There’s a difference between feeling tired during fights and being tired…
Competing as a fighter is stressful, and the cocktail of neurochemicals and hormones this dumps into your body drastically affects how you feel. Especially early in a fight career, nervousness, anxiety, or even all-out fear, will leave you feeling exhausted without even exerting yourself!
But, I’ve found there can be a disparity between the sensations you feel, and the performance you can produce if you can override them. From the top down, emotion affects posture. And from the bottom up, posture affects emotion. If your training has built good postural habits, then despite how tired you feel, you may well not look it!
Don’t assume because you feel tired, and are facing an exhausted-looking opponent, that you look just as exhausted during the fight too.
Reviewing your own fight footage allows you to cross-reference your feelings of fatigue during the fight with your postural appearance. And compare that to the posture of your opponent. Having your corner team honestly review if your opponent “looks tired” (i.e. more tired than you do) between rounds, will give you a psychological boost and help you pace your efforts to better affect.
When Feeling Tired Is A Lie
by Don Heatrick
@donheatrick
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/
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