I'm noticing alot of superficial bruising the day after I do my shin conditiong routine. Is that normal, or am I doing something wrong? And speaking of which, what is a good routine for home to condition your shins for muay thai?

don't do anything STUPID. kick some pads and kick some bags. then when you're done, kick 'em some more.

hes right ! i did the mad routines when i was young and mad ! hitting them with wood ! bottles ! and all sorts ! mad as a brush ! tough shins ! no fight injuries ! but many a bruised shin doing the conditioning ! very debateable "subject" ! ta sandy man holt u.k.m.t.a
www.thaiboxing.co.uk

not worth it...your time would be much better spent on fitness, pad work, sparring (with shin pads on) etc. cos you can never get enough of that stuff...most don't feel any pain to shins during fights until the day after (unless, of course, your opponent breaks it)

There's no secret method of getting your shins hard.
I remember when I was a kid everytime when my uncle
would get done after a muay thai fight. His shins would be all
welted and brused up. So what I'm trying to say is my uncle
has been doing muay thai for 23 years and his shins still gets
banged up.
My advice is kick the pads- "AS MUCH AS YOU CAN".
So your shins build Tolerence and Risistence overtime your
shins would be rock......takes time :)

There's no secret method of getting your shins hard.
I remember when I was a kid everytime when my uncle
would get done after a muay thai fight. His shins would be all
welted and brused up. So what I'm trying to say is my uncle
has been doing muay thai for 23 years and his shins still gets
banged up.
My advice is kick the pads- "AS MUCH AS YOU CAN".
So your shins build Tolerence and Risistence overtime your
shins would be rock......takes time :)

Jonan,
there is no secret - these guys a exactly right - just hours on the pads and bag - the only thing i do differently is kick a truck tire - i started with an old worn car tire and then kick gently until my shins built tolerance - i wold kick until they became uncomfortable, but not sore - lay off a day, focus on pads and bag - then the next day tire. nothing crazy - i learned the hard way do not kick a sapling full force like the MOVIES - not the smartest thing i ever did.

HA HA BIG -D ! I KNOW THE SCORE ! I CANT BEGIN TO TELL YA WHAT IVE KICKED ! AND HIT MY SHINS ON / IN ! YOU JUST DONT WANT TO KNOW ! yep we is all mad ! aiiiiiiiiiiii ! hahaha ta sandy man holt u.k.m.t.a
www.thaiboxing.co.uk

you;ve got me curious now sandy...what did u kick?

yeah just normal training is good...however I would add one thing...taking care of them and healing them...heat, massage, oinment(deet die jow is excellent)

By the way shins can hurt during a fight. Infact my third fight in Thailand I wasn't sure if I could go another round(going into the third) if I kept blocking. That was one of my hardest fights...

At the same time however it seemed like my shins where weeker in Thailand. Has anyone spent a fair bit of time there and either noticed this or heard of it. I talk to another guy from England there and he said his bud had the same problems...

There is one more thing that Thais do to condition their shins at least in some camps.

wax your legs, hehe, that builds up pain tolerence, and kills off nerves!

No, no Toots! I didn´t know you are into that masochistic type of stuff. But I guess we all are. To inflict and to recieve pain is the name of the game. There is a little detail in shin conditioning but it has big results. Those of you that have trained in Thailand might know this, but have not probably given it a credit. Guess what it might be. I will not give away the secrets that easy.

I would have expected as much...

i saw a thai documentary where the fighters would run thru 2 feet or so of
water to toughen up their shins! im not sure how this would work????

ok dynamo, we are all equally curios now - you have to tell us who have not been to thailand.

umm, bouncing on tires, maybe?

Ok guys, but you owe me for this one. One of the things I have noticed on the shins of the thais was that the skin on their shins was very hard and thick, the skin seldom breaks due to the direct contact with other fighters shin, which occurs quite often in fights in Europe, and maybe in other countries as well. I came up on this little secret when we were buying pads and other stuff. One of the bags in the camp was all banged up so the trainer came along with us to buy a new one. They had whole bunch of bags to choose from, leather, synthetic leather and canvas style bags. The trainer bought the canvas one right away, when I asked him why he showed me a up and down movement on his shin and made a sound like sandpaper and said very good. Not to say that the surface of the canvas bag was really very rough almost sandpaper like. The bag was filled so it was not to hard and not too soft . I did notice that my shins were very sensitive when I arrived to the camp as we in my gym have leather and synthetic leather bags. First week my shins were all red and very sensitive to the touch it got better later but as Mark L said they seemed even weaker than in Europe. One of my fighters stayed in the camp for about 3 months when I asked him when did his shins stoped to be sensitive he said after around 6-8 weeks.Also the skin on his shins looked much different then before.
Kicking the canvas bag surface first irritates the skin , but after a while it starts to toughen up and together with constant kicking and force on the shins that is made when kicking the bag it makes it much more durable and helps to kill the nerve endings much faster.
We got a bag like that in the gym now and it works beautyfully. It is like a fine sandpaper working slowly on the skin, which causes it to adapt more quickly.
Remmember first it will sting and the skin will be more painfull than before but after some weeks when the thickening starts you will see the difference.
I remmember a long time ago we had a bag like that in my gym but nobody wanted to kick it because it did hurt the skin.
OK guys this is the secret, I hope it works for you. Try it and then tell me how it went for you.

