as a person who uses human physiology as the foundation for my career, i'd like to add that simply making the muscles stronger makes the bones stronger because they have to support the muscles...btw, risk vs. reward is 100% accurate
@The Tide Rises read. that. again. ...bones that are more dense are stronger...and the stress at the attachment point causes stress over the entire length of the bone
@M E I D I C H T resistance band training is one of the best types...so that rubber band thing that has loops for all your fingers and you have to work to open your hand, that's actually a good idea
I'd be curious to know if that principle applies the same way to the small, distal bones in the hand as it does to heavier, proximal bones in the extremities
@M E I D I C H T That grippy thing, as you call it, (I don’t know the name either) trains our ability to CRUSH with our hands (technically mostly forearm), which is similar to but not the same as gripping in the sense of clutching/grasping something, which is trained by things more like rope climb, monkey bars, pull ups, hanging exercises, etc. which tends to be more widely useful in most situations anyway rather than raw crush strength, which as far as humans are concerned is not very good anyway (if we’re talking single handed, not using both and engaging the core)
@@steelmongoose4956 Yes. But you will have to do a different kind of lift for that to happen. For my example, I was in the USMC and we did pull ups all the time. Hands did not grow in physical size. When I started to do kettle bell lifts. My hand grew glove size in a matter of months. The longer you lift weights, will make your bones dense, your tendents stronger, etc.
Gee. I trained by hitting concrete wall almost exclusively. It got to the point where I consider hitting wood is "soft". There were fights that quickly ended where I punched the wall full force as demo. One ended when I punched opponent punch. It's not the hand you should be worried about. It's the wrist. You need strength there, not just proper alignment. Remove the ring from the finger, or it'll break your finger.
I've broken a hand three times. Voler slab, the whole thing. I really, really wouldn't recommend it. Your hand will never quite be right again. I was an idiot. Learn from my mistakes.
Honestly, been training karate all my life and playing piano almost as long, semi professionally now (play gigs with friends) and I notice that makiwara training or beating my hands hard against solid objects slows my fingers down for piano somewhat but bare knuckle heavy bag work doesn’t feel nearly as bad, I guess frequency and intensity are the main thing, just like all things in life don’t overdo it
That's something I've been wondering. I want to get into boxing, and to be fair that means I'll be using gloves anyway (that's why I'm picking up boxing instead of MMA). I'm a guitarist and that's how I make my money. I don't want to risk that, but I've wanted to pick up some form of martial art/combat sport for quite a few years now. If you didn't do the knuckle conditioning and you used wraps/gloves like I'll be doing. Would your dexterity still be affected?
I agree with Mike, I actually like training bareknuckle on a heavy bag once in a while instead of with gloves on, but only because it forces me to use correct form and use proper distance and angle. I don't go all out, just about 60-70% power and I'm always conscious of the angle of my wrist and elbows so I don't injure my joints or burn the skin off on my knuckles. Wearing gloves and wraps is kinda like cheating because it allows you to get away with throwing punches with more power than you need to and gives you a false sense of confidence.
This is a late as heck reply but yeah I've noticed the slowdown a bit as well. I've learned to "over-send" the signals to my nerves to make up for that kind of slowdown, but in my own musical background (violist ) I've noticed that doesn't help so well since you have this gap between "slow and light" and "full send". I've been able to get around that for some fine work by flexing muscles against each other (fingy up + fingy down), also by offletting a lot of the motion from my fingers to the more gross motor movements of my body, but there's a practical limit there when you ALREADY require that to play the music. I would consider looking at a dit da jiu, probably a formula recommended for kali or similar since the peony or aconite (depends on formula) should do some work to deal with the pain as well as training your body to use a little more oomph in the nerve fire while recovering. I think it would help keep the speed up. Moderation is definitely the best answer though.
I get that you think things through from an original perspective. Cool. But please ask yourself why all the original martial art forms, Chinese, Okinawan, did NOT use hand wraps let alone big puffy gloves. Muay Thai used hand wraps because in real fights they were studded with broken glass chips. Not advised. I trained 15 years constantly to reach 2nd Dan karate (Shotokan, Ryobukai school). Old school in the 1970s, not a MacDoko, the real deal, in Tokyo for some of that. I used a makiwara (straw padding) every day. Later, used a heavy bag. Age 74, no arthritis, and I bet I can punch harder than most. Still hit the bag. The issue is technique; puffy boxing gloves change the way , the angle, you punch. The also stop fkexible changes betwen fist and open hand strikes, which I use all the time. And by-the-way, you are not obliged to punch heavy all the time; go easy for training, the hard to test. No gloves needed. Final point: no one wears puffy gloves in the street. So you need to learn what it feels like, or you will surely bust your hand on a skull. I like most of your advice, it's new and fresh. Not this one.
@7:02 is exactly why always start my striking with bare knuckle training at close, intermediate, & full range on each side. The point isn’t to hit the bag 100%, it’s to make sure you’re punching properly. You have to develop muscle memory in correct technique.
Quick background.. 35 years kyokushin, (in 35 years I’ve had a total of 12months off) virtually exclusive bare knuckle training. Competed at highest level and against top fighters. Whenever I see your posts I normally find myself continuously nodding in agreement.... not this time; the issue is that bare knuckle punching is a slightly different technique than punching with gloves. Safe Bare knuckle punching requires the fist to be fully tensioned upon impact; basically it can be visualised by pretending you have a little stick in your palm that you squeeze upon impact. The act of tensing the hand at the last moment of impact provides mechanical support to the entire fist. There’s a bit more too it (but that’s still 70% of the technique difference) but it’ll take too long a comment to cover everything. Try it for yourself, even put a lip chapstick in your palm and punch someone’s hand with it? squeeze chapstick upon impact see if they feel a difference? There is a couple downsides to be aware of, 1. punching with this sort of technique also results in a slightly slower fist retraction; not a problem for Kyokushin rule sets but a huge problem in something like boxing. 2. It takes a lot of practice, traditionally it’s practiced with a timed Kia upon impact to help with the timing of the last instant fist squeeze. Even then it takes years to develop. 3. It’s only really useful for straight driving punches, doesn’t work well for hooks or in fact any punch that relies on elastic energy storage as opposed to chaining of momentum.
Congrats! I have been training and teaching over thirty years and this is the best explanation of the nuances of hand conditioning vs. bag work that I have seen.
One time as a teenager I went to a karate tournament and one of the guys I knew lost a a match. He got so angry about it that he punched the wall. Of course he broke his hand. Taught me real quick not to do that shit
@@playtypus4592 nah I did i just don't see the point of this comment or what it has to do with karate, just sounds like someone got angry and punched a wall and broke his hand
@@lucian5389 At the time of this post 26 people got the point of my comment. If you didn't, I don't think any attempt at explaining will be fruitful...
Since I taught very old people (average 63, over 50,000 sessions 2001-2019) how to increase bone density under aging conditions, I feel like you are on the right path here. P.R.E.
I've been fighting and training my whole life. Working barefisted comes with risk, mostly ripped skin, but does in fact make your knuckles harder, wrist stronger, and punching form better. Should not be an important part of a training camp tho.
^^^I also agree. Practicing punching hard surfaces (ie: walls, steel frames, concrete) taught me how to control my punches and optimize my form. Pain is a good teacher.
Sure they get stronger but at what cost? Arthritis when you get older? A weak punch to prevent your hand from being broken if you do hit full force? I don't think a stronger hand matters when you constantly feel sore and it's not making your punches better, they'll still break should you hit someone in the face full force.
Keeping yourself at that point where you're tired but could still go a couple rounds means you could be training over 50% more than someone going to their limit and would have to completely wait to recover. It takes much longer to recover after you're completely spent than if you had a little left over for immediate recovery. This is where overtraining comes from.
Not even that. If the body "wants" to get injured, it will. I mean, sometimes (at least when it comes to lifting) you may warm up properly, progressively overload with patient, have absolutely everything on perfect and optimal condition and still get injured. I'd suggest you to watch a video made by Allan Thrall on that regard. The title was something like "I injured my ankle and this happened"
Training is a marathon, not a sprint. Same as in life. You want to be smart and functioning at a high level as long as possible. Right? Yeah, I don't speak for everyone. Thrilled to find you coach. Appreciate the no B.S. well thought out content.
I've been knuckle conditioning for a little more than 3 years. My advice is to not strike at full power because it will take longer for bones to be usable (there are osteoblast vs osteoclast; one adds & one takes bone density) Strike 45% at most til your hands almost feel sore, as to not damage the blood vessels in your hand. Give your knuckles a day for healing.
I certainly do. I train bare knuckle 100% of the time, unless I'm engaging in sparring, in which we both wear gloves. Training with wraps and gloves teaches your wrists and knuckles to be weak. The wrap adds the support for you, and you never learn to hold your arm right. Bone density traiing requires makng micro-fractures to your bones that heal denser. Hitting a heavy bag bare knuckle is GOOD FOR YOU, because it will make your knuckels tougher, make you used to fist contact, teach you how to keep your own wrist straight and secure, and deaden the nerves in your hand. Bone density: punch flat rocks lightly over time. Then one week, hit it harder. keep your hands lubricated and safe and don't go too hard. After 6 months of increasing rock punching, you'll have a bit more bone density.
Exactly! It was when i started going hard on heavybag without gloves with my terrible technique and my weak wrists started to bend and hurt asf. Then i started going 50%, focusing on punch technique, and sometimes even going open handed Bass Rutten style with more power. Tbh i like these palm strikes. U usually dont hurt yourself
And after throwing bare knuckle hooks i had to re-learn them from positioning my knuckles horizontaly to verticaly (as you do in video). For some reason I almost always hurt myself with horizontal position of fist. Even tho I was teached like this in boxing.
@@ddwfw Sure... but « little man » sounds barely like an insult to me, specially if you are not, why do you even care ? Anyway, it’s your call dude... but you’ll fire off quite often if you live in the comments section 😂
I like to do a little bareknuckle because it keeps my form better. The way you land your punches will teach you what works and what doesn’t quickly. Also shin conditioning will help toughen those bones.
Funny thing is I use to train so much I use to feel like I could break my hands with wraps and thick boxing gloves. Gloves gave me wrist problems ,that hitting without gloves helped correct.
Two things 1. Knuckle pushups are NOT safe. One wrong rep and you can roll your wrist pretty bad. 2. What do you think of training in just wraps? It keeps me staying with good form and also protects my hands enough to punch with more force. Best if both worlds?
Or think about how important typing and using your fingers is in the 21st century. You could potentially lose the ability to use important devices over something that's pretty unimportant in the long run of life.
That's why I think sometimes is better to have an understanding of grabs and martial arts like Muay Thai for example. Your elbows and knees can serve you well when your hands are in trouble (or if you don't want to put them in trouble), especially if you're being grabbed. Your whole body can be a weapon, and you have to understand that another person's body can be, too
I mean I have been using a 120pound heavy bag for almost 6 years without gloves my hands still work perfectly fine. But yeah it probably is safer to use wraps and gloves.
@@MauZangetsu yh cos actually if you punch someone you can risk yourself breaking your knuckle whereas if you use your elbow or knee etc you will do more damage and receive less damage
I used to do heavy bag bare knuckle training but it was hard on my wrists / knuckles. It did teach me proper form, though, because if I did it wrong it bent my wrist or injured me in other ways. I think your advice is great (use wraps/gloves for most of your training and bare knuckle to make sure your form is proper). Elbow strikes will mess up the rotator cuff as well if too much force is used (learned the hard way).
