous

 

I agree that it's a legitimate question, the thread starter just has a stupid friend.

Let me start off by saying that I have no boxing experience whatsoever just a little bit of martial arts, mainly Wing Chun kung fu.

In WC we never used gloves for hitting the wall bag, and were made to do push ups on our fists. Apparently this strengthens the knuckles. Our teacher told us to massage the knucles after hitting the wall bag or there was a chance of getting arthiritis when we got older.

I know in boxing gloves are always worn in training when hitting the bag. My question is, is this done just to protect the hands or to get used to punching with gloves on as you're gonna be using them in the actual fight? Or both?


Yes, I've seen the "crazy shaolin monks" do the paper thing on the wall too. Where they stick some sheets of newspaper on a brick wall and punch it. I actually used to do that every day when I was a teenager. I'm in my early 20's now and haven't used that method for a while now. Actually I've heard from some martial artists that not protecting their hands while punching a heavy bag has led to scar tissue being formed around their knuckles when they got older and the knuckles bleed easily. On the other hand, I've had martial artists tell me they've been punching paper stuck to trees for years and they've never had any hand problems.

The point is there's a lot of conflicting "information" out there and I don't know what to believe either. If anyone can provide any credible links on this subject I would be grateful. Untill now the only "information" I have found is a bunch of e-warriors arguing on forums not even willing to listen to the other side of the arguement.

My other newbie question is that I've seen boxers do the same thing with other body parts such as the ribs. Like the video of Manny Pacqiao getting someone to strike his ribs repeatedly with a wooden stick. What do you guys think about this? Is there any difference in the bone structure of knuckles and ribs? If it is true that you can damage the bones by not protecting your knuckles, then logic would say it should be the same for other bones. Striking the ribs with a stick would surely damage them also no? If it is possible to condition the ribs in that way then why not the same for knuckles by repeatedly by striking a hard object repeatedly? Note, I am NOT saying it is a good idea to do this, I am ASKING a serious question here. If there any any bone specialists here please jump in. Currently the rib striking is a part of my current training except I noticed something a little bit disturbing. I do the same thing as Manny Pacquiao but strike myself a little bit harder than he was doing in the video..........am I going too far?:think



Instead of just talking to traditional martial artists I wanted to get a boxers perspective on this whole thing. Anyway, until I find out the truth I'm gonna lay off punching the paper on a wall:yep

My final newbie question is on a different subject-punching with weights. One of my fellow students when I used to do Wing Chun suggested to our teacher the idea of shadow boxing with weights strapped onto the wrists. His reasoning was that once you finally do take the weights off, your speed will have increased. Our WC teacher rejected the idea and gave an explanation why ,although it was so long ago I can't remember what he said:yep. So what about boxers? Do you guys train in that way?

 

edit: wrong article, hi.

 

I agree that some of the posters were a bit harsh.

I've been an amateur boxer for five years and I found that I am very susceptible to bruising my right knuckles and finger bones. I still do wonder if there is anything that can strengthen your knuckles rather than having to continually buy additional padding.

Plus, if for whatever reason I had to use my fists without gloves, I'd like it so I wouldn't have to break my hands. Honest question IMO.

 

"Plus, if for whatever reason I had to use my fists without gloves, I'd like it so I wouldn't have to break my hands. Honest question IMO."
use you elbows....

 

Good tip.

 

The old timers would often say that only one man in a hundred was born with the right kind of body to become a good boxer. The sport science has confirmed that athletes are born they are not made. If you have the right genes your body will tend to build up under stress, if you are Joe Average, your body will tend to break down. Having said that, if you want to be able to take a body shot, you have to take some body shots in training. I'm not sure that getting hit with a two by four is a great idea. Usually a medicine bag is all that is necessary. As far as hardening the knuckles goes, the traditions of boxing recommend doing pushups on the fingers and knuckles. The kids up at the local karate club do it also, apparently it is a common belief.

 

If you want to work on hardening your knuckles , the best thing is using a old martial arts item called the Makari board. Thats probably spelled wrong.

but you can make one. Just nail or screw a couple of 2 X 4 together, over lapping so one is higher than the other to give it a little give and barry a coupe feet in the ground and have about 5 feet sticking out of the ground. Run about a half ince of foam ruber on it, then sectioning it off, were you have maybe 6 inches covered in just gunny sack, the old horse hair style, then about 6 inches in a small horse haired rope, then go to a 3/8 or 1/2 inch horse hair rope. I'd start off with about 20 straight punches and 20 back fist and work your way up to 75. Start on the gunny sack, when you get use to that, move to your different levels on your rope. After you get done punching the board, then you ice your knuckles. Basically killiing the nerves in your hand, but it harden the bone and skin. But when you hit the board, it should be just solid hits and you don't want to tear the skin or hit so hard to have a deap soreness in you fist. You don't want to bruews the bone. But if it's winter time, and your in a area that snows alot, you just stick your knuckles in some snow after you hit the board. This will also so when you hit , your more squared on your strikes.

 

...shut up

 

Manny Pacquaio Does lots of AB/Oblique excercises etc, so his body is more conditioned for taking hits with a stick.

 

The best way to protect your knuckles is to wrap them well, and use plaster of paris pads inserted into the wraps. It does wonders. Should improve your punching power, too.

 

u would want ur knuckles to be hard for ne bare knuckle fighting. for that, i would punch, NOT HARD, a hard surface. like a smooth wood (2x4) so that it's not piercing ur skin firmly. do not do it hard or else it is going to mess up ur wrist/other bones in ur hand.
to become more heavy handed, try buying those things that u squeeze. do a lot of those and ur hands will become bigger and stronger.

 

I mentioned earlier about using a makawri board and gave a discriptioin on how to use one.

But, The Klitchko brothers have used them for years and there both heavy weight champions. But before they got into boxing,they were both kick-boxing champions.