Starting Muay Thai next week. Wonder how much carry over a 415 squat is going to have in a kicking heavy sport.
"It didn’t even take Kendall three months of hard training to notice a reduction in his injury rate, severity of injuries, and general aches in both life and BJJ. He is also able to practice difficult techniques longer and with better precision because his muscles do not fatigue as quickly."
Read article
Starting Muay Thai next week. Wonder how much carry over a 415 squat is going to have in a kicking heavy sport.
Good read, all true.
Even if a BJJ player were to take a break from training jiu jitsu to get stronger, the conditioning will come back within 2-3 weeks of rolling and you’ll have fun steamrolling with your new size and strength while you catch up to speed.
I'm surprised that he squats more than he can deadlift. My deadlift has always been way stronger than my squat.
I’m the beginning, you will have to resist kicking full force. As I said, greater introspection is required of stronger trainees.
When you can throw a smooth kick, though I t may be the difference between breaking someone’s knee and them ignoring it because the force wasn’t high enough.
Ray Gillenwater has coached Muay Thai, I believe. He may have more to say.
I wasn't as good a coach in 2018 as I am now. He's also got some atypical limb segment lengths and range-of-motion problems we've had to work through.
Thanks Soule. I appreciate it.
I don't know that this is a good idea.
I would say it's definitely a bad idea for a white belt. The first year of BJJ should be continuous. Otherwise, after the break, the trainee will have lost a lot of the knowledge and habits. I've seen this happen at least ten times, but I have yet to see the counter example of the white belt who came back and had no problems. A purple belt, by contrast, can come back after months of layoff and have lost almost nothing mentally, just physically.
I have no mechanism to explain this, but that has been my observation.
Starting Strength Indianapolis is up and running. Sign up for a free 30-minute coaching session.
I answer all my emails: ALewis@StartingStrengthGyms.com
Plenty of Muay Thai coaches will downplay strength because of how many big, strong guys begin learning Muay Thai and can’t generate impressive power from their strikes. I am fortunate because I learned Muay Thai as “a tiny insect of a man” as Rip would say. I drilled kicks, knees, punches, and elbows thousands of times. Then I did NLP and since I already knew striking mechanics, my power became a noticeable advantage - especially kicks. This was when I was squatting low 300s for sets across, nothing extraordinary.
If you’re big, heavy, and unbalanced, there is a going to be a steep learning curve to drill in the movement patterns required for Muay Thai. If you’re big, strong, lean, and athletic, you’ll have an easier time. Either way, make sure you are extremely disciplined in performing the precise technique at low speed. As the movement becomes more natural, add speed. Once you’re throwing strikes with crisp technique and speed, the power will be there - especially if you squat in the 400s. Once you have technique and speed nailed, you can practice power shots specifically. When you kick the Thai pads, it should sound like a shotgun blast that makes everyone in the gym turn their heads. If not, you’re not ready - go back to practicing technique.
As usual, this is the opposite of how most people approach learning the skill. They show up and want to smash. Big, strong guys are mocked because they’re not hitting as hard as the guys that are 50lbs lighter. Whatever you do, don’t follow your coach's advice of running 3-5 miles several times a week to lean out. If you need to lean out, keep your protein up and reduce fat intake as you increase your activity level with practice. The sport suffers from a misunderstanding that big = slow and clunky. And unfortunately, it is true for those that have no technique. But for guys that have both? Much easier to get your opponent to think twice about coming into range, which means you control the dance. And if you land to the head, body, or legs with devastating power, a TKO is much easier to achieve versus just having great technique.
In Muay Thai, strength isn’t very useful without technique, especially since you’re likely not going to land that “one lucky shot” against a guy with skills. Technique plus strength on the other hand, is nasty. Just be sure to not be that knucklehead trying to smash the pads (or your sparring partners) before you have a strong base. Plenty of gyms will feed you to the little guys in sparring to make an example out of you. Humility, patience, and restraint are very important during the learning process. And consistency is critical to maintain a high rate of progression. Practice minimum three days per week.
TLDR: Technique + power = devastation. But don’t worry about power until technique becomes second nature.
Last edited by Ray Gillenwater; 07-09-2020 at 05:58 PM.
Thanks for the write up. I'm not so worried about the gym atmosphere because my older brother has been going for years on and off and the gym is reputable for making a lot of respected and successful fighters in amateur competition that have gone to Bellator, etc (they teach BJJ and Judo there too). The place isn't like Cobra Kai lol. I will definitely take your advice on going slow though. I'd rather master the tutorial and have no issues down the road. I also might let some of the bodyfat come off. I'm 200-205lb at 5'11".
Also for what it's worth, my brother is sorta coming out of retirement and wants to get into a training camp in Puckett, Thailand in about 6 months, but he's usually around bantam or featherweight and wants to get a bit bigger before then. I think my brother is about 5'7" or 5'8" and wants to be around 165lb so he came to me for strength training advice since people accuse me of taking roids. Would you just suggest doing the standard SSNLP as written for someone that's training Muay Thai several days a week?
This isn't Muay Thai specific, but more just martial arts in general. I would highly recommend you know exactly what you want out of the experience and make sure the coaches understand what that is. Many gyms are run by people with one track minds. If they assume you want to compete as soon as possible, your training is going to look different than if you just want to get better at fighting long term and have fun in the process.
Starting Strength Indianapolis is up and running. Sign up for a free 30-minute coaching session.
I answer all my emails: ALewis@StartingStrengthGyms.com