Bone Breaking.. Good or bad?

[Michael]

In martial arts people break their bones alot.. Is bone breaking a good thing? My karate instructor broke his right arm just to make it stronger...

[Billy no mates]

Bone breaking is bad and i should know ive broken a few,perhaps his arm got stronger inspite of rather than because of the break .

[ksan]

I think your instructor is telling you stories and he broke it by accident and wants to sound tough... or he isnt that smart... in the later case i suggest you find a different instructor (if possible) or be very watchfull with what he does and make you do...

Is your instructor kyokushin ?

Osu and take care

[Billy no mates]

Perhaps i was a little bit to quick with my first reply perhaps it may be possible for certain breaks on certain bones,i just know that the bones in my hands,collar bones,shins and ribs dont feel stronger for having been broken .
I just dont feel deliberately injuring ourselves is a worth while method of making us stronger,or a valid way of acheiving excellence .

[ksan]

Originally Posted by Billy no mates

I just dont feel deliberately injuring ourselves is a worth while method of making us stronger,or a valid way of acheiving excellence .

I must agree with Billy a 100%

[Michael]

yes, my teacher is Kyokushin. If not, why would i be a member of kyokushin4life.com, hehe.

[yann]

In martial arts people break their bones a lot??????
not in the ma i've done
breaking your bones to make them stronger??? i'm not medically qualified to comment, but did mas oyama ever do that?
I don't think I'd do it if my 'instructor' told me to & I don't think I'd ever 'instruct' my students to.
just my opinion, yann

[Dim]

I think the idea is that when the bone is mending the recalcification is 'sometimes' thicker over the broken area than what is was before. However having said that, purposely breaking your bones to make this occur is plain stupid, as for a couple years the area will be weaker. There is also surrounding tissue and tendon damage to consider as well.

[BigAl]

Breaking bones to get stronger is a huge myth. When you do break a bone and it heals, recalcification occurs but ONLY where the break was. To do that to just your forearm alone would require a couple dozen precise breaks over a loooong period of time. Just train hard, use the heavy bag, and spar and you'll get well-conditioned.

[blackdog]

I know a little about this as i have had a very bad (life changing) break.

When you break a bone it will (if you are normal and healthy) heal in the affected area somewhat stronger than it was before, as Dim said. Thats why sometimes if you break a bone you wil end up with a small (or large) lump around the area of the break, it builds up a little more than before.

You can make your bones stronger in specific areas with training. Your bones are made up like a sponge, flexible but strong. A grid / web of sponge like connections.

Have a look here to see what i mean http://homepage.mac.com/myers/misc/b...onestruct.html

As an example of how you CAN make your bones stronger, lets use the shin bone or tibia as an example.

The tibia is a very strong 'long' bone, and the strongest part of that bone is the bottom 1/3 of it, which is why we use that part of the bone to strike with when executing mawashi geri.

Over time and lots of training, repeated blows to that specific area of the bone will do small amounts of damage to the bone, not enough to break it, but enough to stress the body enough that it does something about it. Our wonderful bodies will repair and strengthen that area in preperation for the next time you stress it. The spongy areas of the bone thicken slightly and become stronger. Thats the reason it not a good idea to do a baseball bat break until you have trained for a few years (like after getting Shodan )

Sensei Eddie Sorensen had to have surgery to seperate the two bones in his shin, the small and large bone in his shin had fused together due to long years of training and striking that area of the bone.

Muay Thai fighters kick bamboo with their shins thousand of times for just that reason, as they use that kick so much they need to strengthen that bone.

This is also the reason the first two knuckles of people who have trained for a long time become larger and stronger, knuckle push ups, hitting bags, hitting boards etc etc gradually stress the knckles and when they repair themselves they do it a little stronger than before.

As far as i know, that method of strengtening bones should be fine, and cause no real ill effects. Having said that, what we do is not exactly gentle to the body.

Deliberatly breaking a bone to make it stronger? Well, thats just stupid. Breaking a bone is risky, no matter how small or clean the break. They have blood supply to them, they have reasons to be the way they are, and breaking them is not recomended by any doctor i am sure.

