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THIS IS A MESSAGE
BONES
I've always had kind of a grudge against bone conditioning and all of that stuff, the way I see it, if it hurts getting hit, train yourself not to get hit. Obviously I understand that there's an inevitable risk of hitting areas of your body that hurt like crazy, like the shins, but still I'd rather spend my time training sparring and that sort of thing first, and if I ever got to the point where I was completely badass and perfect at fighting I'd extend to other ideas of conditioning and etc.
Here's a question though - How many people that are studying martial arts, are actually at that point?
Very few.
I've always had the impression that people use bone conditioning to rush themselves into a new kind of martial artist, 'hardcore' status. I say this because bone conditioning involves hurting yourself, really, or at least telling other people about how much you hurt yourself. People I've known tended to talk about how they condition their bones and all of this, when really saying that just makes me cringe. I'm talking generally, but at least 75% of people that tell me about their bones conditioning tended to be people that I would classify as 'All talk' and when they stepped into a ring, or had to do some push-ups would be the first to complain.
I have no beef with people that do it seriously, I'm just saying that its become too much of a gesture for people wanting to sound amazing.
Here are some thoughts of mine though. As I've been studying at university I went onto a mad bone-researching binge, and the information that I found was quite contrary to popular belief.
Firstly the concentration of the osteoblasts, the bone producing cells is most abundant at the 'spongy', cancellous bone which is found in the end of the long bones, not in the centre. Therefore the potential for bone to actually get stronger is actually much greater at the ends of the long bones, and in the short bones, both of which are rarely ever trained during bone conditioning.
Secondly this form of bone is found at the edge of long bones, and therefore between joints. These are strengthened in the same way that muscle is, as in through the destruction, or stress placed upon old bone, that causes the body to over compensate when regenerating new bones, but this occurs in more everyday exercise than a person might think. For example weight lifting is one of the prime examples of an exercise that increases bones strength simply because the resistance of a weight places more stress upon the joints and the edges of bones so the body reacts accordingly. The same applies to running placing stress upon the knee, ankle and hip joints, and research has shown that tennis players racket-hand has bones much stronger than the dormant hand. My point being in the paragraph that the way in which we train to build tougher bones in martial arts doesn't necessarily have to be so brutal.
Thirdly, I would like to point out to people that there is in fact a muscle, thin as it may be, that extends from the foot to knee partly protecting the shin. I'm wondering whether or not it is in fact that muscle that develops instead of the bone getting stronger or nerve endings dying, because it always seems that people are most successful in conditioning their shins.
anyway, that's my opinion. I'd love for people to give me theirs, I might finally understand this whole thing a bit better.
