I was wondering if anybody knows a way to kind of... dull the pain in your shins when you kick someone. When I used to spar in TKD and when I spar now in Kung Fu, my shins are in a hell of a lot of pain every now and then. Is there like something you could do to just sort of dull the nerves without exactly killing it so you can't really anything at all. Thanks.
http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29914&highlight=shins+pain And with that, I officaly leave for the night. My paper could have been finished two hours ago, had it not been for this darned site.
Hit the gym and kick the heavy bag. Kick the heavy bag... And did I mention... Kick The Heavy Bag. This needs to be religion if you want to be able to kick with low roundhouses and check roundhouses with your shin. If not your looking at gettin' KO'd. Rounds on the Thai Pads are great as well. Most other stuff is nonsense. Unless people in your area don't mind your destroying their bannana trees. Don't waste time bottle rolling, bamboo whacking or all that other nonsense. It's a waste of time and is non-funcitonal. Again - get over to the heavy bag.
well i would say that your nerves are in your shins for a reason, to feel pain as to stopping yourself from doing serious damage to your shins.
I'm told that once its bruised you have to take it easy and wait for the bruising to go. So the idea is to build up so gradually that it doesn't really bruise at all. Its a softly-softly approach so as not to leave you with lasting damage later in life. I find this seems to work. Also, comfrey oil is meant to be really good for this, rub on after conditioning every day. (Also seems to work well for me)
When I was younger I used to wack my shins w/ a 1X2 while watching Tv. Whenever a commercial came on the wackin started ( no pun or sexual overtone needs 2B incerted) (and on the last part see first () LOL It helped me. Take it or leave it. good luck. Later...
bottle rolling worked for me, start at below the knee and roll down, never roll up! always down! my 2 cents
I'm pretty sure there are a few threads on the same thing already, but here's what I think about it. I don't know whether it is true or not, but I've heard many times before that whacking your shins, rolling sticks or bottles across them constantly, etc can lead to injury, and you can screw yourself up doing it somehow. (someone please elaborate!). Why not just use a good heavy bag to condition the shins? You'll condition them while working technique at the same time, and it's much safer. Also, I use the heavy bag all the time and my shins used to be very weak and would bruise easily, but now they rarely hurt, even from shin on shin contact. This kinda proved to me that the other methods of conditioning weren't necessary. And what do you need dull/dead nerves for anyway? It won't make you a better fighter, the nerves around your shin area don't need to be dead to lay into someone with a good kick. If you get a little pain in your shins from sparring, you'll probably get used to it over time anyway (but the heavy bags helps for sure).
injury from rolling ocures from rolling up. it can push calcium deposits up toward the knee and cause shin splints. after 8 or so years of rolling, off and on, i still have feeling, and your nerves never fully "die" bag work is also a way to do it, but rolling only helps speed up the proccess
build up gradually from my experience, it helps to start off with something relatively soft and work your way up. This prevents accidental damage and it builds up the bones in a healthier manner. Same technique can be used for breaking, start with palm strikes at water, work up to a bag of rice, eventually a heavy bag and then harder objects. This will help to strengthen the bones in a constructive way.
i agree with kodiak. i do bottle rolling, never up. i hit the bag religiously and i run em over with a flame every few days for about 12 seconds a piece it has seriously calloused the skin.
