Bone Smashing Is the New Looksmaxxing Trend

Full transcript

Some young men hammer their own faces on purpose.

It is called bone smashing. It comes from an online trend called looksmaxxing, which means trying to make yourself as good-looking as possible. People strike their cheekbones and jaw, with a hammer or a fist. They hope the bone heals back bigger, for a sharper jaw. Videos about it have been watched hundreds of millions of times.

The idea borrows a real rule about bones. In the eighteen nineties, a German surgeon named Julius Wolff described it. Bone changes to fit the loads put on it. More pressure, more bone. Less pressure, less bone. Doctors still call this Wolff's law.

Tennis players show it well. Scientists have compared the two arms of players with X-rays and scans. The arm that swings the racket has thicker, stronger bone than the other arm. Every swing puts force on that bone, over and over, for years. The bone slowly builds up to handle the work.

A hammer is different. Surgeons say a blow does not guide the bone. It cracks it. A cracked bone heals on its own terms, and nobody can control the shape it heals into. The risks include broken jaws, damaged teeth, nerve damage, and a face that stays uneven for good.

So why do some before and after photos look different? Surgeons point to swelling, which fades as the injury heals. And many of the people doing it are still teenagers. The lower jaw keeps growing on its own, through the late teens.

Here is our take. Wolff's law is real. Your bones do change with how you use them, and exercise over years makes them stronger. Hitting them does not. Please do not try this.

Years of steady work build bone. A hammer only breaks it.