How to Train Muay Thai When You Don’t Have Time To Train Muay Thai
The alarm starts blaring a 5:45 am. From there, your day is a blur: shower, commute, work, lunch, and more work. The evening is the same movie in reverse: commute, shower, a meal, before hitting the sack to do it all again tomorrow. Somewhere in there, you carve out time to buy groceries, wash the car, and walk the dog. You want to squeeze in a session at the muay Thai gym, but how the hell are you going to fit that in?
Many serious nak muay dream of taking months away from the monotony of work to train full time at an authentic gym in Thailand. In fact, a stint of dedicated training in the motherland of Thai boxing is seen as an essential step for anyone who wants to fight professionally at a high level. For the rest of us, the idea of training full time just seems like a fun way to indulge our passion for punching other guys in the face. You may be dreaming of morning conditioning runs through the streets of Bangkok. In the meantime, however, you need to work. Balancing a legit training schedule with a full time job, and full time life isn’t easy.
Here are my top tips to scheduling your life around your love of muay Thai:
1. Wake up earlier. Yes, it’s that simple. However, anyone who has ever tried it understands that this simple life hack is much easier said than done. Waking up an hour earlier to run, skip rope, or shadow box, adds 5 hours per week, 20 hours per month to your training schedule. In conjunction with a few weekly classes, this a simple, (but not easy) strategy to 2x your training time.
2. Train at home. Sometimes you can’t make it to the gym. Don’t miss training completely because you had to stay late at work, or got caught in a traffic snarl. Have a pre-planned routine you can complete at home with little to no equipment, for the inevitable days you can’t make it to a class.
Key skills you can practice at home are:
- Skipping rope
- calisthenics
- shadow boxing
- hitting the heavy bag, if you have one at home
- Training each of these can keep you sharp between formal classes. At this time, I don’t train regularly in the gym at all. A few times per week, I skip rope and train combinations on a heavy bag to keep my muscle memory acute.
Nothing can replace training with an experienced coach, but keeping your reflexes keen, and cardio strong will help you maintain your skills. Anything is better than chilling on the couch. Sage advice from this comes from 26th US president Theodore Roosevelt,
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
3. Watch fights. In conjunction with shadow boxing and conditioning, this is an awesome way to hone your Muay Thai skills and build your fight intelligence. Watching bouts from different styles and different fighters shows you skills and techniques that you can train on the heavy bag, and with sparring. Watch closely to see how fighters from all over the world string together combinations, work defense, and use strategy to conquer their opponents.
4. Hit focus mitts with a friend. If you have a friend who’s also into Muay Thai or boxing, throw your gloves on and meet up with him for some rounds on the mitts. This works awesome if you’re both available late or early. You might not be able to make it to Muay Thai class at 6 every evening, but your friend can carve out even an hour in a local park, gym, or even your own garage. Working mitts, or even light sparring, is an opportunity to work on your technique and reflexes.
These are my top tips for training the art of 8 limbs, when you don’t have time to make it to classes on a set schedule. There is no substitute for learning from an experienced coach, and other fighters. However, knowing how to keep your conditioning, reflexes, and skills sharp is essential for us nak muay who balance training with school, work, and the responsibilities of daily adult life.