thanks dynamo - i think alot of us are at a point where we will try anything to apease the shin pain god - hehe. hey another question - what do they put in the Thai Liniment that they sale over here, do they use it in Thailand, and does it work to heal the bodies bruises? well i guess that is actually 3 questions. also, i will relay the info on the canvas bags to the guy that owns the gym where i train - i has them all setting in the back, to many people complained about hurt shins. so he put all of the leather ones up front, will have to did them out - if only to see about hardening the skin over the shin. will let you know in a couple weeks about the results.

Linament oils like a "Boxing" or " Robert" are used to warm the muscles up before training or a fight together with the massage/remmember thai fighter do almost NO warming up befor a fight except couple of punches and kicks/, they do have some healing properties but for this purpose a cream" Boxing" and "Counterpain" is used apply it to the affected area and massage the cream in for about 2-3 minutes. Also Latvian made healing cream named "Viprosal" is excellent for this it is sold widely in Europe and is quite inexpensive/it contains snake venom/.
Back to the bag thing remmember the bag must not be to hard , you should leave a little groove after you kick it with a shin.

My weekness in the shins wasn't a surface or skin irritation or pain. For the whole 4 months my shins seemed weeker. Kicking the bag felt like I was kicking over bruises the whole time. Very strange.

Yeah boxing oil is a great 'warm up'. The Thais don't seem to use it that much before training. However most fighters don't have much money to spend on stuff like that, even though its less than $2 Canadian to buy a big bottle. However %99 if not all fighters use it before a fight(and no one ever has a problem with it getting in eyes or anything). Its actually a sponcer, at least at Channel 7. Saying all that though, if I pulled someout they'd always want to use it.

I would not hesitate to use Boxing Oil for healing purposes if I didn't have anything else and if I have a decent supply.

I still swear by deet die jow for bones and joints and tendons etc....my shins are feeling stronger already.(I htink it must be something in the diet)

INTERESTING STUFF ! ALL ! ive never fought nor has any of my fighters "ever" without thai-oil and / or creme on ! before a fight ! its essential ! "BUT" for the first time in my thai-boxing life ! we "COULD NOT" use either in guess where ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? it wasnt allowed ! and in fact as i massaged my first of `3` fighters fighting on this big international bill only 2 months or so ago ! i was told to make my fighter wash it off ! ! ??? ! or the fight would be "disqualified" for using it !!!!!!!!!! ?????????? m m m m m m m ................................... strange folk somepeople ! especially as they make up their own rules too ! even though the thais invented muay-thai and thai-oil / creme !
ta sandy man holt !
www.thaiboxing.co.uk
p.s. ive had the priveledge ( if you can call it that ?? haha ) to kick some banana trees when i was in thailand many years ago !!! and contrary to what you might think ? they are quite soft ! i wouldnt kick any trees in ENGLAND / U.K. they are like "rock" but then i have kicked much worse too ! experimenting etc:

I condition my shin by rubbing cream corn on them. You might laugh, but it really works.

>Latvian made healing cream named "Viprosal" is excellent for this it is sold >widely in Europe and is quite inexpensive/it contains snake venom/.

I can give you some feedback on this too, there is a preparation in my place called Reptilase and it seems to do very good to prevent clots under the skin to develop bony lumps (calcification of hematomas) which then become very painful when hurt again.

About conditioning by hitting pads/bags : it is ok, only that it leaves unconditioned the upper part of the shin which has no momentum to hit, most Thais as far as I have seen complement it with hitting a wooden pole with the lower part burried in a heavy sandbag.
Personally (at least amateur level) I favor more heavy shin conditioning (within the limits of not harming oneself of course) whenever a fighter can afford it because in my experience a guy who faced the pain of conditioning and heavy sparring and who doesn't develop large clots when hit is able to win sometimes only by heavy legkicks/blocks. At the last fc lowkick nationals there was a bunch of fighters with very good skills abandoning after first or second match they won because they couldn't take it anymore whilst some only average guys who could take more punishment made it to the finals. But again there are constitutions and constitutions. A guy with small few veins here and there and a tough constitution has no reason to worry much ; a guy who has large veins and a thin skin will likely need to do something if he doesn't wanna win only the first match.

