Damage of lowkicks with/without shinguards

[gabbah]

Hi guys.
In my full contact kickboxing matches we wear shinguards.
The day after taking some lowkicks in a match I can barely walk, dispite the fact that my opponent wears shinguards. I can only walk if I keep the damaged leg straight (it's always the lead leg of course), so I get the funny gangsta limp.

Anyway, my question is this: If I can barely walk when kicked WITH protection on the shin, what are the effects (the day after) of getting kicked WITHOUT?
I have never felt lowkicks without protection, so this question goes for them that have taken full force lowkicks without shin protection.


My second question:
At a tournament I was low kicked only a few times, but I still got the gangsta limp the day after. Of course, it starts just a while after the match, but the day after it's much worse.
At another match, I got kicked MANY times with powerful lowkicks, and I got the same limp. So it wasn't worse.
What is your experience with this? Are the next day effects accumulative or not?
Has it ever happened that you can actually not get out of bed because of your thigh just being totally f*ck*d up?

[swisscom]

Well, when you wear shinguards, the blow from your shin is weakened in 2 ways.
1. The surface area is greater, so the pain is not as concentrated.
2. You're not hitting with the direct bone, you're hitting with the bone behind rouphly a cm or 2 of padding.

Like getting hit with a bokken (wooden katana, used for practice) or getting hit with a baseball bat wrapped in a pillow. Both hurt, but you're not going to get the vicious stinging pain from the bat wrapped in a pillow.

[gabbah]

I know that it hurts more with no shin guard, that's obvious.
I don't feel you answered my questions though. Thanks.

[swisscom]

lol. I thought the analogy would have answered your question. Sorry.

[gabbah]

Well no, you only said it would hurt more without shin guards, and the reason for it. I was asking about the effects the day after.
I can barely walk after getting kicked a few times even when the guy does have shin guards on, so my first question was what would happen if he didn't have shin guards? Would I actually not even be able to walk??

Then there is a second question that nobody has answered.

[Xtschneider]

seems to me you may have a bad leg? Go get it checked out by a doctor, and ask him how you can condition it to be be stronger.

[seanyseanybean]

maybe they wouldnt be able to kick you as hard without shingaurds as it might hurt their shin, like when boxers hurt their hand when they punch without gloves.

[gabbah]

seems to me you may have a bad leg? Go get it checked out by a doctor, and ask him how you can condition it to be be stronger.

So you don't feel anything the day after a full contact match where the guy has landed full force lowkicks on your thigh?
My legs are normal, lol... seems you guys are not understanding my questions haha... well I give up, never mind me.

And also understand that the guy I kick will be limping pretty hard as well, so it's not just me...

[seppuku]

when you do pre-fight conditioning on your legs do you use the shin guards? if so start conditioning without them. you just ned to get more used to it i think, legs can be amazingly well conditioned if you work at it. hurts getting there tho.
about the next day id assume without guards walking would be harder, but i think the bigger difference would be in the ring where you may start to find standing difficult and kicking damn near impossible because your leg hurts so much. the more you get kicked in the leg the more used to the idea you will get, that much is simple. sorry i cant be more help

never failed to get out of bed because my leg doesnt move, but have stood up after waking to have my leg collapse under me and hurt like hell. that was interesting.... and that was conditioning not competing

[gabbah]

In my gym we never condition the thigh muscles like you described, by kicking them.
This is the first time I heard that you can condition your thigh muscles.

I've been to a handful of full contact matches where I've taken lowkicks with shin guards, and I have never felt any effect in the actual match.
Two days ago I had a match against a guy that was much more experienced, and he leg kicked me 15 times or something, lol. I never felt it during the match, but maybe this is because it was only 3*2 minutes long. A few minutes after the match I started limping though and hurt, when the adrenaline was gone.

[seppuku]

really? no way... but yes, yo ucan definitely condition the thighs. otherwise it hurts way too much when you get kicked. you put on some more muscle, but the main effect is to harden the muscle already there. its the same idea as being hit in the stomach lots so its harder to get winded.

might be worth suggesting it to your trainer, assuming youre kicking with your shins anyway it could be worth doing. my best guess is you dont bother because of the shin guards... which would suggest that the guards make a big difference.

how do you condition yourself before a fight?

cheers

[gabbah]

hmm, so you're suggesting that by beating on the muscle it will grow harder?
I do work out in the gym for strong muscles, and it makes sense that strong muscles can protect better. But about the beating making them stronger? Can you explain this more? Like in a more scientific way? hehe I always want to understand everything to it's full depth.

Yeah, maybe you are right that we don't condition thighs because we always wear shin guards, so it doesn't hurt very much. They are not thick though, about 1 cm and soft.

About pre-fight conditioning. Since I'm an amature and only have a handful of full contact fights behind me, I have focused on the mental and technical part of fighting, NOT any sort of conditioning. So I focus on staying very relaxed and not waste energy. So I always try to stay calm and technical instead of "going berserk" like I have seen many do.
But now I feel pretty relaxed and secure in the ring, so now I will start actually getting some cardio. Up till now I have been competing with maybe a weeks notice, with no cardio at all hehe.

