16 posts / 0 new
Last post
genkaimade
genkaimade's picture
Bruised/swollen knuckles - recovering

Hi all,  

Obviously as martial artists we hit things, and something I have noticed I have incorporated more and more bag work into my training over the last year, is how often I end up with bruised/swollen knuckles. I am not bothered so much by the aesthetics of having slightly puffy/purple-y knuckles, as I am by the fact that I then can't hit anything for 48 hours or so afterwards if I want the knuckles to actually recover/not go straight back to their swollen state after a few blows. Of course a more immediate solution would be to just train with gloves, but given I am only getting in around three 30 minute bag sessions a week I can't see myself doing any permanent damage and would quite like my knuckles to just (continue) grow(ing) a bit stronger.  

I have been trying helichrysum oil after some advice from a pharmacist following a particularly vigorous training session some months ago, but have found that it just seems to hide the bruising/reduce swelling more than aid with the recovery (and at £15 for 5ml of it I now know why the pharmasist was so keen to sell me it!). I know that people in chinese martial arts supposedly use something called 'dit da jow', but I don't know much about it and lots of the info on it on the web seems to be contaminated with "chi magic" type stuff so it is difficult to know whether it is just a new snake oil or something that is actually effective.  

In any case, I thought I would ask you all in all your wisdom if you have any particular advice/experience on the matter. What do you all do with your bruised knuckles beyond just letting them rest?  

Thank you,  

Alexander

Tau
Tau's picture

Coming at this from the perspectives of both a Martial Artists and a health care professional:

- One hand or both?

- Which knuckles?

- How old are you?

- How long have you been training?

- What is your occupation?

Ideally I should see you in person to get an idea of if you're damaging your hands at all, or just bruising them

genkaimade
genkaimade's picture
Tau wrote:

- One hand or both?

- Which knuckles?

- How old are you?

- How long have you been training?

- What is your occupation?

-primarily right hand, probably just because I hit harder and more frequently with it though

-the index finger and middle finger knuckles - again primarily because that is what I hit with

-22

-about 9 years? This kind of regular heavybag work has only been a thing for the last year though

-student ^.^

Is this not a relatively normal thing at this stage?

Tau
Tau's picture

OK. The reasons I asked those questions were to consider simple and obvious things. I was wondering if you were new so had an error in your punching technique, old so had frail skin or had an occupation that may be causing the problem. Evidently not in all cases. Sorry if that looks patronising but I'm trained to never overlook the obvious.

I don't have the answer. I'd need to see you in person.

genkaimade
genkaimade's picture

Tau wrote:
Sorry if that looks patronising
No no not at all - thank you for trying to help! I will look forward to perhaps crossing paths at a seminar of some description at some point!

For the record, if anyone has any suggestions for things I can be doing, I am of course still on the hunt :)  

 

tubbydrawers
tubbydrawers's picture

hi,

I have very sore joins all over the body, especially in the hand. When I am performing bag work on my big back I use a good pair of hayabusa boxing gloves. when I am hitting kick shields or the smaller hand mits I tend to use my MMA gloves.

I dont know what to recommned, I mean I am 43 and getting a bit older to have brusied knuckles every week!! I mean I only have to hit for a few mins bare handed and i can feel the pian in my hands.

I work in a work shop so you would think I would have rough hands but no, my hands are quite soft. I also tend to use a lot of slaps, palm heels as well, and I would hope that the many hrs of practice of them type strikes would be better suited for me if I had to ever hit someone in the face etc.

anyway for me, i use gloves, other people where i train at use bare hands. each to their own i presume. but I know my wife likes to hold my soft hands!!wink

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

genkaimade wrote:
Of course a more immediate solution would be to just train with gloves

That’s what I’d recommend. One of my instructors – who is a very hard hitter – once told me that when people tell him they never train with gloves one his immediate thoughts is that they obviously don’t hit very hard; or they don’t train very often.

If you are a hard hitter – and it sounds like you are – and you are getting a few impacts sessions in each week – and you are – then you need to protect your hands and accept the limitations of the human body.

