3 Killer Shadow Boxing Workouts for Muay Thai

A TRIO OF SHADOW BOXING WORKOUTS TO SWEAT TO

By Matt Filart

Recently, we’ve been talking a lot about getting your heavy bag and working out with them. A heavy bag is a great tool for any nak muay to have at any time, especially in times like now... but they can be expensive and you might not be able to set one up in the place you live.

This leaves those of us without a heavy bag with even fewer options when it comes to our solo Muay Thai training. This means that most of us are going to have to stick to shadow boxing to get our training fix. This sounds straightforward enough, but shadow boxing is, like most things in Muay Thai, a lot harder than it looks.

It takes a lot of focus and intent to shadow box correctly and to get a workout from it. This means it can be hard to start shadow boxing without a coach or someone else guiding you along, especially if you are somewhat new to Muay Thai.

So, to help you out we’ve compiled three of our best shadow boxing workouts to help you get started!

10 Minute Muay Thai Shadowboxing Workout For Beginners

This workout is specially designed for those of you who maybe don’t have a ton of experience with shadow boxing or maybe even Muay Thai in general.  

For this workout, you can listen and follow along to Sean’s directions. Go at your own pace, so don’t rush to meet some standard as your technique will suffer, which is never a good thing.

Sean is only giving directions for this workout, so you can work at your own pace, but do stick to the strikes and combos you are supposed to for the round.

The first round is just straights, teeps and checks so you can get your blood flowing. It’s easy to only use strikes but it’s important to practice your defence, so check often!

As you go through the workout, don’t forget to move around between your strikes and combos and try to imagine someone to hit and defend against. That’s where the shadow in shadow boxing comes from!

15 Minute Shadow KICKING Workout For Muay Thai

Shadow boxing is fairly well-known, even by people who aren’t martial arts practitioners, but most people probably haven’t heard of shadow kicking before. Well, you’ve probably already guessed what it means and yes, it’s exactly what you think it is: 100% kicking.

An important thing to keep in mind before starting this workout is to make sure that you have enough room to kick. Don’t want to be breaking anything or kicking any walls; that’s the wrong kind of shin conditioning!

This is a great workout option if you feel like your kicks are somewhat undertrained or you feel like you lack versatility with them. Sean even gives a few tips on how to throw kicks while shadow boxing, some of them learned from the Muay Thai GOAT, Saenchai!

Tips aside this workout are pretty similar to the last ones we talked about. Sean is going to give directions for about one minute per command. Some of these commands will be single strikes and others will be full combinations. Remember that he is saying when to do it only what to do, so go at your own pace and keep good technique through, but still, try to push yourself!

5 Minute Muay Thai Shadow Boxing Workout At Home

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9F5Bi47Zbg

This is a real quick one you can do if you don’t have much time to train for whatever reason or you can use to as a warm-up for your in-gym Muay Thai training.

This one is as simple as it is quick. Every thirty seconds is a different command where you do a certain combination. You can either do this standing in place or you can do them down the line like how Sean shows in the video.

If you’re feeling good about yourself and have the time, I recommend using this shadow boxing workout as a warm-up to one for the other workouts we’ve just talked about. 

You've got the skills... the knowledge... the discipline & strength...

Now let's get after it, nak muay!