HEAVY BAG DRILLS TO BUILD FIGHT-READY CONDITIONING

When it comes to Muay Thai, conditioning isn't just about endurance – it's about building the strength, stamina, and resilience to push through every round, regardless of how tough the fight gets. Bag work is one of the best ways to develop these qualities, especially for fighters looking to improve their cardiovascular capacity, striking power, and overall durability. Conditioning your body through heavy bag drills simulates the intensity of a fight, keeping you sharp and relentless when it counts.

In Muay Thai, conditioning is crucial. Whether you're smashing pads, sparring, or competing, your body needs to be able to sustain power and precision from start to finish. A good conditioning routine makes sure you don’t just survive a fight but thrive in the later rounds, outworking your opponent.

These nine heavy bag conditioning drills will help you improve your Muay Thai fitness, sharpen your technique, and give you the...

STRENGTH CONDITIONING FOR POWER AND EXPLOSIVENESS

When it comes to excelling in the ring, Muay Thai fighters know that conditioning is key.

Fights require more than just skill—you need explosive strength, lasting stamina, and the endurance to keep your energy up through every round. Conditioning helps you maintain your technique when fatigue sets in and ensures you can throw powerful strikes until the final bell.

In this post, I'll explore how Muay Thai fighters train to build the perfect blend of strength, stamina, and endurance to prepare for battle.

STRENGTH CONDITIONING FOR POWER AND EXPLOSIVENESS

Strength is at the core of every punch, kick, and clinch in Muay Thai. Building strength conditioning isn’t just about lifting heavy weights—it’s about training for power and explosiveness, so you can throw devastating strikes and absorb hits without losing balance.

To improve your strength for Muay Thai, focus on compound lifts that target multiple muscle...

UNCONVENTIONAL DRILLS TO BOOST YOUR MUAY THAI SKILLS

By Sean Fagan

Muay Thai is hella fun. If you didn’t think it was fun, you wouldn’t be on this blog site reading about it!

While it’s easy to fall into the routine Muay Thai drills that we all love so much – roadwork, skipping rope, bag work, pad work, sparring, wash, rinse, repeat – those aren’t the only drills that combat athletes need in their training regimen.

Consistency breeds champions, but consistently doing the same things over and over again with no variation can also breed boredom, burnout, and – the athlete’s constant concern – injury. In order to be a beast at Muay Thai, you may want to consider doing some exercises that seemingly have nothing to do with Muay Thai.

Here are five non-Muay Thai drills that can help bring your fight game to the next level – and you don’t even need a partner, heavy bag, or ring to do them!

DRILL...

TOP 5 KETTLEBELL EXERCISES FOR EXPLOSIVE STRENGTH & CONDITIONING

By Sean Fagan

Perform the best kettlebell exercises like the kettlebell clean and press, kettlebell snatch and kettlebell swing to drastically increase your power, stamina and explosive strength in your Muay Thai or MMA training!

I’ve been doing kettlebell training and exercises for years now and have noticed major changes in the power of my punches, kicks, knees and elbows. My core and overall strength is the best it’s been largely because I do the best kettlebell exercises and workouts for explosive strength and conditioning.

Whether your into Muay Thai, MMA, boxing, or wrestling, you will take your fight game to the next level by implementing explosive kettle bell exercises to your workout routine!

Top 5 Best Kettlebell Exercises

#1. Kettlebell high pull

By Funk Roberts

Can you really improve your overall strength and conditioning by doing an intense bodyweight workout routine?

I can remember when I started to train for my Muay Thai fight in Thailand back in 2010.  Before I stared I was 195lbs and training with weights, kettlebells, sandbags, etc. But when my Kru told me I was going to fight at 175lbs and that I had to stop using weights, I was a bit reluctant and scared at first but I had a task and goal set so it was time to adjust my training.

I sculpted my body using mostly weight prior to this and I felt that strictly using bodyweight exercises over the next 8 months was going to kill everything I had worked hard for… or so I thought!

I started implementing the best bodyweight exercises to create intense bodyweight workouts and circuits to help with endurance, explosiveness, cardio, strength and fat burn while...

MY PERSONAL STRENGTH & CONDITIONING ROUTINE FOR MUAY THAI TRAINING

By Sean Fagan

Strength and conditioning for Muay Thai can be a tricky bitch sometimes.

