Taking leg kicks

[Jagermeister]

Any of you practice this to develop a tolerance to the pain and to better absorb leg kicks during a fight?

We drilled this extensively today, working with partners, just trading leg kicks at about 10% power, and finished with everyone in our class taking one kick to each leg from our teacher (which was much, much harder) with our eyes closed so that we couldn't anticipate the impact of the blow.

I have to say that I've never willingly taken punishment like that before in my life. Each of the final two kicks caused an amazing sensation of fire throughout my entire thigh, and I felt sick to my stomach for about 30 seconds to a minute afterwards.

And the great news is that since our teacher made the observation that we were all having quite a bit of trouble taking the pain, we're lucky enough that we're going to be doing this at every practice from now on. :wah:

So, my question is - how long until it no longer feels like a sledgehammer is hitting me? Can I expect to see some results in a month? 3 months?

 

[Kenpo_man]

The feeling never really goes away. You kind of . . . get used to it. What I learned from getting kicked in the legs is that it is important to block and move because no matter how conditioned you get, they add up during a match.

 

[Odin]

The feeling never really goes away. You kind of . . . get used to it. What I learned from getting kicked in the legs is that it is important to block and move because no matter how conditioned you get, they add up during a match.

Dont say that!!...that pain is crazy,I woundnt mind it if it didnt stop my leg from moving properly!

kru did it to me once and I nearly fell over with pain..he then asked 'how did that feel?' i foolishly said 'cough cough yeah its okay' and then wallop he hit me even harder!!
I would rather take a kick on the shin then that!it kind of makes that shin pain not so bad after all......has any notice how much pain is involved in this muay thai buiness????lol

 

[Muay Thai Knee]

LOL...I knew it was a case of getting used to it. Are we masochists or what?

 

[Andrew Green]

You'll get better at avoiding taking them full on, even if they land you want to let your leg give into it a little, absorb some of that. If you got your weight on the leg and try to keep it solid on a hit it's going to hurt, lots, no matter what.

 

[tradrockrat]

Yeah, the pain of the kick and it's debilitating effects are kinda the point. If you could train to eliminate it completely, the kick would be used as often as it is. In all my years, I never got "used" to it to the point that I didn't feel the REAL NEED to avoid them as much as possible, or ride them up with my shin.


(Of course as young - read stupid- fighter, we used to trade kicks cause we thought it was macho. I never made it past five kicks)

 

[The MMA kid!]

just block it in a match. raise the leg. let em kick your shin.

 

[Jagermeister]

Okay. So how many of you fight in Muay Thai competitively? And for those of you that do, do you train on taking leg kicks like this ever?

 

[Jagermeister]

I found this on another site.

Those roundhouses that connect with the lead leg do cause damage - even to Muay Thai fighters. There is no invunerability just because one trains in Muay Thai.

Spending time behind the scenes in professional Muay Thai I get to see what most other people don't. That is the ice packs and all the other techniques used to lessen the pain to the legs and the ankles after 5 rounds. Each camp has their special secrets for taking care of their fighters in this respect. In some of the K-1 fight of recent years you can see Masato's camp using all kinds of different things to help keep his leg from dieing after a brutal 5 rounds with Buakaw I believe (not Muay Thai rules obviously - but the kicks are Muay Thai roundhouses). Many fighters will be walking slowly or limping after a rough bout. It's just the way it goes.

Most Muay Thai fighters at the pro level are superbly conditioned... not only physically but also mentally. Yet even with that... they can only suck up so much damage to their legs with kicks.

If a fighter is layed into heavy with the roundhouses to the lower outer thigh you will see that take it's toll in the later rounds by a slowness in the fighter and an inability to be able to check kicks.

Additionally Muay Thai fighters don't stand there and just try to take kicks... they try to check them... or move out of range. Getting hit with one and sucking it up is always the last option.

Let me know what you think, and please respond to the previous post as well, if you don't mind helping a brother out.

