Be sure to read what J wrote, if you have not already....
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The effectiveness of conditioning is entirely dependant on the person who teaches it to you.
What you really have to remember and a lot of less than capable teachers seem to miss is that no matter how much you condition them your hands will ALWAYS be bags of small bones held together by small muscles.
Personally I believe in conditioning larger weapons like shins and forearms, even big bones like the ribs but when it comes to hands and feet I'm all about technique and testing. If you can't hold your hand in a way that you can put it through your target then you shouldn't be aiming for similarly hard to break targets in a fight.
With practice that range of targets will increase but be patient and be careful because like Mark said "Most of us like the idea of being able to tie our shoes and such when we get older."
Conditioning of any kind, especially hard conditioning like that, should never be taken lightly. With the knuckles, you run the serious risk of screwing up your hands for life by doing it improperly. In those video you'll see people just wailing away at rocks and other hard material in very delicate places like the knuckles, back of the hand, forehead, toes, or even the finger tips, but you have to keep in mind they have years upon years of training, gradually building up to that.
Body conditioning isn't something for beginners, but not just because of the risks involved, but because the purpose for conditioning is to improve on the technique, and beginners have such a loose understanding of the basics to begin with it's not as important in early development. Hitting hard vs hitting correctly are worlds apart. You want to hit hard and hit correctly. The later comes first in training.
Stories are stories. They're fun to hear, but true or not, it doesn't make much difference in the here and now.
Take these stories with a grain of salt.
J is right body conditioning is something you need a qualified instructor to help you with. And even then you'll do things wrong and hurt yourself some. We all do.
But done right you can develop very strong fingers, bones, and such that will make you very tough.
I know that over the years that the finger conditioning that I've done will allow me to break a board with my finger tips. Impaling them in someone would be very bad for them. But it's something I've done over a dozen years and something I worked up to. First very lightly then harder and harder.
I remember that video clip of him.
The conditioning used is an application of chi gong, what may be called iron shirt training.
But it's not the conditioning that is the power behind the knock outs, but his energy transfer between body and arm. If he hit them using his palm, it would probably do the same thing.
It's not something to take lightly. I think that light conditioning. Basically hitting hard things enough that punching the head or face doesn't screw up your hand is ok, but it's definitely something to be careful with.
Most of us like the idea of being able to tie our shoes and such when we get older.
Remember, all of that "hand conditioning" was developed in an era when lifespans were short and martial artists might have to face the prospect of fighting with fellows wearing armor.
Now we live much longer and most folks don't run around in armor anymore.
I don't know your really want to know you must be a bad m f then.
You could always carry with you some brass knuckles.
i was watching this documentary of this kung fu guy who hits(more like he taps it ) a metal plate a 1000 times with each hand to toughen up his knuckles and it has gotten to a point where he only has to use 30% of his power to knock a guy out and supposedly took down 23 triad gang leaders by himself back when china banned guns and crime was rising so is this type of training good or bad?