I used to do a lot of knuckles conditioning till one day in a fight my uppercut meet my opponent pointy elbow, the entire force was absorbed by my second knuckle but instead of breaking it went inside the hand and split my metacarpal bone in two. At the hospital they told me that I was incredibly unlucky because normally the knuckle would have just broked and no surgery would have been necessary. All that training ultimately worked against me...
That is actually part of the advantage of fighters who began as children. Having an older brother who taught me and made me see boxing as "fun", led to me punching the heavy bag, as well as wood walls throughout growing up. I would even punch and try to break anything I could find within reason as I grew. If you start young, and you can't punch as hard, and you learn to keep yourself at the lines of your limits, you'll develop in every way faster. I guess what I'm saying is.... start em young
Thank you so much for that very useful video. I love your way of explaining, very straightforward but yet explainatory and based with a lot of good arguments. Thanks to you i'm gonna stop doing only barehands (cause i prefer the sensation) and will always use my bands and gloves for the sake of my dear knukles🙏🏻
As a physician, who also trains combat sports, you’re exactly right. Wolff’s law applies to axial loading. The only thing “iron hand training” does is accelerate arthritis.
Wrong. First off, if you're a physician you're a stupid physician. My knuckle conditioning has dramatically increased. I'd love to see which one of us can hit the heavy bag longer. You want a hint? It's not you clown.
Interesting. I am 54. I have bag trained for 42 years. I have hit heavy and light bags bare knuckle as well as gloved literally millions of times. I have no arthiritis in my hands, which have also seen heavy work, as I have also spent nearly 20 of those years as a professional sailor... as in sailboats. Last 10 years my main combat sport has been Muay Thai. Still train hard, spending several months a year in Thailand doing so. No issues whatever. It's all about technique, well, and some biological fortune. Why have I trained so much bare? In part because it FORCES you to do correct technique, and because I did that from the get go at age 12. But also because ONLY training with bag gloves trains you to UNDER RANGE£ your strikes, as the glove makes contact 1.5 inches (with wraps) before the actual knuckle contact range.
7:37 As someone that has been training in Iron Palm conditioning since 1990, it does my heart good to hear someone say that bare knuckle training is to "test your attributes, not to develop them." Another thing you said that I like is the part about not hitting as hard as you can while bare knuckle. I've been training bare knuckle conditioning for 30 years, and what you said is SPOT ON! One thing about bare knuckle training that a lot of keyboard warriors don't get is that bare knuckle conditioning, while it does work on the bone density to a degree, it is mostly working on things like recoil, mental focus, practicing your body sinking into the ground for stability, and proper breathing. You never, ever, EVER hit hard while bare knuckle conditioning. I'm in my mid 50s, and I have full articulation in my hands with no arthritis, because I never hit hard while bare knuckle. But this is the thing. I can break boards and bricks, but its not hard for me because I've done it for so long. So I'm not hitting hard. Someone else would break their hand because they would be hitting hard.
As someone training in a family of martial artists, my uncle having trained since the 70's as a kid, THANK YOU. The point that I'm glad he mentioned is the difference between hobbyists and people who live martial arts. We train our bone density and bone strength with consistent load over time, 4-5 days/week if not more. Not coming in 1-2x/Week and blasting the bag/brick/board. This concept really needs to be poured into the current training systems around the US, blasting = bad - consistent load over time = good.
So, years ago I was curious about developing "harder hands". So I started lightly tapping on a pine bench almost daily until my knuckles were red, then stop, always careful to never bruise. I did this for about 2 years and worked up to being able to comfortably punch a steel I-beam at 25-50% power with zero problems or discomfort at all. So, in my experience as a non martial artist, time and consistency is more effective that trying to use brute force to get magic "iron hands".
In a street fight, you will be fighting bare knuckled. You do not want to use full force like if you are wearing boxing gloves. You need to have correct form, not punch full force, and get used to how it feels.
I hit the bag bare knuckle to play around, and I am a hobbyist,who knows my technique sucks, so when my wrist says "ow" I wrap my hands, and put on my gloves, and stop doing dumb shit. Because as a mechanic, I can't get paid with broken hands. I always thought the point of the bag was footwork, angles, and resistance/ cardio related anyway.
Heavy bag without wraps is good at low power. Not for bone density, but at low power you can feel when you're alignment is off. You can feel that a hook punch isn't quite right with your wrist placement, and that you need to change it a bit.
Igor Vovchanchyn, who fought in lots of bareknuckle MMA matches, has ''hands the size of baseball mitts'', according to Bas Rutten (back when he was a Pride FC commentator), but he still ended up injuring them.
@@nicksalvatore5717 Tyson probably had many street fights. And he broke ONE hand fighting Mitch Green, a pro boxer who went 12 rounds with him in the ring.
Breaking or injuring something, including the hands, doesn't mean much in the long run. Focus on self-management and it heals. Injuries are only permanent if the underlying "healing factor" and self-management is missing. Put in more efforts in regaining function and feeling and there is nothing to fear.
It’s a case of little and often and building up too. I do heavy bag with gloves and then hard focus pad on one hand for say 50 mixed upper cuts, cross, straight, elbows and knees. So a few each. I also do catching a heavy ball like striking for hand-eye and skipping and then back to heavy bag. Say 3-5 of the whole set. I do throw in a heavy bag empty hand for punch, palm and elbows say one or two sets. I dry of the sweat (important) and pick shots, being careful to hit square with the correct knuckle alignment (big two or smaller three, one or other and then make sure it is correct or easiest way to hurt the wrist by rolling or through impact). There is a place for it, but yes, not the be all and end all.
I'm an iron fist nerd myself..😂 And I confirm that it's risky and something that should be done ocationally (thanks for another eye opener hard 2 hurt)
Nice point on punching the heavy bag barehanded to test your power. I've injured my wrist real bad in a street fight simply because I didn't know my limit, and that is exactly what punching barehanded is good for: you can punch how ever hard you can, but your body has it's limits and you should know them. And of course you gotta land your punches correctly as well. Thanks for the vid, man!
I do but its very lightly because I'm trying to make sure that I'm always hitting with my front two knuckles and not my finger or last 3. I hit the bag in mma hybrid gloves most of the time
@@hoop6988 wait up..hold on.. something aint right here, i just watched Wonderboy thompson about fist conditioning and his dad says the big knuckles are the right ones, aldo watched FightTips video titled ”i changed the way i punch” he said the same thing and he also added that squeezing the hand when punching streches the tendons in the knuckles and makes it easier to hurt the them and that he havent hurt his hand when he has them opened and relaxed when punching and also info on how to think about the wrists while punching, giving the fist s slight bend like when you point your finger towards something and then bend the finger back into place and then you have a slight bend to your fist that makes it harder to hurt it.
Thank you! I've literally ripped skin off of all my knuckles from punching without protection. Like it doesn't make you cool, it doesn't make you better, it just hinders your ability to train lol. Thank god I've grown up since those days haha
My man, you should not be ripping the skin off your knuckles if you’re hitting barefisted. You were actually getting valuable feedback from your body, that you were scraping and skimming your punches across the surface you were hitting. Burying bare knuckles into the bag should not be stripping skin off. By adding wraps and gloves you are assuring that you will continue to punch this way.
cushion allows for longer hitting and different tranfer of resistance...bare knuckle is more plyometric and works from knucle to legs while wrapped helps works the whole body from legs to knuckle
You are a really good teacher! While you’re speaking I have a question in my head and you answer it within a minute or two! Great job glad I found your channel!
Did not know that was called Wolff's law. There is so much misinformation and anecdotal accounts out there, and I have to admit, in my younger years, I was sucked into the ignorance of "iron bone" training and now I have nerve damage in both my shins, arthritis in my left wrist, and a loss of dexterity in my right hand. Its been about 15 years since I did anything like that. No one ever corrected me or told me it was wrong until I met my Wing Chun instructor and he called me an idiot and explained it to me correctly. Back then I never used gloves or wraps when I trained. Now I alternate between gloves and bareknuckle and I have a few other exercises that help strengthen the stabilizing muscles in your wrists.
BRO THANK YOU! I've been trying to get this into my buddies head because hes always hitting the bag without gloves and because that their currently in bad shape. Mike is a badass who knows what hes talking about more than other MMA fighters. If theres a man to listen to its Mike.
Interesting approach, a question tho, i didnt get one thing. Punching with gloves is safer for sure, but if your alignment is correct why cant you increase bone density with bare knuckles? If you can increase bone density with gloves you can also do it without them no? Is it due too much risk? Like yeah you can but you will probably hurt yourself before you get stronger kind of thing?
I hit the bag bareknuckle most of the time, but it's a lighter bag. Being comfortable with your hands unprotected does a lot for your confidence in self-defence. I think everyone should do at least a little bareknuckle bagwork... easy to do your gloved session and then just take 'em off and work your bare hands for a couple minutes. Even on heavy dense bags, the most I've ever used is thin mits, no wraps. Tweaked my wrist a few times, but no injuries.
One of the good myths in the UK was "soak your hands in petrol every day like the gypsy bare knuckle fighters and your hands will be like stone." Yeah, I'm not so sure about that one
@@michaelrea8090 hmm calloused fingertips hey? I like the sound of that. Handy for eyepokes and strikes to the throat - they don't call me wet Willy for nothin' neither.
True story: One time I was trying to break up a box at work. I was punching it, but it wouldn't break. I was also kind of upset at the time, so I was angry with the box for not breaking. I lined it up, and drilled it as hard as I could. My fist flew through the box, and straight into the edge of the stainless steel sink behind it. My fist went numb, and I was sure I had broken it, but it was only bruised and swollen for a week. Don't break your hand.
@@hayate503 Dude, I won’t get arthritis from using a Makiwara. If I hit it with proper form like I am, don’t have to worry about too many injuries. Look and fact check something before you say it can do something
@@hayate503 Makiwara is for form training and ensuring proper alignement.... Pretty much what Mike was saying. And yes it has it value as it was clearly explained. I use it myself and am not facing any such injuries. I use bags for power speed and strenght. I only use bare hand to confirm all is good and that I am not indeed striking with a "gloved" part of the hand when without gloves. Makiwara is not for developping Iron Fist. Reason: There is no such thing as Iron Fist, well except for that RZA movie lolol
@@hayate503 There are many people that practice makiwara for a long time and have no issues with arthritis. As others have said, makiwara is not meant to be a stiff board that you punch until your knuckles bleed. The recoil is the key to the tool, and that doesn't require trying to smash the thing to the moon. I've been hitting for 9 months now. Besides a minor skinned knuckle from time to time, hands feel fine.
i always was told about this by my trainer and since i have have a brain i kinda knew its dumb to train bareknuckle on heavybag. But now i experienced it: i was at a party at somebodys house and this dude had a heavybag in his room and drunk me wanted to work on it ofc. My fists were bleeding after that. And i didnt even go 100%, only like 70 at most
The life experience of an old guy (47): I broke lots of ribs with my fists in 18 oz gloves, so I would say, that I punch hard. I punched as hard at the heavy bag during training every second day for 20 years. Some of the sessions with the fists only in training mittens (to protect the skin on the nuckles). Training mittens are basically small boxing gloves with only the leather and no padding. Never had any problems, never broke my hand. Probably also due to lots of push ups on the fists as preparation. Now I already had two shoulder surgeries because the cartilage is gone and I am facing surgery for artificial shoulder joints. I believe its due to the heavy bag training. I dont think its connected to the barenuckle training, because I have done this only frequently. I think its due to punching Karate style, with the whole body behind each hit. If you think you will break your hands fast without gloves because Tyson did so: barenuckle boxing exists for centuries. They get injured a lot. But I think cuts are a far greater risk for these athletes than hand injuries. So in my opinion this proves icy Mike wrong. You can fight and train without bandages with minimal risk. If you think the additional risk is worth because it makes you a slightly better fighter. Thats up to you.