 

[tradrockrat]

I used to compete a good bit in kickboxing tournaments in the ABA and elswhere. We followed virtually the same rules as Muay Thai. We trained really hard, but we never really worked "taking the kick" to toughen up. We just spared a lot and worked blocks and evasion. We'd get kicked a lot during, but no special drills.

It was typical for me to bring a cane to the tournaments cause if I did well, I would fight three or more fights in a day - really hard to walk the next morning without assistance.

 

[Damian Mavis]

Eh, the pros here in Thailand do NOT practice kicking each other in the leg. Of course they get kicked plenty since they fight regularly. Sounds like this has nothing to do with your leg at all man, I think if you got kicked for real in the gut, ribs or head you would be just as devastated. What you need is just more practice with pain, but you can get that with regular hard sparring. No need to stand around hitting each other in my opinion, tolerance to pain and mental toughening come from getting hit during live training, like sparring.

After saying that I will admit that in my classes we DO stand around hitting eachother, but thats usually because I have a group of students that are new and have no idea how to spar yet and they are constantly freaked out by the slightest contact. But they are doing TKD! Not a full contact ring sport.

Damian Mavis
Honour TKD

 

[AdrenalineJunky]

Eh, the pros here in Thailand do NOT practice kicking each other in the leg. Of course they get kicked plenty since they fight regularly. Sounds like this has nothing to do with your leg at all man, I think if you got kicked for real in the gut, ribs or head you would be just as devastated. What you need is just more practice with pain, but you can get that with regular hard sparring. No need to stand around hitting each other in my opinion, tolerance to pain and mental toughening come from getting hit during live training, like sparring.

After saying that I will admit that in my classes we DO stand around hitting eachother, but thats usually because I have a group of students that are new and have no idea how to spar yet and they are constantly freaked out by the slightest contact. But they are doing TKD! Not a full contact ring sport.

Damian Mavis
Honour TKD

As with anything, conditioning drills are key. At the end of every session we do body conditioning. It's simply a progression of contact to get body used to the contact. Leg kicks hurt. We try and ease each other into dealing with it while keeping the attention on the fight. Leg conditioning, we're going soft, and with shin pads; but my mid-section conditioning, I'm simply having a guy throw full speed round kicks into my stomach and sides. For me, knowing that I can take it, allows me to focus on strategy and trading blows.

 

[Muay Thai Knee]

No disrespect, but that sounds real dumb. I weigh 217lbs. I could probably rupture one of your internal organs if I hit you full force with a roundhouse.

The best way to defend against any strike is to make it miss you.

 

[AdrenalineJunky]

No disrespect, but that sounds real dumb. I weigh 217lbs. I could probably rupture one of your internal organs if I hit you full force with a roundhouse.

The best way to defend against any strike is to make it miss you.

What sounds real dumb is that you've convinced yourself that you could perform that feat. Rupture an internal organ. Are you going to hit me with chi-blast next? I do up toward 1000 crunches and 500 leg lifts everyday, alone, not factoring other conditioning drills and bag drills. Size is a factor, but not the be-all-end-all factor in determining striking ability. I've been doing this for over 13 years, I have sparred big people, little people and everything in-between. I used to weigh 205, it didn't make me kick any harder than I do 180, nor anymore than I did at 170.

The best way to win a sparring match, is to learn how to trade blows. The best way to defend against any strike is to shoot the person before they attempt to strike you. Nobody's fast enough to dodge every strike; I find that knowing I can take a strike and keep my head is much more of a consolation than fooling myself into avoiding a strike to such a degree that I'm not landing any of my own shots. I train to trade and counter first, because that is the most likely scenario; I train avoidance second, because it's nice to not get kicked when you don't have to.

 

[Damian Mavis]

Muay Thai knee, ya, if you watch the pros in Thailand (fast little guys) they dodge occasionally but its 80% blocking. If they could avoid the kick they would, but thats not the winning strategy, the winning strategy is to push in and overwhelm, you can't do that if focussing on evading and backing yourself into the corner where you will definately HAVE to block. These guys are tough as nails too, I kicked a guy in the head twice, consecutively kneed him 12 times, kicked his legs hard 4 or 5 times, punched him in the head several times, landed a couple kicks to his torso... he just kept coming! Wasn't until I did a spinning kick that he dropped.... tough bastage.

