There are many different theories about the ways to condition your shins. Some people think you should beat them and then roll them, some think you train thai kicks on metal poles/banana trees, and others think that you shouldn't condition your shins at all.

I'm going to go ahead and say that I have pretty decent shins. I'm no professional thai fighter by any means, but have no problem thinking about a "bare shins" fight. That being said, I have no medical background and do not suggest anything that will damage your body. (That was my little disclaimer.)

My personal thoughts regarding shin work is that you should train CONSTANTLY on a QUALITY thai bag. I think that you should kick the bag CORRECTLY (again, technique is much more important here than strength) repeatedly until it hurts to touch your shins. At which point, there are some great "home remedies" that you can explore. First, we always had at the gym a bottle of thai liniment. It is a milky texture yellow substance that smells strongly of menthol. It has a soothing effect on the legs, and can be used directly on the shins as well as on the thighs.

As far as rolling your shins goes, there will come a time during training where you will develop a contusion on your shin. It will be one of the most painful experiences that you've ever had in your leg, but it will go away. To deal with this large build up of blood on your shin bone, I suggest the following: Wherever you train, you should keep paper cups that are filled with water in the freezer. Yes, this will make them a paper cup of one large ice cube. Perfect! When you have a contusion, sit at the edge of the ring or on the floor with your leg completely straight. tear half of the paper from the cup so that half of the bare ice is exposed. Start between the contusion and your knee, and rub downward toward your foot LIGHTLY! It will be painful, and you should apply more and more pressure as you rub until you have sufficiently spread the blood out. Again, this will be a painful process, but will make your recovery time go down dramatically. If you have any questions, a good Thai coach can show you how to do this effectively.

Be careful training, and remember my motto about training and fighting: "Smarter, NOT Harder!"

The only conditioning I do is kicking my 100 lb. Heavybag.

A couple of other ways to condition the shins
1.use a rolling pin with ever increasing force
2.take about 20 thin sticks or chop sticks tie them loosely together and go after the shin
3. use a sand bag and strike the shin

other use full things shin to shin conditioning strike your friend in the shin with your shin and so on until both of you get to a point where it is to painful this is useful for body conditioning as well kick your friend in the thigh and trade off there is nothing more beneficial to training than real contact.This will condition the shin but also develop good striking for you If you know what hurts you will focus more on this area to strike this is different than a bag increase the force you can get up to 100% after a while with your training partner and you will develop confidence in your kicking and taking a kick

Just my 2 cents

that's what i'm doing too. kicking my heavy bag until my shins are crying, both kicking shins whit my training partner, but it's not the way you condition your shins that mater, it's the number of times that you train it. kicking the heavy bad once a week will never develope your shins enough to take pain. but do it 3, 4, 5 times a week and you will see the difference.

I'm not sure to be clear but...Train hard! and when you tired, train harder!

Another thing to do is to use a good quality liniment for bruising and swelling along with the ice that Richard mentioned.For your forearms and shin's there are Thai and Chinese's versions of this, or any thing with menthol and aspricreme will be helpful

Just remember do not touch the privates after applying you will be on fiah

I have done some dumb things to condition my shins and would not recommend them to anyone. I broke my ankle kicking a tree and now I can feel it everytime it gets cold. I would suggest just kicking the thai bag and thai pads until your shins are tough enough.