@@noone-pg4lr Yes. And I can see what you are hinting. But I didnt bullied nobody. This were the old school days. And you need some knowledge about the "local customs" to understand this. Long story short: I trained fitness in a gym. But this was not a 24/7 modern chain, but an old school family business. Twice a week, when the gym closed in the evening, five hard looking men came in to train during the night. I did competitions in this days. After winning a full contact kickbox bout in the first round via K.O. I got an invitation to join their nightly training circle without knowing them prior. I was in my early twenties. And did the fights in the weight class below 59 kg. And looked like 16. They were real gangsters and pimps in their late fourties and were bodybuilder and about 90kg upwards. (You have to understand this was long ago in the nineties, and they were already retired at this time and active in the 70ies. But when they have been active, the red light district in Germany was controlled by Germans. This is not any more the case. And to avoid blood shed it was frowned to kill somebody with a gun. If you had business to sort out, and this was about millions, you did it with the fists. So all this businessmen were former "professional" street fighters.) There was no light sparring. We always looked for the body K.O. in every sparring round. Just to the head you had to go light. So I broke ribs confirmed only three times (A couple more times might have been only bruised ribs?). One of this guys. One friend of them, who didnt believed the story of the broken ribs and wanted to try the sparring for himself. And the third time it was a friend of me and a mistake. Done during ground combat. To this day I dont really know how it happened.
@@noone-pg4lr Thanks. I dont look any more like sixteen. But I am still tiny and look now probably pretty much like Flanders, from the Simpsons..... Hi diddly ho!
As another guy said : training bare-knuckle is not important only for density but also for wrist/knucle alignement. So it's not only about bone density/power but also simply about HOW you punch, your technique. As you know, hitting without gloves is A LOT more forgiving on your form. You can hit with the wrong knuckles, with the wrist loose and misaligned, with the thumb even and not notice it at all. And you won't get better at aligning/hitting with the good form if you train more with gloves. On the contrary you'll probably reinforce your habits of hitting with wrong form. So if your goal is self-defense, or fighting bare-knuckle in whatever sport(Kyokushin for example), you should devote at least some time to training how you punch without gloves.
Liking your content recently. Watched your videos for a while but finally Subscribed. Agree with you 100% on this one, and I used to do makiwara training back in the day. The only reason I hit the heavy bag bare knuckle is to make sure my form is correct, like you mentioned. I have a tendency to over-rotate my punches and make contact with my ring finger and pinky, which is a boxer's fracture waiting to happen. When I hit the bag with gloves on I can get away with it, since I don't have the direct feedback on my knuckles. Bare knuckled I immediately know if I did it or not. Of course I'm not punching full force, because then I would risk hurting my hand on the inevitable over-rotation.
Bruh.. look at your fist structure in the gloves+wraps+padding. The biggest point is that it forces wrong structure. Also your wrist is supported so doesn't get to be strong enough in terms of staying straight when punching - apart from the fist-wrist structure issue. Your knuckles also don't get conditioned enough to deal with hitting hard bone by mistake etc. I can hit a bag FULL FORCE bare knuckle and I generate significantly more power than most people I've trained around - and definitely harder than you 😂 Messed up some bags and snapped chain links in the process. Of course, I've had to work up to it over several years. I also punch walls etc - not full force obviously - to condition my knuckles. Started off VERY LIGHTLY and gradually increased force as per what my fists are telling me. 0 injuries, no disfigured / arthritic knuckles ever. I'm 38, started training karate when I was 8-9 for a few years and took up mma after a decade or so gap, but kept training punches, breaking bricks etc throughout my life. I like your stuff, but you really don't know what you're talking about here.
I agree with you. I just got to the point where i can hit a bag with all my power if i use the two big knuckles, now im practicing a flat fist 4 knuckle contact to condition the smaller knuckles since, lets face it, in a real scenario a lot of your strikes wont land the way you expect or hope them too.
@@pilot.wav_theory 4 knuckle contact is hard/near impossible on a flat-ish surface imo. It would involve intentionally depressing the middle finger knuckle, which I don't want to do. There is a philosophy where the first two knuckles are the 'bullet' and the last 3 are the 'hammer'. It works great for me. The hammer is basically a Wing Chun style punch. I will say that it's especially important to strengthen the pinky knuckle for the hammer though.
I tell my students the same thing: wraps and gloves to develop power, bareknuckle with less power to check your alignment. I also get some idiots who watch too many movies and end up punching walls and pillars for "conditioning". As you said, they aren't punching as hard as they can; and even that with crap alignment.
I actually train the heavy bag mostly without gloves or wristbands, I've noticed that as long as you are not scraping the bag you should be fine when connecting with the bag.
Or in a nutshell: "I kinda, pretty much know quite well what I'm talking about, but still manage to sorta narrowly yet hugely miss the mark on the subject". I don't claim to be a subject matter expert, maybe I am, maybe I am not, I actually know a guy who is one of THE top subject matter experts on bare knuckle training and fighting, he's a 4 times full contact karate world champion who also happened to do in depth research and write his diploma thesis on the subject on the Why's and the how's of bare knuckle training and conditioning going in depth with what happens with layers of tissues to a cellular level. Although we share a quite similar training regiment on this topic, he is by far an expert compared to myself. Now, there's a lot of misinformation and stigma which is sadly amped up by the plethora of McDojos out there, however; there were "probably are still extremely few here and there" dojos with senseis who actually had extremely well conditioned hands which felt like rocks even to the lightest impact, slap, nevermind full force punches and they could fight. I have been trained since an early age to condition my hands and have been ever since (although not to the degree of sensei) and I have fought and trained with and without gloves. Conditioning the hands and knuckles doesn't happen in 2 weeks, 3 weeks, 6 weeks. It's a long sustained process different for everyone. The old and lost reason why these "yoda masters", however modern people love to label them all and paint them with the same brush, conditioned their hands (among other parts), is because in older, traditional styles of fighting such as karate there were punches to the head and surprise, surprise, eons ago, they discovered that the skull is A LOT denser than hands and you can easily hurt or destroy your hands punching bare knuckle into a skull. Thus they developed methods, apparently almost completely lost, to condition those hands to withstand the demands of punching skulls. Back in those days karate was less pretty, less flashy, a lot more effective and they surely didn't have the comfort and plush of the modern age to have gloves and pads. Plus, the styles back then were mainly meant to be used of practical applications, self defence and not sport. And since you couldn't carry your gear, your gloves (which they didn't have, but for the sake of the argument) and tell your assailant to wait until you wear your gloves before punching him in the face, their best option was to condition those hands and fists.
referiing to that, IIRC kyokushinkai originally admitted punches/strikes to the head, but they became banned because people ended fucked up even in sparrings, right?
@@jacksteppenwolf6975 That's right, as far as I recall. Same thing happened to the original karate styles. They were originally designed and meant to be effective tools of self defense and warfare (guns weren't and aren't a thing everywhere in the world. Most places in the world require hand to hand combat), but that version of karate wasn't for anyone who's not serious or dedicated plus it wasn't pretty or sexy to look at, just purely effective to mess attackers up. The number of practitioners declined, less disciples and thus they needed to make changes to attract people and save the art from going extinct. Enter western boxing, fencing and French early kick boxing, thus kicks, flying kicks and the lot. In the vast majority of the last 70 to 100 years or so, people have only seen and known the watered down versions of martial arts styles and systems, the sporting versions of them and got the wrong idea that those are actually what they are like. People are used to modern times and ignore that way back when people, including military only had their bodies and objects to fight, defend, win battles. It's in the damn name ffs "Martial" = Mars, God of War, Arts. Arts of War. Not rounds, not tippy tat, points, scoring etc. So then guys and experts like this guy on this channel goes and forms his, their oppinion based on what they see and then go "X martial art fucking suck, dude ! Bunch of idiots!", "matter of fact, all martial arts suck! Nothing but pussies and dancing idiots!" MMA rules, man ! Which... I cannot begin to describe how ignorant and redundant that is... Bine
"In closing, If you can punch things full force without hurting your hands, you can't fight" - this is most beautiful video summary i have ever heard 🔥
I somewhat agree, somewhat disagree. I think it's different for every person. You can't just make a blanket statement like "if you can punch as hard as you can and not break your hands, you don't punch hard or you don't fight well." There are so many factors involved, and you only touched on a couple of them. It's not just about form, it's not just about bone density, it's not just about muscle strength. It's also about the time you as an individual person have spent developing each of those things, and it's also about the state of mind you are in, in the exact moment you throw a punch. Even in one training session, every punch is different, no two punches are identical. So if you haven't spent as much time developing form or bone density, but you have a lot of muscle and power from lifting weights, then yeah, you are likely to break your hand if you bare-knuckle the bag as hard as you can. On the flip side, if you ONLY train by hitting wood boards, stone bricks, and that kind of thing, then your form and bone density are going to be better than your muscle power, relative to each other, but that doesn't automatically mean you don't have the power to hit hard. Some people have genetics that give them natural strength without trying. And back to the state of mind thing. If someone who trains by hitting bricks and knows their bone density is strong, they will have the mental confidence to be ABLE to use ALL their strength in a punch, whereas a person who does mostly weightlifting and bag work and has more power than bone density, is going to subconsciously hold themself BACK in order to AVOID injury. Your subconscious mind is always thinking about how to avoid injury, that is the WHOLE reason we have instincts and reflexes. So it doesn't matter how strong you are, how good your form is, or how many hours you spend punching a bag. I think when it comes to a REAL fight or a REAL self-defense situation, the guy who punches bricks is going to win, most of the time. However, if you really want to be the best fighter you can be, don't focus on one end of the spectrum, try to keep a good balance of everything.
problem is, on the street, I wasn't wearing any hand protection and I broke 2nd phalang of a pinky and squashed my ulnar joint. Could've practiced those bones to be more stable but my coach in the boxing gym said it was a waste of time. Now I'm fucked.
"Your training should be more realistic" - LOL training is exactly the opposit: a way to simulate a particular aspect of the resulting performance by isolating it and thus making it _almost_ unrealistic. Squats and deadlifts are an unrealistic suplex. Also, thanks for bringing reason into martial arts. Expirienced experts might be great at doing stuff, but that does not automatically transition to analysing, understanding, and explaining stuff. That's why we need you.
“Push up knuckles are the dochiest!”haha! I went to check out this karate school for kids when I was young, and the place was a total real life Cobra Kai (the original with Kries), and when the kids would mess up, they would yell at them, and make them do knuckle push-ups. Scared the shit out of me. Never went back.
Yeah man, people might laugh but Karate Kid really based that off some of those douchey Karate places! I feel they were much more common a few decades ago, a greater emphasis on pressure testing made crap like that much less popular.
I have been hitting a makiwara board 100x per day for the last 3 months, and I STILL agree with what Mike said. I still use gloves or wraps for most of my bag work.
My 2 cents: Your body being able to sustain your own strikes is a chain - from skin on knuckles to ligaments and bones, muscles in hands... And on up the wrist, arm, shoulder to core... If you want your hands to be better prepared for striking while not gloved you should do some bare knuckle training to strengthen those parts of the chain that gloves protect. But go slow and make it a long term project to prevent injuries. Absolutely Mike is right that developing maximum power should be done with gloves... On the other hand, learning to strike effectively without gloves may involve gauging your power, and choosing your striking method (fist versus palm strikes etc) and targets. If your goal is to be competing in gloves I think again that he's right - plenty of bone density etc would be developed hitting hard with wraps and gloves.
