Advice

[Tom Yum]

Hey guys! I am a long time follower, new member here.
I have been training in muay thai for a little over a year, with an occasional boxing lesson here and there. I aspire to compete in amateur kickboxing. Here is my typical schedule:

Thaiboxing Wed, Sat - Basic cardio, Pad drills, heavy bag, counter techniques and light to moderate contact sparring followed by weigh training (15-30 reps)

Sprints, rope work and some plyometric work - Mon, Thurs & Sun.

I am somewhat comfortable sparring, but have sparred full-contact about 5 times, each time with established amateur fighters. Am I on the right track to becoming an amateur fighter? I would appreciate any advice from you experienced guys out there

[Lost Ronin]

You are doing a great job training, but I think if you want to compete you should practice Muay Thai at least five times a week. You should focus on your sparring, try to work your timing, distancing, and speed. When you do bag work focus on a few good offensive and defensive sequences ( my magic number is eight), those will become your " bread and butter" moves for competition. You should also do high intensity interval training and calisthenics. I gotta go right now ( my girl friend is gonna kill me) but I'll be back in a little while.
Hope this helps.

[Tom Yum]

Thanks for the info! When you write about high intensity interval training, do you mean excercises like sprint drills, stadium squat jumps and clap push-ups?

[Lost Ronin]

What I mean by High Intensity Interval Training ( or H.I.I.T ) is a preselected activity ( sprinting, rope jumping, hitting a heavy bag, etc.) that is performed at the highest intensity as possible for 90 second intervals. Here's the plan in a nutshell:

Let's use sprinting as our activity. You would sprint as hard as humanly possible for 90 seconds straight. And I mean you are trying to just kill yourself, push yourself as far as you can tolerate. Then you would take a 90 second rest period in which you can go as light as you want but you cannot stop. After your rest period, you sprint again for 90 seconds, as fast as possible. You should warm up thoroughly before you begin, do about 5-6 cycles of this on your first week at least three times a week, make sure that you insert rest days in between your work outs. For a complete overview of this excellent training method, go to Straight Blast Gym's website and check out articles. Sorry for the late reply, hope this helps.

[K i o n]

Originally posted by Lost Ronin
Let's use sprinting as our activity. You would sprint as hard as humanly possible for 90 seconds straight. And I mean you are trying to just kill yourself, push yourself as far as you can tolerate. Then you would take a 90 second rest period in which you can go as light as you want but you cannot stop. After your rest period, you sprint again for 90 seconds, as fast as possible. You should warm up thoroughly before you begin, do about 5-6 cycles of this on your first week at least three times a week, make sure that you insert rest days in between your work outs. For a complete overview of this excellent training method, go to Straight Blast Gym's website and check out articles. Sorry for the late reply, hope this helps.

i've heard about that, my instructor actually mentioned that as an endurance training technique, due to laziness beyond my control i have yet to try it though hehe

[Tom Yum]

I just tried my first sprint interval training and man was it tough!! I stretched and jogged about 2 mi at an even pace as a warm up and then went at it. Thanks for the info as I will keep at it and try this with the rope (for rainy days) and bag work.

[Lost Ronin]

You are very welcome. This is probably one of the best ways to train for fighting because fights are anaerobic in nature, in other words, they are composed of short bursts of high intensity periods followed by small rest periods. But remember to balance this out with the occassional 20-30 minute run to develop an excellent cardiovascular system. This sort of training will make you an animal, after two weeks of H.I.I.T, I was sparring with my Muay Thai and Karate buddies, I could spar for about 90 minutes without taking a " real" break. We would stop for about 1 minute to change sparring partners, but I never gassed or felt winded until the very last rounds. If you work hard, there is gonna be no stopping you! Train hard, fight easy.