will your knuckles adapt to hitting hard stuff?

Question

like say you punch a brick wall everyday will they adapt to that punishment.

Answer 1

yes they will but it takes years of training.

The principle is called wolffs law. It is basically the principle that the bones set off more lime and thus get more dense if you cause light trauma to them. Classically the monks trained themselves by hitting bowls filled with sand and later small stones. The stones will provide resistance but since they move they won't cause you to break your hands on them

Answer 2

Yes...tiny fractures in the bone calcify and get stronger as does building up callouses and tolerance for pain. There's a guy in China or Taiwan I saw on a TV show that hits an iron bar 1000 times a day with each hand. There are martial arts demonstrations of guys striking other guys across the shin with a baseball bat and breaking it. Start slow and work your way up...it takes years for your body to adapt.

Answer 3

Yes, but the small bones in the hand will not. After many years you will develop bad arthritis and all, so cool as a young tough, bad as a mature adult.
I also say, if your a sport fighter go all the way as it is your dream, heck I broke my neck trying for mine.
If your not be cautious as to harming your body, as a mature adult you will pay the price.
As a top athlete your paid, and so the damage is easier to over look. But after so long as a 45+ person with hands that are stiff, well you'll get what I mean. Some things that make your body tougher, also will be cause for later problems.
Even if some things work, the benefits must always be weighed with the negatives.

Answer 4

Yeah they will, not if you start punching a wall right away, if you work your way up to it. Just like anything in life, if you take things slowly your body will adept, say if your sick, if you catch 10 non serius colds your immune system will get stronger, but if you combine all those colds into one super cold and get that, then your body will break under pressure

Or if your driving a car, you star slowly right? if soeone sayed you have to start driving the car at 100k per hour then you would probably crash if you didnt know what you were doing because you havent given time to adapt, same with any kind of conditioning

Answer 5

Yes, but only if you condition them effectively, properly,and prudently.

This concept is born out of the need to condition the weapons a martial artist will use in the unfortunate moment of having to physically defend themselves. In that moment, the weapons you use should be as conditioned and prepared as possible - and a good routine of sensible conditioning will help those weapons survive a physical confrontation with less damage than they may without conditioning.

That said, it is VERY easy for those less knowledgable or experienced to acutally cause long term debilitating injury rather than promote positive conditioning. It takes time, patience, and constant vigilance by an experienced instructor to ensure that your conditioning is actually benefiting you and not creating more weakness than was initally inherent in the weapon you are trying to strengthen.

If you are in a formal martial arts program or defensive program, talk with your instructor/s and they should be able to develop a systematic approach to conditiioning the primary weapons you use in your discipline. If you are not in a formal program, I would recommend you seek out someone from this background to help you and advise you. I would definately NOT recommend trying to do this on your own, and certainly do not begin by punching a solid brick wall. That will almost certainly simply result in long term damage and injury that you may not recover from completely.

Age is also a factor. Conditioning should not be fuly considered until you have fully matured and your skeletal structure had matured. For the same reason children should NEVER break regular board or bricks, heavy conditioning when the student is not mature can cause permanent and debilitating damage to bones, the formation and positioning of bones, and to other tissue, tendon, and ligaments in the area of the injury. Genrally I would recommend that conditioning shouldn't be considered until you are at least in your twenties.


Ken C
9th Dan HapMoosaKi-Do
8th Dan TaeKwon-Do
7th Dan YongChul-Do

Answer 6

Yes. That is what the Chinese Iron Palm martial arts masters have been saying for hundreds of years and what western science has only recently acknowledged. Scientifically your bones are built like a sponge (a very hard sponge), that is to say there are a lot of little holes throughout them. It is proven that with repetitive impact upon a hard surface your bones fill up these holes by necessity causing the density of your skeleton to greatly increase. Additionally, your skin has three major layers to it, each major layer is comprised of a few sub-layers. The first major layer is completely comprised of compacted dead skin cells. Once again, repetitive hard impacts on your skin will cause this dead cell layer to become thicker (have more dead skin cells) and more compacted. With enough training masters have developed the ability to smash rocks, break bats, and crush bones with their hands. However, there is a trade off to iron Palm training: you will gain extreme toughness in whichever part of your body you wish to train, but you will lose a lot of the sensitivity you once had in those parts. For example, if you train iron forearms and then receive an arm massage, your masseuse will need to be very rough for you to feel anything. The thickened layer of dead skin cells creates a barrier between your nervous system and the rest of the world.
You can start punching a brick wall if you wish (not recommended), but at least do yourself a favor and begin with lightly slapping a brick wall, and advance slowly, with the very last step a full on punch to the wall. A better way to start would be to fill a canvas bag with gravel/rough sand/dried mung beans and start hitting that sucker everyday. Once you can punch your bag hard enough to rip it open and suffer no damage whatsoever, move on to wood wrapped with leather, then plain wood, then rock (cinder block works well) wrapped in leather, then plain rock. When you can break a cinder block with a fist and suffer no damage you have achieved Iron Palm; this is possible, but takes years of training. Also, if you want to train your legs and forearms, buy a wooden dummy or mook jong. make sure you get one with a leg attachement. Hitting your forearms and bare legs against the wood everyday will toughen up your arms for blocks and kicks like nothing else.
Happy Training

Answer 7

they will if you punch softly but it doesnt make a diference you will break your hand if you hit a wall properly hitting a wall will just as easily give you ARTHRITUS when you grow older. as it will toughen your knuckles. you can use the blade of your hand or the other end look at how people break bricks with chops. these parts of your hand get tougher alot quicker.

I do Shomen-uchi and Yokomen-uchi strikes on a few things that I set up around the house mainly a fence post.

Answer 8

Hitting brick wall works but you should start with something softer. Punching bags will be good idea.

If you are punching hard objects at once without letting your hand getting used to softer object first. You may damage your hands' bone structure without knowing it. It will come back and hunt you in the future.

Answer 9

Some, but the sides of one's hands and palms adapt better. I have thick calluses on the latter parts of my hands, but those on my knuckles are not much thicker than when I began. I beat gravel-studded concrete structures in the park when I practice martial arts.

Answer 10

they will if you punch softly but it doesnt make a diference you will break your hand if you hit a wall properly hitting a wall will just as easily give you arthritus as it will toughen your knuckles. you can use the blade of your hand or the other end look at how people break bricks with chops. these parts of your hand get tougher alot quicker. punching a wall will not do alot for them.
you realy shud punch a bag if possible this will work your power