Injury rehabilitation

[Fungus]

OK. I'm not a doctor. Here's my advice. No to makiwara.

One, it's not a necessary component of training; for anyone.
Two, it can be dangerous, as you yourself discovered.
Three, the basic premise of it is that it 'toughens' the hands by desensitizing nerve endings.

Is it? It's not how I though it of it's primary use. Maybe it has several uses.

I think of it as giving an incremental backreation feedback, that teaches you when your bones and
body are aligned with the force. It does so more clearly than a swampy heavy bag. We have no makiwara in or club now, but sometimes I feel like I want to test alginment and then I hit a steel beam (part of the building) but I wear the sack gloves, to save my skin. But when doing this, I obviously do NOT give it my all, that would teach me nothing. And the purpose is not to damage my nerves, but to train the proper alginment of hand/arm/wrists in order to be able to hit hard, without damaging wrists or other joints?

Adults of course are free to do as they wish; it's your body, after all. I am 100% against kids doing makiwara work.

I think noone should use a makiwara like a punching bag, that would be dangeours I agree.

If you do NOT learn how to hit HARD then whenever there is a real fight, I think the chance is higher than you really damage your hand or wrist, or elbow?

 

[Dirty Dog]

If you do NOT learn how to hit HARD then whenever there is a real fight, I think the chance is higher than you really damage your hand or wrist, or elbow?

I think the main issue is that humans are not boards nailed to walls. They MOVE when you hit them, and most parts have at least a little padding. Some more than others. Which makes punching a board a not very realistic method of practicing punches. In many ways, a good heavy bag is better. Personally, I like BOB. There's more give than a makiwara, but less than most heavy bags.

 

[Gyakuto]

Is it? It's not how I though it of it's primary use. Maybe it has several uses.

I think that was the primary use. There are better ways of developing punching power/skills.

If you do NOT learn how to hit HARD then whenever there is a real fight, I think the chance is higher than you really damage your hand or wrist, or elbow?

‘The human hand is a miracle of biomechanics, one of the most remarkable adaptations in the history of evolution. The hands of a concert pianist can elicit glorious sound and stir emotion; those of a surgeon can perform the most delicate operations; those of a rock climber allow him to scale a vertical mountain wall.’ The Hand: How it’s use shapes the brain, language and human culture. Frank R Wilson.

I think makiwara training is unnecessary these days when we have heavy bags, plus one should look after ones hands as they are delicate and you’ll need them to be fully functioning in later life. Don’t smash them into hard things!

 

[HighKick]

Is it? It's not how I though it of it's primary use. Maybe it has several uses.

I think of it as giving an incremental backreation feedback, that teaches you when your bones and
body are aligned with the force. It does so more clearly than a swampy heavy bag. We have no makiwara in or club now, but sometimes I feel like I want to test alginment and then I hit a steel beam (part of the building) but I wear the sack gloves, to save my skin. But when doing this, I obviously do NOT give it my all, that would teach me nothing. And the purpose is not to damage my nerves, but to train the proper alginment of hand/arm/wrists in order to be able to hit hard, without damaging wrists or other joints?


I think noone should use a makiwara like a punching bag, that would be dangeours I agree.

If you do NOT learn how to hit HARD then whenever there is a real fight, I think the chance is higher than you really damage your hand or wrist, or elbow?

Hitting "HARD" does not stand on it's own. Hitting hard but wrong is just going to end up with injury. Technique and method Always need to come first.
Yes, a person needs to learn how to hit (and hit hard), but equally important is to learn how to take a hit.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I think makiwara training is unnecessary these days when we have heavy bags, plus one should look after ones hands as they are delicate and you’ll need them to be fully functioning in later life. Don’t smash them into hard things!

One of the things I strive for with my fist/ hand conditioning is to do it in a way that builds the protection that my hand needs without turning it into one big callus. I want the benefits without the destruction of my hand.

My understanding of fist conditioning is that it's ok to hit hard things so long as it gives., Breaking a hand on a makiwara makes me think that it wasn't set up correctly and that incorrect fist formation was used when it was struck out of anger.

I personally do not train on one simply because the system that I train in has strikes that land at an angle. Being able to punch a heavy bag where my strike is coming in at an angle is more beneficial to me than just punching hard or punching horizontally.

If I were to train on it, then I would work on one, I would follow the same training that I do now. Hit it lightly and then let my body naturally begin to hit it harder

This would be the same training I would take if I broke my hand. Hit the target lighter and then let my body naturally hit it harder. I would especially want to do this for a hand that was injured.

 

[Fungus]

Hitting "HARD" does not stand on it's own. Hitting hard but wrong is just going to end up with injury. Technique and method Always need to come first.
Yes, a person needs to learn how to hit (and hit hard), but equally important is to learn how to take a hit.

Fully agreed. Perhaps I was unclear. By "learn how to hit HARD" - correct technique was implicit of course. Otherwise there is nothing to "learn" if you just whack away.

The question is though, HOW do yo learn this? I say, kihon or reading books is not enough, you need to feedback into your body. And what I find a hard surface teaches, that bag does less well, is the small optimal distance window for impact with maximum power and your chest, arm and hips are in the best position.

I never suggested just smash the fist into something hard, you do it slowly with incremental force and study the feedback. At least its how i do it. It even helped my probe an issue I had with my left punch. Hitting a defined surfare makes it easier than a soft bag. But this is just me.

Also for this reason, makiwara does not replace a heavy bad. Its different tools. heavy bag is still 99.9% of what i use.

 

[Fungus]

but equally important is to learn how to take a hit.

Agreed here too. But this is the first I learned, I only have 2 years MA experience, but I would say I know this by now, probably in excess of my rank even. We train this every fighting class, so tensing your body upon impact and eating it. You can take more than you think. But every now and then someone breaks a rib, but its rare. I havent so far.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Agreed here too. But this is the first I learned, I only have 2 years MA experience, but I would say I know this by now, probably in excess of my rank even. We train this every fighting class, so tensing your body upon impact and eating it. You can take more than you think. But every now and then someone breaks a rib, but its rare. I havent so far.

I learned to take a hit long before I'd ever been hit. I took thousands of falls and bumps in grappling (standing and ground) before I got around to any significant contact in sparring. By then, I was just used to impacts. Even so, I'd have done better to learn to take at least moderate punches before then by taking moderate punches.

 

[Gyakuto]

This is how we toughened up to take a punch.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I learned to take a hit long before I'd ever been hit. I took thousands of falls and bumps in grappling (standing and ground) before I got around to any significant contact in sparring. By then, I was just used to impacts. Even so, I'd have done better to learn to take at least moderate punches before then by taking moderate punches.

I have never learned nor trained how to take a hit. I think my many accidents and falls toughen me up to the point where other people punching me wasn't a big deal. I think Dodge ball also helped. Those big red spheres of childhood amusement were like a "growing up standard".

I think for many of the older guys in here, we probably fell and got hit with stuff long before we go into physical fights.