When it comes to shin conditioning there are a couple of things I would like to say. First off: The whole reason your shin becomes tougher and more resiliant is because you ARE damaging it. When you kick with the shin you get many tiny microfractures in the bone, and when they heal the create a type of scar tissue made mostly from calcium which actually strengthens and hardens the bone.
Secondly: As for the pain, Thai boxers, while conditioning are actually destroying and killing off the nerve endings in the shins. This happens naturally when you are beating it against a bag or rolling something against it.
Third: Tapping the shins or rolling somthing on them really does help, as long as you don't go over board. The extra strain and trauma on the shins will damage the nerve endings and create more micro-fractures in the bone which will become harder as it heals.
We have two main heavy bags in out gym, both 6'. The first is red and rather soft, at first this was even hard for me to kick but I got used to it just by kicking it. The other is black and filled with something much more dense, either sawdust or some synthetic material, as the bag is just short of being rock like. I tried just conditioning my shins with repeated kicking but after a couple months it still didn't help so I asked my trainer and he told me he used pieces of hard wood and tapped and rolled them on his shins when he first started. After I tried that for about a month I was able to kick the harder angrier bag.
Hope this helps someone.  |