How can I get past that mental block and the pain of shins hurting? Should I be turning my into my kicks and using the middle of my shin to land? Or the sides of my shin? Every time I kick I get a big knot on the middle of my shins and want to know if that’s where I need to land it.
Stronger shins
- Thread starter Burd
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You just get used to it after a while. Your shins become better conditioned, mentally you're used to the pain and it doesn't bother you so much.
From my experience, it depends on what technique you're throwing. The hardest part of your shin is just under your knee, and ideally that is the best part to use, but it isn't always practical. For example, with a body kick, if you land with the top of your shin, you will often be in Boxing range and can get countered very easily. The center to the bottom of the shin is usually what I land with when throwing body kicks, and for low kicks I try to land with the top. Head kicks, you can get away with landing with your foot, but it's not a great habit to have since you can break it so easily compared to the shin.
The front of the shin is best. It digs deeper and is more stable. Bas Rutten has a good video about it. From my personal experience, outside of it being more structurally sound to the land with the front, if you land with the side of the shin you can sometimes slam your calf into your opponent's check. Happened to me once and my calf was dead for a few rounds.
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Give it time my dude. Kick the bag, kick pads,
West shin pads and drill/spar with your teammates and your shins will toughen up in time.
don’t bother with any nonsense you might find online- smacking your shins with bamboo sticks, rolling it with a coke bottle, etc. just kick Shit til they get better.
West shin pads and drill/spar with your teammates and your shins will toughen up in time.
don’t bother with any nonsense you might find online- smacking your shins with bamboo sticks, rolling it with a coke bottle, etc. just kick Shit til they get better.
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The shin hardening process works much in the same manner that building muscle does.
When building muscle, you exercise causing micro tears, which the body repairs with muscle.
Kicking the bag etc, causes micro fractures, which the body heals with calcium and bone, thus building thicker stronger bones.
The human skeleton completely renews itself every ten years.
When building muscle, you exercise causing micro tears, which the body repairs with muscle.
Kicking the bag etc, causes micro fractures, which the body heals with calcium and bone, thus building thicker stronger bones.
The human skeleton completely renews itself every ten years.
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Walk around town and kick random people in their shins. Much more realistic. You can also try to headkick them, but if you aren’t flexible you gotta go for the short ones. They usually end up being women and children though
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this is my nomination for f11 post of the year
Thanks for the tips. I watched Mighty Mouse video on how to generate power in kicks. Turning and turning your hips into kick. Really made an emphasis on turning my hips no matter how telegraphed it was to focus on kicking the bag as hard as I could. Have a knot on the middle of my shin like always. Usually when I try to “toughen “ them up and kick the next day it’s so sore I can’t let it be touched.
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I had sensitive shins. I think more sensitive than the average person. I kicked a thai bag for like a year and then magically one day my shins were conditioned. I could clang shins with my roommate with no pain it was a crazy feeling! Before that, just the slightest contact shin to shin was uncomfortable at best.
I've never really done naked shin full sparring but this is my heavy bag experience. Suddenly it just stopped being uncomfortable.
I'll note that for myself there was a secondary friction burn issue of just my skin rubbing against the bag material. I'm not sure whether this is part of the OP's issue or not. But I just slathered on the Thai Oil every time before practice and that fixed that.
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For conversations sake, I never did full contact bare shin sparring either. I could check a kick though bare shin if needed. I've had a few people test it and watched them walk away with a limp though hehe. Same thing worked for my knees. Super sensitive but kneeing the bag thousands of times desensitized them.
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You should do something about that aggression, that is not acceptable. Children are off limit.
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In my experience, the top part of the shin is awkward to hit with. It may be the hardest part indeed but I find it difficult to gather momentum / speed. Feels like hitting with a baseball bat held by the thick part, lol.
I might be am exception but I feel like my best kicks are a combination of lower shin and foot. This for me is the optimal trade off between speed and weight transfer.
