From: mary@Cayman.COM (Mary Malmros)
Newsgroups: rec.martial-arts
Subject: Re: Help ! Need feet of DEATH !
Date: 17 Aug 92 14:07:15 GMT
Followup-To: rec.martial-arts
Organization: Cayman Systems Inc., Cambridge, MA
In-reply-to: shane@psych.psy.uq.oz.au's message of 17 Aug 92 02:53:07 GMT


In article <shane-170892125028@a-mac.psy.uq.oz.au> shane@psych.psy.uq.oz.au (Shane Brown) writes:

   Greetings !
      First, forgive me for my trashy tabloid headline style subject 
   line 8). I don't really want feet of DEATH (I'd have both feet in 
   the grave way too soon !). What I would like though is information
   regarding the process of adaptating hands and feet for the purpose of 
   striking hard objects. First, can you condition hands or feet to any
   great degree ? Second, what would be the best method ? 
      Why do I ask ? Because I am sick of losing my voice screaming
   when I let rip with a roundhouse in sparring, only to feel the
   top of my foot connect with the point of my partners elbow. AAARRGG !

My personal opinion is that you can't condition the instep (the part of
the foot you're talking about) enough so that you can kick as hard as
you like.  In other words, you can kick a lot harder than your instep
can stand it, if you're hitting a hard object, and I don't think that
you can condition it in such a way that you can really let loose without
injury.  

I don't know that the Muay Thai experience really contradicts this.  
I know they do blast away without wearing pads, but I don't know 
what their injury rate is.  I do think that conditioning is worth
doing.  Insteps have lots of relatively small bones and a lot of 
connective tissue, with practically no padding to protect it.  
If you do a lot of instep kicks and don't do some kind of conditioning
or aftercare or whatnot, I'd think you'd get wicked bad crippling 
tendonitis.  This is especially true if your kicks are, heh heh, less
than perfect, and you do hit the occasional elbow, or jam your toes, 
or hyperextend the whole mess.  I hyperextended mine once while kicking
the bag and couldn't walk for a week.  

Some things I can think of that might help:

	- Work on foot flexibility in addition to everything else: 
	  achilles' tendons, arch tendons, instep tendons, etc.  
	  In addition to making them feel better, this makes it 
	  easier for you to have proper foot position during kicks 
	  and lessens the possibility of injury.

	- Practice tensing the foot before impact.  You wouldn't punch 
	  something really solid with a loose fist, and for the same 
	  reason you shouldn't kick something really solid with a loose
	  wobbly foot.

	- Treat any injuries properly.  If it's been injured in the past
	  and is feeling a little sore after a workout, ice it and take
	  ibuprofin.  Actually, this is probably the right thing to do
	  even if it hasn't been injured before.  If it's causing pain, 
	  it's probably inflamed.  Ice and an anti-inflammatory such 
	  as ibuprofin will decrease swelling, thus aiding circulation 
	  to the area, and thus promoting healing.  NOTE: it doesn't 
	  have to be visibly swollen to be inflamed.

Happy kicking...
--
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