Traditional martial arts training included techniques for developing stronger, harder hands -- literally turning the practitioner's hands into bludgeoning weapons. Common practices included striking wooden boards, braking stones with hand strikes and plunging the hands into basins full of hot ash. Although the practice carries disadvantages for modern students, you can achieve many of the same effects by striking a bag filled with sand.
Basic Concept
Your body is very good at healing from minor injuries, which is why even deep cuts and bad breaks can eventually heal with just a small scar to show for them. When your body heals from an injury, it frequently heals slightly stronger in the area of the trauma. Martial arts hand conditioning techniques use this process by intentionally causing small hand injuries so the hand heals stronger and denser than before the damage.
Bone Density
If you punch a sand-filled bag with sufficient force, you will cause microscopic fractures in the bones of your fingers, hands and wrists. When those microfractures heal, they will be thicker and stronger in the same way a scar is thicker and stronger than the surrounding skin. It's worth noting that "sufficient force" to do this usually is less force than a full punch. That much force can cause large breaks in the bones, which aren't good for hand conditioning.
Callousing
Most people are familiar with callousing from the state of their feet at the end of a summer full of walking barefoot. With hand conditioning, calloused knuckles and hand blades come from repeatedly getting abrasions on those parts of your hand. The natural healing process grows back a layer of thick, hard, dead skin. You can accomplish this by punching any kind of canvas or cloth surface -- not just doing work on a sand bag.
Disadvantages
Although these techniques can build strength in your hands, they also decrease sensitivity and restrict your range of motion. According to martial arts historian Dave Coffman, a traditional martial artist with this kind of hand conditioning would lack the hand motion to successfully use a keyboard or phone. Also, this kind of trauma to your fingers greatly increases your risk of osteoarthritis throughout both hands. Although this wasn't an issue when the average human lifespan was between 30 and 40, it can make the second 40 years of your life pretty miserable.
References
- "The Tao of Jeet Kun Do"; Bruce Lee; 1978
- "The Sports Injury Handbook"; Christer Rolf; 2010
- Dave Coffman; Martial Arts Historian; Society for Kenpo Studies; Hillsboro, Ore
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