How does repeated hitting toughen me up??

[raving-sultan]

I seem to bruise pretty easily and internally shriek in pain when their is any bone on bone contact during practice. My instructor talks about guys who toughen up by continuously beating their shins and elbows. Does the skin callous or can hitting a bone make it tougher for real?

[johnwhitman]

It depends on the area of the body.

Muscles don’t get stronger by being hit…but you do get used to the pain and learn to flex the muscles at the appropriate time to deal with the impact.

On your shins, the \”toughening\” process essentially damages them: repeated contact deadens the nerves. This is good for your fighting career and bad for your old age!

The primary reason for doing this sort of training for the average student is the \”anti-shock\” value. You will get hit in a fight — if you’re not used to it, you are likely to react in a detrimental fashion (freezing up, flinching, etc.).

[raving-sultan]

Thanks, I wont be hitting myself anytime soon. At least the bruises help me pick up the ladies. Good conversation starter.

[bolshoi]

There are two learning components to being struck: physical and psychological.

Physically, you will learn to brace yourself to receive a strike by tensing the target area’s muscles and shifting your center of gravity to compensate for the impact force. The routine striking of the shins and elbows overloads the sensory neurons, so that it takes an incredible stimulation to make them respond. The bracing/shifting is invaluable and inevitable. However the \”toughening\” process is self-destructive.

Psychologically, you will learn to separate your physical body from your ego. When one is struck, there is an immediate emotional response (usually anger) followed by an physical response (a counterstrike). The emotional response is part of an adrenal rush that will inhibit focus, accuracy, and power. The goal is to eliminate the emotional response and maintain the counterstrike. Most untrained people just tend to flail around wildly. With some conditioning, one can take a strike and offer an effective and immediate response, as if you were in the midst of a training session.

Personally I believe that a little pain and discomfort is part of the training. The pain and discomfort that you recieve is (should be) neither life threatening nor permanent. Long ago in my military service, we were struck often and hard by our NCOs. We learned how not to crumple like a wet paper rag and we had no right to respond in any way. But when put into an operational environment, our ability to endure physical discomfort was increased. And, if struck, the response was quick, effective and devastating.

So my advice is to accept the discomfort (I know the bone on bone contact feels brutal) and live with the bruising. Your tolerance will improve with time. The bruises are marks demonstrating that you are something more than a spectator. If people ask how you got them, respond with abject honesty and a smattering of pride.

[kravjeff]

I read somewhere that bone actually begins to \”callous\” (sp?) as well … Is this part of the nerves becoming less sensitive, or is it incorrect?

[bolshoi]

You are correct in a sense. The neuronal and skeletal adaptations are independant of each other.

The tibia will adapt the the \”conditioning\” stimuation by thickening itself locally. I don’t believe that this will make the bone any stronger (prevent fractures) because the bone will develop a structural imbalance that compromises it’s integrity. Also the resources utilized to thicken the bone must come from some other place in the body and that may very well be the opposite side of the tibia, exacerbating the imbalance. I have seen a few Muay Thai matches where a fighter has broken their tib-fib from a checked kick. A real stomach flipper.

My greatest concern in neuronal. The sensory neurons become desensitized over time. But what about the motor neurons? This \”conditioning\” can’t be beneficial for them. That is where I see people in wheelchairs in their later life.

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