how do i make my skin hard

[MovForward]

i have soft skin like a girl cause i spent most of my time at home 

i don't know if not being exposed to sunlight has an effect

i easily get hurt when punching things and get cut

how do i make it like the average man skin

[Yarco]

(Potentially dangerous advice follows - Don't try at home)

The only way to make your skin thicker and tougher is to progressively injure it more and more on a regular basis.

For your hands.... manual labor.... woodworking, hammering, playing guitar to develop blisters and calluses. 

In Chinese martial arts they do something called Iron Palm training. Conditioning techniques where you hit progressively harder and harder stuff. Start by punching and hitting a bag of flour or sand or a beanbag with your hands (front, back, edge, fingertips), forearms, shins, knees, etc. Then work up to filling the bags with harder and harder stuff.... rice, beans, gravel, steel pellets. Until in a couple years you can just straight-up punch bricks and not feel much.

Just spend all day slapping and hitting your skin with stuff when you have nothing else to do. Whatever part of your body you want to toughen.

Set your shower as hot as you can reasonably stand it. You want to mildly scald your skin, giving yourself minor burns. Toughening the skin, damaging and killing nerves and pain receptors. Don't do too much at once, if you give yourself 2nd degree burns it can cause scarring. For bonus points go back and forth between scalding and ice cold.

Start walking barefoot everywhere, even outside on the street... in the hot summer, in the snow.

This is a long and painful process, it's not going to be fun, and may have unintended side-effects and other health consequences.

Personally I'd rather just have soft skin. Everybody who works in an office has soft skin and hands, it's not a big deal.

Edited February 14, 2022 by Yarco

[Ulax]

@Yarco I think your advice goes too far.

I'd work more on the mindset that means that you see the state of your skin as not acceptable. Unless it causes you a lot of issues. I'd probably visit a doctor if it causes you problems.

[Michael569]

9 hours ago, MovForward said:

how do i make it like the average man skin

Well, if you take the average man in the western country having a sedentary job and relatively comfortable lifestyle, chances are they'll have neat and soft hands because they do not make money through manual labour with exceptions of guys who do a lot of outdoor activity, climbing and a lot of weighted exercise.  Skin adaptations such as thickness and calluses are protection against wear & tear, occupational damage and elemental exposure (e.g. marine type of work or work where one gets exposed to wind & sun a lot) 

If the issue is that your lifestyle is too comfortable, then start adding some challenges. Sign up to a gym, go hiking on weekends or find a bouldering area in your neighbourhood. Sign up for some volunteering that will get out to work in a terrain. You could even take martial art classes (ad advised above) if the aim is to toughen up a bit. 

I agree with you that having too comfortable and indoor type of life probably isn't the best and our bodies thrive from some challenges and some mild stress

 

[something_else]

I actually ran into this issue recently too

I started doing jiu-jitsu and I noticed that I got cuts and bled a significantly larger amount than most of the other dudes there, it's quite embarrassing to bleed all over the mats

Same thing as you: I've never been very active before, never had many injuries, typically always been more of an at home dude. But I've noticed my skin callousing a lot in the places that tend to get cut/mat-burn when doing jiu-jitsu: elbows, palms, knees, knuckles, feet. Now I progressively get less and less cuts as my skin hardens in those places

Basically, your skin is only as hard as it needs to be for your daily activities. It's your body being intelligent about where it puts its energy. You don't get hard skin unless it thinks you need hard skin. Same as muscles.

I'm sure there are other tricks you can use to help as well, but I don't really know of any

[John Paul]

LOL why do you want tough hands!?!

i thought this before too for myself, i'm just wondering 

Edited February 15, 2022 by John Paul

[MovForward]

On 2/14/2022 at 11:05 PM, John Paul said:

LOL why do you want tough hands!?!

as a man someone could confront you or come after you cause of a girl you don't know

cause guys are more expressive of themselves through action or physical means 

and having soft hands doesn't help you

[SgtPepper]

Definitely weight lifting. However, if you want to get tough and tolerate physical encounters, join a martial arts.

I did BJJ and Muay Thai back to back for just 1 year, 3-4x a week. And it made me extremely comfortable being on the ground, grappling with bigger guys, practice movements, and stay strong in challenging situations. Very worth your time and great way to practice socialization too.

[John Paul]

@MovForward

if that's the reason you should go join a boxing club. tough hand not gonna protect your face

[vizual]

Yeah, weight lifting(bench press, squats, deadlifts, cleans) and martial arts.