I train both with bag gloves and bare knuckles. In a real fight, in the street or park wherever you're not gonna have your gloves. Tf you gonna say hold up let me run home real quick and get my gloves nah. I love training both glove and bare. My Muay Thai teacher said the same thing too.
I stopped the video at 5:40. Your video makes me want to make a video on iron fist training, because it seems like, oh never mind. I feel like I'm the last man on earth.
I feel your pain!! He is right about a lot of what he says in this video. You have to remember, the training methods we learned in Kung Fu are just not available to these guys. They never had a sifu who would fill a small head bag with cement, and pound it to dust, just for the fun of it, let alone teach how to train for that ability. They think things like that are impossible.
@@hard2hurt right I'm sure it's you who's right and everyone is wrong . Michael jay white give a better explanation how to hit the bag bare knuckle or with no wraps with out getting hurt and building strength in your hands .the same my boxing trainer told me George Luis Gonzales a old man still capable of punching threw cinder blocks bare handed with no problem .like you said just depends in the individual goals and reasons behind training this kinda method and how much you should be doing
And how are your viewers morons because your the goof with bad vocabulary and social skills who cant explains or get your point across correctly in a non condescending way
Agree. I have a few years of training in kyokushin and now I am working on my boxing. As many of you know, kyokushin is a bare knuckle fighting style, but we did not hit bare knuckle that often, reason is that your ability to hit objects that are at least a little hard is limited. I have good hand conditioning, but I if I do like five two minute rounds barehanded on a heavybag and putting force behind them, I will not be able to hit something remotely hard for a few days. There are body resources that younhave to keep in mind. My take is: you should punch a heavybag without gloves on occasionally, but be careful and give your body some rest after it. Also, don't do it the first time you hit the gym, you need some conditioning beforehand. Do not try to hit walls and anything that is harder than your bones, the only thing you are going to get from it is injuries, I got some this way back in a day. I still have a bump on my shin from the time I kicked a metal tube a few times, and it was around 6 years ago, it's permanent
I see Canelo's bag work throwing bombs with gloves and it seems that he had no issues breaking BJS's face with his first. Dude probably has some iron fists.
I do bareknuckle, but not in the way you Think. I dont punch hard, i actually just work accuracy, by placing tape where i messure my head body etc..... not for conditioning. It helped ME a lot. But i mostly use reflex Ball, for hand eye coordination.
Put it better than anyone I know could. I only hit it bare knuckle because I want more of a solid impact and I train bare knuckle boxing. Other than that I take a 10 gal bucked of sand and smack it palm side down, back side down and then punch it straight down to develop bone density.
Knuckle push ups. Makes me shake thinking about it. Probably done thousands and thousands of them. Military dad thought they were good as punishment. They were.
I learned using lightweight bag gloves. I learned very early that if I hit the heavy bag wrong it hurt bad. I started slow and built up. I hate wearing boxing gloves on the bag, because I feel like it makes me lazy with alignment.
Same dude i hit the bag with mma hybrid gloves because i hate the feeling of boxing gloves but i like u said boxing gloves makes ppl feel too protected that they neglect the alignment of the knuckles
Right, here is my obligatory complaining that I need to make any time you get into bareknuckle ,from a brown belt Kyokushin karate practitioner (not that that should matter). Sorry for the length: Your hand position inside wraps and gloves is very different to how they should be if you are hitting properly bareknuckle, thus you are not conditioning the same parts of your hand to withstand impact (parts including tendons and ligaments, not just bone). Your body adjusts to EXACTLY what you do to it. You need to do bareknuckle if you want to improve your bareknuckle. It's not a case of the conditioning happening less, there are important parts of it that are simply not happening at all. You don't even need to develop the habit of clenching your fists tight before impact. Your analogy at 2:28 is awful, no offense. There is no way to lift that way properly, it is incorrect by definition and is essentially guaranteed to do you harm. There is a way to hit bareknuckle properly, as you are well aware. The only time you hurt your hands is when your form fails you, which becomes less and less likely with practice. A big question not addressed at all here is what is your reason for training? If unarmed self-defense is of primary importance to you, then being able to hit hard with protection is useless to you. It's like weight training for functional strength and neglecting to train your grip strength. Whatever strength/power you have that can't be output through your bare hands is useless to you outside of sport.
Gloves are like training your squat, your deadlift will go up, but you still need to deadlift for form etc, if you're working on your deadlift. Bareknuckle and gloved are tools, both useful as he mentions in the video. You make some decent points but there is still a lot of carryover from one to the other that's beneficial, they're not entirely different.
@@teufelnabsterbennie8826 True but I think that the proportion of time that you spend between two things should be more or less the same as the ratio between the importance that you place on being able to do each of those things well. If your deadlift is far more important to you then it would be silly to spend most of you time squatting. All depends on what your goals are.
If your goal is self defence, walk with a group and carry good weapons. Dont waste any time boxing, just go eliminate your enemies with weapons. Thats what self defence is. Bare knuckle boxing is competition. None of this is for safety, these are things people do for fun. If youre not willing to carry and use a weapon, youre not willing to defend yourself. Dont ever look at martial arts training and think "But realism! But the streets!" No. Its not related at all in any way
@@SicFromTheKush Neither of those are always practical in some people's circumstances. Where I live for example, if someone picks a fight with you they are very likely to only be using their fists themselves and almost all weapons are illegal. Any weapons used would escalate things rapidly, the person is usually just an angry drunk
Brother I think you’re part Vulcan, the logic is strong with this one🖖🏼ive been a mixed martial artist most of my life but just training at home with my dad and papa, so I have 0 dojo time in the real sense I guess. I’ve almost always hit the bad at least wrapped up. You gotta let every part of your body rest at different incriments in your training. Thank you thank you for the content 🙏🤓
You say hitting the bag barehanded is like benching with a rounded back, but then say there's a place for hitting the bag barehanded. There definitely isn't a place for benching with a rounded back.
Your form is really good. I absolutely f'd up both my wrists and my ankle on bags before and they were out for a week or 2 minimum. Now I always Always wrap my wrists and ankles.
@@NoProtect some people’s knuckles are different tho … you can’t necessarily say that … that’s like saying some Thai guys shins that kick bare metal with no Rope around the pole can’t kick hard … yes they can … it’s just not recommended for beginners and is a process to build up bone density callus… you also have to eat properly to when conditioning
I'll admit I haven't trained regularly in years, but I do teach my kids. They saw me bare knuckling the heavy bag and tried to mimic me. I immediately told them no. They think I'm going full force bare knuckle when I'm not. I taught them gloves are to train power and bare knuckle is for your form, but at 50% power and about 75% speed. Then work your up on both as your technique improves, but never full on. And I don't get the knuckle conditioning on a bag. Maybe if you have a rough texture one? Dunno, my old TKD master taught us to train our knuckles and wrist etc... on hard surfaces. But again, never full power. Just lots of reps of light punches. Wooden board against the wall, bamboo sticks, stuff like that. I'm late on this one, but great video as always!
Question for Viewers: Do you do any bareknuckle heavy bag training?
I get my bareknuckle training in the STREETS
Not often.
No, but i do it with pads
I do train bare knuckle on the bag...mostly to prevent surprises when I have to use bare hands for self defense
Yes
as a person who uses human physiology as the foundation for my career, i'd like to add that simply making the muscles stronger makes the bones stronger because they have to support the muscles...btw, risk vs. reward is 100% accurate
@The Tide Rises read. that. again. ...bones that are more dense are stronger...and the stress at the attachment point causes stress over the entire length of the bone
@M E I D I C H T resistance band training is one of the best types...so that rubber band thing that has loops for all your fingers and you have to work to open your hand, that's actually a good idea
I'd be curious to know if that principle applies the same way to the small, distal bones in the hand as it does to heavier, proximal bones in the extremities
@M E I D I C H T
That grippy thing, as you call it, (I don’t know the name either) trains our ability to CRUSH with our hands (technically mostly forearm), which is similar to but not the same as gripping in the sense of clutching/grasping something, which is trained by things more like rope climb, monkey bars, pull ups, hanging exercises, etc. which tends to be more widely useful in most situations anyway rather than raw crush strength, which as far as humans are concerned is not very good anyway (if we’re talking single handed, not using both and engaging the core)
@@steelmongoose4956
Yes. But you will have to do a different kind of lift for that to happen.
For my example, I was in the USMC and we did pull ups all the time. Hands did not grow in physical size. When I started to do kettle bell lifts. My hand grew glove size in a matter of months. The longer you lift weights, will make your bones dense, your tendents stronger, etc.
"stop punching walls" *spits mountain dew in frustration
I feel attacked.
Lol.
Or dk pepper since it is made for intellectuals(if you don't get the reference I'm ashamed of you)
@@willcardenas1579 Nice steins gate reference, if nobody was going to bring this up to the discussion i was going to do it anyway 🤣🤣
Gee. I trained by hitting concrete wall almost exclusively. It got to the point where I consider hitting wood is "soft". There were fights that quickly ended where I punched the wall full force as demo. One ended when I punched opponent punch.
It's not the hand you should be worried about. It's the wrist. You need strength there, not just proper alignment.
Remove the ring from the finger, or it'll break your finger.
Lmaooo
I've broken a hand three times. Voler slab, the whole thing. I really, really wouldn't recommend it. Your hand will never quite be right again. I was an idiot. Learn from my mistakes.
Same bro. Pinky knuckle is beyond ruined
@@slicktop2jz855 if you broke your pinky knuckle, then your punch landed wrong
@@MikesDadvice as someone who has also destroyed my pinky knuckle. Yes we did, we didn’t mean to, but making a mistake happens if you get careless.
@@MikesDadvice Even very experienced Boxers sometimes mess their fist alignment etc and break bones.
@@teufelnabsterbennie8826 never said they didn't...the point was, it doesn't take power to cause a "boxer's fracture" in the 4th or 5th metatarsal
Honestly, been training karate all my life and playing piano almost as long, semi professionally now (play gigs with friends) and I notice that makiwara training or beating my hands hard against solid objects slows my fingers down for piano somewhat but bare knuckle heavy bag work doesn’t feel nearly as bad, I guess frequency and intensity are the main thing, just like all things in life don’t overdo it
thanks for commenting
That's something I've been wondering. I want to get into boxing, and to be fair that means I'll be using gloves anyway (that's why I'm picking up boxing instead of MMA). I'm a guitarist and that's how I make my money. I don't want to risk that, but I've wanted to pick up some form of martial art/combat sport for quite a few years now. If you didn't do the knuckle conditioning and you used wraps/gloves like I'll be doing. Would your dexterity still be affected?
I agree with Mike, I actually like training bareknuckle on a heavy bag once in a while instead of with gloves on, but only because it forces me to use correct form and use proper distance and angle. I don't go all out, just about 60-70% power and I'm always conscious of the angle of my wrist and elbows so I don't injure my joints or burn the skin off on my knuckles. Wearing gloves and wraps is kinda like cheating because it allows you to get away with throwing punches with more power than you need to and gives you a false sense of confidence.
This is a late as heck reply but yeah I've noticed the slowdown a bit as well. I've learned to "over-send" the signals to my nerves to make up for that kind of slowdown, but in my own musical background (violist ) I've noticed that doesn't help so well since you have this gap between "slow and light" and "full send". I've been able to get around that for some fine work by flexing muscles against each other (fingy up + fingy down), also by offletting a lot of the motion from my fingers to the more gross motor movements of my body, but there's a practical limit there when you ALREADY require that to play the music.
