Are You Making These 3 Heavy Bag Mistakes?
AVOID THESE 3 MOST COMMON HEAVY BAG MISTAKES
By Sean Fagan
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery
“It’s not daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.” – Bruce Lee
Making a mistake means you’ve wasted a portion of your time, or worse still, you’ve set yourself back so far that you must now spend even more time correcting and making up for your mistakes.
We want to minimize tail chasing during your heavy bag training sessions by developing a NOT to-do list, because what you don’t do determines what you can do. Time to save time. Let’s dig in, shall we?
Note: For each mistake listed, there will be a correction that comes with it. If you’re impatient simply read the corrections and the bold.
Mistake #1: Just going through the motions.
All the below...
Are You Overthinking Your Muay Thai Training?
IF A BEGINNER, YOU’RE PROBABLY OVERTHINKING MUAY THAI
By Angela Chang
Beginners tend to overthink things. They can’t be blamed – they want to make the most out of their experience and want to be as prepared as possible to learn. Still, there’s nothing like overthinking something to throw a stick in your own spokes and stop you dead in your tracks.
The motivation to learn and become better is great, but the fallacies that come with it can ultimately make beginners their own worst enemy. Here are some of the most common questions beginners tend to overanalyze far too often.
OVERTHINKING IT: How do I do this perfectly?
Some nak muays get so caught up in trying to do something perfectly. Waiting to do something perfectly is not ideal. Many fail to realize that trying to do it, no matter how wrong or “imperfect,” is better than not doing it at all!
People are afraid to “fail” and that itself is a major setback....
What The Thais Know About Sparring
LIGHT SPARRING PRESERVES YOUR BODY & CAREER
By Andrew Bryan
Recently, kickboxer “Bazooka” Joe Valtellini and former boxer Paulie Malignaggi got into a spat on Twitter over whether hard or light sparring is the way to go. Joe’s argument was that hard sparring leads to unnecessary brain trauma going into a fight and it’s part of the reason why he had to retire quite young.
Paulie’s counter argument basically amounted to: “Don’t be a pussy.”
It’s a debate that will never really have a clear concrete answer, largely in part because we simply don’t have enough research into brain trauma, especially in regards to Muay Thai fighters, and partly because there are inherent benefits to both.
Sparring The Thai Way
The common argument in favor of sparring light, in the same way that professional fighters in Thailand do, is that less brain trauma sparring means more potential...
7 Tips On Eating For Optimal Muay Thai Output
HOW TO MAINTAIN YOUR TRAINING WITH CLEAN NUTRITION
From Muay Thai Guy
Practicing your Muay Thai technique is only half the job done. If you really want to optimize your strength, you need the right diet. Mind you, “diet” here does not mean going on some sort of temporary health regimen to lose weight. Here, it means bringing about solid lifestyle changes that you can stick with for the rest of your life.
Training and practicing Muay Thai demands a lifelong dedication, which means what you eat is directly correlated with how your skills develop. Read on to know all about what sort of nutrition you should be following for effective training:
#1: Don’t Diet, Eat Clean
The most important thing to remember is that if you want to really dedicate yourself to Muay Thai, you need to treat it as an irrevocable part of your life. This means that any changes you make for it must not be for the moment, but quite long-lasting.
Holding...
Muay Thai Bodyweight Strength Workout
Body Weight Circuit to Build Full-Body Strength
From Muay Thai Guy
Body weight training is the best measure of your pound-for-pound strength.
Georges St. Pierre, one of the greatest MMA fighters of all time, uses Olympic weightlifting, track and field, and gymnastics to prepare for his fights.
St. Pierre and his legendary coach Firas Zihabi both believe that gymnasts are the strongest and best athletes in the world. And what weights do gymnasts use? Their bodies.
Today, Sean Fagan will show you a body weight workout designed to build full-body strength, just like a gymnast. And because you are only using your body weight, the difficulty of the exercises determines your pound-for-pound strength. The easier the exercise, the stronger you are, pound for pound. Now, let’s build that strength.
Supersets
Perform each exercise pair in back-to-back sets.
Set #1
- 5 x 5 one-arm push-ups (or wide grip)
- 10-second break
- 5 x 5 fast, half-ROM explosive push-ups
Set #2
- 5 x 5 assisted...