I don’t know about you, but I get overwhelmed with the amount of choices I have when it comes to strength and conditioning.

Should I use kettlebells? 

Or should I focus more on Olympic lifts? What about body weight circuits? 

Should I be doing interval sprints or are long distance runs better? 

Is Crossfit a good form of strength and conditioning?

What if I did plyometrics?

See what I mean? My brain hurts just thinking about the different forms of exercises and the various ways of structuring a proper strength and conditioning routine for Muay Thai.

Fortunately, there are guys like Don Heatrick who geek-out about this kind of stuff. All of Don’s posts on strength and conditioning for Muay Thai are top quality and always provide me with useful, practical information and exercises to...

WEIGHTLIFTING POWERS UP YOUR MUAY THAI GAME

By Nick Spiegler

Traditionally speaking, people that train Muay Thai (some fighters in particular) shy away from weight lifting. A very common mindset and training approach is that a few sets of calisthenics is sufficient for strength development.

In the modern age, however, some pushups and pull-ups are not going to cut it. Proper strength training done in a smart and focused way will only serve to improve overall fitness and your fight game. If you want to get serious about lifting for your Muay Thai game, then you need to accept the following six points as true.

#1: Lifting Won’t Make You Any Slower

Believe it or not, weight lifting will not make you bulky and slow if you do it properly. However, a high calorie diet and lifting like a bodybuilder can make you add unnecessary mass and cause you to be slower in your movements. So eat the calories necessary for training and lift specifically to...

INTENSE AB EXERCISES & CORE CIRCUIT WORKOUTS FOR YOUR NEXT MUAY THAI SESSION

By Sean Fagan

Abs workouts and core conditioning for a fighter means much more than just developing a six-pack.  You must focus on training your abs to help you improve movement patterns, strength, and overall performance.

Obviously, your core is extremely important as a Muay Thai fighter. If you have a strong and stable core it will lead to more powerful kicks and punches, better footwork, more efficient clinching, and the ability to absorb more punishment.

You must understand that improving your abs and core region is much more than crunches. In fact, I’m not a big advocate of crunching but I do understand Muay Thai and combat fighters are different and some crunching exercises can be performed.

Today I am going to share two Core and Abs Finisher workout circuits that I use with my fighters at the end of our conditioning for fighters session. These are short, but intense Muay Thai abs...

SPRINT & BODYWEIGHT CONDITIONING CIRCUIT TO INCREASE EXPLOSIVE POWER AND ENDURANCE

By Sean Fagan

Are you constantly looking to improve your strength and conditioning in one aspect or another? Well, this intense Muay Thai sprint workout and bodyweight circuit is one of my favorite and best workouts to do that will help improve your anaerobic threshold, explosiveness and overall endurance.

It seems relatively simple (and it can be if you slack off) but it can really push and improve your cardio if you are able to perform the sprint workout with intensity and focus. This is what the entire exercise circuit consists of:

• 10 Pushups
• 10 Jump Squats
• 50 Yard Sprint (jog back to start)
• 10 Plyo Pushups
• 10 Jump Lunges
• 50 Yard Sprint (jog back to start)
• Repeat for 5 sets

Watch the workout video to see the sprint and bodyweight circuit in action:

Muay Thai Sprint Workout and Bodyweight Circuit 

If you enjoyed this...

SORE SHINS? CONDITIONING COMES WITH TIME

By Angela Chang

Take a trip down memory lane with me… You’ve just arrived at the gym for your first ever Muay Thai class. You walk in not knowing what to expect, but feeling excited at the same time.

You wait for class to start. The trainer tells you what to do as you warm up. You learn some basics for the foundation of your journey. You walk up to one of the heavy bags and, using what you saw on YouTube and what you just learned, you throw a kick at the bag. Suddenly, your shin and foot are burning with pain. The bag is soft to the touch, but it feels like you’ve just slammed your leg into a metal pole.  Class wraps up and you head home, sore as hell. You might have even woken up the next day with some bruises. You go back to the gym next time for more.

Days, weeks, months pass by. Now you’re kicking the bag as hard as you can and you don’t even flinch. What happened? Why doesn’t your leg...