Sex doesn't affect testosterone levels. If that were the case, guys who abstained from sex would be bigger and stronger than those who didn't.
The archaic training advice to avoid sex before athletic competition has some value (although very little) given the idea that a heavy session with the misses on the night before the competition doesn't very well constitute resting. It can actually be quite a workout sometimes, as most of you probably know, and may result in less sleep than desired. So if I were you, I wouldn't worry too much about your coach's instruction. You know your body better than anyone else, after all. If you feel that sex leaves you feeling fatigued, hold off on it. If it doesn't affect you, go for it.
As far as diet goes, I don't know. There are boxing books that focus exclusively on fight preparation that get into the detail you're looking for.
As far as shin conditioning goes, it's kind of a tricky subject considering there haven't been any kind of studies done on this. Just a few months ago, I had the same uncertainty you are having. If you want to see all the information I came across during my hunt for the answer to this riddle, you can search the various threads I participated in on this very subject to see how I came to my conclusion. Most of it is contradictory, as you say, so if you don't feel like laboring through all of that crap, I can say in brief that, in my understanding, hitting the pads and especially the heavy bag is the way to go. It hurts quite a bit along the way, but give it 6 months or so and the conditioning should be getting pretty good to where you can kick about full strength without feeling pain. It's not the quick and easy way, however, which has additional consequences. There are some nightmare stories on here that I've read from guys who used to bang their shins with sticks all the time and use polling pins on them. This is a bad idea. No one in Thailand does this kind of conditioning. They hit the bag. And no, they don't kick trees like Van Damme.
So you're probably wondering what exactly happens to the shin during this process. I'm not sure on this. I know some things that don't happen to it, though. The tibia's bone density does not increase, i.e. the bone doesn't get harder. And I highly doubt that the shins are "denting" and "bending" as previously described in this thread during this strengthening process. Some people think it's a process of continually causing stress fractures, but these injuries, regardless of the bone affected, don't necessarily heal up nice and tidy as we'd like, so I have my doubts with that theory. And if you want to see what the potential result may be if you decide to fight despite having an unhealed stress fracture, look for my thread entitled "this made me want to throw up" (or something like that). Not a pretty picture, to say the least. There's also a myth circulating that in Thailand the rates of shin cancer are higher due the disproportionally large number of Muay Thai fighters that have damaged their shins over the years. I could find no evidence outside of chatroom rumors to support this. The only cancer of the shin I found information on was Ewing's sarcoma, it isn't caused by collisions and isn't limited to the tibia only. And logically, it doesn't make sense. Cancer, simply put, is the growth of a malignant tumor, with potentially limitless growth. It would seem to me that we would see many retired fighters with amputated legs or recovering from surgeries or chemotherapy, or at the very least talking about it. But there's none of this. In my opinion, it's just something that somebody made up somewhere along the line.
My theory is that conditioning has little to do with the bone itself and everything to do with the surrounding tissue. The connective tissue around the bone is what gives us the pain when we initially start hitting the bag or even the pads, right? And most likely, if you're really green, you can't kick hard enough to damage your tibia. Yet the shin is still pretty well beat up. So what is happening? If you take a look at your shins next time, you'll see that the pain is acually concentrated in the skin, muscle, and underlying connective tissue surrounding the tibia. In comparison, when runners get hairline fractures in the tibia, they can feel very clearly that the pain is caused by damage to the bone rather than the surrounding tissue. My theory is that something happens to the shins druing the conditioning process that is somewhat analogous to the callousing of the feet, where after months or years of continual bruising and continual repair, the tissue becomes tougher and more desensitized.
Again, this is just my theory, but I am absolutely certain that I would never bang my shin with bottles to kill the nerves. Most of the people that I've spoken with that have done this say that it has adversely affected the circulation in their lower legs, and it seems that it's irreversible and worsens with age.
I'd appreciate any comments, especially if there are any doctors or medical professionals out there that know something about histology or the like. Thanks.
