It’s not the strength of the arm that throws a punch, or the strength of the leg that throws a kick…
It’s the amount of power that a fighter can wind out from the trunk and hips – unleashing power via the rotary action of the hip via the trunk to the striking limb.
And this is all due to the criss-cross or ‘serape’ orientation of the core musculature. The body produces force by connecting the right shoulder to the left hip, and vice-versa.
Simply standing on one leg demands a degree of core stability, but horizontal, rotational (transverse plane) demands challenge your structure in a different way. Without this reactive, rotational stability, you’ll never reach your true power potential as a fighter.
Generating and controlling rotation is what Muay Thai is all about, and this requires core stability along these diagonal (serape) lines. Not just strength and stability, but reactive power, the ability to use the stretch shortening cycle or elastic recoil in the torso.
Serape Training
When I talk of rotational core demands, you could be forgiven for thinking training must rotate the shoulders relative to the hips – rotating, twisting the spine. But spinal movement isn’t want we want to encourage, rather the opposite, anti-rotation stiffness.
Reactive stiffness allows the stretch shortening cycle to come into effect. Muscles mustn’t give-way, or the stored elastic recoil in tendons and muscle fascia will be lost, along with your power.
First train your body along the diagonal serape lines for strength, to develop the prerequisite core stiffness. Secondly train the same lines for reactive power. Here are some example exercises you can include in your programmes.
Serape Strength Exercises
- Turkish Get Ups
- 1-legged Deadlifts (dumbbell held in opposing arm to the leg)
- 1-arm Bent Over Dumbbell Rows
- 1-arm Dumbbell Chest Press
- 1-arm Suspended Rows
- 1-arm Push Ups
- 1-legged Squats
- Landmine Twists
- Cable chops
- Cable lifts
- 1-leg Hip Lifts
Serape Power Exercises
- 1-arm Kettlebell Swings
- 1-arm Dumbbell Snatches
- Sledge Hammer Hits
- Medicine Ball Side Toss
- Medicine Ball Chop Throws
- Medicine Ball Shotput Throws
- Tornado Ball Slams
- Scissor Jumps
- Rotational Jumps
- Shoulder Butts
- Hip Butts
Muay Thai Drilling
Think diagonal opposites, I use this a lot with fighters during Muay Thai training too – patterning lead-arm to rear-leg, and rear-arm to lead-leg.
For example, practising jab then rear leg round kick, or lead hook then rear knee; Cross then lead leg round kick, or Rear hook then lead knee.
The free arm following the punch, can flail into a pre-stretch, torquing the serape musculature and maximising power – if the timing is right.
This timing is unique to you – it depends on your strength, reactive stiffness and elastic power – you must learn to feel it through practice.
Mistime your action, or lose torsional stiffness, and power will leak.
Putting It Together
Combine training the serape effect both in the weights room and in the Muay Thai gym to build the foundation strength and power requirements, and enhance your own personal timing.
Programmed training phases should begin with building strength, before shifting emphasis to the heavier power exercises, before moving through the lighter, highest speed, power exercises. Always work general to specific.
As you build core stiffness and elastic power through this process, you’ll learn how to efficiently coordinate your limbs through your torso, and synchronise with your own unique timing to ride your elastic power.
Further Resources
Don Heatrick
Founder of Heatrick Strength and Conditioning
Don Heatrick is a family man from the UK, former mechanical design engineer, European Muay Thai silver medallist, former pro Thai boxer (ranked 4th in UK while aged 40-years), a Muay Thai coach, podcast host, and the go-to expert on Muay Thai performance training with over 25 years of coaching experience.
Don helps ambitious fighters and coaches take their game to the next level by bridging the gap between Strength & Conditioning, Performance Science, and Muay Thai.
Follow Don Heatrick on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/donheatrick/
Howdy Don,
Great article! Totally interested in this type of training, I had a look at your Speed,Power and Strength routine and I was really excited to try this. However, I was a little unsure about how to execute the workout as you say follow the three stages in succession. This left me a bit baffled because wouldn’t I be training against the laws of periodisation?
thanks for your reply!
regards,
Nakmuay
Hi Nakmuay, I’m glad you’ve got hold of the training routine that I contributed to Sean Fagan’s Heavy Bag Blueprint Course. And that’s a great question!
I’ll write a post to go into this for you. Rest assured the exercise order is all by design, and all will become clear. I’ll get this out to you by the weekend ;)
Regards, Don
Here it is!
https://heatrick.com/2015/01/31/what-order-should-my-exercises-be-in/
I hope that clears things up for you Nakmuay? :)
Just to throw in another exercise for your list, sprinting is a fantastic exercise that heavily utilizes the serape effect. Y current workout right now (besides MMA training) is actually OAPushups, OARows from end of Gi sleeves, and sprinting. I was very happy when I saw this article. Nice Job.
I do want to comment on what you said in the beginning of the article that it’s not the strength of the arms, but rather the strength of the legs and hips that determine how hard a punch is. I think I’ve seen that the breakdown in advanced strikers is about 30% arm, 30% legs, and 30% trunk. It’s true that a punch doesn’t come solely from arm strength, but arm strength does play a significant role in how hard a punch is.
Thanks,
Sam Goldner
Thanks Sam, and yes sprinting trains the serape effect nicely. I touched on this in my post on hill sprints. Good call! :)
Of course your right, the arm play a significant role in punch force, but not as much as most people believe. And although the drive from the rear foot is also a big player, I wanted to focus on the core in this post.
The breakdown I think you’re referring too is Filimonov VI, Koptsev KN, Husyanov ZM, Nazarov SS. Means of increasing strength of the punch. Natl Strength Cond Assoc J 7: 65–66, 1983.
It’s a great study, and shows that advanced ‘Masters of Sport’ contribute the following percentages to punch force:
Arm Extension: 24.12%
Trunk Rotation: 37.42%
Push Off with extension of rear leg: 38.46%
Compare this to less experienced boxers:
Arm Extension: 37.99%
Trunk Rotation: 45.50%
Push Off with extension of rear leg: 16.51%
Interesting stuff! :)
How about the pull effect from the opposite arm or leg? When I’m teaching striking I focus more on the pull effect to increase speed and power . I’d love to hear more about the technical muscular movement involved :)
That pull is the pre-stretch phase of the elastic stretch-shortening cycle, adding elastic power to the strike (as long as the torso musculature is sufficiently strong/stiff and correctly timed to transfer force without collapse – leaking energy).
There’s also a counter-rotation of limbs that can add even more power to the strike, as long as it’s timed well. ;)
Would you ever advocate the Farmer’s walk or single-arm carry to train anti-lateral flexion?
Yes James, I like loaded carries, especially unevenly loaded ones as they work that anti-lateral flexion more directly.
I don’t get too carried away with anti-lateral flexion though as it’s less evident in Muay Thai generally. I go after anti-flexion/extension and transverse rotation to a much higher degree. I also get anti-lateral flexion when shifting to one-arm overhead pressing exercises in my programmes.
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