The bones of the hand simply can’t take getting smashed hard in to objects innumerable times within a given week. Those who NEVER use gloves are therefore only left with three possible outcomes:

1 – The combination of regular hard impact damages the hands.

2 – They are not really hitting hard (and may need to question their definition of “hard” if they think they are) so their hands cope OK; so they incorrectly tell people you don’t need to protect the hands.

3 – They are hitting hard, but have infrequent impact sessions so the hands are never overloaded. They therefore incorrectly tell people that you don’t need gloves. Of course those who are doing impact work more regularly will find that’s not the case.

The other thing is hitting impact equipment without gloves will damage the impact equipment too! It gets expensive to have to replace stuff every month or so. And hence gloves are the cost effective way to go. I insist on it in my club because, if I didn’t, I dread to think what the budget would be for pads!

Finally, there is the hygiene issue. You don’t want the impact equipment covered in the sweat (and possibly blood) of others and then to go ahead and mix it with your own. It’s icky! :-)

There is the danger that using gloves all the time can result in you relying on the glove, but that easily solved. Buy gloves that permit the correct formation of a fist i.e. avoid ones with bars in the palm etc. Also – unless you have an injury – avoid ones with wrist straps so you learn to keep the wrist correctly aligned without the aid of the glove.

There is a place for dropping the gloves now and again, but it should not be the norm. For example, if I was doing 10 rounds on the bag (my own bag that no one else uses), the first eight are with gloves: the last two are with bare fists. I’ve done this for decades and my hands are injury free.

As regards “conditioning” the hands, hard hitting with gloves will do that better that “false hard hitting” without gloves. You get more repetition and less lost training time through injury. Hitting lighter defeats the whole purpose.

In short, wear gloves. The benefits outweigh the disadvantages and will help ensure longevity in training. I’ve never met a hard hitter – as in a real hard hitter, not someone who thinks they hit hard but are in reality are the best of a bad bunch – who doesn’t protect the hands to some degree.

If you already have pain, I’d defiantly check that with a doctor too just in case there’s a significant reason for it.

I hope that helps.

All the best,

Iain

Seishan
Seishan's picture

genkaimade wrote:

I know that people in chinese martial arts supposedly use something called 'dit da jow', but I don't know much about it and lots of the info on it on the web seems to be contaminated with "chi magic" type stuff so it is difficult to know whether it is just a new snake oil or something that is actually effective.

My Sensei uses what I believe is Dit Da Jow or "mending/healing bone oil", but it is brought back by a member form Hong Kong, so I guess it's a lot cheaper than it will be over here.  Looks a bit like Ambre Solaire in a small bottle, but I can't honestly tell whether it works/helps or not, but he recommends it after our bag & makiwara sessions.  I'm new to the Maki, but have found that years of press-ups on the first two knuckles have prepared me pretty well, although the bag work does make the wrists a bit sore the following day.

Creidiki
Creidiki's picture

If you are punishing bags, use gloves. If you are working with makiwara use bare hands.

Advantages of using gloves have allready been discussed. You may or may not wish include makiwara, hitting a resisting target with bare knucles WILL teach you a correct fist punch. It will also develop cartilage tissue around the 27 distinct bones in your hand. Something to think about if you are a world class pianist or use pencil grip past the age of 40smiley

Gavin J Poffley
Gavin J Poffley's picture

I pretty much always use gloves when hitting the bag but do throw in the occasional round without. 

I have found that the biggest problem when not using gloves is with abrasions to the skin so if I have already got a cut or scrape on my hands then I will wear a pair of simple non-padded leather gloves for the "bare handed" rounds. This protects the skin nicely but keeps the feel of bare handed impact.

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Gavin J Poffley wrote:
I have found that the biggest problem when not using gloves is with abrasions to the skin so if I have already got a cut or scrape on my hands then I will wear a pair of simple non-padded leather gloves for the "bare handed" rounds. This protects the skin nicely but keeps the feel of bare handed impact.

Good idea!

conan121
conan121's picture

Myself, at the age of 61 I prefer using the vertical fist when training without gloves which is most of the time. I have had almost no hand injuries when using the vertical fist.

