An ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure. To start, always warm up before you start kicking things. Once you’re adequately warmed up, take the 1st round at an easy pace, don’t start blasting immediately. You want to give your shin time to adjust.

Know your limits. If you’ve only been training a couple months, don’t kick the heavy bag as hard as you can. Your shin is not properly conditioned or ready for this. Avoid lots of bare shin on shin contact. And DO NOT buy into shin conditioning gimmicks. Beating your shins with hard objects will only hurt them.

Elevating your legs for 5 to 10 minutes after training can be very helpful for preventing muscle soreness and minimizing bruising.  During training, large volumes of blood are pumped to your legs.  Elevating them allows the blood and waste products to drain out.

Bruises occur when you break small blood vessels underneath your skin. The dark mark is actually blood, very minor internal bleeding. Small bruises that are not painful require no real attention. You can continue training normally. They usually take 3 to 5 days to clear.

For bruises that are larger and painful, you will want to take it very easy and avoid contact to the area. Icing your shin immediately after you sustain the injury will help to prevent bruising. The faster you can get ice on your shin injury, the more it will help. When you ice your shin, put a paper towel down first, do not put ice directly on your skin. Ice for 20 minutes, then remove and let sit for 1 hour. Repeat as necessary. This will be helpful for the first couple days after sustaining the injury.

For severe shin bruising, allow no contact to the area. Let the bruising fully heal before you begin kicking again. Use ice as described above for the first couple days. After this, warm baths with epsom salts will be helpful. 2 cups of epsom salts in a hot bath alleviates bruising, as well as general muscle soreness and inflammation.

If the bruising does not get better or is extremely painful, see a doctor.  You may have a more serious injury.

Sometimes your shins will not only bruise, they will also swell or develop lumps known as hematoma.  When you have swelling or hematoma, do not allow contact to your shins.  Ice the area as described above until the swelling or hematoma subsides.  Large hematoma can take as long as a month or two before it goes down fully.  Compresses with epsom salts will also help swelling and hematoma.

If the swelling or hematoma does not begin to go down or is extremely painful, see a doctor.  This could mean you have a more serious underlying injury to your shin.

Dit da jow is an ancient chinese herbal rub. It prevents and alleviates bruises as well as swelling and hematoma. It can also help treat sore muscles or tendon/ligament injuries. Think of it like healing in a bottle. Chinese iron body practitioners used it to help with body conditioning.

Dit da jow is fantastic for helping with shin conditioning. It is also an amazing treatment for shin bruises and all other impact injuries. Applying it before you train and immediately after will prevent almost all impact injuries and bruising. It will also rapidly accelerate healing of existing injuries. If you seriously train muay thai, you should use dit da jow.