I like the ironGrabbing a barbell and lifting heavy weights, there is no better feeling. So when I start boxing many a year ago I was a wee disappointed by the lack of weight training (something I would eventually remedy).What I WASN’T disappointed with, however, were the results.Always a skeptic where the evidence permits me to be so, I thought the bodyweight workouts would be more of the same boring, bland, repetitive stuff I’d done in the past that neither tired me out nor gave me a better body.These were different, and the reasoning is simple. They NEED to get stronger and leaner without compromising their power and quickness. As I started training with these boxing bodyweight workouts I started to see some immediate changes 1.

1. Boxing Workouts With Weights

I got a VISIBLE six pack.That isn’t from simply a solid amount of body fat lost, but of muscles forged. Through these boxing bodyweight workouts I was able to build an “armor-like” set of abs, this isn’t no fitness model nonsense, these abs were meant for protection, it didn’t hurt that they popped out an inch or two either.

My waist shrunk and my shoulders broadened.In essence, I was forming a V Shape, which is the ideal shape for men to have. If you add in the girth I was gaining in my thighs, you’d make it an X Shape - which is the REAL IDEAL.

I was actually getting stronger and more powerful in the gym.Where most bodyweight workouts fall short is in that they don’t use plyometrics.Plyometrics are the only way to train ONLY with bodyweight that will help you increase power and the dense, fast-twitch muscle fibers that pretty much every guy wants. These programs had these in abundance. As I started seeing the physical changes in my body that had eluded me whenever I tried conventional bodyweight training it became clear why:With boxing bodyweight workouts the focus is on maintaining or even GAINING lean muscle while burning a TON of body fat and getting in better shape.The main reason for the disparity between conventional vs boxing bodyweight programs: the focus.Boxing bodyweight workouts focus solely on performance and weight loss. You need to get STRONGER and FASTER and more POWERFUL, while also CUTTING WEIGHT prior to a fight. Thus, the combination of muscle-focused sets with calisthenics and the aforementioned plyometrics.

Each of which basically creating a ‘PERFECT FAT LOSS STORM’ that doesn’t come at the loss of muscle.Now, I’ve taken a lot from my years of boxing. The strength and the discipline and the endurance, but the bodyweight training is right up there in importance.Over the past year I’ve done some traveling, and with traveling to odd and unique places you’re stuck with the problem of how to train without a gym.I’m still a weights guy! I love weights, but if I don’t have access to them there’s no way I’m just going to whither away into nothingness, completely tossing away years of hard work.I shan’t become little simply because access to a gym isn’t within reach!Boxing Bodyweight Workouts have helped me stay in shape, even helping GET MORE RIPPED, all the while not having access to a gym.And so, I figured I’d package up all of this goodness, the ebook and these incredible workouts that WILL KICK YOUR ASS!There’s a big GAP in the bodyweight training realm, one that Boxing Bodyweight Workouts fills.

Shares.There’s a lot of information about strength training for MMA right now, but very little in the way of Strength Training for Muay Thai out there.These article I wrote back in 2014 has been one of the more popular articles on our site. As of 2017, I’ve updated this article.Strength Training has an important, yet often under utilized, place in your Muay Thai training, no matter if you are just training for fun, fitness, or to fight. There’s a number of reasons why you might want to do strength training a couple times a week.

You can do it for the everyday benefits being a bit stronger brings to your life; or as part of a body transformation effort (i.e. For the most part, this means strength training is a sort of off-season style of training where you work on increasing your strength when you don’t have a fight in 4-6 weeks. Strength Training for Muay ThaiAt last, we get to the meat of the article!Pay attention because class is in session.You can read my in-depth article about for beginners for a detailed GENERAL strength training guideline.

I break down some of the finer details involved. You should read it before continuing.Strength Training, in general, is a pretty simple process. We can break it down into a handful of steps:.

Lift heavy weights such that reps you can complete between 3-6 and the sets anywhere from 2-5. I’m assuming you will be training at least 3-4 times a week with Muay Thai, maybe even 5-6 times a week.You need to give your CNS (Central Nervous System) time to recover between strength training sessions. You can think of your CNS as the wiring connecting your brain to your muscles. Each time you lift heavy weights to increase your maximal strength, your CNS is fried and will be unable to send a strong enough electrical signal throughout your body to fully coordinate all your muscle fibers when you lift heavy — not until it’s recovered.A schedule that I find works for me (I train Muay Thai Monday to Saturday in the afternoons with a 30-45 minute run before the session) is to lift weights:. Monday. Wednesday.

