Hey folk's this statement may sound strange. But when you think about it like i have it makes me wonder.Are some fighter's naturally superior or do they have the advantage because of a stronger,harder skeleton? And if so has there been any writings in the past or present in martial arts letters or from past masters on this subject. In books or in the gym. I am not small framed but i have noticed some people just have harder hands and foot bones it seems like. So i just wonder how much of an advantage this gives them even if you do or may have more skill in fighting. And if so how would one develop their overall skeleton if there is even a way?
A lot will be simple conditioning, though it's possible to strengthen bones through weight training and diet, conversely it's possible to weaken bones through diet and exercise. A vegetarian diet has been shown to increase the risk of weak bones and osteoporosis, and running will shown an increase of strength up to a point, after which it will have a negative effect. Heavy weight training used to be believed to cause weakening of bone density particularly in young trainees. This has long since been shown to be a fallacy and the opposite to be true.
Good questions. One's that I've been doing a fair bit of research on myself. Spurred on by what seems to be the never ending stream of people who come to MAP and run on about how kicking/hitting hard objects conditions them in a HARDCORE way. Sadly many of them have never taken the time to research and understand the process of ossification. That is... the building of new bone tissue. Despite what we commonly think of as being nothing more than hard white 'thing'... bones are very much living tissue and react differently to different stresses. In fact deep in your bones is where your blood cells are manufactured. They also act as a warehouse for different salts and minerals... they protect your viscera (that's all your soft internal organs eg. guts)... as an example... your skull is bone and it protects your brain... just as important is your vertebrae (your spinal bones) protect your spinal cord... and last but not least they support the body - that is the skin, the muscles, the tendons, the fascia... and even some of the actual organs themselves. Without your skeleton you'd be a puddle of pink floppy stuff. Not all bones are created equal in just a given person and not all people are created equally if you were to look at a cross section. Many, many factors come into play not the least of which would be: - genetics - diet - environment - work habits - lifestyle The single best way in this day and age short of taking a manual labor job to build up yoru skeleton is to eat properly and strength train. That's right training with resistance (dumbbells, Olympic bar, kettlebells, cable machines) all work to strengthen your skeleton. The skeleton is the framework for the musculature and the when you move heavy weights there is great stress transferred to the skeleton in order to disperse that load over the greatest range possible. From this tidbit alone we start to gain insight into why compound lifts and movements that cross multiple joints and use the natural kinetic chains in the body are so much more beneficial that isolated, single joint movements. I'll take integration over isolation every single time. When I refer to the idea that the skeleton is the framework (which is really just saying the skeleton is... well... the skeleton) it's important to understand that one a very simplified level the skeleton are the levers and the muscles are the pistons that move and stabilize those levers. All muscles have an origin and insertion point on the bones... on that very framework. So the muscles (and tendons and other connective tissue) are directly integrated into the whole system that is the human physique. In fact as you begin to study anatomy and physiology... a massive emphasis is placed on being able to know and understand the origin and insertion points on the skeleton. It's a must know for personal trainers (PT's) and coaches of all kinds. Sadly many of them simply haven't got a clue, have long since forgotten... or just plain don't care. Sadly not many martial artists seem to be very clued on their anatomy and physiology past the bare bones (pun intended basics). It might not be all that surprising actually as the study of bones alone is a specialty in the fields of anatomy and physiology. There is a vast and complex series of interactions with millions of possible variables between your musculature and your skeletal system... new insight into this is emerging rapidly with the focus these days being on the myofascial nets that are part of the musculature. The human body is incredibly complex and if one wants to get to grips with it... it does require a lot of reading and thought. Just sheer gravity alone acts to make you stronger. This is why astronauts in space begin to suffer from bone density loss in low or zero gravity environments - due to the fact that there isn't a force of gravity exerting stress on the skeletal structure so the body stops producing new bone material (understand that is the ultra laymans version of events... eg. my own). Walking down the city street places massive amounts of stress on the bones in your feet and you overall skeleton. Kicking heavy bags also places huge stresses into the skeletal system. As do running and jumping and just about any physical activity. It's a fascinating and very deep subject to begin to explore. I've been reading for a long while now and I've only just scratched the surface. Hope that gives you some place to start considering all the different factors. How that all applies to martial arts can be controversial and complicated. Since 'martial arts' is such a broad and rather generic term looking for any scientific abstracts relating to bone strength and martial arts training will yield a big nothing. It's just not studied. So martial artists are left to pick and assemble information from other sports... usually the Olympic type sports of track and field or college/pro sports such as NFL, NBA or Soccer (football if you're from the rest of the world outside America). There are thousands of studies for all sorts of events and scenarios. However sifting through them all can be nightmarish and break all but the most steadfast and steely nerved of researchers. Not to mention that interpretation of data of this type can be just as controversial as the research itself. At the moment - the long short of it is... good diet, strength train, avoid hitting hard objects. If one is looking to condition bone to become more dense... then the safest and most effective route to date is punch bags. Makiwara as used in karate can also be successfully used. But be wary of anyone who comes on and starts to go into the old chesnut that is 'oh me and my trainer kick trees' or 'my sifu said kick steel posts' or 'Bruce Lee kicked cast concrete'... that is the surefire sign of someone who is ignorant of the actual bio-physical processes that the bone must go through in order to increase strength (eg. bone density) and has been sold down the river by mysticism and charlatanism that is so rife in martial arts. Hope that was some help.
