Impact Training Of The Shins Is Important To Do

Impact training the shins is an important thing to do.  Shins are very sensitive.  They react to the slightest impact with the greatest pain.  And, they bruise easily too.

Of course, conditioning the entire body for impact is a given but paying special attention to training the shins is a must for the serious and/or professional martial artist.

If you would like to copy my training method, it is as follows:

Drop by a hardware store and pick up a rubber-headed mallet. They have a couple of sizes:  do NOT get the largest one.  A small to medium one will do just fine.

Now listen up.  This is very important.  Do NOT hit yourself with the mallet in a hard manner.  Do not lose patience and think that there is “more gain with pain”.  Impact training must be done very carefully and methodically and safely.

The method I use is a tapping one.  The taps are done very lightly over many months of time which educates the body to strengthen itself to meet the new needs of physical resistance.  I started years ago with about 5 minutes per leg each session, every other day.  I then moved to 10 minutes every other day and eventually about ten minutes a day.  Take your time.  “There is no where to go and all the time to get there.”

Begin by tapping the shin (lightly, just underneath your discomfort zone – keeping the taps comfortable to a certain degree).  Tap up and down the leg and off to the sides.  Be patient:  be gentle.  This conditioning takes some time to do it safely.  Over a year’s period or so, the shins will be desensitized a bit and make them more resistant to bruising, pain and discomfort when colliding with a fellow student during training drills and/or sparring (phase training in our system).

Remember:  tap lightly:  do not hurt yourself.  Be patient.

This blog is simply trying to explain how I’ve trained my body.  If you choose to follow my way, be careful (in other words, I’m not responsible if you hurt yourself!).  This method is mainly for folks who want to be  professional martial artists who compete and/or own their own school(s).