Iron Shirt

I was wondering about hard body training.
I understand how to harden the limbs, arms, legs, hands. But how does one harden the torso.

What do u mean by harden?

If u mean harden the muscles do standard bodybuilding routines for ur abs e.g. crunches, v sit ups, weighted crunches, hanging leg raises, etc...
www.bodybuilding.com

This will allow u to take a punch to the abdomen.

Hardening is impotant (hell its nice to be able to take a punch) but do u have stone eye balls Stone Carver?

what about face hardening. Anyone who's ever been punched in the face knows it hurts crazy bad. Try getting a boxing glove and punch your self in the head repeatedly.

Haha. just kidding don't do that. Trust me it doesn't help. I thought it would but I just got a headache. Taking a punch to the head is all mental. You just have to beable to collect yourself afterward and forget about the pain.

But at my kung fu school we would pair up and punch eachother in the stomach to harden our torsos. Though we'd pound allover eachother. We had this whole iron body routine we did monthly where we would stand with our arms streched out and legs shoulder legnth and our partner would drum along every inch of body we had. Minus the obvious exceptions.

If your system doesn't include any "iron shirt" drills, then borrow from elsewhere, they increase your ability to take blows fast with moderate input.

Iron Wire Hung Gar form is good for it. Iron shirt chi gong forms are great. The Muscle/Tendon change classic is great for it too. Just do chi gong, mix the hard and soft and learn to exhale when hit.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Dust N' Bones:
what about face hardening. Anyone who's ever been punched in the face knows it hurts crazy bad. Try getting a boxing glove and punch your self in the head repeatedly.

Haha. just kidding don't do that. Trust me it doesn't help. I thought it would but I just got a headache. Taking a punch to the head is all mental. You just have to beable to collect yourself afterward and forget about the pain.

But at my kung fu school we would pair up and punch eachother in the stomach to harden our torsos. Though we'd pound allover eachother. We had this whole iron body routine we did monthly where we would stand with our arms streched out and legs shoulder legnth and our partner would drum along every inch of body we had. Minus the obvious exceptions.[/QUOTE]


I've been punched in the head enough to be used to it, my major problem is I just hate getting hit in the !@$#&% ribs.

Really? Wow I thought getting hit in the ribs was a good thing. That ones easy it will take a little bit of work. Remeber when you get hit in the chest don't bother resisting the hit, let it push you back. Let your ribs absorb the impact and move with it. If that doesn't make sense just say so ill try to explain in more detail.

You know what being able to take hits is mostly mental for example you have to be able to flex at the moment of impact and if you get hit while you're not flexing you need to be able to ignore the pain and get on with the fight, cause most of the time skilled martial artists tend to throw couter hits rather than throw direct attacks and it hurts a lot more when you're not expecting it. At least thats what i've noticed.

[This message has been edited by Sarath (edited 04-11-2005).]