So you want to fight?
I am going to share what I believe to be the minimum training requirements to fight in the ring. If you are not willing or able to do this then you have no business fighting in Muay Thai.
Fighting in Muay Thai is serious and dangerous. The name of the game is to hurt the other person more than they hurt you. Before you start this journey you should look in the mirror and decide WHY you want to fight?
I want to stress that if you want to fight and become a champion in Muay Thai you need to find a qualified Muay Thai Coach/instructor.
You can NOT become a champion in Muay Thai on your own. Sure you might be able to win a couple of low level fights but you will never reach the top or be able to hang with the high-level fighters without one. FIND A COACH!
Don’t be cheap, pay your coach. The amount of time and punishment it takes to train a fighter to become a champion far exceeds anything you could possibly pay them.
If you truly can’t afford to pay for lessons then you need to find a way to help your coach whether that’s cleaning the school, hoping with classes or helping new students. In fact even if you CAN afford to pay for classes you should still help with those things because you need to give back.
Also, if you want your coach to travel to corner your fights (which I recommend) you need to find a way to raise money to pay for your coaches travel expenses so they don’t have to pay out of pocket to help YOU achieve YOUR goal of becoming a champion!
Make sure you are coachable and you listen to your coach. Do what they say and don’t ask questions. If they are a good coach, they know what they are talking about. Asking questions all the time instead of training and doing what you are told, is the easiest way to slow growth.
The only way to learn and become great at Muay Thai is to do it.... no questions asked. It takes thousands and thousands of reps to develop quality technique and build muscle memory.
Also Muay Thai is a fight and eventually you will lose and losing is part of the game. Don’t be a jerk and blame your coach for your loss. Take responsibility for your loss and learn from it.
There are lots of reasons for losing;
- Mental toughness and nerves
- Lack of physical preparation
- In ability to stick to the game plan
- Small mistakes throughout the fight
- The other person is just better than you
When you lose to your opponent who is better than you, then learn from it. But if you lose to your opponent who you feel you were better than, then that’s either a mindset or conditioning problem.
If you want to fight, you need to fight often, once a month or at least once every two months. You can’t expect to fight once or twice a year and become a champion. It won’t happen. Between smokers, small venue fights, bigger venue fights and tournaments you should be able to find fights.
Like I said the training outline provided here is the minimum requirements in my eyes to fight. If you can’t do this physically then you are not ready to fight.
Training to fight is a daily grind. It is not sexy or cool, it’s a GRIND. You will have to train tired, sore and with small nagging injuries, all of which will mess with your mind every day.
Every day you will question whether or not this is what you want to do so make sure your reason WHY you want to fight is stronger than the devil sitting on your shoulder telling you to give up, which will be there every single day tempting you.
Remember being a fighter is not glamorous, it’s not a highlight reel, selfie or a post with thousands of likes. You’ll have to spend hours and hours out of the spotlight by yourself or with your coach.
So make sure you have a positive mindset and are willing to sacrifice everything to become a champion, meaning everything you do from work to your free time is dedicated to paying for your training, to fight and learning your craft.
There is no other way.
If you still want to fight then let’s get started!
Training Regimen
Running – 30–60 minutes
Wind sprints – 5/100 m dashes /twice a week
Jump rope – 15 minutes
Squats – 3 sets of 10 or two minutes
Push-ups – 3 sets of 10 or two minutes
Sit ups – 3 sets of 10 or two minutes
pull ups – as many as you can do
Pad work – 3–5 rounds (speed kick burnouts)
Bag work
- freestyle – three rounds
- Jab, cross – 100–500 reps
- Roundhouse kicks – 100–500 reps each side
- Front kicks - 100 Dash 500 reps each side
- Long knees – 100–500 reps each side
- Skip knees from the clinch – 100–500 reps each side
- Technical sparring – 5–10 rounds (light to the head)
- Heavy sparring – one time per week
- Clinching – 20–30 minutes (3–5 times per week)
- Stretching – 15 minutes
You need to do this training regime five-six days per week.
I give a range depending on your level of conditioning when you start.
