What's the Latest Thinking on Shin Conditioning?

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Training and Health
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[QUOTE=Lee Chiang Po;936200]… 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.[/QUOTE]

curious about this
you saying the ROK guys would hurt the thai guys with a downward block to a knee strike?
If so I’d like to know the technique.
Thai thinking says the guy blocking a knee with his arm will catch a NASTY elbow to the grille, but if there’s a way to do enough damage to a thigh with a forearm strike, I’d really like to know.

goju
I’ve known of hundreds of different “old school” type of ways to condition the shin. From rolling iron bars or glass bottles over the shin, to kicking 2x4s buried half-way in the dirt. The only guys I know to really have achieved the scary shins of iron in sparring use have all done it on the heavybag.

22

Unless you’re fighting in competitions the average person probably doesn’t need iron body training for everyday survival.

by Shaolin

Well, I do not agree with that. Iron forearm and shin training are the minimum one needs to do even if he is not fighting in competitions.

Starting in April this year, I have increased the frequency of iron shin training from once to twice per week. Forget about the method of rolling the shin with wooden or iron equipment. I do not mind to say it again - it does not work. Currently, I use tapping to hitting my shins with a beer glass bottle.

Regards,

KC
Hong Kong

23

really? i never got any shin conditioning on the heavy bag huh thats interesting

24

[QUOTE=Pork Chop;936180]The flat vs the blade makes a huge difference, the blade is much more structurally capable of handling abuse.[/QUOTE]

Intuitively I would have thought the opposite. Weird.

I always kicked with the blade, tho, cuz that part hurts the other guy more.

Re: conditioning: Back in the day I did iron forearm and shin conditioning (with the iron body bags from Wing Lam). I got very good conditioning from both, and could take and deliver hard strikes without pain.

Years after I had stopped, I started doing a ton of heavy bag training with thai kicks every day. I got to the point where I could kick a bag or pads very hard, but I never got much shin conditioning from it. Sparring with other people, the lightest shin-to-shin touch would cause me to fall over in pain and then be unable to train for a week or two until the bruise and lump slowly healed. And I mean soft contact, as in like “hey, let’s slowly bring our shins together.” Not even a kick or anything.

Compared with when I was using the iron body bags (mung bean and gravel), my conditioning was much worse.

Could be that I just didn’t do it as long or something. I dunno.

I honestly don’t see how kicking a heavy bag will get you to the point where you can go shin-to-shin without pain, however.

And I think the roller/rolling methods are stupid, too. At least do something with impact so your bone becomes a little more dense and used to impact.

25

[QUOTE=SteveLau;936227]Well, I do not agree with that. Iron forearm and shin training are the minimum one needs to do even if he is not fighting in competitions.[/QUOTE]

I think there’s a misunderstanding, I’m referring to the average everyday person who does not, and has no interest in training. The everyday man and woman don’t get into to fights therefore don’t require hard body conditioning to function and survive in everyday life. For us that do choose the martial life I say yes, hard body conditioning should be apart of the basic curriculum.

26

well, from the edge, you’ve got like an inch or two of bone behind it, on the flat it’s what half an inch? Kinda like a knife- can handle a lot more pressure on the blade edge than on the flat.

As far as not getting conditioned via the heavybag…
In the first post I mentioned that baby taps can actually hurt more than legit kicks to someones shins, knees, or elbows.
Were you hitting on the order of 100,000 times?
How soft were the heavybags?
Were you kissing the kicks off the surface or penetrating through?
How high up the shin were you kicking?
Thai pads shouldn’t ever have been an issue with soreness, unless they were Boon thai pads, which ship as fricking bricks & hurt almost as much as catching someones knee, i love them.

For myself, I’ve never done any of that crazy stuff with the bottles or the iron bars or the tapping or the 2x4s or the broken glass, but I’ve kicked people in the knees & elbows without shin guards plenty of times with power and lived to tell about it.

ps - as far as those lumps, we rub out the swelling to break it up as soon as it occurs and we don’t take any time off from it - it’s straight back to the bag.

27

[QUOTE=IronFist;936245]Intuitively I would have thought the opposite. Weird.
[/QUOTE]

Get a bunch of popsickle sticks. See which way is harder to break.

