Thread: Muay Thai Pad training

Ahh the thai pads....the bringers of pain & hard work, well if you haven't used these before youv'e probablly noticed by now that it ain't as easy as it looks.
So here's a little help:
Punching:
First when you have the pads on, stand in your usual fighting stance and hold the pads up like when you have your guard up with the pads facing your opponent (your knuckles should be facing you) & dont have them to close to your face. (DONT stand square on like a lot of people do as your making it to easy for the fighter & it forces him to have bad techniques).
Because they are staggered he can reach your forward pad easilly but is forced to stretch his rear arm (cross) to reach your rear pad.
Kicking:
From this position just turn slightlly & bring the pads together & lower for a kick & maybe bend your legs for a shorter person (you may find it awkward turning to the one side but this gets easier with time).
When you hold the pads try to bend your arms into the pad like a bananana curving your wrist over & tensing your forearms, and tense your stomach at the moment of impact while breathing out.

If you train properlly on the pads you should get as much workout as hitting them & condition your arms.

Yup, holding the pads is a form of conditioning as well. It improves your coordination and toughness as some of the impact from strong kickers and punchers will travel through the pads and into your body.

When your partner is punching, check the punch with the opposing hand.

Ex partner throws left jab at your head, you slip to your right and check the punch with your left pad as if you are hitting his left lab with your left pad.

Partner throws right cross at your head, you slip to your left and check the punch with your right pad while hitting his fist with your right pad.

Partner throws left hook, take a tiny step back and bring up the left pad facing the right side and hit his left hook.

Have each group of partners start slowly to get the timing and then work up the pace. Nothing is worse than a limp pad holder, because the pads fly out of their hands and take forever to reset. You hit your partners fist to provide resistance for your partner to work on his power.

Retired-I have been training for a short time at the fairtex gym in S.F. , CA. I have now since moved out of state and have found only a few options as far as other schools. The heavy bags that Fairtex had were really great for combination training. I am now living in a high rise appartment with no way to put up a heavy bag. I have use of focus/thai/suitcase pad equipment. I would like to implement more kick and punch-or-knee and punch combinations with the type of pads I currently have. If you or anyone could provide me with combination pad holding information that would be great. Thanks for your reply.

Try these on the thai pads:

Front kick, Knee then turning kick (all on same leg).

left jab, right knee, left upper cut, right cross, left hook, right cross, left switch turning kick.

left front kick, right upper cut, left hook, right elbow.

left switch kick, right cross, left hook, right turning kick.

left jab then turn it into left hook, right knee, left elbow defence against his right hook, left switch knee

left front kick, left jab, right cross, left hook, right turning kick

left jab, left hook, right cross, left switch knee.

A good one is if he commits himself to a strong left jab you parry it to your right with your left hand (closing him up) then reach out with your right hand as if crossing but go past the right side of his head (you can get here with an elbow instead) & scoop it around his head (so your thumb is down) then pull the back of his neck towards & down as you stretch your right leg back & drive it back into his face as a knee.

Another nice one is if he throws a big left hook do the elbow tuck defence with your right hand (make sure chin down) & strike his left collar bone with your left hand then where your left hand is on his shoulder just scoop it around his neck as above and pull him down & drive the left switch knee into his face/ribs.

I'm assuming your using pads and not focus mits???

Anyway, a good tip is to start off with simple combos, get your partner to repeat a few times then keep adding bits on, like this :-

Jab
Jab, cross
Jab, cross, left hook
Jab, cross, left hook, right hook
Jab, cross, left hook, right hook, left kick
Jab, cross, left hook, right hook, left kick, left knee
Jab, cross, left hook, right hook, left kick, left knee, elbow

etc etc.

Also do punching/kicking pyramids. These are when you get your partner to throw a 1/2 then do 1/2/3/4 then 1/2/3/4/5/6 all the way up to 12 consecutive punches then back down again to 2 (hope u understood that). With kicks you'd throw 1 right leg then 1 leftleg the 2 right, 2 left, then 3 right then 3 left....up to throwing 10 kicks each side then back down to 1.

Doing the above in the last round toward the end is great way to make sure you've done some work.

Another good one is to throw a kick at your partner he blocks it and fires straight back with a kick from the leg he blocked with. Pad holder should kick with sole of foot though, to prevent injury.

There's loadsa other stuff as well, being a good pad holder takes a lot of practise, something that will come over time.

Hope some of that helps a bit.

Forgot to mention, wearing a body pad and groin gaurd is fairly important if you don't want to get kneed in the bollox when your partner is too tired to hit the pads accurately

My instructor, Master H.D. Tran recently finished a great DVD called "Authentic Muay Thai Pad Training" - it is a really good resource and packed with instruction on how to hold and how to hit the Thai Pads. www.transkickboxing.com

YouTube - Present 1 Dutch communication? not for sale version
Starting at 3 minutes 28 seconds.

Anybody see the tran padwork dvd? Any reviews?

Originally Posted by the tick

YouTube - Present 1 Dutch communication? not for sale version
Starting at 3 minutes 28 seconds.

I loved Ramon Deckers fighting style,Heart,Chin And punch Power,he had some great fights with top Thai fighters back in the day.

Originally Posted by george stando

Anybody see the tran padwork dvd? Any reviews?

George,

Whats the "tran" padwork dvd?.

Someone linked a dvd in one of the posts below by tran, but I checked the link, it seemed more like a health club version of muay thai and wondering if it was any good.

Dekkers is the man.

Thanks George I overlooked that post,seen it now though! authentic?world class! mm more like cardio Kickboxing than Muay Thai.