YES- THEY ALWAYS HURT. YES- THEY CAN HURT LESS.

By Sean Fagan

Well, maybe not in the moment when you're slamming your shin into your opponent's thigh (or worse yet, something bonier than that). That's always gonna hurt.

But somewhere early on in the development of Muay Boran and eventually of Muay Thai, clever practitioners learned that by conditioning their shins, they could turn the crippling sharpness into more of a deadened, dull pain that one can endure throughout the fight without giving up.

They also learned that conditioned shins heal much more quickly post-fight than unconditioned ones. Think about it this way: if you walk a mile every day, you'll not run out of conditioning if, one day, you're forced to walk two miles - or even three. But ten miles? Twenty? Fifty?? You're just not ready for that. For that, you'd need to start conditioning your body to be functional for those huge, marathon walks.

The same goes for your shins - an integral part of your arsenal in the Muay...