I would consider looking at a dit da jiu, probably a formula recommended for kali or similar since the peony or aconite (depends on formula) should do some work to deal with the pain as well as training your body to use a little more oomph in the nerve fire while recovering. I think it would help keep the speed up. Moderation is definitely the best answer though.
I get that you think things through from an original perspective. Cool. But please ask yourself why all the original martial art forms, Chinese, Okinawan, did NOT use hand wraps let alone big puffy gloves. Muay Thai used hand wraps because in real fights they were studded with broken glass chips. Not advised.
I trained 15 years constantly to reach 2nd Dan karate (Shotokan, Ryobukai school). Old school in the 1970s, not a MacDoko, the real deal, in Tokyo for some of that. I used a makiwara (straw padding) every day. Later, used a heavy bag. Age 74, no arthritis, and I bet I can punch harder than most. Still hit the bag. The issue is technique; puffy boxing gloves change the way , the angle, you punch. The also stop fkexible changes betwen fist and open hand strikes, which I use all the time. And by-the-way, you are not obliged to punch heavy all the time; go easy for training, the hard to test. No gloves needed. Final point: no one wears puffy gloves in the street. So you need to learn what it feels like, or you will surely bust your hand on a skull. I like most of your advice, it's new and fresh. Not this one.
I do this all the time. I probably train 50% of bag work bareknuckle 👀
Youre still pretty young. You might pay for it later.
@@letsgojake.4078 I’m 37
@@SenseiSeth no way
I’m the same way. I do a LOT of bare knuckle on the heavy bag so that if I ever need to hit bare knuckle I’ll not be surprised by how it feels!
You look good for 37, bro. I would have put you late 20s. Maybe 30.
@7:02 is exactly why always start my striking with bare knuckle training at close, intermediate, & full range on each side.
The point isn’t to hit the bag 100%, it’s to make sure you’re punching properly.
You have to develop muscle memory in correct technique.
Yep. People develop a real false sense of confidence punching with wraps, tape, and 16 oz gloves on.
As a man in his 40's, I can tell you flat out it's a fast way to get arthritis.
You gotta have something to bitch about in your old age lol
i’m in my 40s and do a little bare knuckle bag work , i do have a little arthritis in my fingers but i don’t try to bust my hands up , lol
I wrap up and glove up every time these days. And if my hands hurt, I just shadowbox for the day.
I usually start the first 2 rounds with wraps and gloves. Then for the next couple of rounds I use just wraps. Then last round bare knuckles
@@dutchvanderbilt9969 LMFAO
Quick background.. 35 years kyokushin, (in 35 years I’ve had a total of 12months off) virtually exclusive bare knuckle training. Competed at highest level and against top fighters. Whenever I see your posts I normally find myself continuously nodding in agreement.... not this time; the issue is that bare knuckle punching is a slightly different technique than punching with gloves. Safe Bare knuckle punching requires the fist to be fully tensioned upon impact; basically it can be visualised by pretending you have a little stick in your palm that you squeeze upon impact. The act of tensing the hand at the last moment of impact provides mechanical support to the entire fist. There’s a bit more too it (but that’s still 70% of the technique difference) but it’ll take too long a comment to cover everything.
Try it for yourself, even put a lip chapstick in your palm and punch someone’s hand with it? squeeze chapstick upon impact see if they feel a difference?
There is a couple downsides to be aware of, 1. punching with this sort of technique also results in a slightly slower fist retraction; not a problem for Kyokushin rule sets but a huge problem in something like boxing. 2. It takes a lot of practice, traditionally it’s practiced with a timed Kia upon impact to help with the timing of the last instant fist squeeze. Even then it takes years to develop. 3. It’s only really useful for straight driving punches, doesn’t work well for hooks or in fact any punch that relies on elastic energy storage as opposed to chaining of momentum.
Congrats! I have been training and teaching over thirty years and this is the best explanation of the nuances of hand conditioning vs. bag work that I have seen.
One time as a teenager I went to a karate tournament and one of the guys I knew lost a a match. He got so angry about it that he punched the wall. Of course he broke his hand.
Taught me real quick not to do that shit
That's what drywall is for
"I once knew a guy who punched a wall and broke his hand so don't punch walls"
Wut
@@lucian5389It's almost as if you didn't watch the video
@@playtypus4592 nah I did i just don't see the point of this comment or what it has to do with karate, just sounds like someone got angry and punched a wall and broke his hand
@@lucian5389 At the time of this post 26 people got the point of my comment. If you didn't, I don't think any attempt at explaining will be fruitful...
Since I taught very old people (average 63, over 50,000 sessions 2001-2019) how to increase bone density under aging conditions, I feel like you are on the right path here. P.R.E.
who asked
@@obamabarak753 i did
10 sessions per day every day? lol
@@Anthony-ty6um 20 Minute sessions, and 10 is a light day. It works amazingly well for the older folks.
My favorite thing about Hard2Hurt videos is how equally eloquent and hilarious Mike's explanations are.
Wish I'd subscribed sooner.
Glad you're here now.
I've been fighting and training my whole life. Working barefisted comes with risk, mostly ripped skin, but does in fact make your knuckles harder, wrist stronger, and punching form better. Should not be an important part of a training camp tho.
^^^I also agree. Practicing punching hard surfaces (ie: walls, steel frames, concrete) taught me how to control my punches and optimize my form. Pain is a good teacher.
I also noticed that once I put gloves on, I started punching way harder and more effortlessly
Sure they get stronger but at what cost? Arthritis when you get older? A weak punch to prevent your hand from being broken if you do hit full force? I don't think a stronger hand matters when you constantly feel sore and it's not making your punches better, they'll still break should you hit someone in the face full force.
@@LethalByChoice ya no. Stronger means stronger, not weaker. And it can make you a better puncher.
why would there ever be a need to punch a wall?@@ToanTheNomad
"You can't be training everything all the time." I hope everyone rewound the video and listened to that again.
Keeping yourself at that point where you're tired but could still go a couple rounds means you could be training over 50% more than someone going to their limit and would have to completely wait to recover. It takes much longer to recover after you're completely spent than if you had a little left over for immediate recovery. This is where overtraining comes from.
I can’t thank you enough for the call-out about shins vs. hands at 9:32. Love your stuff, Mike!
All it takes is but a small mistake to realize how fragile we human beings really are😂😂
we're like iphones. some small drops crack our screens all to hell, and some big drops don't hurt us at all lol
Not even that. If the body "wants" to get injured, it will. I mean, sometimes (at least when it comes to lifting) you may warm up properly, progressively overload with patient, have absolutely everything on perfect and optimal condition and still get injured. I'd suggest you to watch a video made by Allan Thrall on that regard. The title was something like "I injured my ankle and this happened"
Humans can fuck up a leg just walking down the street. Anyone who underestimates the risk of injury in training is delusional at best.
Hit it right then🤷🏻♂️
sometimes people are completely fine after falling at terminal velocity sometimes people die falling down a single step
I broke my knuckles, bro, because I hit so hard, bro. Yeah, I can't compete, but I hit so hard, bro. 🤣
Lol
It's all about risk vs reward.
So always wear a condom unless she's mommy material.
Hahhhahahhhahaahaahhhaahaah
Training is a marathon, not a sprint. Same as in life. You want to be smart and functioning at a high level as long as possible. Right? Yeah, I don't speak for everyone.
Thrilled to find you coach. Appreciate the no B.S. well thought out content.
I've been knuckle conditioning for a little more than 3 years. My advice is to not strike at full power because it will take longer for bones to be usable (there are osteoblast vs osteoclast; one adds & one takes bone density) Strike 45% at most til your hands almost feel sore, as to not damage the blood vessels in your hand. Give your knuckles a day for healing.
I certainly do. I train bare knuckle 100% of the time, unless I'm engaging in sparring, in which we both wear gloves. Training with wraps and gloves teaches your wrists and knuckles to be weak. The wrap adds the support for you, and you never learn to hold your arm right. Bone density traiing requires makng micro-fractures to your bones that heal denser. Hitting a heavy bag bare knuckle is GOOD FOR YOU, because it will make your knuckels tougher, make you used to fist contact, teach you how to keep your own wrist straight and secure, and deaden the nerves in your hand.
Bone density: punch flat rocks lightly over time. Then one week, hit it harder. keep your hands lubricated and safe and don't go too hard. After 6 months of increasing rock punching, you'll have a bit more bone density.
what do you think of his deadlift analogy?
💩@@liamwebster6528
Exactly! It was when i started going hard on heavybag without gloves with my terrible technique and my weak wrists started to bend and hurt asf. Then i started going 50%, focusing on punch technique, and sometimes even going open handed Bass Rutten style with more power. Tbh i like these palm strikes. U usually dont hurt yourself
And after throwing bare knuckle hooks i had to re-learn them from positioning my knuckles horizontaly to verticaly (as you do in video). For some reason I almost always hurt myself with horizontal position of fist. Even tho I was teached like this in boxing.
5:46 😂my favourite part about this channel
Yea right? He got me every single time when he does that hahah
Underated comment, so fucking funny
@@ddwfw 👑
@@ddwfw you may not be little, man, but you sure are short fused 😂
@@ddwfw Sure... but « little man » sounds barely like an insult to me, specially if you are not, why do you even care ? Anyway, it’s your call dude... but you’ll fire off quite often if you live in the comments section 😂
I like to do a little bareknuckle because it keeps my form better. The way you land your punches will teach you what works and what doesn’t quickly. Also shin conditioning will help toughen those bones.
Funny thing is I use to train so much I use to feel like I could break my hands with wraps and thick boxing gloves. Gloves gave me wrist problems ,that hitting without gloves helped correct.
Two things 1. Knuckle pushups are NOT safe. One wrong rep and you can roll your wrist pretty bad. 2. What do you think of training in just wraps? It keeps me staying with good form and also protects my hands enough to punch with more force. Best if both worlds?
Use gloves everyone, especially if you want to learn other skills like playing instruments.
Or think about how important typing and using your fingers is in the 21st century. You could potentially lose the ability to use important devices over something that's pretty unimportant in the long run of life.
That's why I think sometimes is better to have an understanding of grabs and martial arts like Muay Thai for example. Your elbows and knees can serve you well when your hands are in trouble (or if you don't want to put them in trouble), especially if you're being grabbed. Your whole body can be a weapon, and you have to understand that another person's body can be, too
I mean I have been using a 120pound heavy bag for almost 6 years without gloves my hands still work perfectly fine. But yeah it probably is safer to use wraps and gloves.
@@MauZangetsu yh cos actually if you punch someone you can risk yourself breaking your knuckle whereas if you use your elbow or knee etc you will do more damage and receive less damage
Not for climbing tho
I used to do heavy bag bare knuckle training but it was hard on my wrists / knuckles. It did teach me proper form, though, because if I did it wrong it bent my wrist or injured me in other ways. I think your advice is great (use wraps/gloves for most of your training and bare knuckle to make sure your form is proper). Elbow strikes will mess up the rotator cuff as well if too much force is used (learned the hard way).
I used to do a lot of knuckles conditioning till one day in a fight my uppercut meet my opponent pointy elbow, the entire force was absorbed by my second knuckle but instead of breaking it went inside the hand and split my metacarpal bone in two. At the hospital they told me that I was incredibly unlucky because normally the knuckle would have just broked and no surgery would have been necessary. All that training ultimately worked against me...
