In the wide world of martial arts, strikers often have differing views on how to toughen the hands and build their body to handle the impact of striking with a closed fist. Some of these methods are tried and true, while others will leave you with hands that can’t hold a spoon. After years of training in many arts and working to keep my hands safe, I have decided to make this list of methods to try and methods to stay far away from. Understand that I am not a doctor or a physical therapist. I am not a master of Iron Fist. I am someone who has practiced striking arts for many years. This are my personal views on the subject of hand conditioning. Talk to a medical professional before taking up any hand conditioning.
Works Best
Hitting the Heavy Bag
The body conditions best for an activity by performing that activity. So if you want to be good at swimming, swim. If you want to be good at striking, strike. There are of course secondary and tertiary exercises you can do to improve this. Yet the best thing to get your hand conditioned to striking is to hit with them. The heavy bag is perfect for this. It’s a soft surface that still has weight. This means you don’t risk cracking bone, but if your form is off on a punch, you will feel it in your wrist. You get live feedback and returning pressure. Hitting the bag (even gloved) causes microfractures to occur in the knuckles, mostly the ends of the metacarpals. Any striker worth their salt hits the heavy bag.
To hit the heavy bag for conditioning, start with gloves on. Get used to hitting the heavy bag at varying levels of power. Practice your speed, cadence, and footwork. Once you are thoroughly used to hitting the bag with gloves, just wear some hand wraps. Do the same exercises you have been practicing. After a while, try without your wraps, completely bare knuckle.
Do not hit as hard as you have been, especially not as hard as you can. Instead, work on form and speed. Seek to find what works well for you. When learning to hit the heavy bag bareknuckle, do so under professional supervision. One should also understand that even after learning how to hit the heavy bag bareknuckle, much of the bag time should be spent gloved. Heavy bag conditioning is a slow, methodical process. Be careful and practice good form.
Knuckle Pushups
Knuckle pushups are beautiful things. They don’t really condition by impact, they condition the supportive structures of the hands and arms. Pushups work the triceps, pecs, delts, serrati anterior, and your abs. Knuckle pushups do the same, but also work the muscles and tendons of the forearms to keep your wrists straight. This helps prepare you for hitting with a closed fist and is an essential tool in any striker’s workout plans.
Pullups
I know it seems counterintuitive, but pullups can help your punches. While pullups mostly work the antagonizing muscles of a punch, they also improve your forearms and overall grip strength. When punching with a closed fist, you want the punch to be loose at first and lock into a strong grip on impact. I would also like to say, if you’re not doing pullups, go do some. Pullups are so useful as an everyday exercise. I would dare say they are essential. If you don’t have the space for a pullup bar, you can always do table rows. These will help with grip strength and work your upper back. If you like outdoor sports, try rock climbing as well.
Works Well
Weight Lifting
Weight lifting conditions your hands the same way it conditions the rest of your body. You put strain on your muscles and tendons and because of this, they heal stronger. Proper weight lifting will greatly improve your grip strength. Plus, lifting can be a very useful part of any growth or fitness plan. The reason I put this in “works well” instead of “works best” is because of the equipment needed and the knowledge needed. I would recommend going through a strength training program with a certified trainer if you are new to weight lifting. You can often find such programs at your local gyms and YMCAs.
Hitting Sandbags
Sandbags serve the same purpose as a heavy bag. Some can hang on walls, some are single bags used for iron fist training. Most bags nowadays come empty so you can fill with what you’d like. The old progression often looks like sand, dry beans, pebbles, steel shot. All you really need is the sand or dry beans. Sandbags condition your hand the same ways a heavy bag does, through impact. If you have wall bags, you can practice punches, chops, palm strikes and even finger jabs (carefully). Unhung bags are more often used to practice the full range of open hand striking. Since wallbags and lone sandbags are backed up by something hard like a wall or table, you don’t strike as hard as you would on a heavy bag. Slow, methodical strikes are how should start training with sand bags. If you aren’t used to these, I would recommend finding a coach or sifu who can give you advice on use.
Makiwara
Makiwara are striking posts used in karate, kenpo, and other such arts. The most common type is a single post of wood with a rectangular target at the top for striking. It can be made of rice straw, leather, rope, or sometimes duct tape and newspaper. Occasionally, you will also see makiwara with stone parts, but this is rare. Makiwara are an excellent resource for hand conditioning and striking training in general. I hesitate to put them in the “works best” category because they hold certain risks.
The problem with makiwara is that one has a higher chance of damaging the knuckles or wrist. The point of makiwara is teaching the anatomy of a strike in karate. So you need to know how the makiwara will respond. This is why if you want to try makiwara, you should do so first under the supervision of a professional instructor. And I don’t mean some McDojo where you can blow through the belts. I mean someone who understands traditional fighting and conditioning methods.
Sand Striking and Rice Digging
This one has a bit of a bad rep, but it does work. Sand digging and rice digging are great ways to build up your forearms and hands. These are great ways to help rehab wrists as well. It’s not the most bang for your buck in terms of strength, but helps with flexibility and tendon support. Striking into a bucket of sand or rice is also effective and allows you to help condition for strikes like eye jabs and panther fists. It can be a bit messy, so be sure to have a deep bucket and only fill it about halfway up.
Dangerous
Striking Steel and Stone
While there are traditional martial arts that engage in this, the risk is very high. Just because you see someone tapping their arms or shins on stone or steel, doesn’t mean you should strike it with your hand. I would also note that these practitioners only do so after years of conditioning on (relatively) softer materials. Even then most of the stone conditioning tools are show pieces and rarely see use. Don’t go around trying to punch rocks or smash your arms against concrete pillars. You will damage yourself. You will damage yourself more than is needed to build microfractures. You will regret it.
Iron Hand Training
Iron hand training is a large term that encompasses a variety of techniques. Essentially, the goal of such training methods is to toughen the skin and bones to withstand great forces and become better tools for destroying your opponent. The big issue with iron hand training is how varied the methods are. Some are simple and effective like striking sandbags and carrying weighted jars. That’s just impact training and weightlifting. More archaic methods of iron hand involve striking hot sand, punching large rocks and cooking one’s hands in an herbal soup. These latter methods will damage your hands and are just plain stupid.
One of the useful things that comes from iron hand training is dit da jow, but there are so many recipes and only a few really do the job. Plus, if you don’t have the time and money to make your own, it’s definitely not worth it. Most pre-made jows on the market are little more than slightly herbal rubbing alcohol. If you want to help your hands after conditioning, you’re better off icing them for a little bit. You can also throw on some menthol ointment or tiger balm, if you don’t have any cuts. Mentholated ointment (like VapoRub and Namman Muay) is menthol and eucalyptus based. Tiger balm is made from the same major herbs found in good jow.
Striking Wood Full Force
I’m not talking about breaking boards here. Board breaking can be a useful way to learn follow through with a punch. I’m talking about striking wooden poles, trees, and floors. It’s not helpful and if you’re new to striking, you have a large risk of spraining your wrist or even fracturing a carpal. Just don’t.
I hope this helps clear up some misconceptions for you. If y’all have any questions about any of the training methods here, let me know. I will be happy to go into greater detail on them.
Here’s one more tip: look at the old fighters. See who practices what kind of conditioning and see which ones can still write their name or pick up a cup. The ones who can move well, talk to them about conditioning.
Train smart, train hard, and never stop fighting.