JWT
JWT's picture

An interesting discussion. I'm on a similar page to Iain, but don't agree with him fully and there are very good reasons why our approaches differ and why I feel we are both right for what we are doing. Whether you wear gloves or not all or part or none of the time comes down to:

1. The surface that is being struck

2. The part of the body you are using to strike

3. The power with which you are striking

4. The frequency with which you are striking

5. The number of repetitions in the workout

6. The rest period for the body's striking surface between workouts

7. The degree of 'turn' as opposed to 'push' against the surface struck by the body

8. The training purpose and overall envisaged aim for which you are striking

For a number of those points the striking surface may not include the hands and for me the majority of my impact work does not include the hands. 

Where I use the hands at least 50% of my impact work is open handed and so again I am unlikely to use gloves unless I am protecting an injured or grazed surface.

When it comes to fists, gloves and wraps we reach areas of commonality and difference and these hinge on training pedagogies. If I was training to compete in a competition where I hit as hard as possible wearing gloves, I would wear gloves, and if in that competition I could support my wrists with wraps to enable me to hit harder I would indeed do so. As I am training to use my fists and make impact when I am not wearing gloves or wraps I need to ensure that I am developing

1. The ability to hit hard, but not so hard that my hand may break or my wrist buckle

2. Appropriate resistance to abrasion on the skin of my hand

This means that while I will hit the pads as hard as I can, it is as hard as I can safely without supporting equipment. This essentially means that on the exercise of the fists I will

1. Do almost all my reps without gloves

2. Use gloves as a supporting tool only if I have sustained an abrasion and I do not feel that it will be worsened by cushioned and protected surface impact

3. Do fewer reps on this exercise than a gloved person

4. Utilise this exercise less frequently and therefore rest my hands more than a gloved person

5. Support the biomechanics of this exercise with greater reps of linked open handed or forearm work on impact equipment, tactics which are actually more my bread and butter than my fists.

Both gloved and ungloved groups can and do hit hard, both may be training very regularly, but they are not necessarily training the same things. Being ungloved does not mean that you aren't hitting very hard or pushing yourself, and it does not necessarily mean that your training is less safe. What it does mean (in theory) is that you will be training with your fists to hit to your natural maximum safe capacity rather than as hard as you can. 

There are good reasons for both approaches when trained appropriately and which is 'best' for you will depend on the nature of both you and your class.

I hope that makes sense! 

John

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Thanks for the post John. Good points as always. For the sake of clarity I should point out that all almost all combinations we do with a closed fist have open handed equivalent. For example, this yellow belt combination:

Jab – Cross – Hook – Cross

Lead Palm Heel – Rear Palm Heel – Slap – Rear Palm Heel

We also have combinations that integrate open handed and close handed strikes; and for them I’ve never found wearing gloves to be a problem (the trick being to buy the right gloves).

JWT wrote:
Where I use the hands at least 50% of my impact work is open handed and so again I am unlikely to use gloves unless I am protecting an injured or grazed surface.

In our case we also do both open and closed strikes in roughly equal measure; but we will still wear gloves most of the time (but not all of the time).

JWT wrote:
If I was training to compete in a competition where I hit as hard as possible wearing gloves, I would wear gloves, and if in that competition I could support my wrists with wraps to enable me to hit harder I would indeed do so. As I am training to use my fists and make impact when I am not wearing gloves or wraps I need to ensure that I am developing

That’s important and again stresses the importance of getting the right gloves. As I mentioned in the above post, for pragmatic karate purposes we need to avoid ones that alter fist formation and provide wrist support. It’s important not to rely on the glove. They should simply provide some mitigation against Newton’s 3rd law of motion to enable harder hitting on or more frequent basis without injury.

JWT wrote:
What it does mean (in theory) is that you will be training with your fists to hit to your natural maximum safe capacity rather than as hard as you can.

There’s a couple of points I’d raise with regards to this. Firstly, the only time I will be hitting someone in the head full power with a bare fist will be in legally justified self-protection where the health and safety of me and mine is in imitate danger. I therefore do want to be hitting as hard as I can; even it is exceeds the maximum loads of my hands. Holding back is not something I want to do

Even if my hitting as hard as possible results in some broken bones, the fact I am giving it my maximum on every shot means I will be more likely to end the situation with every shot. The concern to avoid injuring my hand is massively outweighed by my concern to protect me and mine from the far greater injury others are trying to inflict. In self-protection, if I escape with nothing but broken knuckles it’s been a good day.