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Personally I haven't had that issue using the top of my shin, I've always found it to be a matter of positioning; it definitely took me a while to get comfortable with it though. I've found the lower shin/foot works well for body kicks and head kicks (dropped a few people by digging a toe or two into their liver lol), but every time I have hyper extended my ankle or banged up my shins really bad, it is usually because I threw a low kick, landed with the lower shin/foot and they checked it using the top of their shin.
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You should always turn in for the reason that you want the front of your shinbone to connect. The Tibia isn't exactly round. It has sort of an edge towards the front. The fitting analogy is a ruler. Think you can break a ruler in half over the edge of your desk? You absolutely can. You can't when you put that ruler on it's edge though.
When you throw a 'lazy' leg kick your leg can snap pretty easily if it's checked because the side of the shin connects. You may gain a bit by telegraphing less, but imo it's not worth it. One of the worst bone breaks a human can go through.
Nvm, the Bas Rutten vid explains it. It's a very good analogy.
From knee to ankle all of it is technically fine to hit with. The endings can get a bit uncomfortable. Towards the foot the ligaments start connecting and the Tibia gets a bit curvature. Bruised ligaments aren't great, so I stay above the ankle when possible. Towards the knee it's pretty much the same. At some point ligaments start and if you hit with that part it will be less comfortable.
Mechanically speaking, the further down the better. Basic physics. The farther away from the axis of rotation, the higher the velocity. The higher the velocity the greater the transferred force on impact.
Personally I use the middle section I suppose for low and body kicks and tend to connect a bit lower when going for a headkick. I guess that's more trigonometry than comfort though.
I do find that the upper part of the shin, meaning upwards of the middlepoint, tends to swell a lot more than the lower section after impacts.
Kicking the bag certainly helps. It depends on the level though. It certainly increases the bone density over time, but I came to a point where I didn't get anything out of it. I couldn't get my shins to hurt from lowkicking the bag continually, but shin checks in unguarded touch sparring were still hell. I'm not doing this anymore, but for a while I smashed my shins with a rolling pin and then rolled them out before going to bed. I actually liked that a lot because you are in full control of how much pain you expose yourself to. Similar to stretching.
Worked super well for me. The only downside I hear is that you push away the nerves from the edge of the shin. Some say you're just numbing them over time, but others say you basically push the nerves away where you won't hit them when you kick. The issue then becomes that you potentially miss critical impacts that may cause micro fractures that may then lead to more issues from continued impacts.
When you throw a 'lazy' leg kick your leg can snap pretty easily if it's checked because the side of the shin connects. You may gain a bit by telegraphing less, but imo it's not worth it. One of the worst bone breaks a human can go through.
Nvm, the Bas Rutten vid explains it. It's a very good analogy.
From knee to ankle all of it is technically fine to hit with. The endings can get a bit uncomfortable. Towards the foot the ligaments start connecting and the Tibia gets a bit curvature. Bruised ligaments aren't great, so I stay above the ankle when possible. Towards the knee it's pretty much the same. At some point ligaments start and if you hit with that part it will be less comfortable.
Mechanically speaking, the further down the better. Basic physics. The farther away from the axis of rotation, the higher the velocity. The higher the velocity the greater the transferred force on impact.
Personally I use the middle section I suppose for low and body kicks and tend to connect a bit lower when going for a headkick. I guess that's more trigonometry than comfort though.
I do find that the upper part of the shin, meaning upwards of the middlepoint, tends to swell a lot more than the lower section after impacts.
Kicking the bag certainly helps. It depends on the level though. It certainly increases the bone density over time, but I came to a point where I didn't get anything out of it. I couldn't get my shins to hurt from lowkicking the bag continually, but shin checks in unguarded touch sparring were still hell. I'm not doing this anymore, but for a while I smashed my shins with a rolling pin and then rolled them out before going to bed. I actually liked that a lot because you are in full control of how much pain you expose yourself to. Similar to stretching.
Worked super well for me. The only downside I hear is that you push away the nerves from the edge of the shin. Some say you're just numbing them over time, but others say you basically push the nerves away where you won't hit them when you kick. The issue then becomes that you potentially miss critical impacts that may cause micro fractures that may then lead to more issues from continued impacts.
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Do the Buakaw landscaping method.
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