How to be a human army tank

[EvanWinther]

I don't advise taking hits to the head or face a lot in practice because of the brain damage as Tony pointed out...

agreed on this one. Have you seen Muhammad's interviews post career? It's sad :/

 

[drop bear]

agreed on this one. Have you seen Muhammad's interviews post career? It's sad :/

And Michael j fox.

 

[PhotonGuy]

Leaving aside the hyperbole of the "human tank" analogy, the basic question is legitimate. Some people (especially pro fighters) can take shots which would drop the average person and keep coming at their opponent without slowing down. Some of this ability can be trained.

Obviously, not getting hit in the first place is preferable. Thinking you can always get through a fight without getting hit is ... optimistic, to put it politely.

Here are some relevant factors:

Strong core. Muscular development in general will help protect the body from impact, but core strength is key. You can also train to tighten the core at the moment of impact to get maximum protection from your core muscles.

Strong neck. A lot of knockouts work by causing the head to snap around quickly. A strong neck helps to protect against that displacement.

Conditioned limbs. Gradual progressive impact training can strengthen the bones which are used in blocking strikes and also accustom the practitioner to the pain of impact.

Mental desensitization. The average person tends to freak out a bit when taking a hard hit, especially to the head. Natural reactions can include flinching, panicking, crying, getting enraged, looking away, or just generally getting sloppy and swinging back wildly. This sort of unhelpful reaction is even more likely when the impact is part of a continued onslaught as opposed to a single hit followed by a reset. Sparring with contact is essential to desensitizing the practitioner so he/she can stay calm and focused when being hit.

There's a catch-22 to this desensitization process, though. The more impact you become accustomed to, the better you are able to control your mental reactions. At the same time, though, each impact puts a bit more wear and tear on your brain. If you look at certain professional fighters who were renowned for their ability to take really hard shots and keep coming forward, seemingly unfazed, you generally find a point in their career where they stopped being able to take these shots and started getting knocked out. That's because all those concussions and micro-concussions do enough cumulative brain damage over time that eventually the fighter can no longer shrug off head shots. For this reason I recommend keeping the majority of sparring light to moderate contact and doing just enough hard contact sparring to become mentally comfortable with it.

Structure. As drop bear pointed out, maintaining proper structure is key to minimizing the effects of impact. If you're looking away when you get hit, the odds of getting knocked out go way up. The mental desensitization mentioned above is important to being able to maintain this good structure in the heat of a fight.

Genetics. This is the bit you can't control. Some people have just naturally thick skulls and high pain tolerance. This is part of why some untrained people can still be very dangerous in a fight.

I was obviously exaggerating when I talked about being a human army tank. Nothing is going to make you indestructible and there are limits as to how much you can toughen yourself up. You're never going to be bullet proof. Anyway, as far as being able to take hits just look at Muai Thai fighters, look at all the punishment they can take. I would say Muai Thai is one of the arts if not the art that enables you to take the most and hardest hits with its training.

 

[Xue Sheng]

I was obviously exaggerating when I talked about being a human army tank. Nothing is going to make you indestructible and there are limits as to how much you can toughen yourself up. You're never going to be bullet proof. Anyway, as far as being able to take hits just look at Muai Thai fighters, look at all the punishment they can take. I would say Muai Thai is one of the arts if not the art that enables you to take the most and hardest hits with its training.

look at Sanda, look at boxing, look at MMA..... anything that involves striking.....all the same

 

[geezer]

Creating a human army tank is quite possible. Just five or six centuries obsolete.