Cool little tidbit to note, facial structure can account for problems or advantages. Some fighters have had the bones in their faces sanded down because they were so angular that they were very susceptible to cuts. A Diaz, I think? I've heard talk of kevlar ligament implants and metal shin implants as well, but I'm a little more skeptical about those.
I understand that bone density increases under load. What I don’t understand, and no one seems to address is if steady state load or impact load is optimal. I can see that press-ups on your knuckles will increase the bone density in your hands (the bones that are stressed) but will the same be true if you are putting impact load by punching an object? When people condition shins by hitting them with hard objects (that are generally not very heavy), are they really increasing the bone "strength" or are they just killing the nerves allowing them to hit with the shin harder before the body tells them to stop?
If it's in terms of scientifically backed research then my guess is that there simply isn't enough money in the broad definition of 'martial arts' to merit a study. Whereas pro sports and college sports programs often have a bit money that can be funneled towards studies like this. Or it could be that they have stable enough athletic populations that can be studied consistently. My guess is that it will be sports specific. So if a wrestlers is wishing to increase his bone density to his optimal levels then he's going to want a combination types of stresses. Most likely a mix of weight training and wrestling drills give him the bone density development specific to his sport that balance the needs of the sport. Muay Thai and boxing... a similar regimen perhaps only less weights training. MMA you're likely going to see a mix of methods depending on which camp or coach and the fighters preference is going to change it up as well. Is any of heavily founded in science as in research study-A says that wrestlers are 26.4% likely to have great effective bone density which leads to carryover benefits in their sport if they train in style-B? I would suspect that the studies haven't been done. Yes there is still a process of ossification that takes place from impact. So there would most likely be the resultant gain in bone density. Is it more or less than steady state pressure? Not entirely sure. If my understanding of the way the body responds to structural loading is correct... doing knuckle press ups isn't only going too increase the bone density in your hands but most likely your entire up body... and perhaps your total body. I'm guessing the further away you get from the source of the structural loading the less the increase in bone density. Generally speaking the bodies design is such that it seeks to disperse loads over the largest available areas... such as the recruitment of kinetic chains when shifting loads or training with resistance. I suspect that structural loading of the skeleton necessarily causes the same type of response. Again that's just my theory though. Generally this whole concept has been covered under Wolff's law: source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolff's_law However if only it was as simple as invoking Wolff's law and we are done... Wolff's law has many processes that it covers and most often scientists and doctors doing research will consider there processes separately instead of using Wolff's law as a catch all according to what I understand at the moment. I'm still wading through it all to see if Wolff's law actually even covers impact stress in regards to the bone actually sensing, transducing and responding by shaping new bone. As far as I can tell Wolff's law primarily applies to structural loading of the bone. I'm not entirely sure that impact counts as structural loading of the bone. As an example here is an abstract that discusses some of the process: Well the way bone functions in regards to impact they will be increasing bone density if we are to believe Wolff's law and if we accept the functional matrix hypothesis. So yes... impact on heavy bags does in essence then increase bone strength. My understanding is that this is a particular form of ossification and that on the molecular level impacts cause negative charges that cause the body to respond by growing new tissue. I'm still looking for the exact source where I read about this process