This is highly amusing and a piece of very misleading information verging on myth. It's not about callouses or flame proofing! That has very little to do with weak or painful shins when throwin' MT kicks. Look at the top ranked guys out of Lumpini, Ratchadumnern, Holland or France - they have no callouses on their shins. And they sure as heck DO NOT flame-treat them. The way bones build new bone (ossification) to adapt to repeated impact or stress (as in heavy bag work) happens on a molecular level with new bone growth coming from the marrow side - the majority of the new bone does not grow on the side of the impact. There are many articles on the web regarding ossification and how it relates to MA conditioning. As for the flames... I have been to many camps in Thailand and trained at a few... I have never ever seen anyone use flames to somehow make their shins tougher. Nor have I ever seen anyone attempt to build callouses on their shins. Painful shins in Muay Thai is often down more to bad technique than anything else. The theory is hard-against-soft. That's why you don't see people training to throw round houses against an opponents hips - what would be the point? It would be bone on bone. Bone on bone contact for checking kicks is acceptable because it's better to check a kick than to take on in the side of the knee, shin or thigh. If you are training seriously and doing your road-work and bag work mixed with a bit of full contact sparring with shin pads then you should be fine. Will it still hurt when you check someones kick? Of course it will. Again here comes the ring craft of Muay Thai - Thai fighters traditionally keep a stone-face when fighting... usually the only indication that you've caught them out or hurt them is when they smile. As you enter more comps/bouts, train more your tolerance for pain will increase.
OK here's the real deal as opposed to my low-brow low-tech version. lol. Read up and enjoy. Q:How do I best condition my shins for kicking and my legs for taking kicks? A: Ok , having a traumatic flashback of Anatomy and Physiology I has revealed to me that there are two types of bone compact and spongy bone. An example of compact bone is your femur since it is defined as bone which is heavily stressed in one direction. I use the femur as an example since it can support 10-15 times one's bodyweight but can easily be fractured by any perpendicular forces applied to the side of its shaft-one of the reasons a Thai round kick to the leg can and many times has broken a femur ,not necessarily because of the strength of the kick but because it is striking a particular bone at its weakest point(s). An example of spongy bone would be your rib cage and all the various individual structures which compose it since it is defined as bone which is not heavily stressed or where stressed arrive from many directions. I am mentioning these things to give you an idea about the variety of bone that is "naturally" occurring in the body without other undo stressed being placed upon it due to labor or activity of a specific nature. Bone development and growth of the kind we are concerned with is commonly known as ossification , specifically the kind we are concerned with is called intramembranous ossification which occurs to fibrous connective tissue such as that which surrounds bone ;the fascia sheaths which enclose each individual muscle and allow us to actually differentiate that they are indeed individual muscles since in reality NO muscle acts alone even though they are physically separated from each other ,though admittedly not to the untrained eye. This type of ossification occurs at the shin bone and to the surrounding areas when forces are exerted unto/into it. Whenever a bone is stressed the mineral crystals generate minute electrical fields. Certain bone building cells called osteobalsts are attracted to these areas of negative charge and upon arrival begin to produce bone at the sight of negative electrical charge. Because bones are adaptable ,their shapes(and according densities) reflect the forces applied to them. This should not seem strange since it would help to remember that the nerve impulses of our very cells are determined by an exact ratio of MINERALS of which the bone is composed. So when the bone is physically broken down by pressure and blunt trauma it naturally breaks of pieces of the various minerals which compose the bone and are essential building blocks for NEW bone. Basically the osteoclasts upon being informed of the electrical charge difference on the outside of the bones shaft begin to actually break down that part of the bone on the inside of the shaft(that part of the shaft closest to the marrow center)in order to provide more building materials for the osteoblasts on the outer edges of the shaft. Thusly the cavity of the bone becomes larger and the shaft becomes thicker. There is also a difference in the thickness of the shaft both laterally and medially. For instance the lateral (facing away from your torso and centerline) part of the shaft becomes denser and the medial (facing towards your centerline) becomes stretched and more flexible in order to handle the compressive forces that are being exerted on its opposite side. For your Students: So very simply you can use a great analogy-the katana. It is a sword which's very construction can illustrate the end result of someone who has properly conditioned their shins. This is a weapon whose edge, length-wise, is very hard in the middle, somewhat hard at the