Shin & thigh conditioning for Muay Thai

[ems508]

Ive been doing Muay Thai for a little over a year now and my thighs and shins still hurt after training. Im just curious if anyone knows any good conditioning for thighs and shins that doesnt involve taking a bamboo stick to my shin! Also, I got kicked on the outside muscle of my shin the other night sparring and the pain was ridiculously terrible, is that a pain that will go away with time?

 

[Ian Coe]

Re the pain on the outside of the muscle, not really. You just learn to cope with it better and don't have a weak opening/poor check for next time.

Your shins will take time to get used to it. We used to do just legs sparring a few times a week (with body shots, kyokoshin rules, look it up) and you adapt pretty quickly like that.
In the mean time, kick the heavy bag a lot. I filled an old canvas punch bag up with about 30kg of sand and kicked that (LIGHTLY at first) over a few months and it did wonders.

 

[TrainingAdict]

Besides kicking down a bamboo tree, just keep hitting those heavy punching bags.

Preferably the the long ones that go down to the floor, and ones that are so thick it doesn't even move.

 

[vincent80]

I have a heavy bag filled with 200 lbs of sand. I have chained around a base of a tree so it doesn't move. A bag filled with sand is alot more shocking to hit. Start off going 20-30% force then over time eventually keep moving up... when you get to 70%+ you'll notice a huge difference when sparring.

 

[WarriorLeo]

Hey, I too have recently began Muay Thai Kickboxing, and whenever I go and kick the bag at the dojo, my shins get bruised of course, but sometimes very badly and it seems to take forever to heal, like when I began my very first class, I could kick the bag 10-20 times,hard, before I just did not want my shin to come into contact with anything, even after I put the shin pads on it, and It can take a week or more each time I drill my shins on the heavy bag to heal ...

Is this normal for someone JUST starting? Or am I cursed with glass shins?


Also, is there a way to condition my shins to increase the bone density at home without a heavy bag ?? I can't always get to the dojo to train, because of financial issues, but I don't want to lose any time I could be using to condition you know? I can go for runs or exercise at home, but how do I condition without a heavy bag ?

 

[StupidityKills]

Sounds like you have weak shins, but it could be that the heavy bag is too solid for you. Do you have various heavy bags at your dojo? If you do start light and work your way up.

What type of shin pads do you wear? If you only have the one bag you could buy some cheap cloth shin pads that offer less protection than Twins/King etc but will soften the blow of the bag a bit.

 

[ironwolf]

Like everybody already said, find the hardest bag you can find, start kicking it a lot and work up to harder and harder kicks.

Also for te new guy, yes it is completely normal to be very sore in the shins after training. This will go away in a few months.

 

[WarriorLeo]

StupidityKills: We do, I'll try a lighter one, thanks ! And I was using Hayabusa striking shin guards, Ikusa I think.

Ironwolf: Thanks ! I will do just that,my shins are feeling fine now, do you know if things with calcium in it, like milk, would help with the speed of recovery/strength?

And does anyone now if there is a way to condition my shins at home without a heavy bag ??

 

[SummerStriker]

StupidityKills: We do, I'll try a lighter one, thanks ! And I was using Hayabusa striking shin guards, Ikusa I think.

Ironwolf: Thanks ! I will do just that,my shins are feeling fine now, do you know if things with calcium in it, like milk, would help with the speed of recovery/strength?

And does anyone now if there is a way to condition my shins at home without a heavy bag ??

Running, jumping rope and weighted squats along with a healthy diet including calcium, mag and vitamin D.

Remember that during the course of a fight, your adrenaline will protect you from the pain of the hit provided that your bones are strong enough to not be damaged. Stressing the bones encourages them to grow.

Just make sure you kick the heavy bag a couple hundred times, a couple times a week, when you are there.

Pain in your shins isn't that big of an issue. Getting rid of the pain, to quote "Kwonkicker" is like taking the batteries out of a smoke detector.

You shouldn't be getting hard impact on your bare shins from other people's bare shins that often in my opinion.

Shins hard enough to check kicks bare and full power takes like 4-6 years of the life style I described.

 

[roventu]

sorry to bump an old thread, but was wondering if anyone has other opinions on thigh conditioning?

i know shin conditioning develops after the nerves in the shin area get used to the pain, im not sure if that is due to nerve damage or some disruption in the nerve's ability to send a message to the brain.

however, nerves not only send pain signals to the brain, but relays messages from the brain to the muscle on how to move. since there isn't any important muscle in the front shin area, i am okay if the nerves are deadened there. but the quad muscles are fairly important, and killing the nerves in your thigh might slow down incoming brain signals just as much as the outgoing pain signals. Thoughts?

 

[Badger67]

Shin conditioning: kick more bags/pads, sit on cinder blocks 20 minutes x 3 days a week and increase tolerance.

 

[Chungungo]

sorry to bump an old thread, but was wondering if anyone has other opinions on thigh conditioning?

i know shin conditioning develops after the nerves in the shin area get used to the pain, im not sure if that is due to nerve damage or some disruption in the nerve's ability to send a message to the brain.

however, nerves not only send pain signals to the brain, but relays messages from the brain to the muscle on how to move. since there isn't any important muscle in the front shin area, i am okay if the nerves are deadened there. but the quad muscles are fairly important, and killing the nerves in your thigh might slow down incoming brain signals just as much as the outgoing pain signals. Thoughts?

Still don

 

[OriginalSpeedy]

Ive been doing Muay Thai for a little over a year now and my thighs and shins still hurt after training. Im just curious if anyone knows any good conditioning for thighs and shins that doesnt involve taking a bamboo stick to my shin! Also, I got kicked on the outside muscle of my shin the other night sparring and the pain was ridiculously terrible, is that a pain that will go away with time?

Kicking stuff like moving up in hardness on heavy bags: avoid the water filled ones.

Getting kicked on those parts. I used to square off with classmates and we went kick for kick. Just try to find an agreed upon power that both of you can handle.

 

[ngarauru]

sorry to bump an old thread, but was wondering if anyone has other opinions on thigh conditioning?

i know shin conditioning develops after the nerves in the shin area get used to the pain, im not sure if that is due to nerve damage or some disruption in the nerve's ability to send a message to the brain.

however, nerves not only send pain signals to the brain, but relays messages from the brain to the muscle on how to move. since there isn't any important muscle in the front shin area, i am okay if the nerves are deadened there. but the quad muscles are fairly important, and killing the nerves in your thigh might slow down incoming brain signals just as much as the outgoing pain signals. Thoughts?

Goods points, I always get kicked in the legs as I prefer fighting on the outside
It might be a case of learning to be evasive as opposed to taking the shot
If anyone has pointers let us know please

 

[Beijing Power]

sorry to bump an old thread, but was wondering if anyone has other opinions on thigh conditioning?

i know shin conditioning develops after the nerves in the shin area get used to the pain, im not sure if that is due to nerve damage or some disruption in the nerve's ability to send a message to the brain.

however, nerves not only send pain signals to the brain, but relays messages from the brain to the muscle on how to move. since there isn't any important muscle in the front shin area, i am okay if the nerves are deadened there. but the quad muscles are fairly important, and killing the nerves in your thigh might slow down incoming brain signals just as much as the outgoing pain signals. Thoughts?

Ur not killing the nerves, u simply changing the way that specific part of ur body responds to pain.

 

[OriginalSpeedy]

Hard to explain without demonstrating. Might be a Youtube video but it's a matter of how you position your legs or/and lift it up to block/absorb the shot. Like I said it's hard to explain without visuals.