Besides its summer, enjoy the popsickles

28

anothe rkarate one is just toget a parther and collide your shins into each others over and over again
i think the average person should shin condition too though you never know when you may need it

29

[QUOTE=Pork Chop;936252]well, from the edge, you’ve got like an inch or two of bone behind it, on the flat it’s what half an inch? Kinda like a knife- can handle a lot more pressure on the blade edge than on the flat.
[/quote]

Makes sense.

As far as not getting conditioned via the heavybag…
In the first post I mentioned that baby taps can actually hurt more than legit kicks to someones shins, knees, or elbows.

this is possibly true.

i’m not saying you’re wrong, just giving my experience.

Were you hitting on the order of 100,000 times?

Not per day! :eek:

I’d say it was on the order of at least 100 kicks per day for a year or so. So I guess that’s just past the 1/3 mark of your 100,000 times mark. But I guess by comparison I got results much faster with the iron body bags.

How soft were the heavybags?

Hard on the bottom half, where I was kicking.

Were you kissing the kicks off the surface or penetrating through?

Kicking hard so the bag kind of folds around the shin.

How high up the shin were you kicking?

Bottom to half-way up.

Thai pads shouldn’t ever have been an issue with soreness, unless they were Boon thai pads, which ship as fricking bricks & hurt almost as much as catching someones knee, i love them.

Link to pics of Boon Thai pads? I’m not sure i know what those are. Is boon just a brand?

ps - as far as those lumps, we rub out the swelling to break it up as soon as it occurs and we don’t take any time off from it - it’s straight back to the bag.

I usually would do that, too. But once I got this super bad lump that would not go away for like a month… I had to be careful not to kick the bag or pads with that part of my shin cuz it hurt like hell any time anything touched it. I tried putting everything on it: jow, arnica gel, hot water, cold water, massages, etc. nothing worked.

30

I had a lump like you mentioned a few years back.
Rubbed the thing out and it didn’t go away.
Think it bruised over pretty good.
Pretty sure I chipped the bone.

100,000 times total, yeah 100 times a day is the standard prescription.

I dunno, I don’t think I got where I’m at overnight.
I think it took years to get to this point.
Up until a year or two ago tapping shins was torture for me too, eventhough I could actually spar without shin guards & make contact - which is why I say don’t go by the pain of baby taps without penetration.
Confidence is another part of it.
One of my training buddies has been training a long time but has no confidence in his shins - any time he goes without shin guards he’ll throw maybe 2 leg kicks, usually picking up an injury. If you think you’re gonna get hurt, you usually will.
Also gotta remember to chose your targets carefully - don’t collide with bone if you don’t have to.

Another thing to consider- the guys you’re tapping shins with now, where do they rank compared to your old partners? Any chance that they have stronger shins than you, or what you’re used to?

EDIT: You may want to focus on really kicking with the center of the shin, maybe 60% of the way down.

Boon:
Yes, Boon’s a brand.
http://promuaythaigear.com/buckle-kick-pads-kpb.html

31

two things happen when you “forge” anything, be it shins or arm or hands, one is the “deadening” of the nerves so you feel less pain, the other is the increase of bone density from repetitive shock trauma.
Rolling of pins and such works the deadening of nerves part and does nothing for the impact/increase in bone density part.
Hitting a dense/hard HB gives you the repetitive shock trauma part, as does kicking banana trees, padded posts and such.
The issue is, like IP, you have to take into account what you are hitting when you decide HOW to hit.
EX:
Hitting a “soft” target like a HB can be done full force for many kicks over a long period of time, although typically, all those kicks IF done full force will be done over the span of the WHOLE workout ( BH, Pads and such), or they well be done at a more moderate pace for a few rounds.
When you are kicking or hitting your shines with a harder medium like a iron shot filled bag, padded post, old lady at the bus stop, you need to “tap” the shin ( a light strike" and you need to do around 100 or so and then put on the jow.
You do NOT hit a hard medium full force, not in training anyways.

32

One needs to strengthen one’s Kidney function before doing those conditioning.

Bone is weak if the Bone marrow is not fill. and to fill Bone marrow, one needs to have a healty kidney. Thus, in the ancient practice, even with a strong kidney, one is request to shut down the reproduction system or sex activity for 3 months for basic conditioning. and limited sex activity after the training for a life time as soon as one want to keep the strenght and high density bone.