I want every strike to have maximum stopping capacity and therefore I would hold nothing back. Adrenaline is a great pain killer and if bones did break I’ll never feel it until after the event when the adrenaline is subsiding. Even in training I once snapped the bones of my thumb clean in two (length ways!) during all in sparring (awkward fall) and I felt fine until that round finished. Then it hurt! :-)

Secondly, it’s not just level of impact but also the number of impacts too. If I hit the bag a hundred or so times full power with bare fists then I’ll be fine, but during a full impact session I will hit the pads / bag a great many more times. That volume of impact has an accumulative effect which can lead to injury. Especially when we are repeating that a few times each week.

Self-protection wise, it’s going very badly if I’m throwing several hundred punches before I’m finished! However, we will easily reach that number of impacts in training. There is a massive difference between training and application when it comes to the volume of strikes. And, as I see it, the gloves are primarily a protection against volume of impacts as opposed to the individual impact level of a single punch.

It therefore does not follow that the use of gloves will have any bearing on the propensity of the hands to be damaged on individual strikes. The provision being that the right gloves are worn and that we do some bare-fisted striking too (my proportion of 8 rounds gloved to 2 un-gloved has always worked for me).

JWT wrote:
Being ungloved does not mean that you aren't hitting very hard or pushing yourself, and it does not necessarily mean that your training is less safe.

From my perspective, taken the two statements as given and true, it will mean you can’t hit as often without injury. In my original post I discussed the three variables which were essentially:

Volume of impact

Level of impact

The use of protective equipment

The only way to have high volume / high impact training, that is injury free, is to protect the hands for a significant proportion of training. If we totally drop protection, but are maintaining high impact, and we still wish to avoid injury, then the only option that the laws of physics and the limitation of biology gives us is to reduce volume (as per one of the three examples in my first post). Some may well chose to go that way, but for me I think volume of repetition is key for both skill and attribute development. The trade-off is simply donning a pair of suitable gloves; which has no discernible disadvantage so, for me, it is a good deal.

I’ll close with the general point – just in case general readers miss the nuance – that I’m not saying all gloves, all the time is the way to go. What I have said is that suitable gloves, for the majority of the time (but not all the time), will enable high-impact, high-volume, injury free training without any discernible disadvantages.

The wrong type of glove will bring problems. Using gloves 100% of the time can also bring problems. Never using gloves will bring training inefficiencies (reduced impact, reduced volume or injury). But if you use the right type of glove for the majority of training (supplemented by some bare first work) then you avoid all of the above.

To me, impact gloves are just another piece of protective equipment alongside sparring gloves, groin guards, mats, gum shields, etc. They all contribute to safety and training efficiency. I don’t think impact gloves are a special case and, like their counterparts, the key is to be mindful of the issues they bring into training (along with the advantages) and ensure the wider training matrix addresses those.

All the best,

Iain

PS Just under 900 reads at the time of writing. It seems people feel this is an important topic!

JWT
JWT's picture

Great points Iain.

I know from our conversations that in my training there will be less closed fist punch work than yours, and in line with what you are saying if I did a great deal more, which in turn would necessitate a higher volume of repetitive practice to support it, then I would adopt gloves (I tend to use open palmed MMA gloves) for that practice. That in turn would lead on to gloved open handed work for convenience and switching ability. Where I see students suffering with buckling wrists I may often give them wrap gloves for support to help them initially. As you state the 'right' type of gloves for the training you have in mind is very important. Vis a vis the power this is probably where we differ, but only slightly. I do understand your argument (and largely agree with it) but I think again this comes down to envisioned scenarios of use and technique weighting. Most violence (even when unavoidable) is minor and therefore we all have to make judgements on force applicability and delivery. Without gloves outside the dojo either of us hitting as hard as we can (as we should in the majority of cases) with our naked fists is likely to have the desired effect almost all the time. I know you are going to punch harder than me because