SaturdayI do my heaviest compound lifts on Saturday. The two-day break helps my CNS recover enough to push maximum weights on the dead-lift and squat.If you strength train twice a week, I would suggest something like:. Monday. FridayThe above schedule gives you the 3 full days off from weight training between Monday and Friday and 2 full days off between Friday and Monday, allowing your body time to recover. Heaviest Lifts done before day offIt’s a good idea NOT to lift your heaviest at the start of the week because your training will suffer for a couple of days after.

I’ve personally found that when you lift for maximal strength adaptions, your body is completely shot for a good 1 or 2 days. If you train Muay Thai as usual, you might find your stamina during Muay Thai sessions will go down, you’ll be more fatigued, your muscles will be sore, less energy, etc.A better strategy I’ve found that can mitigate the above negative effects is to lift your heaviest lifts (deadlifts, squats) on the LAST DAY OF TRAINING BEFORE YOUR DAY OFF which means it won’t negatively affect your Muay Thai training by fatiguing your Nervous System or Muscles for 1-2 days after your workout.Assuming you do NOT train on Sunday, this day would be Saturday morning. If you don’t train Saturday and Sunday, then this day would be Friday.If for some reason you are a genetic freak and don’t find your heaviest strength training lift days (deads and squats) don’t affect you, then do your heaviest compound lifts on Monday, when you are your freshest. This means, ideally, you can lift more weight which will stimulate more strength increase once you recover.

Optional: Consider Taking One Day Off After Three Days of TrainingIf you are training twice a day with Muay Thai and incorporating 2x-3x a week of Strength Training, you might want to consider having a full day off from BOTH Muay Thai and Strength Training sessions in the middle of the week.This one day off will do wonders for your recovery. Rather than going hard for 3 days then having a shitty 3 final days of the week because you are so fatigued, you will be able to go hard from Monday to Wednesday, have Thursday as a full day off, then train HARD again Friday and Saturday. 5 Good days beats the hell out of 3 good days and 3 shitty days.I’ve found this strategy particularly effective for ensuring I don’t feel over-trained in the middle of the week. Take a FULL week off both Muay Thai and Strength Training every 6-8 weeks of trainingI know a lot of people will chafe at this, but complete recovery is a critical part of your strength training regimen.Heavy Strength training and heavy Muay Thai training takes a huge toll on your body. There is only so much stress your nervous system and hormonal systems can handle before they are unable to cope.

If you do NOT take a recovery week, chances are you’ll start to feel run down, start to get sick, and your endurance, power, and strength will all dramatically decrease. Until you take an extended break, your performance will be down.To give your body a chance to recover fully and your hormonal system to reset, you need to take a week off. I recommend every 6 weeks if you can, but if this is too much, then do so after 8 weeks.If you REFUSE to take a week off from Muay Thai, then at least take 1 full week off from strength training after 6 weeks. The NutritionThis itself is a whole nother topic which I won’t cover extensively here and it’s out of the scope of this article to provide you with a list of what you should eat for each meal, etc. However, nutrition is important to nail down.

If you don’t, you won’t see as much (or any in some extreme cases) strength gains.I recommend you thoroughly read my to find out and for information about putting together a proper nutrition plan that meets your goals (gaining strength/size, losing fat, getting ripped, etc).I will say though; you need to keep your protein levels high (see our ). I suggest around 1.5 grams of protein PER lb of bodyweight. This is a bit on the higher end of what’s needed perhaps, but it’s enough to cover all bases just in case. If you don’t get enough protein in, you won’t see the strength improvements you would otherwise see. Get your protein from natural sources if you can, but if you need to do a number of protein shakes per day to reach it, then do it.At the macro level, you have a couple options when it comes to eating. These will affect your strength gain AND your muscle/fat gain:Calorie Surplus: You can be in a calorie surplus, which means eating more calories than your body burns. If you strength train while on a calorie surplus, you will see the MOST strength gains and the MOST muscle size gains.

However, this also means you will gain weight, which might not be a good thing if you FIGHT at a certain weight class. Not all weight will be muscle; you will also likely gain some fat, which is a necessary evil.This option is good if you are NOT fighting and just seeking to add muscle to your frameCalorie Maintenance:If you are eating roughly around what you burn, you won’t gain a lot of weight. If you have NEVER lifted weights before, you may see some initial muscle gain, and you will definitely see strength gains, especially the first 3-4 months as your body adapts to strength training. Eventually, however, your strength gains will stall as your body won’t have the nutrients to add more muscle (which means more strength).This is good if you fight at a certain weight class but just want to increase your maximum strength without the associated weight gain.