I'm with the other guys, breaking an arm on purpose to make it stronger?

Can we say... macho bulls**t?

Bren

[Sensei Mark]

Originally Posted by Michael

In martial arts people break their bones alot.. Is bone breaking a good thing? My karate instructor broke his right arm just to make it stronger...

well Michael, i do not know your instructor, but if this is the case then i am sorry to say, that he is a dickhead!

What else can be said about someone so uneducated that thinking that breaking a bone on purpose will make it stronger, if this was suggested in any family atmosphere, it could be regarded as abuse, its as simple as that.

Now if your instructor dissagrees with my post, then lets see him break both his legs on purpose ,,, to make them stronger???

I all my years i have never read such a stupid and rediculas post regarding health, fitness and strengthing oneself in this fashion, my last suggestion is that you should find another instructor.

[satanclaws]

^^ yer what he said

[MarkW]

Obviously your instructor hasn't heard of weights...

I asked my mom about this, she's been a nurse for over 25 years so shes qualified, and yes, the bone will eventually get stronger after it heals from being broken. But only slightly.

So in conclusion...breaking your bones to get stronger bones is pointless when you could do weights instead. Geez, it must be pretty painful as well!

Osu,
Mark

[blackdog]

He heh

looks like the general concenus is-

break bones on purpose = stupid

[jane]

Breaking anything on purpose unless it be an attackers bones in self defense of course...is simply plain mad.

Osu!

[Martin H]

A broken bone does indeed heal slightly stronger at the break point. But so little it does not matter. The drawbacks of breaking a bone, however, DOES matter. Bones never heal perfectly.

Voluntarily breaking bones is simply stupid. As seems to be the general consensus in this thread.

[World War Cheese]

Okay, I've been trying to find the thread that tells you about rolling your shins with a bottle or round object of some-sorts but I just can't find it (it's driving me nuts) and this is a non-dead thread dealing with shins so I'll ask my question here:
I know some of you guys roll various objects down your shin to strengthen it, I liked the idea and happened to have a meter-long dowel that is 3/4 an inch across and have been using that. But here's the thing, how hard should I press? Y'see it does hurt a little bit (I expected that) but if I press so lightly it doesn't hurt does that mean I'm not getting any value? And are there negative consequenses to pushing too hard? Or is using wood instead of a hollow bottle just a dumb idea anyways?

Sorry to sort of derail the thread, to stay a little on topic: Breaking your shin means a tiny sliver is stronger but you're also in a cast out of training for however long it takes to fix your tibia (I'm thinking 3 months?) which itself is wholly detrimental to your development as a karateka.

[Aunty Ichigeki]

It doesn't have to hurt in theory. But show me a student of Kyokushin that can resist inflicting at least a little pain. Check out the size of Helio Gracie's forearms. He was virtually nothing but skin & bone before he passed away last year but his forearms were massive. I couldn't help wondering if that was calcification of his bones from years of stress from BJJ... ie. stress but not necessarily from an impact!

[World War Cheese]

Originally Posted by Aunty Ichigeki

It doesn't have to hurt in theory. But show me a student of Kyokushin that can resist inflicting at least a little pain. Check out the size of Helio Gracie's forearms. He was virtually nothing but skin & bone before he passed away last year but his forearms were massive. I couldn't help wondering if that was calcification of his bones from years of stress from BJJ... ie. stress but not necessarily from an impact!

Haha! I guess you're right. We're all a little masochistic to take up this art.
And yeah, there's a video.google or youtube video flying around with a 10 min interview with him less than ten years ago and they were the arms of a GORILLA, I mean, not even Rickson has those babies. But I think it was combined calcification and just massive muscles for grip. I know that since starting Judo my grip feels like it went from being a shy six year old girl's handshake to an iron vice (AND I STILL CAN'T DO ANY BETTER ON THE STUPID ARCADE GRIP MACHINE ) But thanks for the help, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't slowly corroding the periosteum or something and would later loose my legs to the cutting block. (Not that I think that the periosteum has anything to do with amputations but I'm only Anatomy I )

[sudoraba]

breaking your bones on purpose is not a smart idea for sure