While keeping a safe social distance from each other, practicing good hygiene, and wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) such as gloves and surgical masks are absolutely necessary during these strange times, so is maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
Circumnavigating through this circuit breaker period is a different experience for everyone. People choose to deal with this situation in different ways.
During this period, you won’t be able to go to a Muay Thai gym in Singapore, but it doesn’t mean you have to stop training altogether. Evolve MMA is offering free livestream zoom classes, where World Champions from different martial arts disciplines such as Muay Thai, boxing, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and mixed martial arts hold online classes for everyone in the world.
Muay Thai class is especially fun to train, even at home, and even during the circuit breaker period.
If you have the luxury of a heavy bag at home and all the peripheral equipment, or a willing light sparring and training partner, then that’s awesome. But nonetheless, some of the exercises we’ve come up with on this list can be done comfortably in the space of your living room.
Let’s take a look at a handful of simple Muay Thai exercises you can do every day. Today, Evolve Daily shares six of the best exercises for Muay Thai practitioners to do during the circuit breaker period.
1) Shadowboxing
Shadowboxing helps to keep you sharp.
Shadowboxing is one of the most important drills for Muay Thai fighters, no matter their level. It’s one of the first things you do on your very first day of training and remains an important part of training even at the professional level.
Shadowboxing, just like in regular boxing, is used to practice technique, combinations, timing, balance, and overall movement in Muay Thai. But instead of just focusing on punches, Muay Thai shadowboxing obviously includes the full spectrum of elbow, knee, and leg strikes.
The great thing about shadowboxing is that it can be done anywhere. When shadowboxing, it’s important to focus on the details of your technique, ensuring you’re doing them right. Also, by imagining an opponent in front of you and his/her reactions, your skills will transfer to competition better.
2) Jump Rope
Jumping rope is an important part of Muay Thai.
If you step into any Muay Thai gym, you’ll more likely than not see someone jumping rope, also known as skipping. Jumping rope is a fundamental warmup that Muay Thai fighters religiously incorporate into their training. Jumping rope on a regular basis helps to strengthen your legs, building explosive power that can be transferred into strikes. And if you use a thick and heavy Thai style rope, your shoulders will burn too.
Here’s Why Exercise Is So Crucial During The Circuit Breaker Period https://t.co/7xiACGaxSs #StayAtHome pic.twitter.com/cd7u0O4oHv
— Evolve MMA (@EvolveMMA) April 22, 2020
Test out jumping rope at different speeds and for different time lengths to get a great workout. Apart from conditioning your body, jumping rope also helps to build the rhythm that’s needed for Muay Thai.
Heavy bag work is important in any martial art, and if you’re fortunate enough to have open space in your home where you can hang one up, it’s something you should definitely consider. There are a lot of training drills you can perform with a heavy bag, especially in Muay Thai, where training kicks are often the focal point of each session.
Some of the drills you can perform on the heavy bag include push kicks, roundhouse kicks, knees, and more. You can also train yourself to move in reaction to how a heavy bag sways, teaching you the unique ebb and flow of a real fight.
Or you can play it freestyle and just practice your various combinations. Whichever way you decide to go, having a heavy bag in your house to train Muay Thai is an absolute dream, circuit breaker period or not. Consider yourself lucky.
In addition, you can also train your boxing combinations with your heavy bag, if you get tired of kicking.
4) Cardiovascular Conditioning
Make sure to get into a routine of exercising.
As Muay Thai practitioners, or any martial artist, for that matter, we must work on our cardiovascular conditioning. Most martial arts disciplines are both aerobic and anaerobic in nature. This breathing mechanism requires a high level of fitness and lung capacity.
By training your cardiovascular conditioning, you’re living the life of a true martial artist and a true athlete.
Workouts such as jumping rope, jumping jacks, and light jogging are all part of cardio training. But if you really want to take it to the next level, you have to try High-Intensity Interval Training or HIIT.
5 Boxing Drills To Do At Home During The Circuit Breaker Period https://t.co/RToYA2bOvt #Boxing pic.twitter.com/LwxKLd4Oiz
— Evolve MMA (@EvolveMMA) April 18, 2020
Martial arts incorporates a lot of HIIT into its training methodologies. With drills like burpees, mountain climbers, planks, and pushups, among others, HIIT really engages your entire body and trains you to work hard and work efficiently.
HIIT involves short bursts of intense exercises, followed by a short period of active rest. This keeps the heart rate at an optimal training level and spikes your metabolism like no other workout.
5) Shin Conditioning
Martial arts training can be done at a martial arts gym or at home.
Just as a professional boxer takes the time to condition his fists and knuckles for competition, Muay Thai practitioners make a conscious effort to condition their shins.
Since Muay Thai involves a lot of kicking, naturally, your shins play an important role in the discipline. Being able to use your shins for both kicking and checking kicks is crucial.
One way you can make your shins stronger is to accustom them to the impact of kicking and checking kicks. Yes, you can actually train your shins to become tougher, including the actual shin bone and the muscle tissue surrounding it.
By kicking the heavy bag repeatedly each day, you’ll cause the shin to harden. It may be hard when you first start, but it’s totally necessary if you want to have stronger shins.
Although the agility ladder isn’t a traditional tool used by Muay Thai fighters, it is a great tool for any martial artist. It does wonders for your conditioning and can get your heart rate up quickly, pushing you to the limit.
This incredible training tool works on your coordination, balance, footwork, movement, and cardiovascular strength all at once. Of course, these are all important aspects of being a fighter, especially in Muay Thai, where you do use your feet a lot more as compared to other styles of martial arts.
5 Positive Things You Can Pick Up During The ‘Stay At Home’ Period https://t.co/itH8CwWPUT #StayHome pic.twitter.com/ivpUEWUhBi
— Evolve MMA (@EvolveMMA) April 16, 2020
The best part of the agility ladder is that it’s not too expensive to buy. There are some cheap ones out there that are just as useful as ones with a brand name attached to it. You can even make your own DIY version with some duct tape. It’s really not that complicated.
The utility factor of the agility ladder is really incomparable. It’s so versatile, and there are so many different exercises you can do with it. We’d say it’s an essential home workout training tool.
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