Well he can't really test your theory because recovery girl can't resurrect scraps of meat, IIRC.

He should at least train his smash on robots or mountains or something.

Also, the way he approached the match was stupid. Why did he decide on an endurance fight when he had no idea what Shoto's limitations are? If you have little info, you work with what little you have, not naively hope you learn something while sacrificing your body parts.

Izuku should've dashed forward while using his smashes to get closer to Shoto and use a smash (a stomp or a ground punch) to blast scarface out of the arena. His rear ice protection will do nothing if Izuku destroys the very ground it is attached to... But yeah, typical for this show, it is again drama over logic.

That said, the shounen heart was nice in this episode again.