Many martial arts forums are full of questions like How can I harden my tibia to kick harder? Is it good to practice bone hardening? What are the consequences? In this article, we will answer these questions.
First I am going to tell you an anecdote, related to this topic. A few years ago I went to Thailand on vacation (wonderful country by the way), and on one of those days, I went to a Muay Thai evening. It consisted of 6 fights. In the first 5 matches, the age of the fighters would be between 14 and 20 years old. No more. In the last one there were 2 fighters who would be between 24 and 30 years old. Then I asked the local guide who accompanied us:
– Why are the wrestlers teenagers?
– Most do not reach 30, and few reach 25 years – she answered me – and they do not retire because they are full of money, but because many are left with strong consequences of their previous years of very aggressive fighting and training. – he continued.
– A shame.
What is meant by hardness of a bone?
The human body has several types of bone, but in this article we are going to focus on long bones (the tibia for example). The term hardness applies primarily to minerals. Hardness is the resistance to being scratched offered by the smooth surface of a mineral. The bone consists of an organic part and an inorganic part. It is this inorganic part formed mainly by calcium salts, which provides hardness, rigidity and resistance to compression to the bone (that is why calcium and vitamin D (which helps the absorption of that by the body) are so important to the bone. time to promote bone metabolism).
Can a bone be hardened?
When a martial art wants to harden / condition a tibia, it does so because it wants its blow to be harder, and / or because it does not hurt to hit. First of all, clarify that the bones do not harden with any type of special training . When receiving many impacts after hitting a sac, for example, microcracks are produced, and the nerve points on the surface of the bone (perimysium) are destroyed, and that makes it lose sensitivity. It’s not that the bone is harder, you just feel less pain. Our threshold to pain increases, and each time we tolerate better impacts that we previously perceived as painful.
On the other hand, if we can strengthen and make bones more dense through training . Training with heavy loads, plyometric work and any physical activity in general, produces an increase in bone density, since it increases the demand and absorption of calcium (1).
A bone that is subjected to stress within its limits becomes stronger because the trabecular and cortical thickness increases, and this makes it able to withstand more stress (2).
These statements come to consolidate the Law of Wolff , a German surgeon who dedicated many years to the study of bones and wrote a book (The law of bone transformation) where this law appears, and that comes to say that any change in the structural conformation of a bone is the product of a dynamic phenomenon of adaptation to the mechanical demands imposed by the environment. That is, the bones respond adaptively to applied stress, as long as it is repeated for a sufficient time. This is roughly equivalent to the principle of overload that applies to weight training.
We can see an example of Wolff’s Law in astronauts. As the bones do not receive pressure in space (absence of gravity), they suffer loss of bone density. Studies of astronauts who lived for several months at Mir station revealed that they can lose 1 to 2 percent of their total bone mass per month.
Does a martial art have more bone density than any other athlete?
There are various studies in this regard. We are going to cite the following from The Open Sports Sciences Journal (3), where the bone mineral density (BMD bone mineral density) of the spine at the lumbar level (L2, L3 and L4) and of the femur is analyzed in male and female athletes high level of various sports. Bone mineral density is obtained by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). 209 women and 173 men, aged between 17 and 30 years, participated in the study, distributed among the following sports disciplines: 37 runners, 16 cyclists, 22 triathletes, 62 soccer, handball, volleyball and basketball athletes, 45 wrestlers and judokas, 13 dancers, 126 sports students (they practiced different sports at the sports university in Cologne, Germany), and 61 subjects who did not train occasionally, and who served as a control group. All athletes have at least 4 years of specific training, 4 times a week 6 hours in total. Control group individuals train less than 2 hours per week.
The highest values are found in the groups of wrestlers and judokas, and in team sports athletes (soccer, handball, volleyball and basketball), all of which are classified as high impact sports . The lowest values are found in the control group, dancers, and endurance athletes, such as runners, cyclists or triathletes, who are classified as low-impact sports. The explanation of these results can be given by analyzing the specific loads to each sport. Judo or wrestling includes high pulling forces, which impinge on the bone, or reaction forces due to repeated falls to the ground. In team sports, the high values of bone mineral density are due to jumps, sprints and rapid changes of direction, which induce high stresses on the bone system.
So, how should I train to strengthen my shins, and increase the pain threshold in them?
You have to do progressive work hitting cloths and bags without shin guards, and sparring with shin guards. We progressively increase the duration of the hitting sessions, and their intensity (either by eliminating protections if we need to use them at some point, or by using a harder bag), so that our bones adapt to a more demanding training . If after hitting the bag, we get a bruise, that bag is too hard for us, and if it also appears in the muscle area, we are kicking badly).
We can take as valid, the protocol included in the book, “Muay Thai, the art of figthing”, by Yod Ruerngsa, Khun Kao Charuad and James Cartmell, which includes the following points:
- Kick the bag at least 100 times each training day. The authors speak of reaching 500 per day.
- Begin kicking lightly and gradually increase power so that you kick at full power from kick number 30.
- At the beginning and end of the session, massage the tibia vigorously along its entire length with the knuckles of the index and middle fingers to achieve good blood flow through the session.
- To condition the warm do not kick your warm with sticks, wood or bottles. This causes bruises and swellings.
The practices of hitting palm tree trunks and similar products of television heroics will eventually lead to injuries such as bone edema, periostitis, arthritis, etc.
Sources :
- 1. Ebben, W., et al. Magnitude and Rate of Mechanical Loading of a Variety of Exercise Modes. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 2010 24 (1), 213-217.
- 2. Rodrigo Casto Vásquez and Víctor Miranda Mardones (Biomechanics of the bone).
- 3. The Open Sports Sciences Journal, 2010,3, 129-133
- Science @ NASA
- “Muay Thai, the art of figthing”, by Yod Ruerngsa, Khun Kao Charuad and James Cartmell.
