Is Kicking with Shin is a weakness / advantage in Muay Thai?

Question

Recently I joined to a Muay Thai Gym, and it is very good. Previously, I did Tae Kwan Do for 2 years. In my Muay Thai Gym, the master is teaching me to kick using the shin.

I feel really afraid to kick using the shin because I think the shin will break if someone blocked it using, for example, a knee.

Should I really have a concern about this or is it OK?

Anyway I will continue my class because I find the techniques are really strong other than this.

I am not judging Muay Thai or blaming. I respect Muay Thai very much, and that's why I joined the gym; please don't misunderstand me.

Answer 1

Your shin can break if you kick someone very hard and they block just right and all conditions align against you. You can break your hand punching someone, even aiming to soft targets like the ribs. You can blow out your knee throwing someone with ouchigari. You can get concussed into unconsciousness taking someone down with a double-leg if they time their knee correctly. All of these terrible things are possible, and they happen, because there are no sure things in fighting, just because fighting is an explosive full-contact activity. All techniques can cause injury to either party.

Round kicks with the shin are, nearly all of the time, quite effective. One must make their shin strong and tough in order to take the impact, and even after doing so, the shin might hurt when blocked. But the vast majority of the time you won't sustain severe injury if you prepare correctly.

Answer 2

Conditioning is one part of kicking safely with a shin to make it stronger gradually by damage/repair periods. However conditioning also teaches how to kick with your shin on an acute angle that will not hurt or break the shin. Also, the lower part of the shin should be used, close to the instep. This part is not as likely to break and some strapping or shin pads may help with conditioning and getting the right feel.

Begin to kick a heavy bag, and over time you'll learn how to kick it so that it doesn't hurt, but you can still kick hard.

Good luck!

Answer 3

Well.. They do shin conditioning prior to sparring. A weak shin will always tend to break if it's blocked with the knee or a stronger shin. So you should be careful when using your shin to kick. That's why most of the Muay Thai fighters tend to hit lower kicks aiming for outer thighs of the opponents which reduces the risk of damaging / breaking their shins.

Answer 4

Just start and increase conditioning your shins carefully. Usually you parctice on a lighter/softer heavy bag first, then you will go on to harder bags. In sparring you use shin guards that prevent damage.
Give your shins/body enough time to recover after each training. It's really rare to see (and hear - hah!) a shinbone break.

Fun fact: I never understood how guys in taekwondo don't break their feet. ;) I think I had more injuries from accidentally kicking/hitting with my foot instead of my shin, e.g. elbows can be quite painful.

Answer 5

I feel really afraid to kick using the shin because I think the shin will break if someone blocked it using, for example, a knee.

You are far more likely to break one or more of the many, many little bones in your foot than a big shin bone.

As a real world example, kick something hard like some furniture, lightly of course, with your foot and then your shin. If you had to kick harder, which would you prefer to use?

Yes, both hurt, but that big shin bone is much tougher than you think.

Answer 6

As already mentioned above: shin conditioning. Let me add some words, too.

You should start on a soft bag, then continue with hard bag, and then - with roped logs (you may see it in your gim - roped log, wrapped with rope). Roped logs are also differ - usually, the thinner is wrapping rope, the harder is to kick it.

The key points in conditioning - regularity and amount of kicks, hardness will come later. You should not kick with all your power. Soft kicks, but with big amount. You may start with, for example, one hundred kicks for each leg once a day. Then increase amount, and when you reach 5 hundreds, you surely may move to the next bag.

Let me also give you some warn. Please, don't use common trees/wall corners as a bag alternative. You may see in some movies, that real thai fighters (or Jan-Claud Van-Damm) do exercises with palms. The fact is, that they do it on special palms - their softness is close to wrapped logs in your gym.

General rule is to use things, that are not more solid than your leg.

For shin kicking vs foot lift kicking - as mentioned above - shin kicking is much less trauma-causes - just because there are much less bones.)

Good luck and make your shins metal!