Once your maximum strength is up, you can train for more explosive power. This is probably ideal for someone who fights, and you are happy at your current weight.Calorie Deficit: If you eat less than you burn, you are in a calorie deficit. Strength training can be challenging while on a deficit because your strength will, for the most part, not improve while on a deficit. You are mainly trying to hold on to your existing strength and muscle while you shed fat. If you cut calories but don’t strength train, your body will shed muscle — this is WHY you want to strength train while on a calorie deficit.This option is good if you are trying to fight at a lighter weight class. By shedding fat and keeping your strength (and muscle), you improve your fat to muscle ratio and you might not have to cut as much before a fight if you shed BODYFAT as opposed to water weight. This is by far the best way to ‘make’ weight.

Losing body fat als0 can allow you to reach even lighter weight classes than you normal couch reach by just cutting water weight. SupplementsI’m a firm believer that as long as you eat a balanced diet, you don’t need supplements. The one situation though where supplements can help is when you are training very hard, especially if you are on a caloric deficit.When doing heavy training (I’m not talking about lifting a couple times a week at the gym, but training 5-6 days a week, hours per day), your hormonal system can misfire.

Your body may produce more or less of some key hormones which can cause problems (sleep, appetite, fatigue, etc). In this situation, there may be a few supplements that can help.I personally find the following useful:. Multivitamin. BCAA’s. Protein Powder. Fish Oil(see our ) 11. SleepIf you strength train, you need to get your sleep in.

It goes without saying that you should have at LEAST 8 hours of sleep a day. Training Muay Thai and Strength Training takes a huge toll on your body and you need sleep to recover. Protein Synthesis (i.e. Muscle development) tends to happen at night while you are sleeping, so if you don’t get enough sleep, you won’t see as many strength gains.Personally, I’ve tried both methods and I find I can train harder in my Muay Thai sessions if I save deadlifts + squats for the last day of training. Since I ensure I have 1-2 days off from strength training before I do these lifts, my strength is usually not negatively impacted when I do these lifts.

Strength Training and FightsIf you are a fighter and strength training is a MEANS to build more powerful strikes and more strength in the clinch, then you are going to have to plan out how long you strength train. Ideally, you should look at strength training as a BLOCK training — you train for 2-4 months with the stated goal of improving your maximum strength X amount, then switch to another style of training as you approach a fight.If you want to convert your increased strength foundation into FUNCTIONAL explosive power, you are going to have to change your training from Strength Training to Power/Explosive Training.

This means you should in fact be doing Power Training or Power Endurance training the last 3 weeks to 6 weeks before a fight and NOT strength training.If you are strength training only before a fight:You never want to strength train the week of your fight — it will tax your body, your training will suffer, and you may be tired during the fight. At the very least, you need 7 days between your fight day and your last strength session. You may find that fight training the last couple weeks coming up to the fight is so taxing that strength training sessions might interfere with training. If that’s the case, you may want to look at doing 1 full body session a week rather than 2 – 3, for the last couple weeks leading up to the fight.Trust me on this, I’ve gone into multiple fights with very little time off from pure strength training and my body and strength took a big hit by the time of the fight because I was so over-trained. You don’t want this to happen to you!

Putting It TogetherStrength Training will help you become stronger and this will only benefit your Muay Thai. However, if you want to fully reap the benefits of your increased strength by increasing your explosive power, Strength Training needs to be part of a coordinated of which it is only one element. Ideally, after you build up a level of strength you’ve never had before, you will start to train your muscles to be more explosive to reap the benefits of that increased strength in your striking.I’ll have a follow-up article in the future about Explosive Power Training for Muay Thai that will give you some basic guidelines on how to train your Maximal strength for Explosive strength.As I’ve mentioned in my article, just having more strength and explosive power is not enough; you have to have enough energy pproduction tosupport a sustained usage of it. If you have powerful striking but a tendency to gas out long before the fight finishes, then this is a serious limiting factor.This is where the CONDITIONING part of your Strength and Conditioning comes into play. Hi Ben,I train Muay Thai at a gym here in London but I also now have a good space at home in an outbuilding that I can now construct my own training space and was wondering your input on essentials that I should have in there from your experience. Weight side of things I should have covered as have done a decent amount of resistance training in my time so will be adding squat racks/bench/selection of free weights/chins/dips etc but I was more interested in essentials you would pack in for specific Muay Thai training. The space is roughly 16 ft square so it is a decent size for a small selection of equipment.I was thinking two different bags, not sure on size or weight though?

