Conditioning for dead legs

**doofaloofa** · Posted On: 9/27/2012 3:36am

I've had a couple of realy bad dead legs from kicks recently

The first off a round kick during sparing. It was sore enough for me to not be able to fight on and I had to walk it off for a bit

The second was off a side kick that 'missed the pad'. This one was pretty bad, knocked me over and had me rolling around cursing and laughing. I was walking that one off for a good bit

How the hell do you guys take all those leg shots without getting dead legs?

**thrutch** · Posted On: 9/27/2012 4:29am

**erezb** · Posted On: 9/27/2012 6:47am

Basically it's two things:A. The position of your leg while getting hit. if you have a slight angle and you turn your knee toward the kick, it helps.
B. a lot of conditioning is done, especially in MT, basically kicking each other legs as part of warm-up. After some time you find yourself being able to take much more.

**gregaquaman** · Posted On: 9/27/2012 8:51am

Yeah there is no trick to it. get kicked a lot.

**xxax** · Posted On: 9/27/2012 10:20am

Originally Posted by erezb

Basically it's two things:A. The position of your leg while getting hit. if you have a slight angle and you turn your knee toward the kick, it helps.
B. a lot of conditioning is done, especially in MT, basically kicking each other legs as part of warm-up. After some time you find yourself being able to take much more.

Holy ****, that's quite hard...

**crappler** · Posted On: 9/29/2012 10:58am

Originally Posted by xxax

Holy ****, that's quite hard...

Try it without the shin pad

**creativo** · Posted On: 9/30/2012 12:19pm

Game followup (spoilered for gross swelling)

Spoiler:

**searcher66071** · Posted On: 9/30/2012 10:44pm

Originally Posted by gregaquaman

Yeah there is no trick to it. get kicked a lot.

Originally Posted by crappler

Try it without the shin pad

These are what we do in my school. I have the students work up and down the floor exchanging shots to the legs. As we are a "knockdown" karate school we train with no shin pads. I have them start off fairly light, but by the time they are green belts, they are kicking each other pretty hard. There is a certain "suck factor" that goes into this conditioning, but you just have to get through it. If you start doing this style of conditioning, make sure your partner kicks the entire surface up and down the thigh.

We also use foam rollers and PVC pipe to work out the IT bands in the thighs. It speeds recovery and helps condition to a certain extent.

**erezb** · Posted On: 10/01/2012 6:25am

I don't know how, but after a while you don't bruise as much, maybe the lining of your capillaries thickens, or you have more connective tissue to pad them. The end result is that a well-conditioned thigh doesn’t bleed as much. I would be careful though, do a couple of minutes with sheen pads twice a week first. You can tear your muscles and do real damage if you go overboard.

**W. Rabbit** · Posted On: 10/01/2012 10:30am

The front of the shin bone is a very sensitive area and it never feels good to get hit there, so like a lot of other sensitive areas, it pays to spend extra time (carefully) conditioning and becoming accustomed to the discomfort.

The reason the MT guys can take all those hard kicks is that they've already taken hundreds or thousands before.

Also, make sure you properly balance the hurting and the healing. Massaging leg bruises and applying liniments will not only help with the pain, but encourage healing in between training sessions. This goes for all sorts of conditioning...if you don't know how to heal yourself properly in between, you're just doing it wrong and could end up with long-term issues.