Bone Training

I am just recovering from mono and I plan to restart my training cycle, but I was considering adding a whole new concept.

Bone training has been around for the longest time, but I can’t find any decent documentation or exercises.

Bone training is similar to muscle training, you break down bone and let it rebuild stronger. (ex: Kill Bill - Punches the wall until she has knuckles strong enough to break through)

I had started training my hands by lightly punching ceramic, fully aware i may develop authritis in the future, but I don’t want to discuss that.

My question is, does anyone have any knowledge on this subject, suggestions, training etc?

Thank you

Edit: fixed spelling error

Urethritis? Are you sure you’re punching with your hands?

[quote]nikolo wrote:
Urethritis? Are you sure you’re punching with your hands?

[/quote]

He did say it was “bone” training.

Spelling error, sorry…thats what I get for trusting a spell check.

How do you mix up arthritis with urethritis? The “a” is nowhere near the “u” on the keyboard.

i typed it in w/ an A but misplled a different part and my spell check gave me that…thats besides the point, any help on subject?

Hmm bone training? Are you planning on going into some sort of crazy bare-handed MMA?

Real bone training would be resistance exercise, since that’s what actually increases bone density and size throughout your body, instead of just your knuckles.

well i’m not totally sure of what i’m going to do, but yes bone density is what I want to increase. I’ve seen it only once on TV, and could never find any info. Do you have any tips for me?

I’ve heard of people tapping their shins with a small hammer or something of the like to slowly increase their bone strenght and resistance. Not sure where you’d find info on it though.

You may find some more information on bone density and bone deposition (formation along stress lines) if you google Wolfe’s Law of bone.

Essentially, this is the process whereby bone will form/deposit (in broad , general terms-the true process is quite a bit more complicated) according to use/disuse. The principles of bone deposition follow along similar to those impacting contractile tissue-overload and SAID principles. Keep that in mind when training your bone-as well, it is a time dependent process.

Good luck.
dc

You may find some more information on bone density and bone deposition (formation along stress lines) if you google Wolfe’s Law of bone.

Essentially, this is the process whereby bone will form/deposit (in broad , general terms-the true process is quite a bit more complicated) according to use/disuse. The principles of bone deposition follow along similar to those impacting contractile tissue-overload and SAID principles. Keep that in mind when training your bone-as well, it is a time dependent process.

Good luck.
dc

“You’ll shoot your eye out”

I’m torn between helping you and not helping. You can do serious damage to your health with bone conditioning. So the ethical side of my character says don’t help this kid because he’s young and obviously not the brightest bulb in the tree.

But then my mischevious side kicks in and says “do it, he’ll put himself in a lot of pain, even if he does it right”.

What to do what to do…

Bone conditioning is an art and a science, that a couple of paragraphs on a blog probably aren’t going to teach. There aren’t a lot of people who seriously do it anymore, because firearms are a much more effective solution.

I’ll tell you this much. Anything that involves chipping or breaking bone like you might have seen in the movies should be avoided. If you have seen the ads on tv showing a blood clot the size of a pencil eraser causing a stroke, a bone chip that got forced into a vein or artery can do the same. A chip in a joint can tear it up.

So no punching brick walls like Kill Bill and no hammers to the shins either. The best thing for the shins is to roll it with a bottle or a dumbell.

For knuckles do fist pushups or just keep your arms extended and rest on your knuckles for a set amount of time and gradually build the time. After you come off of your knuckles you will see the skin is really white from lack of blood flow, there is a specific way to rub the bones to restore blood flow to the joint and prevent chips from getting into the joint.

As important as it is to know how to stress the bones it is also important to know proper bone conditioning after care.

Then there is the central nervous system damage that this kind of conditioning involves. The nerves of the arm and heart are related. Hand conditioning can cause heart problems.

I do this in my martial art. All you do is gently hit things repeatedly with your limbs (and head if you know what you’re doing). Kill Bill did a pretty good job at portraying how its done; hit, repeat immediately.

If you want to work on your forearms for blocking, find a tree and hit it as if you’re blocking it. Or get a big pile of thick sticks and break them over your thighs… You get the idea.

this is to funny.IMAO

I knew a guy who was seriously into martial arts and trained this by throwing punches into a barrel full of something. He started off with rice and moved up to sand.

Don’t go kicking trees or other stupid shit. Just go hit, kick, elbow strike a heavy bag. That WILL condition your bones. Especially if you still lift heavy too.

Squat and milk!!!

Are there any studies that prove bone conditioning actually works? I always assumed it was a bunch of crap that only exists in the movies.

You could run into a brick wall a few times a day. j/k =P

I have a reluctance to respond to this, as I think you may do some serious damage to yourself. As Sifu mentioned, there is a real chance for injury.

Also, I question your motive…if you are a TMA practitioner and your school can’t / won’t teach these methods, then that?s one thing to make an educated study and pursue from there until you find an appropriate instructor. If you just want to be a “bad ass” or get into combat sports, this is not the avenue you want to go down.

There are many ways to condition and harden bone and toughen yourself. There is ?hard? and ?soft? styles as which can best be described as:

Soft: Less tissue damage at training, but takes longer. (Buagua, Tai Chi)
Hard: More strenuous training, more tissue damage, however, effects can be realized in a (respectively) shorter time. (think Shotokan, Hsing I)

As Sifu and Texas mentioned, you can hit things, and roll bottles and bats down your forearms and legs. Allow me to give a more structured regimen (this is the part where I take no responsibility if you injure yourself, blah, blah blah?):

The equipment:
Get a table about waist height. Cinder blocks will do, just make sure its stable.
Get a 70 lb. Sand Bag, preferably the long type. Wrap it in duct tape to prevent sand from spilling out if you damage it. You will need to be able to hang this somewhere as well as lay it on the table.

(By the way, be smart. Don?t ruin your ceiling or your mothers? kitchen table?)

Exercises:

Hit the bag with your forearms, and shins. This tends to be easier in a figure 8 pattern. For example, right (R) inside, R outside, left (L) inside, L outside and repeat. 100 times each arm, every day. Same with your shins. Kick it at different parts of your shins.

Gently at first; increase how hard you hit it as you progress. You are looking for a slight bruise on either side of each arm. If it goes dark purple, you?ve done too much. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Pace yourself.

Hit the sand bag with your fists, side of each open hand and palm. Same principle applies as above.

Do this for a year, everyday. That means every single day. You are trying to build up the equivalent of a callus, so it takes a repeated effort. So on or about 3/27/08 you can re-post for phase 2.