Are you stupid? How do you think that has anything to do with knuckle conditioning? THey literally explained it was a freak accident
Saw the title and thought:
Who the hell are you to tell Barek Nuckle to stop training? 😜
That is actually part of the advantage of fighters who began as children. Having an older brother who taught me and made me see boxing as "fun", led to me punching the heavy bag, as well as wood walls throughout growing up. I would even punch and try to break anything I could find within reason as I grew. If you start young, and you can't punch as hard, and you learn to keep yourself at the lines of your limits, you'll develop in every way faster. I guess what I'm saying is.... start em young
Thank you so much for that very useful video.
I love your way of explaining, very straightforward but yet explainatory and based with a lot of good arguments.
Thanks to you i'm gonna stop doing only barehands (cause i prefer the sensation) and will always use my bands and gloves for the sake of my dear knukles🙏🏻
As a physician, who also trains combat sports, you’re exactly right. Wolff’s law applies to axial loading. The only thing “iron hand training” does is accelerate arthritis.
Wrong. First off, if you're a physician you're a stupid physician. My knuckle conditioning has dramatically increased. I'd love to see which one of us can hit the heavy bag longer. You want a hint? It's not you clown.
Interesting. I am 54. I have bag trained for 42 years. I have hit heavy and light bags bare knuckle as well as gloved literally millions of times. I have no arthiritis in my hands, which have also seen heavy work, as I have also spent nearly 20 of those years as a professional sailor... as in sailboats. Last 10 years my main combat sport has been Muay Thai. Still train hard, spending several months a year in Thailand doing so. No issues whatever. It's all about technique, well, and some biological fortune. Why have I trained so much bare? In part because it FORCES you to do correct technique, and because I did that from the get go at age 12. But also because ONLY training with bag gloves trains you to UNDER RANGE£ your strikes, as the glove makes contact 1.5 inches (with wraps) before the actual knuckle contact range.
@@AltaMirageK
7:37 As someone that has been training in Iron Palm conditioning since 1990, it does my heart good to hear someone say that bare knuckle training is to "test your attributes, not to develop them."
Another thing you said that I like is the part about not hitting as hard as you can while bare knuckle. I've been training bare knuckle conditioning for 30 years, and what you said is SPOT ON!
One thing about bare knuckle training that a lot of keyboard warriors don't get is that bare knuckle conditioning, while it does work on the bone density to a degree, it is mostly working on things like recoil, mental focus, practicing your body sinking into the ground for stability, and proper breathing.
You never, ever, EVER hit hard while bare knuckle conditioning. I'm in my mid 50s, and I have full articulation in my hands with no arthritis, because I never hit hard while bare knuckle. But this is the thing. I can break boards and bricks, but its not hard for me because I've done it for so long. So I'm not hitting hard. Someone else would break their hand because they would be hitting hard.
As someone training in a family of martial artists, my uncle having trained since the 70's as a kid, THANK YOU. The point that I'm glad he mentioned is the difference between hobbyists and people who live martial arts. We train our bone density and bone strength with consistent load over time, 4-5 days/week if not more. Not coming in 1-2x/Week and blasting the bag/brick/board. This concept really needs to be poured into the current training systems around the US, blasting = bad - consistent load over time = good.
How would you advice training it? I aspire to become a bareknuckle boxer,so i am practicing light punching barehanded on the heavybag.
Consistency beats intensity.
Especially in the bedroom.
Same here. As someone who does both weapons and unarmed combat arts I need my hands as more that bludgeoning tools. 😂
So, years ago I was curious about developing "harder hands". So I started lightly tapping on a pine bench almost daily until my knuckles were red, then stop, always careful to never bruise. I did this for about 2 years and worked up to being able to comfortably punch a steel I-beam at 25-50% power with zero problems or discomfort at all. So, in my experience as a non martial artist, time and consistency is more effective that trying to use brute force to get magic "iron hands".
In a street fight, you will be fighting bare knuckled. You do not want to use full force like if you are wearing boxing gloves. You need to have correct form, not punch full force, and get used to how it feels.
Definitely would say that bareknuckle bag work is better as a cooldown than a warmup, and also that it is FOR SURE very important. Great video.
I hit the bag bare knuckle to play around, and I am a hobbyist,who knows my technique sucks, so when my wrist says "ow" I wrap my hands, and put on my gloves, and stop doing dumb shit. Because as a mechanic, I can't get paid with broken hands. I always thought the point of the bag was footwork, angles, and resistance/ cardio related anyway.
Heavy bag without wraps is good at low power. Not for bone density, but at low power you can feel when you're alignment is off. You can feel that a hook punch isn't quite right with your wrist placement, and that you need to change it a bit.
Igor Vovchanchyn, who fought in lots of bareknuckle MMA matches, has ''hands the size of baseball mitts'', according to Bas Rutten (back when he was a Pride FC commentator), but he still ended up injuring them.
Mike Tyson got in one street fight and broke both his hands
@@nicksalvatore5717 Tyson probably had many street fights. And he broke ONE hand fighting Mitch Green, a pro boxer who went 12 rounds with him in the ring.
Breaking or injuring something, including the hands, doesn't mean much in the long run. Focus on self-management and it heals. Injuries are only permanent if the underlying "healing factor" and self-management is missing. Put in more efforts in regaining function and feeling and there is nothing to fear.
It’s a case of little and often and building up too. I do heavy bag with gloves and then hard focus pad on one hand for say 50 mixed upper cuts, cross, straight, elbows and knees. So a few each. I also do catching a heavy ball like striking for hand-eye and skipping and then back to heavy bag. Say 3-5 of the whole set. I do throw in a heavy bag empty hand for punch, palm and elbows say one or two sets. I dry of the sweat (important) and pick shots, being careful to hit square with the correct knuckle alignment (big two or smaller three, one or other and then make sure it is correct or easiest way to hurt the wrist by rolling or through impact). There is a place for it, but yes, not the be all and end all.
I'm an iron fist nerd myself..😂
And I confirm that it's risky and something that should be done ocationally (thanks for another eye opener hard 2 hurt)
Look at the conditioning videos of wonderboy. Very solid advice from a trained professional
@@rebel4466 legit. Wonderboy is awesome. Phenomenal athlete and martial artist.
Wonderboy definitely worked more on his footwork/timing/speed...than he did on shin conditioning 🙏
I'm a wonderboy subscriber
@@KarateTVtraditional footwork and striking during Masvidal fight fricken awesome
it should be done with care yes, but he's wrong in this video
Nice point on punching the heavy bag barehanded to test your power. I've injured my wrist real bad in a street fight simply because I didn't know my limit, and that is exactly what punching barehanded is good for: you can punch how ever hard you can, but your body has it's limits and you should know them. And of course you gotta land your punches correctly as well.
Thanks for the vid, man!
I do but its very lightly because I'm trying to make sure that I'm always hitting with my front two knuckles and not my finger or last 3. I hit the bag in mma hybrid gloves most of the time
You would still be punching with the wrong knuckles. The front 2 is wrong, that's how hands get broken.
@@adamj2381 hope he appreciates your advice
@@adamj2381 wrong.
@@hoop6988 wait up..hold on.. something aint right here, i just watched Wonderboy thompson about fist conditioning and his dad says the big knuckles are the right ones, aldo watched FightTips video titled ”i changed the way i punch” he said the same thing and he also added that squeezing the hand when punching streches the tendons in the knuckles and makes it easier to hurt the them and that he havent hurt his hand when he has them opened and relaxed when punching and also info on how to think about the wrists while punching, giving the fist s slight bend like when you point your finger towards something and then bend the finger back into place and then you have a slight bend to your fist that makes it harder to hurt it.
@@AckSnus in his video he also says to aim with a two knuckle landing
I love how it keeps everything inside sharp I was telling my friend that the other day
Thank you! I've literally ripped skin off of all my knuckles from punching without protection. Like it doesn't make you cool, it doesn't make you better, it just hinders your ability to train lol. Thank god I've grown up since those days haha
My man, you should not be ripping the skin off your knuckles if you’re hitting barefisted. You were actually getting valuable feedback from your body, that you were scraping and skimming your punches across the surface you were hitting. Burying bare knuckles into the bag should not be stripping skin off. By adding wraps and gloves you are assuring that you will continue to punch this way.
Sounds more like user error to me
cushion allows for longer hitting and different tranfer of resistance...bare knuckle is more plyometric and works from knucle to legs while wrapped helps works the whole body from legs to knuckle
(Me reading the title): I wonder when he's gonna explain the exact opposite of that.
Mike: 0:23
You've been here awhile i see
Yep.
You are a really good teacher! While you’re speaking I have a question in my head and you answer it within a minute or two! Great job glad I found your channel!
"But how can I get any real training with these pillow on my hands?" Says every guy I want to knockout.
Did not know that was called Wolff's law. There is so much misinformation and anecdotal accounts out there, and I have to admit, in my younger years, I was sucked into the ignorance of "iron bone" training and now I have nerve damage in both my shins, arthritis in my left wrist, and a loss of dexterity in my right hand. Its been about 15 years since I did anything like that. No one ever corrected me or told me it was wrong until I met my Wing Chun instructor and he called me an idiot and explained it to me correctly. Back then I never used gloves or wraps when I trained. Now I alternate between gloves and bareknuckle and I have a few other exercises that help strengthen the stabilizing muscles in your wrists.
I remember when Tyson broke his hand punching Mitch Green (who had a broken face). Gloves definitely protect and allow for more power.
The gloves protect only the opponent from cuts. Its the bandage under the gloves that protects your hand bone in my opinion.
BRO THANK YOU! I've been trying to get this into my buddies head because hes always hitting the bag without gloves and because that their currently in bad shape. Mike is a badass who knows what hes talking about more than other MMA fighters. If theres a man to listen to its Mike.
Interesting approach, a question tho, i didnt get one thing. Punching with gloves is safer for sure, but if your alignment is correct why cant you increase bone density with bare knuckles? If you can increase bone density with gloves you can also do it without them no? Is it due too much risk? Like yeah you can but you will probably hurt yourself before you get stronger kind of thing?
I hit the bag bareknuckle most of the time, but it's a lighter bag.
Being comfortable with your hands unprotected does a lot for your confidence in self-defence.
I think everyone should do at least a little bareknuckle bagwork...
easy to do your gloved session and then just take 'em off and work your bare hands for a couple minutes.
Even on heavy dense bags, the most I've ever used is thin mits, no wraps. Tweaked my wrist a few times, but no injuries.
One of the good myths in the UK was "soak your hands in petrol every day like the gypsy bare knuckle fighters and your hands will be like stone." Yeah, I'm not so sure about that one
Yh idk y that was a thing
More like ''Soak your hands in someone else's pockets'' :)
Holy shit hahah
It makes your skin go dry and callous, it's like callous playing guitar my finger tips are rock solid and don't feel much pain
@@michaelrea8090 hmm calloused fingertips hey? I like the sound of that. Handy for eyepokes and strikes to the throat - they don't call me wet Willy for nothin' neither.
Solid, thanks, you probably just saved me some injured off time
True story: One time I was trying to break up a box at work. I was punching it, but it wouldn't break. I was also kind of upset at the time, so I was angry with the box for not breaking. I lined it up, and drilled it as hard as I could. My fist flew through the box, and straight into the edge of the stainless steel sink behind it. My fist went numb, and I was sure I had broken it, but it was only bruised and swollen for a week. Don't break your hand.
Mate you are so right. Long term Kyokushin practitioner here - we always said that it was about teaching structure and alignment.
