Muay Thai Workouts

Muay Thai is a hard martial art, having its origins in Thailand. In fact it is the national sport of Thailand. It is referred to as the Art of Eight Limbs, because a wide range of techniques using elbows, knees, punches and kicks are involved. All these techniques form the core workouts.

Basically, this martial art has a close semblance with Indochinese kick boxing. The techniques are of 2 types. The Luk Mai and the Mae Mai, meaning minor techniques and major techniques respectively. So, these workouts comprise both these aspects, which help the practitioner develop a fit body, and great attacking and defense tactics.

Workouts typically consist of activities essential in combat sports conditioning, for instance, shadow boxing, running, rope jumping, and body weight resistance exercises. In short, it has four parts - warm-up, resistance training, base workout, and a cool down.

Thai pad training is one of the cornerstones of these workouts. The other things are focus mitts, sparring and heavy bag. However, all said and done, warm up before the workout is mandatory.

Swimming is one of the common routines. Include swimming preferably in the early afternoon period of the day. It allows anyone practicing Muay Thai, practice functional movements like knees and shadowboxing against the resistance of water.

Shadow Boxing is another inevitable part of this art. Shadow boxing using only punches for a minute or so at low intensity, coupled with 3 minutes of high intensity, is great for starters.

Kicking in the air too is expected in addition to this. Some of the punches you can do are left straight-right straight, left-right and left hook, left-right-left hook and right upper cut. Try out different combinations of various punches and kicks.

Next comes the focus mitts. Practice your punches on the focus mitts for 3 minutes. After a couple of such rounds, take a break. Best bet here is to have a partner. If that is not possible, visualize different spots you wish to target in the air.

Most preferably to be done in late afternoon, this routine includes around 3 to 5 rounds of skipping, heavy bag, and around 10 minutes of Muay Thai stretches. Finally, end with push kicks on the heavy bag and a few rounds of sparring.

Exercises included in these workouts are not very different from what are done in the other normal routines. These are basically for cardio conditioning. Lots of squats, push-ups, jumping squats, hill climbs, and so on. For seasoned practitioners, calisthenics are also incorporated in the workout. The cooling down exercises bring the session to an end.

In addition to that, you can have strength building and weightlifting sessions in the workout. Normally, beginners can commence with smaller bursts of resistance training and easier base workout.

Even if you are not looking at boxing as a profession or as a passion, Muay Thai workouts can augur extremely well for fitness and getting in an envious shape!