Hitting Air - OUCH!

[LordOfWu]

No kidding. It was purely an endurance exercise... and not one that I myself would choose to do, but the point was that nobody's elbows were injured. I definitely wouldn't recommend doing huge numbers like that and snapping them out absolutely as hard as you can. That would be pressing your luck.
Nowadays I do more work with resistance bands. I find it both more productive and easier on the joints as well.

I think he was pointing out that it's probably a combination of power strikes and locking out the joint that causes the damage.

I have done this to my knees with kicks, and I agree, it sucks! My elbows...well I'm a bit of a genetic freak and my elbows are double jointed...so if I fully lock out, I'm punching the guy next to my target..:rofl: I do find this is uniquely helpful in grappling though...I'm pretty hard to arm bar!

 

[geezer]

...well I'm a bit of a genetic freak and my elbows are double jointed...so if I fully lock out, I'm punching the guy next to my target..:rofl: I do find this is uniquely helpful in grappling though...I'm pretty hard to arm bar!

You sound like my old Wing Tsun Sifu in that regard. His shoulders were also incredibly elastic. That, along with his technique, made it almost impossible to put any kind of a lock on him. I wonder if there is a downside to being built like that.

 

[mook jong man]

Interestingly, in the Wing Tsun system, we teach to always extend a punch 100%, locking out the elbows. My former sifu used to challenge other stylists to try and break his arm. I once saw him literally toy with a high dan aiki-jujutsu master who simply could not hurt him-- the man was that elastic... plus he moved in ways to prevent his opponent from ever fully completing his locks.

I also saw another instructor from an offshoot WT style, Emin Boztepe of EBMAS, lead students through an exersize session which included throwing 10,000 fast, fully extended "chain punches". It was brutal, but no elbow injuries were sustained.

Now I'm an older guy and consitutionally stiff jointed. So I go light on the full extention punching. I might do 500 to 1,000 once or twice a week, but if I want to use a lot of force, I work against a bag to put the brakes on my blows and take some stress off the elbows. And call me a wimp, but I sometimes wear bag gloves.

I've always locked them out too and never had any problems in fact my elbows are probably the only part where there isn't any problems . Maybe its got to do with the way we punch or because we do so many of them our joints are strengthened.

 

[redantstyle]

I think he was pointing out that it's probably a combination of power strikes and locking out the joint that causes the damage.

yessir.

wing chun has structure based power.

other systems use a lot more mometum in striking, with a much higher degree of followthrough. lock out on one of those and you can kiss some connective tissue good-bye.

if you really throw with 'full power' that energy has to go somewhere.