actually edge, and very pliable at its ridge or back. The reason for this is so that the sword will not break even when it is met with a great collision. Also for the same reasons a swordsman did not practice with his katana on hard armour and metal to perfect his strikes (but rather on soft substances of considerable thickness-such as a tightly bond stand of bamboo) neither should you be training your shins on hard metal/wood surfaces in an effort to "toughen them up”. Rather choose the thickest bag you can find and lay into it (I prefer the diameter of the bag used to be close to the length of my shin bone so as not to strike with my instep and not too narrow so that I strike with only part of my shin-though this last thinner type of bag can be useful for practicing accuracy in hitting with different portions of the shin). Same as a swordsman had to smooth down the chinks in his sword made by striking his opponents armour before landing the necessary and preferred blows to softer fleshier regions (neck ,groin ,armpit-we are talking for a sword of course)so will a muay thai fighter after a legitimate fight without shin guards gone at with full fervor-you will have to wait a week or two to get those eggs down on your shins. But in between fights keep those shins healthy and make sure you are kicking with bone that is currently built back up not currently being built back up after taking an excess of abuse. Ok, second part of the question-keep in mind my analogy of the construction of a japanese katana to help facilitate a better understanding of this discussion on bone. Bones are very strong to resist extreme forces when those forces are applied along the axis of alignment .Speaking of the femur ,it can withstand 10-15 times the body's weight without breaking as long as that force is distributed along its axis; however if a force equal to less than a third the body's weight is applied so that it intersects the axis of alignment the bone will break. If an extreme force were to intersect the bone against its lateral side(the side we were kicking in that drill)it could cause the femur to brake along either its lateral or medial sides but it is far more likely for the break to occur along the medial side. Here is the reason why. Our body weight is applied along the axis of the femur with the majority of the force being distributed along the medial side of the shaft. Thusly the medial portion of the shaft is compressed and the lateral side is stretched. Try thinking of a drinking straw that has one entire half circle of its cylinder composed of a slightly thicker material upon which force is being applied and the other half circle a thinner, more plastic material. If you were to compress such a straw it would be very hard to break if one were to rely on pulling the ends apart or even pushing on different ends with equal force. However if the straw has pressure being exerted on it from both sides and you apply pressure on the side it will bend. So what does this mean for conditioning? It means that you sure as hell shouldn't have your weight planted on a leg when it is being kicked. And if you DO(caught by surprise)you SHOULD tense your muscles as hard as possible so that they dissipate some of the force before it is imposed on the femur or you can stay relaxed and let the kick cut clean to the bone, risking the chance of a fractured femur. The best option is to first remove force from being applied to one end of your cylinder(femur) and that is by lifting one's leg off the ground. Give a straw an attachment to another object(like taping it to the edge of a table) and leave it elevated off the ground and then flick it with your finger and see how hard it is to bend versus taping it to a table that allows the straw to be in contact with the ground. I am sure you can already imagine the results of this simple experiment. As far as conditioning bone the same information I wrote for shin conditioning applies to the femur EXCEPT for the shape of the bones in question. The femur is far easier to brake do to several factors (shape cylinder versus cylinder supported by a secondary cylinder). It is now useful to imagine ancient roman columns with a wider eminence at both the bottom and top. This is just what a femur is like and similar to the construction of a tibia and fibula (their structure is unique in that the fibula is shorter than the tibia and thinner so that it actually lodges itself in between the upper and lower eminences of the tibia thusly acting as a secondary support for the tibia[since this is what is being struck I say it this way but in reality they BOTH support each other]. As far as that drill is concerned tense the muscles as violently as possible and try to shelf the kick with your leg if it is too late but to be honest just get your shin up there. Condition the muscle up top as a last resort and the shins below as a first line of defense. Judah Ciervo ISSA Certified Trainer Fight Factory@ www.BodyArtsGym.com
well i started it as a shin dulling idea, but now i do it just cause the heat feels good after training and excessive bag work. flame treat, then pour ice water. ahhhh. feels great.
Get some Dit Da Jow from your kung fu school, or another kung fu school. Because then you can do more hardcore conditioning. I conditioned once without using dit da jow afterwards (about a month ago) for longer than usual. . . . left huge bruises. . . . NEVER DOING IT AGAIN. However, my Sifu did say that using Dit Da Jow too much can soften the bones. . . .
