As a Thai Boxer, say yes or no to weights ?

[kh_s]

Do you lift weights for Muay Thai ? Or is muay thai a lot of drills and pad work and a lot of cardio stuff ? Because I am just wondering how some of them small guys can hit hard, when I mean hard, a little too hard for their size. Get my point ?

As for endurance, i`m talking about taking a lot of beating here, do you benefit it from the workouts, or in the ring, or both ?

[YeLLa-TiGeR]

I was put on a powerlifting and olympic style weight program from my former trainer along with plyometrics.


It improved my power tenfold, I had more muscular endurance, plus my plumb was awesome compared to other people in similar weight and size.

Prior to a fight, I was ordered off it and did only running, sprints and plyometrics though.

[da_mill]

care to tell us more mate?

I lift weights once every week generally, just dumbells for triceps ,biceps and shoulders, and do push ups for chest and arms also

This is more "just because I do" lol

[kh_s]

I know nothing

Yellow-Tiger,

sry but I don`t know what power tenfold is. Could you please explain to me ?

[Kingston]

Re: I know nothing

Originally posted by kh_s
sry but I don`t know what power tenfold is. Could you please explain to me ?

psssst.....kh_s he ment he increased his strength(power) tenfold dont worry i wont tell anyone.... It happens to the best of us..

[Hulk]

Re: Re: I know nothing

Originally posted by Kingston


psssst.....kh_s he ment he increased his strength(power) tenfold dont worry i wont tell anyone.... It happens to the best of us..

yeah do sprints, running and ploymetric work outs.. basically working on your anerobic system... it will strengthen your muscles instead of add mass... from there u'll throw powerful strikes... there is a website i had about it.... i'll try and find the link right now.

[Hulk]

"Plyometrics is a conditioning technique used to increase performance in sports that require explosive speed and power along with quick change-of-pace, stop-and-go movements..."

http://www.combastics.com/articles/mc-plyometrics.htm

Hope that helps, dood

[YeLLa-TiGeR]

Sure I will explain in a longer post in what exactly I did.

But give me til tomorrow, its 3:30 AM here, I just got in a few min ago.


Parts of it was a routine taken from Vince Carter's (notice his wicked high vertical leap) my vertical leap went up over a foot as well.


Awesome results.

[YeLLa-TiGeR]

So lets say you have 12 weeks notice for a fight. Then there are two phases of training. First phase consists of powerlifting and moderate level padwork with light sparring. The routine takes of 3 days of the week, alternating the days. In between, you are doing light padwork with LOTs of shadowboxing.

Normally we were doing 4-6 reps for the first set, then you add more weight and do 4-5, then you add more weight and have 3-4 reps, then finally you max out the weight and try for 1-3.

This is the reps and sets you incorporate for ALL the exercises you do. Each day should consist of working the whole body. And the exercises should be compound lifts. See how for each set there is a range of sets? Thats because you are lifting VERY heavy, I cannot stress the importance of having a proper trainer and spotter. As stated before, you notice that one of the sets requires 1-3 reps, those reps should be 105% of you ONE REP. MAX, meaning in theory, it should be pretty much impossible to lift that even once. Well thats why you have spotter. This routine works on the theory that you can always lift more if need be.


EVERY WEEK you should be moving up in weight, every week, the weight will be heavier.

I would list exactly what I did, but I forget what routine I had exactly, my notes are at home in Boston. But I do remember in the first week I was squating 185 lbs for 4 reps and by the end of the sixth week, I was squating 315-320 for 4 easily.


By the end of the six weeks, you stop doing weights completely. Its all plyometric drills. We did alot of step exercises and explosive jump squats.

3 days a week on Mon, Wed and Friday we ran 100 meter wind sprints, 20 times consecutively.

You sprint fast as you can, when you reach the 100 meter mark, you turn around and jog back, when you reach the start line, you explode without rest and spring back....and so on and so forth for 20 times. After that, you do a 20 min fast paced run on the treadmill then 5 min of incline pacing.

If you get bored, you can mix it up by sprinting uphill on skill hills for 100 meters.


By the way you are still going to be jogging a few kilometers everyday in the morning during the second phase.


You can also choose to change in the middle of phase 2 and substiute by implementing plyometric drills like we did on Mon Wed Fridays.

Tuesdays, thursdays and Saturdays we drilled on the pads and did hard hard full contact sparring.


Final test of endurance is a thousand kicks on the pads. 50 kicks that should be all non stop fast, then 10 power kicks. Then so on....

Thats all I can think of on the top of my head.

The routine above made me faster and stronger.

PS-of course your body cant take this kind of abuse without some wear.....so a week prior to the fight, you wind down and do very little.

[aseepish]

Dude, you're mixing up your pounds and meters - a sure sign that you spent too much time in Canada!

T

[YeLLa-TiGeR]

LOL, how you been buddy?


I live in Boston now, and my parents are moving to Phoenix this June.

NO more canada for me!

[aseepish]

Doing ok...

looking for work now, once I find a job I'll be looking for somewhere to train. Japan is awesome though.

T.

[Crouchtig]

yesterday i did thai boxing and the went straight into the fitness room to lift weights. I expected to be tired out and not do very well but actualy i did better than ever before, lifting heavier weights more times, even using muscles that had already been tired out. lifting weights should help with thai boxing because it will make you stronger so you can hit harder, even if weights don't help with thai boxing, thai boxing certainly helps weight training so do them both anyway!

[kh_s]

I heard that lifting weights stunts your growth. What do you do for weights is you don`t want to develope big muscles ? It`s like what bruce lee did, he wanted to get stronger without making his muscles bigger.

[Crouchtig]

in answer to above

weightlifting CAN stunt growth in CHILDREN. if you are fully grown then your growth cant be stunted. i think that the strength gained by big muscles is well worth the extra weight and reduced flexibility. besides i think that a lot of bruce lees power came from his speed. if you look at the worlds strongest men they're all big mega men with arms bigger than a normal persons leg. besides extra weight helps add power.