Point is, fighters should be able to take a few full contact kicks before they drop, so Adrenalines claims are nothing out of the ordinary. And what he is doing replaces how the thais get tough, the thais fight 100 to 300 times, they get damn tough throughout that experience, westerners don't usually have the luxury of training and living like that so we incorporate the toughness conditioning into our routine training. I personally think it should be done during sparring and live pad holding where the holder hits the fighter hard to condition him and develop his reflexes. I feel that standing around to do it wastes time, better to develop reflexes and toughness at the same time. My opinion.

Damian Mavis
Honour TKD

 

[Flatlander]

Jagermeister, would you please credit your source for that information?

 

[AdrenalineJunky]

Muay Thai knee, ya, if you watch the pros in Thailand (fast little guys) they dodge occasionally but its 80% blocking. If they could avoid the kick they would, but thats not the winning strategy, the winning strategy is to push in and overwhelm, you can't do that if focussing on evading and backing yourself into the corner where you will definately HAVE to block. These guys are tough as nails too, I kicked a guy in the head twice, consecutively kneed him 12 times, kicked his legs hard 4 or 5 times, punched him in the head several times, landed a couple kicks to his torso... he just kept coming! Wasn't until I did a spinning kick that he dropped.... tough bastage.

Point is, fighters should be able to take a few full contact kicks before they drop, so Adrenalines claims are nothing out of the ordinary. And what he is doing replaces how the thais get tough, the thais fight 100 to 300 times, they get damn tough throughout that experience, westerners don't usually have the luxury of training and living like that so we incorporate the toughness conditioning into our routine training. I personally think it should be done during sparring and live pad holding where the holder hits the fighter hard to condition him and develop his reflexes. I feel that standing around to do it wastes time, better to develop reflexes and toughness at the same time. My opinion.

Damian Mavis
Honour TKD

We do all that. Every session, and I mean every, consists of: warm-up, shadow boxing, bag work, pad work, shadow sparring, free-sparring (degree/area of contact depends on experience), conditioning and cool-stretching. I emphasize forward movement; a natural response to someone hitting you is to back away. The conditioning and sparring, something I use great caution in implementing, train you both mentally and physically to take a strike while focusing on offensive strategy. This is very progressive. . .it is not like people just jump in and go full speed. I've just been doing it for a while.

 

[Jagermeister]

but my mid-section conditioning, I'm simply having a guy throw full speed round kicks into my stomach and sides. For me, knowing that I can take it, allows me to focus on strategy and trading blows.

Abdominal strength can't prevent broken ribs, though. If these kicks are truly full speed, I don't see how this can be part of a routine training regiment without regular injuries. And if you can handle them with no problems in a fight, well, you'd be the first I've talked to that's said anything like that.

 

[Jagermeister]

Jagermeister, would you please credit your source for that information?

It was from poster (can't think of his name off the top of my head) in a thread on Martial Arts Planet.

And here's an update regarding the original post: 4 days later, and the residual soreness in my thighs is pretty much gone during normal daily activities like walking, but my thighs are still incredibly tender and very sensitive to contact. Not really sure if I'll be able to do anymore drilling like that this week.

 

[Damian Mavis]

Jagermeister, the pros here in Thailand eat a few full kicks to the torso and they dont even blink. Doesnt mean it didnt hurt! The psychology behind Muay Thai is to never let your opponent see your pain, to look unstoppable, it is very demoralising to the opponent. Ive seen it first hand and I was freaked out by it. My friends seen it first hand too, he gave his strongest kicks to the ex-Cambodian champ and sent him flying across the ring... the champ just shrugged it off and kept moving in for the kill. Strong torso definately helps reduce injury, if your muscles are loose and body not tight things will come apart much easier. But tight body isnt as important as the right mentality, ignore the pain, continue the attack, look as though your opponents attacks mean nothing to you.

Damian Mavis
Honour TKD