I know this has been discussed many times, on how to toughen certain parts of the body, ie..shins, shudo, knuckles... but everytime i read a post it is never clear as to whether you are toughening to strengthen and make the bone harder, or for callousing the skin to prevent cuts. Even though i am in Shorin Ryu Karate and breaking isnt stressed as much as in other styles i still want to know how to harden my bones in order to be able to break competitively. So with that said, what are some good ways to harden my shudo, shins and knuckles to the point that i wouldnt have ot worry about breaking them upon hitting something hard? any feedback at all would help. And if your just going to smarten off and try to find ways criticize the reason i do things, then go for it... and see what happens.

your shudo (in my style refered to as shuto) should be fine for striking things with already, but practicing on a solid surface would help, as for srengthening the knuckles, knuckle pressups will reduce the feeling in them and make the skin less prone to cutting aswell as strengthen the wrists more than a pressup, the part people have found contriversial on these forums is strengthening the bone in that quite a few members seem to think that means deliberately deforming your hand and destroying your ability to use it in future, as for that view ive been strengthening the bone for a little over a year now and my hands look pretty much identical to how they were before, only difference is a slight colour change on the surface of my two knuckles, which was probably caused by the knuckle pressups, as for details to strengthening the bone there are a number of resources on the web you could take a look into, just put iron palm onto google and youl see plenty.

Also id like to mention that calouses are a sign of incorrect strengthening, calouses brake off quickly and you just end up loosing skin, and another thing even though this wasnt your question, im all for strengthening i belive that if you need a glove or whatever to use your techniques its pointless learning them but with breaking the stone,tile,board etc is resting on cement or something else that is very firm and wont move,( force = mass >< acceleration) and acceleration isnt the rate of increase of speed its the rate of change of speed on impact the force is created by the mass >< the rate of decrease of speed in other words and a board resting on a block will mean your hand stops dead creating a massive acceleration, this wouldnt occur in reality unless you put your opponents head in a vice.... so keep it in perspective that when you hit someone that theyre head etc would snap back and reduce your F= m(a) completely changing the overall force so if you were to break a breeze block etc it wont neccesarily correlate to what youd be capable of in a real life situation.

Boards dont hit back,why learn this skill. If you must is there a rule that says you cant hit with palmheels. The palm is much more resilent and distributes much more force into the target. In some places the whole board thing is rigged anyway,by having the stylist hit with the grain of the wood making it much easier to break. I agree on the knuckle pushups. In ancient forms of muaythai and Karate practitioners trained by hitting the Rubber tree as it was called. The surface had a rubberly texture that would give a litte bit to prevent damaging the hands.

a little bit of discolorment!?!?

My Knuckles are friggen red all the time.
And its like I have fingers growing out of my knuckles...im just kidding. its not that bad.

Hey, bang on a marawaki or marawaka or what ever. it works.