Shin pain after sparring

[Catwv]

At tae kwon do tonight, I was sparring and I didn't have shin pads on (smart, I know...). Anyway, my partner and I kicked eachother in the shin (pretty much bone on bone). Since then, there's been pain on the inside of the front of my shin right above my ankle. This happen to anyone else? What did you do for it?

Also, not sure if this was the appropriate forum for this or not

 

[mofunky]

Tough it out. If you want tougher shins, do conditioning. You can either roll a rolling pin up and down your shins or VERY VERY LIGHTLY hit it with a hammer at different places.

 

[DivineComedy]

Don't hit it with a hammer, that's stupid. We no longer live in a world where you have to punch boulders, trees and etc. to condition. To condition your shin, work the heavy bag and spar with your partners to condition. If your shin hit bone to bone, it will bruise, and it will swell, but it will pass. Also you hit at a very vulnerable spot on this shin. As for recovery, obviously don't slam the area that is still in pain, give it about a week or so, possibly longer depending on how fast you recover. If you leave it alone, it will go away.

 

[xilliun]

Tough it out. If you want tougher shins, do conditioning. You can either roll a rolling pin up and down your shins or VERY VERY LIGHTLY hit it with a hammer at different places.

It's idiots like you that give martial arts a bad rep. Doing this to your shin is only going to damage yourself in the long run. Just kick the heavy bag and pads, a lot.

 

[Catwv]

Don't hit it with a hammer, that's stupid. We no longer live in a world where you have to punch boulders, trees and etc. to condition. To condition your shin, work the heavy bag and spar with your partners to condition. If your shin hit bone to bone, it will bruise, and it will swell, but it will pass. Also you hit at a very vulnerable spot on this shin. As for recovery, obviously don't slam the area that is still in pain, give it about a week or so, possibly longer depending on how fast you recover. If you leave it alone, it will go away.

Thank you. This is what I assumed I'd need to do. Last time it happened, I just wrapped it to minimize swelling and it was fine within a day or 2. More or less, I just wondered if it happened to anyone else. So, Kicking a Heavy bag+sparring=Stronger Shins. Sounds like it should work.

 

[DivineComedy]

Its a normal day to day thing for harder styles of Karate and Muay Thai, so no worries.

 

[Cannon_6]

...As for recovery, obviously don't slam the area that is still in pain, give it about a week or so, possibly longer depending on how fast you recover. If you leave it alone, it will go away.

+1

Given a rest, even a severe, painful, mushy bone bruise will heal very quickly. If you ignore the pain and continue to slam the hell out of it (i.e., train normally), it'll take months. Just substitute knees for kicks on that side until it's better.

 

[Wow Exuberant**]

You're gonna get a lot of meatheads telling you to "toughen up your shins bro" because they do MT, so ignore them.

 

[DivineComedy]

Even MT meatheads don't go around telling people to hit themselves with a hammer. My shins are godly from karate training, I just have kars hit my shins. TOUGH THEM UP LIKE TAPOUT SHIRTS.

 

[Fire of Youth]

Hitting shin on shin will always hurt. But you can lessen the hurt with a few techniques.

1) Push into your shin block (almost like throwing a knee). The point of this is to actually block the kick before it reaches the apex of its power. As such, there wont be as much power coming into your shin lessening the hurt. The kicker will feel as if you just jammed against their kick and it can make the kicker feel very unco-ordinated. This is a very strong block and useful against guys much bigger and stronger than yourself. However, I do caution that sometimes you may actually push yourself a little off balance as you push out. This can make follow-up counters a bit difficult to throw quickly. Also, you do need to have relatively fast reactions in order to not only get your leg up for a block but to push out before your opponents kick reaches you.

2) Cushion the kick. In the same way that you retract your hands for a catch or retract your foot to trap a soccer ball, you can pull your ankle back at the point of impact. This result in you cushion the kickers force against your shin. You will be surprised at how much it softens the hurt. This requires good timing but is probably the versatile method across different fighting styles.

3) Ricochete the force into the ground. When you block with your shin, keep your ankle back so your shin is at a 45 degree angle to the ground. The kickers force will then hit your shin and deflect downward into the ground. There is still some impact on your shin but most of it bounces away. To see this principle in action get a ball (anykind) a small ramp (just to keep force of ball constant) and a wall. Roll the ball down the ramp into the wall at a)head on and b) at a 45 degree angle and then measure how far the ball travels after it bounces off the wall. Spoiler: the ball will travel further after hitting at an angle. I personally favour this method. However, I sit low in my stance and constantly come forward with pressure. I find that after the block is deflected, I am in a good position to counter and move further inwards.

Try these techniques and see which one best suits your fighting style. You can even use all techniques, tailoring them to any given situation. e.g. you could cushion the kick as your standard blocking technique, push into the kick if you are faster than your opponent, and deflect the kick if you are shorter than your opponent.

 

[Peep**]

Well it is to be expected, I mean you're required to slam your shin bone against your target. Just remember that shin is healing so be careful with it.

 

[GSPBONES]

I have a question nearly everyday i sparr MT.

and every day ill bruise my foot and or shin this is with both of us with good shinguards on.

what can i do to prevent this or heal them quicker

 

[xilliun]

I have a question nearly everyday i sparr MT.

and every day ill bruise my foot and or shin this is with both of us with good shinguards on.

what can i do to prevent this or heal them quicker

bruises happen, can't really avoid them. just ice them when you get home for a few hours, i rub some arnica cream into them and normally within 24 hours the worst of it's gone. you can also trying rubbing the bruise directly with your fingers. not sure the science behind it, but i had a bad one on my shin a few days before a fight and started to do that and went down quickly.

curiously, what type of shin pads do you have? most newer ones now have extra padding built up along the shin area itself so there's less bruising along the bone.