24/7: Muay Thai & Your Work Week
It’s Possible To Train Muay Thai and Work a 9-5
From Muay Thai Guy
There may be some of you who are living your dream of training and fighting Muay Thai full-time but for most nak muay, the journey in the art of eight limbs has to contend with another pressing, everyday struggle: the day job.
Some of us have engaging careers that we’re very passionate about and want to continue alongside our training. Others have dreams of fighting and coaching full-time but still need the day job to pay the bills until that dream can become a reality.
Either way, juggling a full-time job and the stressors of rigorous training can take their toll on the body and mind.
Juggling It All
While it’s no small feat, managing both a vocational career and a fight career can be done.
Just ask Ognjen Topic: in the earlier days of his fight career (circa 2013), Topic was not only competing professionally at a very high level, but also maintaining his...
5 Agility Ladder Drills For Muay Thai
Improving Your Muay Thai Footwork With Tiffany Van Soest
From Muay Thai Guy
Footwork is a skill, and like all skills needs to be drilled into you.
Your ability to move your feet becomes your ability to fight. However, it’s not just about bouncing around like Ali. It’s about being able to pivot out of a dangerous position in an instant as someone like Giorgio Petrosyan or Jose Aldo does so often.
These drills aren’t inspired by the workouts of great fighters, they’re straight up taught by great fighters like Tiffany van Soest.
The agility ladder trains both your balance, endurance, and explosiveness. Your ability to step into angles with strong posture will be developed, your ability to fight while moving backward will be strengthened, and your bursts of explosion that help you close the distance instantly and get KOs will be boosted.
Having poor footwork is like having a car without wheels, so try out these drills and get lightning legs.
5...
How To Train By Yourself In Muay Thai
HOW TO TRAIN ALONE IN A NON-SOLO SPORT
By Angela Chang
Although you’ll be in the ring by yourself when you fight, training Muay Thai is anything but a solo sport. This is why we have teams of fighters training together at top-tier Muay Thai gyms, whether it be Diamond Muay Thai on Koh Phangan, Thailand, or King Tiger Muay Thai in San Diego, or a room with some beat-up mats in the middle of nowhere. In this solo sport, co-operative training matters.
As crucial as it is to train with others and a quality instructor, there are many benefits to training solo – and everyone should every now and then. It allows you to focus on yourself, rather than a partner or instructor. In these quiet, retrospective sessions, you can fine-tune the techniques you’ve learned from class and sparring to be better prepared for the real thing.
Here are a slew of tips on how to squeeze the most out of your solo Muay Thai sessions.
WHEN TRAINING SOLO… Slow...
Shielding Your Shins For Muay Thai
BREAKDOWN AND BUILDUP: THOUGHTS ON PROTECTING YOUR SHINS
By Angela Chang
Lumps and bumps are part of the deal when you sign up for Muay Thai, whether you want them or not. Soreness and pain in the shin area is experienced by nak muay of all levels. In terms of the pain itself, not too much can be done, but there is good news: it gets better with time.
When starting out, it’s completely normal to get bruising on all points of contact, shin area included. The shin may even be the area that delivers the most surprise to you. Knees and elbows are used to taking the brunt of it when you fall or have other misfortunes due to clumsiness, but shins comprise a big area that generally go unscathed (at least, not in the same way as your knee and elbow joints). Therefore, arguably, the shins are the least prepared part of the body for the newcomer.
Kicking the heavy bag for the first time feels extremely painful to many, and everyone gets bruising. With time, the nerves get used to...
Muay Thai + Yoga + Greece = You?
COULD YOU SEE YOURSELF TRAINING MUAY THAI ON A GREEK BEACH? THEN THIS IS YOUR VACATION!
From Muay Thai Guy
“Holiday vibes and physical activity.”
That best describes a Nak Muay Nation Muay Thai retreat, especially the kind of retreats we’ve been holding lately at a brand new location: Greece! We’ve been set up on the gorgeous seaside paradise of Kefalonia, Greece. And I think it’s time you ought to join us!
What can I say about Kefalonia that hasn’t already been written? With a human history on its shores since at least late pre-historic times, Kefalonia is a place with a reputation and a story. Dotted with stunning ruins and draped in wild jungle throughout, Kefalonia is where vacationers and nak muay alike come to enjoy the peace and tranquility that this magical island is known for. When we found the opportunity to host retreats here, we jumped on it!
A Nak Muay Nation Muay Thai retreat will be the vacation of a...
