Here's an excerpt from Ken Hahn's blog. Hahn is one of Frank Mir's assistant coaches on the current run of The Ultimate Fighter. It's a good read:
A word on conditioning
In the Wesley Murch vs. John Polakowski lightweight preliminary fight, we saw a classic example of the importance of conditioning. When you throw a leg kick at an opponent and he shin-checks it, you better have spent plenty of time conditioning your bones and muscles to withstand that level of contact.
My training and fighting background is in Muay Thai and bare-knuckle Karate. In those arts, we would bang shins all the time. If you hurt your shin during a tournament fight, you may still have to fight 30 minutes later. So if you aren't properly conditioned, you aren't going to be able to walk -- let alone fight.
