Shin Conditioning

[MercuryTurrent]

im very interested on how to get those powerfull shins, and how to condition them. like all TKD artists, i want my legs to be weapons... however, i want them to be muay thai weapons

[Brokenmace]

Kick bags with your shins. Start with the smooth kind (don't know what the material is) and progress to the canvas. When that stops hurting, tap against a friend's shin in practice. At home, tap on your shins with the knife edge of your hand for about ten - fifteen minutes. Some folks roll coke bottles and rattan sticks over their shins, but I hear that this isn't so good by the time you are older Eventually your shins will go numb and you'll be able to break things with them (te-he-he)

Hope that helped.

[MercuryTurrent]

i dont have any access to bags ( guess i should have originally mentioned that)

any substitute?

[Bryan Popejoy]

Get a heavy bag or improvise and make one. And kick thai pads, too!

Don't do anything crazy, all the beating on yourself with sticks and the like is just crazy. That's just asking for trouble.

[Victor]

How to condition your shins

There are various ways you can condition your shins. Kick a punching bag, if you do this go easy at first, or you can try those hand targets/pads, you can also use your bare hand and strike your shins. My favorite way to condition the shins is to do it with a partner, by going shin to shin,right then left. Go slow at first, and then go a little harder.

[terry]

Brian,

It reminds me of a question I got one time at a seminar. Some poor soul walked up to me and told me, "I've heard Thai boxers gets operations to deaden their shins so they don't feel the pain." I couldn't help but indulge my sense of humor when I replied dryly, "Of course. I thought all martial artists do that."

You get some of the darndest questions sometimes. Heh.

Terry

[H@pkid0ist]

My first HApkido Intstructor's father was a Mui Thai'ist. So he was taught simular to MT innitially. They used to kick telephone poles to condition their shins. And god forbid you even brushed up against his shins. Man that crap hurts. It was but ugly to. The issue I have with a lot of that kinda conditioning is the long term health issues.

[JIMI]

plant a banana tree and wait a few years, or wack your shins with a stick on a daily basis till you cant stand to do anymore. after this apply a bone conditioner liquid. also we tried this and it works great. we mounted a steel belted tire to a post , minus the rim of course. when you kick it the tire will flex a little so its not so tragic. however the tread on the tire will pinch the skin a little and remove hair too. the constant pinching of the skin after time tends to cause the skin to go numb. its cool. i know this sounds extreme but this is muay thai not love making.

[William]

Some folks roll coke bottles and rattan sticks over their shins, but I hear that this isn't so good by the time you are older

One of my instructors who is an instructor in Laoation Kickboxing under Ajarn Samsak Boupha has photos of Samsak breaking coke bottles on his shins. He also has a few photos of him kicking through stacked cinder blocks (side ways)....OUCH! They used to start every class with 600 round kicks (300 each side). If he didn't think you were kicking hard enough, he'd walk up and say (in a thick Laoation accent): "what, are you girl or somethin! You Kick harder!"

William

[terry]

Originally posted by William


If he didn't think you were kicking hard enough, he'd walk up and say (in a thick Laoation accent): "what, are you girl or somethin! You Kick harder!"

William

Heh, Ajarn Chai got into some trouble doing that. At a recent seminar he was trying to get a student to kick harder and kept saying, "You kick like a woman." The student eventually got exasperated and stated, to Ajarn Chai's embarrassment, "I AM a woman." Doh!

[JIMI]

OMG that is so funny. i heard one story about master chai taking a stick and actually hitting a guys shins with it because he wasnt blocking properly or something like that. crazy huh

[terry]

Yes, Ajarn Chai likes to stand behind his fighters while they're working out and hit them in the ankles with a 5' rattan staff when they drop their hands. Creates some pretty freaked out guys.

Terry

[rocknrollrjm]

My Thai coach has over 300 fights under his belt that were all fought in Thailand where he grew up. I asked him about the banana tree idea and what they do/did to toughen up thier shins. He said, "first of all, the only reason we planted banana trees was for the bananas and we would of gotten in big trouble if we were kicking it all the time, it would die and then no bananas." His opinion is that the best way is kicking a heavy bag and thai pads. That together with regular sparring is the most natural approach.

On a different note, when I started out kickboxing, I would go rounds on different bags, different thicknesses and weights for each and then I would often finish with a couple rounds kicking a tire. We would just nail a light duty tire to a 4x4 or tree or something and lightly kick it until the shin goes numb, soon you can kick it for 3minutes with no pain but to get to that point you have to endure the pain and soreness and if you don't keep doing it, it's all for nothing.

I go along with my thai coaches suggestion now and sometimes I get caught off gaurd with something that hurts my shins since they're not de-sensitized to the extreme.

[crazyjoe380]

shin conditioning??

if your teacher can't answer these questions then your in the wrong school..

[mushinmaster]

what joe said

DON'T HIT YOUR SHINS WITH ANYTHING HARDER THAN YOUR SHINS! THAT'S THE WORST ADVICE EVER!