[seppuku]

ill give explaining it a go but bear with me. working the weights increases muscle mass and strength. this is a result of lactate build up destroying the muscle tissue, which the body replaces and builds upon to safeguard future exertions. thats why you dont lift every day, you cant recover in time.
striking muscle, e.g. the shin kicks put into the thigh, destroy the tissue more directly. when the muscle is replaced, the body adds some extra but mainly puts denser muscle on, to withstand the shock next time. how the body's biochemistry reacts in this way i dont know. as a general rule, your body will adapt to whatever you do to it in such a way as to perform better under the same situation next time. contact conditioning realy does work, but it does hurt obviously

im with you on understanding everyhing as much as possible, i feel exactly the same way

so... thats the entirety of your preparation? how hard are you hitting and getting hit in these fights? the pespective ive always been given by my trainer is you only get in the ring when you can take a lot of damage and go on smiling. how long have you been training for? sorry for all the questions, but fighting in the ring is about my only aim in life at the moment. im.. less than relaxed lol. i tend to be tense and angry when training.. but im trying to improve that lol

cheers man

[gabbah]

his is a result of lactate build up destroying the muscle tissue

Not that it matters to our discussion, but that is an outdated thery about muscle growth AFAIK. I will not go into that subject as it's not important right now.

as a general rule, your body will adapt to whatever you do to it in such a way as to perform better under the same situation next time.

Yeah, that is generally true.

contact conditioning realy does work, but it does hurt obviously

So you and others you have spoken to can confirm that the recovery time after taking hard lowkicks can be shortened through thigh conditioning?
In that case that is very good news, because having a charlie horse the days after makes it hard to train for me. So in sparring I feel we don't use lowkicks so much because it interrupts training so much. And when it comes to match fighting, that's what I want to do a lot of, but the problem is the damage to the thighs (and injuries to the feet or toes) keep me off training between fights, which is not good.

so... thats the entirety of your preparation? how hard are you hitting and getting hit in these fights?

Well, it's full contact kickboxing matches, so we go as hard as we can of course. LOL you think I will hold back if get the chance to knock him out?
The lowkicks we landed in my most recent match were technically quite good. Stepping in, and good hip rotation.
My opponent was more experienced and his boxing was good. I watched his technique through my guard and it was good indeed. He was mixing hooks, uppercuts and body shots. And for once I could feel the bodyshots, so that made me smile... I had a lot of fun but I gased way too soon and way to much lol.. In the third round I was hanging on the ropes and took a count just to get some air haha. So now it's time for me to also have the cardio. Before I gased I was doing a good job against this guy, and was pretty relaxed, so the next step for me is cardio hehe.

the pespective ive always been given by my trainer is you only get in the ring when you can take a lot of damage and go on smiling

Well, as I said we have some protective gear. We have an open head protection. People say it doesn't help much but it makes me feel unvulnerable.
I think you should get in the ring when you feel somewhat safe with your defense.
I've been training for one year and 8 months or something like that.
I feel my technique on the pads and heavy bag is way better than I can actually use in the ring, so my next step is to bring that technique into the ring, by staying relaxed and working on timing.

i tend to be tense and angry when training.. but im trying to improve that lol

I have never been angry, not even in matches. I'm not an angry person, it's really hard to provoke me or make me upset. I'm not the typical testosterone fighter.

I think the key to staying relaxed in the ring is mastery of close quarter defense. If you don't fear your opponent getting close to you, then you have practically nothing to fear.
This is why I focused on getting good defense the first thing I did. So my defense is very good now, and I can stay pretty calm when a guy starts unloading on me. I see many other totally tense up, and this drains them of energy. I'm pretty relaxed when I kick at kicking range, but not when I box, so my next step is relaxing also when I box.
This is why I haven't spent time worrying about conditioning before my matches. I firmly believe the mental part is SOOOO much more important to master at amature level. The more matches I have, the more I realise that my opponent will have a very hard time hurting me, which makes me more relaxed. (But keep in mind that I train kickboxing, which has no knees or clinch. So in your case you will need to master the clinch to a level where you feel secure.)
The adrenaline rush will be there anyway, that's all you need to take away the pain.

Feel free to tell me about your training, how long, matches, and what your mental state is in a match or sparring.

[seppuku]

good post, thanks. the lactate theory i outdated? cheers. ill find the current ideas as soon as i find time.

with regard to leg conditioning, its not just recovery time but also how hard you have to be kicked before it bothers you at all. put it this way, before i spent a month drinking and smoking instead of training, when we did leg conditioning people were kicking me pretty hard to get any response, i had to tell everyone i worked with to kick harder than they were. after missing a month, a few kicks, far less powerful than before, and i was limping with my leg bruising up. its going to take me at least a month to get back into the condition i was in and im hating that. my entire gym believes in this style of conditioning because the teacher believes in it so much. noone on here seems to have heard of the thai who trained him so i wont go and find the name, but the point there is that Ian isnt some random block who bought some DVDs.
its now very rare for me to be limping the day after conditioning the legs tho, and to start with i could barely move

i dont understand how you arent getting badly hurt, if its technically correct and full power but you havent conditioned against it. no broken ribs from kicks or the like? either im confused or you have been very lucky.

we spar with mouthguards and 10 oz gloves normally. shin guards if we are kicking fairly hard but its normally just the gloves. my biggest problem with sparring is that i expect to be annihilated by whoever im sparring with so im nervous as hell. im yet to find the guts to throw a serious kick when sparring. intend to do better next time im training tho. ive done very little sparring, last thursday was the first time i got concussed in the gym lol. mild concussion, but still made work the next day interesting. theres a thread somewhere here about that.

youre working with about 10 months experience on me i think which could explain why youve got the confidence in the ring im lacking at the moment. slightly relevent, how old are you? makes a difference. im the youngest in my group, the only advantage to that seems to be that im most confident kiking at head height on pads. dont have the guts to try to connect in sparring yet tho... when i throw them i never expect them to connect...

summary... im crap but improving. and really not impressed with being at the bottom of the class. ill get there... want to be fighting early next year if i can but currently i'd die in the ring i think

cheers