Mr. Holt : there are no banana trees in my place, yet something can be done, which is to get a flexible (I stress, flexible, I mean which bends some few inches when hit close to full-power) no-matter-what-specie tree kinda of some 2 inches thick and wrap around some few layers of thin rice straw matress then kick it, in my humble experience this mimicks the best the impact with a shin and if nothing else it creates the psychological feedback of what one can expect to meet ("no surprises", best way to surprise an opponent ! :) I can argue that actually shin conditioning does much more and it is virtually harmless if done within reasonable limits, but this has been done several times on other topics. Anyhow I HATE this shit, it damn hurts :))) j/k

Regards,
Alex.

I was told by a girl that used to fight that before each fight she would inject her shins with some kind of painkiller or anesthetic that the dentist gives you (can't remember the name, starts with an "m" I think). I believe she is telling the truth, but I've never heard of ANYONE doing something like this before. Anyone else?

It is illegal in most places and when I was a ref I always checked shins for injection marks.
Anyhow if there is no official eye watching these are long-acting novocaine-related local anestetics (novacaine even when mixed with adrenaline which makes it act longer has a local anesthetic effect of less than 1 hour).
Mepivacaine and bupivacaine are long-acting (6 to 8 hours which covers a whole bout lenght at ease) but take care they are toxic much more than novacaine, they should be administered by one who is used to handle them and can't be bought without medical prescription. The main side effect of all these substances is that they drop blood pressure so they may cause lightheadedness, dizzyness, impairement of balance and coordination, mepivacaine and bupivacaine have also central nervous system toxic effects. Anyhow, they can bring an advantage (an unfair one if you ask me). I use them when I develop a regular clot because of a vein and I want to break it beyond repair so that it wont make me problems - then I anesthesise the damn thing and kick a pole as hard as I can. Iron pumping of any kind tends to develop the venous system (including on the shins if one works tighs) so veins become larger, thinner and more apparent. This can cause bruises and the goal of shin conditioning is breaking the small vessels again and again until scar tissue wraps the shins and shearing forces are no longer able to cause subcutaneous clots.

matt,cream corn does work but corn on the cob works better. give it a try and let me know, what ya think.

HAHAHA i was thinking that MATT but never said it ! hahaha ! nice one / funny ! ..............p.s. IS IT WITH OR WITHOUT BUTTER TOO ??? hehehe sandy mad man holt u.k.m.t.a
www.thaiboxing.co.uk

The pain killer I believe she uses is Mesocain, it works well but after the effects wear off --- heeeelllllpppp, it is also quite cheap, not easy to get only on presctiption. I have a fighter that uses it in each fight, once he was out of his and I did not have any so I rubbed his shins with some simmilar cream without him knowing it wasn´t the real stuff. He did not even notice and I believe that lots of the shin pain stuff is also psychological.
When we are at ,it what do you guys use to stop blood with?

I know what you mean Sandy man, I tried to kick those damn european trees and they just don´t want to cooperate.

Dynamo, thats a good question. I would like to see a thread about cut men.
My old trainer was better at handling cuts than most docs.

Sandy where was this, that they did not let you use the thai oil?

I know some guys who are softball pitchers (wait, I'm going somewhere with this!) and they used to get cuts and abrasions on their hands from the seam on the ball so what they were told to do by a coach was to urinate on the parts of their hands that were being subjected to the most punishment (usually the knuckle area on the thumb) and apparently this worked very well, it hardened up the skin on their hands and prevented the skin breaking, of course nobody wanted to shake hands with them anymore but that was a small price to pay. I guess there's some kind of chemical in urine which helps to toughen up the skin or something like that so I'm wondering if this technique would work with the shins, anybody wanna try taking a piss on theirs and then report back on how successful it was, you can finally put those last dribbles to good use!?! :-D

I will piss on Kirk's shins and feet and report back. Maybe I will piss on his cheeks/eyebrows to see if it helps with the cuts there too.

ooh ! matt meeow ! hahaha ! hey ! i guess you 2 are good mates really ! do you reckon thats taking the Pi** ! the above (matts post) ? ta sandy man ! but hey "strange things happen" ! ! ta sandy man holt u.k.m.t.a
www.thaiboxing.co.uk

need some help. i have a neighbor who does that for a living. she must be good seeing how much work she gets. for the right price, i hear, she'll even take a dump on your head.

come to think of it, she coaches softball in her spare time.

interesting..I believe urine is a good antibiotic(if you don't have one, but never heard about it toughening up the skin...

hehe...

MAD AS A MARCH HARE ! hahaha ! the plot thickens ! or is it ? "skin" ! ?? hahaha ! keep taking the P**S ! ! hahaha !

Ammonia nitrogen is found in pee pee.

So theoretically it is posible to make an explosive out of you pee?

hahaha dynamo ! re: your question ??? where else ??? CALIFORNIA U.S.OF A. ! THE YANKS ! TA SANDY MAN "! ( ref: where you CANT use thai_oil / creame ! ???)
ta sandy man u.k.m.t.a.
www.thaiboxing.co.uk