When doing martial arts and blocking with the forearm, why does it hurt so much and why so many bruises?

when I do martial arts and block people for a long time, my forearms really hurt and bruise alot. How do they do it in competitions etc? Do your arms get used to it? Can you condition your limbs for this kind of thing? (No smartass answers about me being a wimp or anything, maybe I am sparring too hard :p ).

When doing martial arts and blocking with the forearm, why does it hurt so much and why so many bruises?
The reason it hurts so much is we are made out of soft, mushy tissue. We were not designed to be beating on each other. With weightlifting and years of practice you can make yuour muscles harder so it takes longer and harder hits to bruise. As for the bruising though, it will never really stop, only take more to bruise it.
Reply:From a former Marine...





We used MCMAT (Marine Corps Martial Arts Techniques) in training, and in order to deaden nerves in different parts of the body, it took small, repetitive, blunt force trauma to that specific part for about a 1 to 2 weeks. I'm talking about striking, yet not hurting after each strike. You shouldn't bruise, although I guess if you did it for long enough and if your skin was overly sensitive it could happen however.





It was common to use both in forearms and shins. No Pain no Gain for that type of thing. Good Luck.
Reply:Dont do Martial Arts b ut i am involved in a few contact sports. what i generally do is try and cushion the impacts and use it to my advantage. so rather than simply blocking an attack, maybe you could use their arm as a leverage to launch your own attack - a nice little counter atttack.





Also, if you are challenging dont ever do anything half assed - you are more likely to cause yourself an injury
Reply:Dont use the top part ,use the under part of your fore arm, top part to boney,gett um tiger.
Reply:You build up your arms and learn to take those kind of hits. While you may still get bruises and they'll still hurt - you learn to deal with it. Yes, it's conditioning... Also, you learn to block with stronger parts of your arm, which reduces bruising... to "roll" with the hits and not take the "full force" of the impacts straight into your arms ("deflect" the blows with your arms instead of "blocking") ... unless you're using your forearms as striking surfaces (like in various kickboxing variants) - you shouldn't be getting THAT bruised from a simple sparring session.
Reply:Your arms will get used to it. You can condition so you can handle training for long periods of time by using cote-hate (I know that that's spelled wrong, sry. Idk how). Example: hit your forearm against something durable(like someone else's forearm). Don't use this technique to bruise your forearm, but just enough power to toughen your bones. You can use this w/ your legs and abdomen, too. It'll hurt at first bc it takes some getting used to.
Reply:Yes you can condition your forearms by slowly blocking against either another person's arms or a solid object and then slowly increasing how hard you hit it; you will condition the forearm. The amount of bruising you are getting could be a sign of low iron - make sure you are getting enough.





You should condition your forearms and check your vitamin intake, but I think more importantly is to look at the way you are blocking. Blocking with your forearms should be more of deflection and not like force against force. If you are coming into straight impact with your forearms than that is most likely always going to hurt and its not really beneficial anyway. You need to practice evading. Step to the side, back %26amp; then attack. Your blocking arms should have more of a rolling affect instead of a clash. This will decrease the pain, but also sets you up better for a follow up attack.
Reply:It's just a matter of conditioning and it's different for everyone. Different people = different biology = different bruising and levels of pain. If you keep at it, though, your body will eventually be conditioned and you'll notice that the bruising will happen less and less and you'll hurt less as well. Just keep at it and if the pain happens to turn to a sharp piercing pain you may want to slow down for a bit. After all, your bones can only take so much pounding before they need to reinforce themselves.
Reply:you need to work them more and build up arm strength. When you spar you arent supposed to go hard either, it is just a high speed game of tag. you only need to touch them to get the point. but work the forearm and stretch it
Reply:Your forearms will get used to it. I know my after I get done with Taekwondo , I am tired. That's because I haven't used the muscles in a while. And I am finally getting used to it.





It takes time to get your forarms to get stronger.
Reply:YOU ARE DEFINATELY NOT SPARRING TOO HARD..... unless you severely hurt someone, you are in the process of conditioning your body after time those shin to shin kicks wont even faze you... jus keep doin what you are doin.... it will pay off... good job
Reply:Stepss1 and Eric C has the right of it. Blocking isn't a bone on bone thing, it is a re-direction of your opponents force.


A touch/twist motion with your forearm, upon contact, is the best way to deflect the block without hurting your arm. If you are quick enough and practice the block techniques enough times, you will not bruise up so bad.
Reply:It's probably already been said here, but your arms do get used to it. Basically, the blocking is conditioning. The more you block, the more bruises you get, but eventually, your arms toughen up to it. Also, you get used to the bruises, and stop thinking about them when they do come up (or spend time of otherwise boredom poking them, naming them and drawing faces on them as I do).





Something that may be affecting how much/'badly' you get bruised is how you are blocking. Your blocks might be a bit choppy, but I'm not one to judge as I haven't see them and I don't know what sort of blocking technique you're using, and how much you are taught to roll the block in the art you're training in. I'd say asking your instructor/sensei if you think that's something that's causing a lot of your bruising is a good idea.