but I think it was a study directly related to the functional matrix hypothesis. While there is some lessening of the sensation of pain due to the repeated impact I don't think you actually kill any nerves. Nor would it really be wise to since it's our nerves that let the body when things are about to go totally wrong eg. pain signals sent to the brain saying 'you better chill out or this is going to lead to injury'. I've worked with a lot of fighters and I've never met one that doesn't feel pain. However mentally they increase their pain threshold to be able to withstand the pain. The nerves are still there but a combination of overriding the messages being sent to the brain and perhaps some of the conditioning allow them to withstand more pressure. But they still need to ice their shins and recover after a fight. It's not as if just because they've conditioned pain away entirely. What I suspect is that training on heavy bags (the soft impact model) will be the type of training that causes the bone to remodel itself (perhaps per the law/hypothesis above) as it reaches the bones modeling threshold... and the resultant increase in bone density (mass). In fact I believe it's this threshold that has to be reached in order to 'switch on' the bone modeling process in the body. However training in a manner where one is striking hard objects (the hard impact model) in an attempt to speed up the process probably approaches and in many cases exceeds the bones micro damage threshold which in turn eventually lead to fatigue failures. I think one wants to reach the threshold that turns modeling on... but stay below the micro-damage threshold. To my way of understanding at this point... kicking heavybags and pad succeed in this where as training using the hard model probably come dangerously close if not exceed the micro-damage threshold and move one towards fatigue failure. Though to be fair (and as you can tell from my writing) I'm hardly a scientist. The key thing I'd like to know or find out is does the scientific community accept impact as loading in regards to stress placed on the bone? My guess is that is going to be central to any sort of interpretation of data, theories about the way bone responds to impact training methods and so on and so forth. It's probably the place to start as if we look at Wolff's law in a nutshell and we accept that it simply states that bone’s microarchitecture has a continuous mutual dynamic relationship with the transmission of load through it... then we will necessarily need to know if impact is in fact regarded as load. As you can see... it's not shocking the most martial artists will go for the low hanging fruit on this issue. It gets right to the issue of why so many will buy into any sort of mysticism of uber hard 'Iron Body' type training methods. It's soooo much easier to deal with as you don't have learn and entirely new nomenclature to be badass.
Thanks to everyone who has replied so far the replies were very extensive and i really appreciate that. Somewhere i read that pecans have the same protein as meat or very close to the same value for a vegetarian and not a meat eater.Calcium is important but i don't think i would do supplement's. Along the line of thought as to conditioning the skeleton this is just a personal thought and observation.When i assume the horse stance i don't know about you but it is difficult for me to remain in it for long periods of time. And it seems to stress the whole body in a good way and has a strengthening effect mentally also. In my exploration of ways to strengthen the skeleton of my body i wonder if some of the simple thing's may work like the horse stance and possibly holding myself up in the push up position. Exercises like that put stress on the whole body seems to me. I am trying those type of things to see the results. Also self massage does work for me anyway i have been into that for a long time and i believe it is very important for the circulation also. In your whole system. On the shins like someone has mention it is a sensitive and vulnerable area massage there helps. How to gain hardness in that type of area is hard to figure out.Because i am not going to beat on my shins so some other way to toughen them i will need to discover. Thanks i am taking all this in. I hope more will contribute on any thoughts they may have and ideas for skeleton strengthening exercises.