I use a Makiwara to harden my fists. My heavy bag is one of those heavy duty ones, so if I use bare knuckle on it, my hands are gonna get fucked up
You will get mad athritis bro its not worth
@@hayate503
Dude, I won’t get arthritis from using a Makiwara. If I hit it with proper form like I am, don’t have to worry about too many injuries. Look and fact check something before you say it can do something
@@hypnoticskull6342 form is the key!
@@hayate503 Makiwara is for form training and ensuring proper alignement.... Pretty much what Mike was saying. And yes it has it value as it was clearly explained. I use it myself and am not facing any such injuries. I use bags for power speed and strenght. I only use bare hand to confirm all is good and that I am not indeed striking with a "gloved" part of the hand when without gloves.
Makiwara is not for developping Iron Fist. Reason: There is no such thing as Iron Fist, well except for that RZA movie lolol
@@hayate503 There are many people that practice makiwara for a long time and have no issues with arthritis. As others have said, makiwara is not meant to be a stiff board that you punch until your knuckles bleed. The recoil is the key to the tool, and that doesn't require trying to smash the thing to the moon. I've been hitting for 9 months now. Besides a minor skinned knuckle from time to time, hands feel fine.
i always was told about this by my trainer and since i have have a brain i kinda knew its dumb to train bareknuckle on heavybag. But now i experienced it: i was at a party at somebodys house and this dude had a heavybag in his room and drunk me wanted to work on it ofc. My fists were bleeding after that. And i didnt even go 100%, only like 70 at most
The life experience of an old guy (47): I broke lots of ribs with my fists in 18 oz gloves, so I would say, that I punch hard. I punched as hard at the heavy bag during training every second day for 20 years. Some of the sessions with the fists only in training mittens (to protect the skin on the nuckles). Training mittens are basically small boxing gloves with only the leather and no padding. Never had any problems, never broke my hand. Probably also due to lots of push ups on the fists as preparation.
Now I already had two shoulder surgeries because the cartilage is gone and I am facing surgery for artificial shoulder joints. I believe its due to the heavy bag training. I dont think its connected to the barenuckle training, because I have done this only frequently. I think its due to punching Karate style, with the whole body behind each hit.
If you think you will break your hands fast without gloves because Tyson did so: barenuckle boxing exists for centuries. They get injured a lot. But I think cuts are a far greater risk for these athletes than hand injuries.
So in my opinion this proves icy Mike wrong.
You can fight and train without bandages with minimal risk.
If you think the additional risk is worth because it makes you a slightly better fighter.
Thats up to you.
Bro did you break sparring partner ribs
@@noone-pg4lr Yes. And I can see what you are hinting. But I didnt bullied nobody. This were the old school days. And you need some knowledge about the "local customs" to understand this. Long story short: I trained fitness in a gym. But this was not a 24/7 modern chain, but an old school family business. Twice a week, when the gym closed in the evening, five hard looking men came in to train during the night. I did competitions in this days. After winning a full contact kickbox bout in the first round via K.O. I got an invitation to join their nightly training circle without knowing them prior. I was in my early twenties. And did the fights in the weight class below 59 kg. And looked like 16. They were real gangsters and pimps in their late fourties and were bodybuilder and about 90kg upwards. (You have to understand this was long ago in the nineties, and they were already retired at this time and active in the 70ies. But when they have been active, the red light district in Germany was controlled by Germans. This is not any more the case. And to avoid blood shed it was frowned to kill somebody with a gun. If you had business to sort out, and this was about millions, you did it with the fists. So all this businessmen were former "professional" street fighters.) There was no light sparring. We always looked for the body K.O. in every sparring round. Just to the head you had to go light. So I broke ribs confirmed only three times (A couple more times might have been only bruised ribs?). One of this guys. One friend of them, who didnt believed the story of the broken ribs and wanted to try the sparring for himself. And the third time it was a friend of me and a mistake. Done during ground combat. To this day I dont really know how it happened.
@@scheisstag damn bro your a scary mf
@@noone-pg4lr Thanks. I dont look any more like sixteen. But I am still tiny and look now probably pretty much like Flanders, from the Simpsons..... Hi diddly ho!
Thank you for covering this again. It's a very critical and not so simple thing.
Haha I get your point still but .....FYI: round back lifting is being rediscovered as beneficial.
As another guy said : training bare-knuckle is not important only for density but also for wrist/knucle alignement.
So it's not only about bone density/power but also simply about HOW you punch, your technique.
As you know, hitting without gloves is A LOT more forgiving on your form. You can hit with the wrong knuckles, with the wrist loose and misaligned, with the thumb even and not notice it at all.
And you won't get better at aligning/hitting with the good form if you train more with gloves. On the contrary you'll probably reinforce your habits of hitting with wrong form.
So if your goal is self-defense, or fighting bare-knuckle in whatever sport(Kyokushin for example), you should devote at least some time to training how you punch without gloves.
You should make a brain conditioning video
Made me burst out laughing 😂😂
Yes, you should always do head-impact conditioning WITH HEADGEAR ON. lol.
Joshua Fabia
He makes all the time
lung conditioning by using a dermaroller
Liking your content recently. Watched your videos for a while but finally Subscribed. Agree with you 100% on this one, and I used to do makiwara training back in the day. The only reason I hit the heavy bag bare knuckle is to make sure my form is correct, like you mentioned. I have a tendency to over-rotate my punches and make contact with my ring finger and pinky, which is a boxer's fracture waiting to happen. When I hit the bag with gloves on I can get away with it, since I don't have the direct feedback on my knuckles. Bare knuckled I immediately know if I did it or not. Of course I'm not punching full force, because then I would risk hurting my hand on the inevitable over-rotation.
Bruh.. look at your fist structure in the gloves+wraps+padding. The biggest point is that it forces wrong structure. Also your wrist is supported so doesn't get to be strong enough in terms of staying straight when punching - apart from the fist-wrist structure issue. Your knuckles also don't get conditioned enough to deal with hitting hard bone by mistake etc.
I can hit a bag FULL FORCE bare knuckle and I generate significantly more power than most people I've trained around - and definitely harder than you 😂 Messed up some bags and snapped chain links in the process.
Of course, I've had to work up to it over several years. I also punch walls etc - not full force obviously - to condition my knuckles. Started off VERY LIGHTLY and gradually increased force as per what my fists are telling me.
0 injuries, no disfigured / arthritic knuckles ever. I'm 38, started training karate when I was 8-9 for a few years and took up mma after a decade or so gap, but kept training punches, breaking bricks etc throughout my life.
I like your stuff, but you really don't know what you're talking about here.
I agree with EVERYthing you are saying
I agree with you. I just got to the point where i can hit a bag with all my power if i use the two big knuckles, now im practicing a flat fist 4 knuckle contact to condition the smaller knuckles since, lets face it, in a real scenario a lot of your strikes wont land the way you expect or hope them too.
Co-signed 💯
@@pilot.wav_theory very true
@@pilot.wav_theory 4 knuckle contact is hard/near impossible on a flat-ish surface imo. It would involve intentionally depressing the middle finger knuckle, which I don't want to do. There is a philosophy where the first two knuckles are the 'bullet' and the last 3 are the 'hammer'. It works great for me. The hammer is basically a Wing Chun style punch. I will say that it's especially important to strengthen the pinky knuckle for the hammer though.
I appreciate stuff like this because you explain things like a mature adult and simply.
I tell my students the same thing: wraps and gloves to develop power, bareknuckle with less power to check your alignment.
I also get some idiots who watch too many movies and end up punching walls and pillars for "conditioning". As you said, they aren't punching as hard as they can; and even that with crap alignment.
I actually train the heavy bag mostly without gloves or wristbands, I've noticed that as long as you are not scraping the bag you should be fine when connecting with the bag.
Or in a nutshell: "I kinda, pretty much know quite well what I'm talking about, but still manage to sorta narrowly yet hugely miss the mark on the subject".
I don't claim to be a subject matter expert, maybe I am, maybe I am not, I actually know a guy who is one of THE top subject matter experts on bare knuckle training and fighting, he's a 4 times full contact karate world champion who also happened to do in depth research and write his diploma thesis on the subject on the Why's and the how's of bare knuckle training and conditioning going in depth with what happens with layers of tissues to a cellular level.
Although we share a quite similar training regiment on this topic, he is by far an expert compared to myself.
Now, there's a lot of misinformation and stigma which is sadly amped up by the plethora of McDojos out there, however; there were "probably are still extremely few here and there" dojos with senseis who actually had extremely well conditioned hands which felt like rocks even to the lightest impact, slap, nevermind full force punches and they could fight.
I have been trained since an early age to condition my hands and have been ever since (although not to the degree of sensei) and I have fought and trained with and without gloves. Conditioning the hands and knuckles doesn't happen in 2 weeks, 3 weeks, 6 weeks. It's a long sustained process different for everyone.
The old and lost reason why these "yoda masters", however modern people love to label them all and paint them with the same brush, conditioned their hands (among other parts), is because in older, traditional styles of fighting such as karate there were punches to the head and surprise, surprise, eons ago, they discovered that the skull is A LOT denser than hands and you can easily hurt or destroy your hands punching bare knuckle into a skull.
Thus they developed methods, apparently almost completely lost, to condition those hands to withstand the demands of punching skulls. Back in those days karate was less pretty, less flashy, a lot more effective and they surely didn't have the comfort and plush of the modern age to have gloves and pads. Plus, the styles back then were mainly meant to be used of practical applications, self defence and not sport. And since you couldn't carry your gear, your gloves (which they didn't have, but for the sake of the argument) and tell your assailant to wait until you wear your gloves before punching him in the face, their best option was to condition those hands and fists.
referiing to that, IIRC kyokushinkai originally admitted punches/strikes to the head, but they became banned because people ended fucked up even in sparrings, right?
@@jacksteppenwolf6975 That's right, as far as I recall. Same thing happened to the original karate styles. They were originally designed and meant to be effective tools of self defense and warfare (guns weren't and aren't a thing everywhere in the world. Most places in the world require hand to hand combat), but that version of karate wasn't for anyone who's not serious or dedicated plus it wasn't pretty or sexy to look at, just purely effective to mess attackers up. The number of practitioners declined, less disciples and thus they needed to make changes to attract people and save the art from going extinct. Enter western boxing, fencing and French early kick boxing, thus kicks, flying kicks and the lot.
In the vast majority of the last 70 to 100 years or so, people have only seen and known the watered down versions of martial arts styles and systems, the sporting versions of them and got the wrong idea that those are actually what they are like. People are used to modern times and ignore that way back when people, including military only had their bodies and objects to fight, defend, win battles. It's in the damn name ffs "Martial" = Mars, God of War, Arts. Arts of War. Not rounds, not tippy tat, points, scoring etc.
So then guys and experts like this guy on this channel goes and forms his, their oppinion based on what they see and then go "X martial art fucking suck, dude ! Bunch of idiots!", "matter of fact, all martial arts suck! Nothing but pussies and dancing idiots!"
MMA rules, man !
Which... I cannot begin to describe how ignorant and redundant that is...
Bine
Nice book
@@nicksalvatore5717 Ah, I see that you are a man of culture!
"In closing, If you can punch things full force without hurting your hands, you can't fight" - this is most beautiful video summary i have ever heard 🔥
Just do what Jack Dempsey recommends, hit the bag while wearing leather gloves.
He also hit with the lower 3 knuckles to minimize the chance of a fracture.