These stuffs are no just hit some iron shot or massage with dit Da wine. it is serious stuffs.

With today’s eating of massive process food, one has become more and more fragile. Thus, be careful on what you are doing. Dont screw up your body.

33

By the time I finished nearly 2 years of Muay Thai training, most of that in Thailand, I had very hard shins. In my opinion, kicking a heavy bag provides some conditioning but it will really prepare your shins only for the stress of hitting a relatively soft target. To condition the shins further, so that you can withstand a properly executed knee block for example, something harder is necessary. We used a stack of old car tires. We’d kick the tires every day, but only about 25 times each leg. Starting off with light kicks, over the period of about a year I built up where I could kick the tires with about 80 power and only minor discomfort. At this point, my shins could take a good block with little difficulty. On many occasions I witnessed my teacher kick the steel posts that supported the corners of the ring, and kick them hard. This had to do not only with good conditioning, but with proper technique as well - partly flexing the foot while kicking keeps the foreleg muscles & ankle tendons activated so they can support the bone.

As for deadening nerves, I don’t think that was a factor in my conditioning.I often checked by brushing my shins lightly with my fingertips & never had a problem with losing sensation. I think my pain-feedback loop was simply rewired over time, so that when a serious impact was no longer interpreted as a danger, my body no longer initiated the pain response.

I stopped this kind of training a few years ago, but recently got myself a tire stack at home to begin it again. My days in the ring are over, but I do think that if you ever want to be able to use any martial technique in the real world, even just for self-defense, then you’d better condition your body to be ready.

34

[QUOTE=monkey mind;936895]As for deadening nerves, I don’t think that was a factor in my conditioning.I often checked by brushing my shins lightly with my fingertips & never had a problem with losing sensation. I think my pain-feedback loop was simply rewired over time, so that when a serious impact was no longer interpreted as a danger, my body no longer initiated the pain response.

[/QUOTE]

Agreed. When I was using the iron body bags, I could still feel super light touches on my forearms and shins. I would test myself periodically. I could feel a bug crawl across my forearm, or the tickle from a feather, or a very light touch.

And it wasn’t just because of the hair that I was feeling it because the daily massaging caused a bit of hair to fall out over time :smiley:

35

Deadening of the nerves here does not mean make it to the level of not feeling anything. We do not want to become walking corpse. It means feel of dull pain instead of intoreable sharp pain when our shin is being hit. By the way, I had noticeable improvement in my iron shin training last Sunday since I had increased the frequency of training three weeks ago. The same improvement years ago I had in iron arm training when I switched from hitting wood equipment to iron equipment.

P.S. In doing pre-arranged sparring drills with a new partner in April, I did not block his high hook kick properly once. Instead of blocking his shin with both of my forearms, my right forearm got hit first. It resulted in minor injury with dull pain on my right arm for a few days, and no bruise, nothing else. I strongly believe my iron arm training has paid off. Otherwise, the injury would be more severe.

Regards,

KC
Hong Kong

36

[QUOTE=SteveLau;937193]Deadening of the nerves here does not mean make it to the level of not feeling anything. We do not want to become walking corpse. It means feel of dull pain instead of intoreable sharp pain when our shin is being hit. By the way, I had noticeable improvement in my iron shin training last Sunday since I had increased the frequency of training three weeks ago. The same improvement years ago I had in iron arm training when I switched from hitting wood equipment to iron equipment.

P.S. In doing pre-arranged sparring drills with a new partner in April, I did not block his high hook kick properly once. Instead of blocking his shin with both of my forearms, my right forearm got hit first. It resulted in minor injury with dull pain on my right arm for a few days, and no bruise, nothing else. I strongly believe my iron arm training has paid off. Otherwise, the injury would be more severe.

Regards,

KC
Hong Kong[/QUOTE]

This is correct.

37

Another thing about iron shin training, there are other methods that I have heard of though the methodology is the same - hit. For instance, one method is hurt and then recover to make the shin bone and skin stronger. However, I do not adopt it because it is unhealthy to me. Besides, such method is too unsafe.

Regards,

KC
Hong Kong