What’s the latest thinking on taking hits and in particular shin conditioning? I’ve experienced the school of thought of developing it while sparring, and another method, mostly TMA, that goes with special training that focus’s on a body part.
I’ve had decent results in the past with the sparring method for what I need to do but I’m just looking to see what else is out there.
Unless you’re fighting in competitions the average person probably doesn’t need iron body training for everyday survival. But, what daily conditioning does provide toa a hobbiest is the unity between mind and body; pushing yourself beyond the limitations that you’ve set on yourself; again strengthening the mind as much as the body.
If you’re considering competitions you need to condition the whole body not just the shins. A major area over looked in body conditioning for competitions is the back of the thighs. A good Thai kick will cut at an angle on the shorts line of the thigh and the foot will whip around and punish the hamstring.
To properly condition the body continue doing what you’re doing, getting some conditioning in when sparring but also supplement that with traditional iron body training.
heavybag
that’s all you need to really condition your shins
start with a soft heavybag first, for about a month, to get used to penetrating through the bag - you want it to fold in half and wrap around your shin, this does not always equate to the loudest noise.
gradually move on to harder and more firm heavybags, still going for penetration & the bag folding around your kick.
An easy goal to shoot for is at least 100 kicks a day (or at least workout days) per leg. You should have decent shins in about 6 months, especially if you’re supplementing with sparring & thai pads. By the time you hit 100,000 kicks, fighting bare shin shouldn’t be that big a deal.
Keep in mind that it hurts less if you swing through your target instead of just kissing off the surface. Tapping shins often hurts worse than blasting through.
I like the heavybag idea and also Thai pads…no shin guards. Then sparring with shin guards and drilling with them. You can also do optional no-shin guard drilling or real light sparring depending on where you’re at.
Or you can do what I always did: hard sparring with minimal gear. My shins are solid but the process is awful…
i’ve been borrowing my roomates shae/cocoa butter lotion…my knees and shins are in terrible shape from work…dry, cracked…but, oh…sorry…wrong type of conditioning… have a nice day! 
LOL, that was good Oso.
i’m serious!!! my knees are starting to look like a back alley *****'s…
That reminds me, I still owe you $5.
no, mother****er, you owe me $10…remember? Don’t make me send Antoine after your cracka ass…
Or you can do what I always did: hard sparring with minimal gear. My shins are solid but the process is awful…
That’s how we did it in my karate days, spar with no pads, take some hits and bang some bones. While I enjoyed that in the past these days the bangs and bruises take too darn long to heal.
[QUOTE=Oso;935366]no, mother****er, you owe me $10…remember? Don’t make me send Antoine after your cracka ass…[/QUOTE]
Do not, I gave you what was left of my burrito and we called it even.
How you been Oso?
lol…
i’m good, you?
[QUOTE=Oso;935366]Don’t make me send Antoine after your cracka ass…[/QUOTE]
I almost spit my tea out, lol!
If you are just thinking of toughening up the shins period, I don’t really think you are going to be able to do that. A kick to the shin or a boot or shoe soul scrapped down the shin is going to hurt no matter what. The skin is so thin that a good scrape will remove some hide. I have to be skeptcal of kicking someone with the shin bone. I was watching a TV show called Extreme Video’s, and it showed a MMA fight where the very first blow thrown was a Thai kick to the upper thigh. The guy broke his leg clean in half at the shin. And last year I was watching a fight between some chick from Brazil and one from Japan. The Japanese girl broke her leg doing the same thing. There has to be something wrong with that picture. A kick that can injure you as well as the kickee is not a very good method of kicking to me. It is like smashing your nose into a wall repeatedly in an effort to make it tough enough to hurt some one with it. Logic sort of flys away at some point.
roll a weight lifting bar up and down you shins fot ten minutes ad weight as your shins become stronger
then move on to kicking wooden poll burried in ground
Those leg cracking shin kicks are much less common in pure muay thai than mma.
A lot of MMA guys aren’t putting in the months and years of conditioning on the heavybag before jumping in there and throwing full out roundkicks without shinguards.
If you look close, most of those shin breaks are leg kicks thrown at a bad angle that exposes the flat of the shin, instead of using the blade.
Pre-existing injuries also have a bit to do with it as well.
[QUOTE=Pork Chop;936132]If you look close, most of those shin breaks are leg kicks thrown at a bad angle that exposes the flat of the shin, instead of using the blade.[/QUOTE]
o rly?
I hadn’t considered that that would make a difference.
Now I have to go watch those vids again :eek:
I don’t really got the stomach to sit there and watch leg breaks over and over (especially not with the stomach flu I’ve had the past few days); but at least 2 of the mma ones I saw were definitely flat of the shin instead of the blade - pretty sure the Corey Hill one counts as well.
The flat vs the blade makes a huge difference, the blade is much more structurally capable of handling abuse.
I am most inclined to think that the angle was bad. However, when fighting with a moving target you are going to have a lot of bad timing. Murphy comes into this too. If it can, it usually will. I am more inclined to think that any technique that has to be done thousands of times to get used to the pain is not something to be recommended. There are many ways to kick without endangering yourself or your limbs. In the ring this might be an exceptable risk, especially if you have a ref there to break it off if something of that nature should happen, but I have to think it would be a poor choice of defense techniques.
Back in the 60’s, Thai boxing was really popular. Fighters from other styles were always being pulled into matches with the Thai boys. They were tough, no question about it, but we had some TKD fighters in our outfit. Actually, they were ROK, and attached to our unit. They had a way of stepping forward and down blocking against the knee. That would be the end of the fight. They would get all hacked off and start yelling about rules and such. No one said anything about rules before then.
i thiink every ma stylist should do shin conditioning many think its just amuay thai thing but its in every kung fu korean japanese etc etc style really
i remember a fighter from thailand who did mma a while back and dislocated someones jaw with a shin kick lol he quit and became a dancer a few fights later
if your insame theres also a method a kyoshinkai figher uses i forget his name but he kicks airon bar wrapped in sand paper
have fun with that