I somewhat agree, somewhat disagree. I think it's different for every person. You can't just make a blanket statement like "if you can punch as hard as you can and not break your hands, you don't punch hard or you don't fight well." There are so many factors involved, and you only touched on a couple of them. It's not just about form, it's not just about bone density, it's not just about muscle strength. It's also about the time you as an individual person have spent developing each of those things, and it's also about the state of mind you are in, in the exact moment you throw a punch. Even in one training session, every punch is different, no two punches are identical. So if you haven't spent as much time developing form or bone density, but you have a lot of muscle and power from lifting weights, then yeah, you are likely to break your hand if you bare-knuckle the bag as hard as you can. On the flip side, if you ONLY train by hitting wood boards, stone bricks, and that kind of thing, then your form and bone density are going to be better than your muscle power, relative to each other, but that doesn't automatically mean you don't have the power to hit hard. Some people have genetics that give them natural strength without trying. And back to the state of mind thing. If someone who trains by hitting bricks and knows their bone density is strong, they will have the mental confidence to be ABLE to use ALL their strength in a punch, whereas a person who does mostly weightlifting and bag work and has more power than bone density, is going to subconsciously hold themself BACK in order to AVOID injury. Your subconscious mind is always thinking about how to avoid injury, that is the WHOLE reason we have instincts and reflexes. So it doesn't matter how strong you are, how good your form is, or how many hours you spend punching a bag. I think when it comes to a REAL fight or a REAL self-defense situation, the guy who punches bricks is going to win, most of the time. However, if you really want to be the best fighter you can be, don't focus on one end of the spectrum, try to keep a good balance of everything.
problem is, on the street, I wasn't wearing any hand protection and I broke 2nd phalang of a pinky and squashed my ulnar joint.
Could've practiced those bones to be more stable but my coach in the boxing gym said it was a waste of time. Now I'm fucked.
"Your training should be more realistic" - LOL training is exactly the opposit: a way to simulate a particular aspect of the resulting performance by isolating it and thus making it _almost_ unrealistic. Squats and deadlifts are an unrealistic suplex.
Also, thanks for bringing reason into martial arts. Expirienced experts might be great at doing stuff, but that does not automatically transition to analysing, understanding, and explaining stuff. That's why we need you.
“Push up knuckles are the dochiest!”haha! I went to check out this karate school for kids when I was young, and the place was a total real life Cobra Kai (the original with Kries), and when the kids would mess up, they would yell at them, and make them do knuckle push-ups. Scared the shit out of me.
Never went back.
There is no fear in this Dojo
You weren't man enough for Cobra Kai
@@lucian5389 it’s true, I was 8 lol.
Yeah man, people might laugh but Karate Kid really based that off some of those douchey Karate places! I feel they were much more common a few decades ago, a greater emphasis on pressure testing made crap like that much less popular.
As a person who just started training. Listen to Mike. I just kicked the punching bag so hard I almost fractured my leg. I still can't walk straight
People who can’t afford gloves:
“Damn, I must suck at fighting.”
Yes.
Just look up “James Figg” on Google. And that’s all I gotta say on the matter.
I have been hitting a makiwara board 100x per day for the last 3 months, and I STILL agree with what Mike said. I still use gloves or wraps for most of my bag work.
1:13 lmao Mike even mocks bones
Stupid bones
My 2 cents: Your body being able to sustain your own strikes is a chain - from skin on knuckles to ligaments and bones, muscles in hands... And on up the wrist, arm, shoulder to core...
If you want your hands to be better prepared for striking while not gloved you should do some bare knuckle training to strengthen those parts of the chain that gloves protect. But go slow and make it a long term project to prevent injuries.
Absolutely Mike is right that developing maximum power should be done with gloves... On the other hand, learning to strike effectively without gloves may involve gauging your power, and choosing your striking method (fist versus palm strikes etc) and targets.
If your goal is to be competing in gloves I think again that he's right - plenty of bone density etc would be developed hitting hard with wraps and gloves.
Oh - and his point about bare knuckle as testing ability is great
Bag mitts are a good compromise. I've got a pair I bought over thirty years ago, made from kangaroo hide. They stink, but they really work.
I train both with bag gloves and bare knuckles. In a real fight, in the street or park wherever you're not gonna have your gloves. Tf you gonna say hold up let me run home real quick and get my gloves nah. I love training both glove and bare. My Muay Thai teacher said the same thing too.
I stopped the video at 5:40. Your video makes me want to make a video on iron fist training, because it seems like, oh never mind. I feel like I'm the last man on earth.
Right I'm sure it's you that's right and everyone else is wrong...
I feel your pain!!
He is right about a lot of what he says in this video.
You have to remember, the training methods we learned in Kung Fu are just not available to these guys. They never had a sifu who would fill a small head bag with cement, and pound it to dust, just for the fun of it, let alone teach how to train for that ability. They think things like that are impossible.
@@hard2hurt right I'm sure it's you who's right and everyone is wrong . Michael jay white give a better explanation how to hit the bag bare knuckle or with no wraps with out getting hurt and building strength in your hands .the same my boxing trainer told me George Luis Gonzales a old man still capable of punching threw cinder blocks bare handed with no problem .like you said just depends in the individual goals and reasons behind training this kinda method and how much you should be doing
And how are your viewers morons because your the goof with bad vocabulary and social skills who cant explains or get your point across correctly in a non condescending way
@@ivanvalera3250 it's "you're" btw
Agree. I have a few years of training in kyokushin and now I am working on my boxing. As many of you know, kyokushin is a bare knuckle fighting style, but we did not hit bare knuckle that often, reason is that your ability to hit objects that are at least a little hard is limited. I have good hand conditioning, but I if I do like five two minute rounds barehanded on a heavybag and putting force behind them, I will not be able to hit something remotely hard for a few days. There are body resources that younhave to keep in mind. My take is: you should punch a heavybag without gloves on occasionally, but be careful and give your body some rest after it. Also, don't do it the first time you hit the gym, you need some conditioning beforehand. Do not try to hit walls and anything that is harder than your bones, the only thing you are going to get from it is injuries, I got some this way back in a day. I still have a bump on my shin from the time I kicked a metal tube a few times, and it was around 6 years ago, it's permanent
I see Canelo's bag work throwing bombs with gloves and it seems that he had no issues breaking BJS's face with his first. Dude probably has some iron fists.
I do bareknuckle, but not in the way you Think. I dont punch hard, i actually just work accuracy, by placing tape where i messure my head body etc..... not for conditioning. It helped ME a lot. But i mostly use reflex Ball, for hand eye coordination.
I’m a medical student, and would love it if y’all stopped coming into rheumatology clinics with arthritis. I’m getting bored during my shifts hahah
Nah you need to eat
Put it better than anyone I know could. I only hit it bare knuckle because I want more of a solid impact and I train bare knuckle boxing. Other than that I take a 10 gal bucked of sand and smack it palm side down, back side down and then punch it straight down to develop bone density.
Knuckle push ups. Makes me shake thinking about it. Probably done thousands and thousands of them. Military dad thought they were good as punishment.
They were.
I learned using lightweight bag gloves. I learned very early that if I hit the heavy bag wrong it hurt bad. I started slow and built up. I hate wearing boxing gloves on the bag, because I feel like it makes me lazy with alignment.
Same dude i hit the bag with mma hybrid gloves because i hate the feeling of boxing gloves but i like u said boxing gloves makes ppl feel too protected that they neglect the alignment of the knuckles
I love that you unironically call people dorks.
This video has enlightened me a lot and has brighten up my evening and I have gained a lot from it... :)
Right, here is my obligatory complaining that I need to make any time you get into bareknuckle ,from a brown belt Kyokushin karate practitioner (not that that should matter).
Sorry for the length:
Your hand position inside wraps and gloves is very different to how they should be if you are hitting properly bareknuckle, thus you are not conditioning the same parts of your hand to withstand impact (parts including tendons and ligaments, not just bone). Your body adjusts to EXACTLY what you do to it. You need to do bareknuckle if you want to improve your bareknuckle. It's not a case of the conditioning happening less, there are important parts of it that are simply not happening at all. You don't even need to develop the habit of clenching your fists tight before impact.
Your analogy at 2:28 is awful, no offense. There is no way to lift that way properly, it is incorrect by definition and is essentially guaranteed to do you harm. There is a way to hit bareknuckle properly, as you are well aware. The only time you hurt your hands is when your form fails you, which becomes less and less likely with practice.
A big question not addressed at all here is what is your reason for training?
If unarmed self-defense is of primary importance to you, then being able to hit hard with protection is useless to you. It's like weight training for functional strength and neglecting to train your grip strength. Whatever strength/power you have that can't be output through your bare hands is useless to you outside of sport.
Gloves are like training your squat, your deadlift will go up, but you still need to deadlift for form etc, if you're working on your deadlift. Bareknuckle and gloved are tools, both useful as he mentions in the video. You make some decent points but there is still a lot of carryover from one to the other that's beneficial, they're not entirely different.
@@teufelnabsterbennie8826 True but I think that the proportion of time that you spend between two things should be more or less the same as the ratio between the importance that you place on being able to do each of those things well. If your deadlift is far more important to you then it would be silly to spend most of you time squatting. All depends on what your goals are.
@@afroduck6991 Fair point.
If your goal is self defence, walk with a group and carry good weapons. Dont waste any time boxing, just go eliminate your enemies with weapons.
Thats what self defence is. Bare knuckle boxing is competition. None of this is for safety, these are things people do for fun.
If youre not willing to carry and use a weapon, youre not willing to defend yourself.
Dont ever look at martial arts training and think "But realism! But the streets!" No. Its not related at all in any way
@@SicFromTheKush Neither of those are always practical in some people's circumstances. Where I live for example, if someone picks a fight with you they are very likely to only be using their fists themselves and almost all weapons are illegal. Any weapons used would escalate things rapidly, the person is usually just an angry drunk
Brother I think you’re part Vulcan, the logic is strong with this one🖖🏼ive been a mixed martial artist most of my life but just training at home with my dad and papa, so I have 0 dojo time in the real sense I guess. I’ve almost always hit the bad at least wrapped up. You gotta let every part of your body rest at different incriments in your training. Thank you thank you for the content 🙏🤓
You say hitting the bag barehanded is like benching with a rounded back, but then say there's a place for hitting the bag barehanded. There definitely isn't a place for benching with a rounded back.
Your form is really good.
I absolutely f'd up both my wrists and my ankle on bags before and they were out for a week or 2 minimum. Now I always Always wrap my wrists and ankles.
So wait??? If you hit something and break your hands? …then you can fight? 😂🤦♂️
No it means you are throwing with power, assuming you have proper hand positioning on impact
@@NoProtect some people’s knuckles are different tho … you can’t necessarily say that … that’s like saying some Thai guys shins that kick bare metal with no Rope around the pole can’t kick hard … yes they can … it’s just not recommended for beginners and is a process to build up bone density callus… you also have to eat properly to when conditioning
I'll admit I haven't trained regularly in years, but I do teach my kids. They saw me bare knuckling the heavy bag and tried to mimic me. I immediately told them no. They think I'm going full force bare knuckle when I'm not. I taught them gloves are to train power and bare knuckle is for your form, but at 50% power and about 75% speed. Then work your up on both as your technique improves, but never full on.
And I don't get the knuckle conditioning on a bag. Maybe if you have a rough texture one? Dunno, my old TKD master taught us to train our knuckles and wrist etc... on hard surfaces. But again, never full power. Just lots of reps of light punches. Wooden board against the wall, bamboo sticks, stuff like that.
I'm late on this one, but great video as always!