1. You are have more mass (and you bench more weight)

2. You train the punch more often

3. You train to hit harder by wearing the supporting equipment that I rarely wear.

I also think that that will be largely irrelevant in the majority of cases. In the cases where your stronger punch might do the job while my (not held back but potentially weaker because I've been training it with restrictions to ensure my hand and wrist can take the impact without supprt) punch fails we look again at outcomes. I am certain that in the event of such a failure both of us have a more than adequate repertoire of redundancies to fall back on and I know I have things that I do far more powerfully than my punch.  In terms of what happens to the hand and wrist I feel that there is the greater  potential for the normally gloved person to have a dehabilitating hand or wrist injury. This could negatively affect the outcome and whether it does or not will depend on the injury location, the pain tolerance and adrenaline levels of the person. If we agree that both have the repertoire to 'exit safely' then the negative impact for the heavier punch is the weeks of hand/wrist injury impacting on daily life and training. 

This 'bad outcome' for the ungloved person ironically takes us back to missed training due to injury. The irony is that while actually using your fists in a violent encounter is (for most of us) a highly unlikely eventuality, using our fists in training is not. This takes us neatly back to using the fists for impact training on a more regular basis, and the more regularly you do it the more likely it is that you should be wearing gloves to prevent hand or wrist injury. Ouroboros.  

To put this in context (because Iain I'm sure knows this whereas many reading this do not) I don't punch much and it isn't a big part of my repertoire. Forearm strikes (Age Uke, Shuto Uke, Gedan Barai) make up a huge part of my striking training (as per kata) along with hammer-fist strikes (tettsui, gedan barai, ude uke, age uke)  and blade or palm of hand strikes. The positioning and distancing I use supports this. When I do punch it is generally to 'softer' targets on the body (ura zuki, kage zuki, tate zuki). I'm rarely punching compared to my other impact work. When I do punch I'm often looking at skin conditioning as much as impact generation, hence the naked fist. If like Iain the punch was a core part of my delivery system (in technique weighting I use it about as much as it occurs in kata compared to other techniques and then usually substitute with the open hand if the target area is the head) and I trained it that much then,  as per the points i listed and the observations Iain made, I would be wearing appropriate gloves for the majority of my impact training.  

The important thing is not to train blindly or simply do things because 'that's the way they have always been done.' Ask questions and analyse what you are doing, use better or modern equipment where appropriate, and pay attention to what your body is telling you. Iain's a great advocate of intelligent training which is why I find his podcasts and conversations so enjoyable (and refreshing).  

All the best  

John  

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Thanks for the in-depth contribution to the thread John. I think that, between us, we’ve given readers a glimpse of all the relevant issues.

Just a few minor points of clarification from my preservative:

JWT wrote:
3. You train to hit harder by wearing the supporting equipment that I rarely wear.

I’m aware this is splitting hairs – something someone with my advance level of active follicle depletion should never do! – but I don’t think gloves make people hit harder. What they do is allow people to train more intensely and more regularly, without injury, such that they will develop the ability to hit harder.

I think we are generally on the same page, but I just wanted to underline the fact that gloves are not magical and somehow imbue the wearer with enhanced abilities. We can all only hit as hard as we can hit. The donning of gloves doesn’t increase or decrease that. It’s a small point, but one I wanted to clarify for those readings this.

JWT wrote:
If like Iain the punch was a core part of my delivery system …

I think you may be over estimating that and I’d refer to the above post. I’d say we do around a 50/50 split and, as mentioned, most closed-fist drills have an open-hand equivalent. I’d not like to give people the false impression that punching is emphasised any higher than other equality legitimate striking methods.

I would, however, say that we do a LOT of pad-work and it’s that which necessitates the gloves (as per the reasoning in my first post).

JWT wrote:
The important thing is not to train blindly or simply do things because 'that's the way they have always been done.' Ask questions and analyse what you are doing, use better or modern equipment where appropriate, and pay attention to what your body is telling you.

Totally agree. And it’s worth pointing out that the impact equipment we use in the dojo is all modern (focus pads, kick shields, BOBs, punch bags, etc.).

Thanks once again.

All the best,

Iain