Hi, I'm Jamie, I want to strengthen my hands, make my knuckles harder and bigger but could not find any many instructions on the web.
I will keep looking and update this page when I find new methods as I find them and try them.
The methods below are in my favorite order (games worked well, pushups I hate).
My friends (Jacko you know who you are...) were saying my webpage looked boring so I have added some color
Games the game of knuckles or "nucks" (where the looser has his knuckes hit by the winners knuckles)
will strengthen the winners finger knuckes and the loosers knuckles
the game of Slap-Hands will really toughen the loosers knuckles/fingers and the winners palm-side fingers
Both of these games seemed to make my knuckles bigger and stronger - first they swelled a bit, but after a
while the swelling is not as bad as the knuckles get bigger and stronger.
The main problem was
that no one would play with me, but I now let them have a few free hits and now they
will give me many games! (beware - the 17 year old guys from the highschool
football team slap hard and hit very hard playing nucks - but this is actually what works).
TIP The harder you hit them, the harder they hit you. Always hit as hard as possible.
I usually play "Slaps" for around 30 minutes EVERY DAY (min about 15 minutes, I once had
a game that lasted about 1 hour 30 minutes!!), "Nucks" a bit less (min 15 minutes, max was a
game that lasted over 40 mins). If you don't do it every day then the skin will soften
after a few days - if you can not find anyone to play with, nuck/slap yourself.
Ive been using nucks/slapss for months now, and can guarantee that both methods work,
just keep doing it.
Instructions for nucks/slaps
Hessian/Rope A board, padded and covered with hessian or rope and then punched
either at full force or nearly full force. Some sites say the board should be slightly padded,
but most say that it should be just covered with rope/hessian. I did make and try a board
without padding, but it hurt - a lot! and I wasn't even hitting very
hard - I could not make myself hit the board as hard as the examples I had seen.
I did try wrapping rope around my hand and then hitting a wall, but this did not work
either.
I am sure the hessian/rope board would be very good, it is just that I couldn't bring
myself to hit it hard enough. Punch for min of 20 minutes at a time.
Sand punching a bowl of sand will toughen the knuckles.
Stabbing with the finders will strengthen the fingers
I have now tried the sand method. It sucks! I am sure it will work for some
people but not me. I punched a bowl of sand for about an hour with almost no effect (the only
effect I saw was that I was tired and very bored after this). I found a website that
said it was used as a method of disipline for students of some martial arts - if they did not
do well they had to punch the sand for a few hours.
It could be that my knuckles have already toughened (see Games), it might have been better if I
had started with the sand.
Gravel punching a bag of gravel has been reported as working quite well, it sounds a bit like the sand (boring), but I will give it a go and report back (I don't know if it has to be any size, but the gravel from Pops driveway is going to be used!)
Punchbag Will help your punching, but may not strengthen the skin of your hands
Push ups push ups on knuckles will make the skin stronger, but it is not worth the effort of doing pushups.
Preforming knuckle will toughen your knuckles and strengthening your hands and wrist, do pushups with the tops of your fingers bent underneath. Like pushups - I can not be bothered!
Here is a LINK to a online slaps game.
Later ..... :)
December 2003