WANNA GET ROCK HARD SHINS? HERE'S HOW YOU DO IT:

By Sean Fagan

We’ve all heard the shin conditioning methods of kicking metal poles or using a rolling pin to beat your shins to a bloody pulp, but before you go out and shatter your tibia, you might want to consider other options when it comes to hardening your shins.

My goal here is to just keep it real. 

I know that you want rock hard shins that can kick throw baseball bats after a couple days of training, but that’s just NOT gonna happen.

The Muay Thai shin conditioning tips and methods below aren’t anything special or super hardcore, but they are definitely the best and most effective ways to turn your shins into bricks (not to mention, they are also safer than trying to kick down a redwood tree).

1. Be Patient, Persistent and Resilient

I know what you’re thinking –

“Really Sean? Is that your #1 best tip for shin conditioning?”

Unfortunately yes, yes it is.

Believe it or...

SORE SHINS? CONDITIONING COMES WITH TIME

By Angela Chang

Take a trip down memory lane with me… You’ve just arrived at the gym for your first ever Muay Thai class. You walk in not knowing what to expect, but feeling excited at the same time.

You wait for class to start. The trainer tells you what to do as you warm up. You learn some basics for the foundation of your journey. You walk up to one of the heavy bags and, using what you saw on YouTube and what you just learned, you throw a kick at the bag. Suddenly, your shin and foot are burning with pain. The bag is soft to the touch, but it feels like you’ve just slammed your leg into a metal pole.  Class wraps up and you head home, sore as hell. You might have even woken up the next day with some bruises. You go back to the gym next time for more.

Days, weeks, months pass by. Now you’re kicking the bag as hard as you can and you don’t even flinch. What happened? Why doesn’t your leg...

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...