This is a topic you're not really going to get a lot of people replying on. The main reason being that the subject matter can be rather complex. Most people just train without going to deep into what is actually going on. So no one wants to track down and pour over very technical, very dry journal articles to get to grips with the actual processes that might be going on. What does the protein in pecans have to do with skeletal stress? Are you a vegetarian? Why would you not supplement with calcium? Do you think you are in need of more calcium? Horse stance - used in many different martial arts for many different reasons is primarily an isometric exercise. You can gain strength from doing them but it's not a functional strength exercise. You still need other drills to be able to convert that strength into usable power. Being able to stand in horse stance for long periods wouldn't have much to do with your skeletal system. Long before you reached anything that would fatigue your bones... you're muscles would give up. My guess would be that there are far more effective ways to strengthen the skeletal system than just doing the horse stance. While it's good to have some isometrics in your training routine... having only isometrics would be silly. In terms of primary musculature recruited while in the horse stance the muscles involved are the adductors (inner thighs), abductors, sartorious, vastus lasteralis, rectus femoris (quadriceps). Pretty much the entire core is recruited as a stabilizer. That's going to help you with overall conditioning as well. If you really want bang for you buck... add lunges, squats and deadlifts into the mix in all their glorious variations. Ignore the posterior chain at your own risk. Again... both those you've listed are isometric in nature. Why not learn how to do some proper strength training? Some squats, deadlifts, lunges and snatches. Those will be far more effective at not only making you more powerful, explosive and stronger... but also be more effective at loading your skeletal system. They do put stress on the body. But again you still have to have other drills worked in that can give you carry over to your type of action. Punching, lunging, kicking, footwork. All that requires speed. Strength is a massive component of speed. Don't be led astray by large sections of the martial arts community who are ignorant enough to believe that strength training will give you big muscles and make you slow. This is a myth that has been dispelled many times over. Strength training is a great way to improve your overall strength and to strengthen your skeletal system. You'll want to look into Myofascial Self Release (MSR) and foam roller work. Brilliant stuff for working the fascia and the muscles. I've had good results for both myself and my clients using MSR and there are a few bodyworkers on this board who have a solid background in it. Educate yourself on the role of the Gogli Tendon Organ (GTO) and how it relates to the muscle fiber and how it works to help you achieve more supple muscles and better nuero-muscular efficiency. Yes... big words but nothing you can't get to grips with through a bit of reading. You will be glad you did. Your body will thank you. Not hard at all. The work has been done for you. Kick heavy bags and pads. It's that simple. Very effective. Very safe. If anyone starts to run on about exotic methods of kicking tree's or concrete or rail road ties etc. you really need to question their depth of understanding of the skeletal system and the way it responds to stress. Knowing what you know now... I suspect you will find that most people suggesting this form of training are clueless.
Yes I found this fascinating. I recently read an article regarding the procedures that Diaz went through to take the edges off of his skull in order to avoid the amount of cutting he was doing. It's at once fascinating and a bit like something out of the predictive fiction of William Gibson. If I recall those procedures had been given some work with boxers many years back. I don't recall that they were ever really accepted. I'll have to dig more to see who went through them and how much was documented. I suspect much of it will have been kept hush hush though. Not heard about the kevlar implants or metal shin implants. Surely that would lead to a whole host of issues. Not only in terms of the body accepting or rejecting them but also in terms of time off to recover from such a major bit of surgery and then there is the whole legality/morality issue under sporting rules as to whether or not that should be allowed. Fascinating.
slipthejab....You are a true mentor and a smart person.No i am not a vegetarian i was just making a comment to someone that posted about the subject.And as far as calcium i can also be a problem in your system if it causes blockage in the arteries.To much of it anyway. I hope we talk more on this subject and learn i really liked your opening statement about we would just be a mass of pink stuff without a skeleton. I do think also like you on this that the skeleton is are foundation and rock where everything else stems from.And yes it is hard to figure out which exercises are best to make it stronger maybe you will write a book on the subject one day. Maybe people will realize that this subject is of importance and get more results than expected. Thanks again
I agree with Rivend, you're a real inspiration slipthejab. The stuff you've put in this thread has fuelled me to go do some really deep digging and maybe even completely rethink how I weight train. I'm gonna do a bit of research and message you for some input on changing how I train if you don't mind?
Question. What are the benefits of strengthening the fingers? What kind of damage can you do with strong fingers?
Grip training is important. But you do have be careful how you approach it. There are cases of people who have really messed up their hands by training their grip improperly. One being a pianist from way back when who ended up eventually unable to play at all because of his training methods. I'll dig out some info for you as I free up.
speculation re: impact conditioning: striking objects with give on them (bag, pads, makiwara if using proper technique), causes the force from the impact to travel in the form of a shock wave through the tissues, making an effect on the whole of the bone, lighter than the total force of the impact at the contact location. on the other hand, striking hard objects directly with bony areas (shin kicking trees, improper and/or excessive forearm conditioning on rigid poles) causes the impact force to be localized on the outer face of the bone, damaging it without causing the bone-wide micro-fractures that lead to strengthening after tissue repair. thus, effective bone hardening through impact conditioning consists in balancing the potency of the impact with the spread of the impact force throughout the limb that is being conditioned. thoughts?
