There’s nothing worse than standing in front of a relentless opponent having exerted all your energy – sitting dead in the water, unable to respond with the same work rate. If you understand how your body supplies energy in a Muay Thai fight, you can train it to not gas out when you need [...]
Nothing happens by accident. If you want to be the best fighter you can be, you need to put some thought into it. Benjamin Franklin famously said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” Or was it Winston Churchill? Anyway, whoever said it was bang on! And it’s true in every [...]
It’s hard enough preparing for a single fight, but what if you’re involved in a tournament and are expected to fight on consecutive days? Or even multiple times in one day? Do you need to change your conditioning training to suit this? This article has been prompted by Sean, who asked this great question: [...]
Over the Bank Holiday weekend I was privileged to spend 2-days with Joel Jamieson of 8weeksout.com, widely recognised as one of the foremost experts on strength and conditioning for combat sports, and someone that has heavily influenced my personal approach to athletic training and energy systems conditioning in particular. This was his first time [...]
This weeks post is in response to a coach's request at one of my seminars. He wanted a "finisher" to stick on the end of his Muay Thai training sessions. Here's the brief: 10 - 15 mins in duration to go on the end of 2 or 3 Thai boxing classes a week kept simple [...]
Here's a simple, but highly effective test you can conduct on a rowing machine to determine your maximum average power, anaerobic fatigue and anaerobic capacity – a very useful gauge for Thai boxers. The result of this modified Wingate rowing test can not only be used to track your personal fitness progress and the effectiveness [...]
Having wound the clocks forward for the start of the spring season the UK, it's time to seriously consider getting some outdoor training in. My first port of call is always a steep grassy slope, less than a minutes jog from my home. The gradient stretches roughly 30-metres, from a children's play area up [...]
Avoiding training plateaus (accommodation) requires some forethought. As discussed in part 1 of this article, it's important to vary training load (intensity and/or volume) and the exercises or drills used. These modifications to training are essentially quantitative (changing the amount and intensity) or qualitative (replacing exercises and drills). Fighters/athletes with more advanced training ages [...]
Metabolic training, popularised by Crossfit, has become a buzz word these days — particularly with fighters. Such circuit training typically moves from one exercise to the next with minimal rest. It satisfies our need to push on hard (building work capacity) and loads with an intensity higher than body weight. All is good then, why [...]
Your training must be specific to your sport. This is straight forward if you're either a sprinter (power) or a marathon runner (endurance), but we're Thai boxers and we need it all! Conflicting physical adaptations are part of our game, and managing this is crucial if you're to get the best out of yourself. [...]
It's important to schedule enough rest and recovery in your training programme to avoid injury, illness and overtraining. Most competing fighters train for 6-days a week, resting for one day of the week. But is a rest day best spent doing absolutely nothing at all? Are there low intensity activities that would better aid [...]
Following from the post What is Strength & Conditioning Exactly??, in this short video I give a little more detail on what conditioning for Muay Thai really is. Please share and let me have your comments :) Further Resources Planning Muay Thai Cardio Conditioning Training Correctly What Is Your REAL Max Heart Rate? Videos – [...]
Forget your old perception of a warm-up and now consider a new model for optimising performance preparation for both fights and training sessions. Time is wasted and physical potential goes untapped following typical ill-conceived warm-up routines. I know it's been done to death – a warm up will promote faster muscle contraction; relax agonist [...]