Possibly a speed ball the type that are fixed floor to ceiling with elastic about head height to aid speed, looking into the special uppercut wall mounts although never personally used one; also a dummy punch mannequin to practice different height head strikes and accuracy. Wasn’t sure what else would be useful really, I haven’t been Muay Thai training for very long so anything you would think essential and then anything else that would be awesome if I find the space for it would be great. I would like a good home set up to really hone my skills on my days out of the gym.ThanksDan.

Hi Dan, thanks for the comment.For Muay Thai you’ll want to put some training mats there (usually made out of foam) so you don’t rip your feet up when you train. These come as interlocked peices (think puzzles) and can easily be left permanently or stowed away when you disassemble them.For bags, I recommend a Twins heavy bag which is what we use in Thailand:. We use these for kicking and punching (5 rounds x 3 minutes).

They are also used to knee after training (200 knees each leg) and teeps (200 teeps, 100 each side).NO: The dummy mannequin are good, but I say they are better if you are training boxing, not muay thai.NO: Speed bag, don’t bother unless you are training boxing.You can have a wall mounted uppercut bag in this style. Quite a few thai gyms in Thailand have this.

I personally use this for my boxing combos every few days:If you have space, you might also opt for a long slender heavy bag for leg kicks. Something like this:They are often very hard near the bottom and can be used to toughen up your shin to check and give low kicks. It’s hard to do a proper low kick on a regular heavy bag. Between the two, it’s better to have the standard heavy bag over this one. But if you can have two bags, then the low kick back is a very good thing to have.Mirrors — make sure you have some big mirrors for shadow boxing.Timer — get this so you can set it for 3-5 minutes for round. It will beep when the round ends and you can set it to continue after a 1-2 minute break. Required if you want to keep your training round based, which you should.Wrap Machine (wall mounted).

Boxing Workouts With Weights

Rolling up your wraps is a pain in the ass. Getting a wall mounted wrap roller can save a lot of time.

Just get one!Optional: Tear Shaped Heavy Bag. These are good for punch combinations and kicking. But I prefer heavy bag for bag work and slender heavy bag for working on low kicks/punches + low kick combos. For boxing only combos, I use the Tear Shaped Bag, but get the other two bags first and only consider this after if you have enough room.The above should be enough for a basic home muay thai gym!Weight Stuff:.Free weight set (for squats and deadlifts and press).Pullup bar (some squat racks have this already) — thai boxers do plenty of pullups. Helps with clinch.

You want to make sure you have somewhere to do pullups. And get a weight belt so you can ad weight.Kettlebells — I don’t use em personally, but some fighters love emWeight with rope attached that you bite and pull up. Works jaw and kneck muscles.

ALL thai fighters do this to strengthen neck for clinching and strengthen jaw to take more punches.There we go, hope that helps. I might actually write an article about this if there is interest. I haven’t specifically written an article yet. But you basically want to have three blocks: Strength, Power, and Power Endurance.Here’s an overview. I actually wrote a huge comment that turned into an article, so I’ll post that article about Increasing Power and Power Endurance on the site in a couple days.

Each of those topics merit a massive article in their own right.STRENGTH BLOCK (3 months to 6 months to 1 year)You build up your maximal strength which is the foundation strength. You do heavy compound lifts (deads, squats, shoulder press, bench press, weighted pullups, weighted dips, etc) at 90% of your one rep max for 3 sets of 5 reps with 3 to 5 minute rest periods between each set. You increase weight each week.

The stronger you get for your body weight, the more explosive power you can tune later on. This takes time to develop.

If you’ve never strength trained, you will see huge gains the first few months. But if you carry on this block for a solid year, you can make very good progress. It’s quite possible to become 40-100+ percent stronger than you were before you started.This Block is what my and show you how to do.POWER BLOCK (2-3 months)The Power Block you work on increasing your explosive power (strength with speed). This means Olympic style lifts where you lift heavy weight with explosive speed. The weight is NOT as heavy as in the previous block and the weight exercises can be changed up to suit the goals of this block (lifting heavy weight explosively fast with higher reps).Reps are higher around 10-12 with 3 sets. Rest between sets around 3 minutes. The goal is explosive speed with heavy weight with long rest periods in between.POWER ENDURANCE BLOCK (1-2 months)The Power Endurance Block is where you work on your strength with speed AND endurance.

You’ll want to look at doing movements that translate closer to the actual movements done in your sport, to a point. This means some Olympic lifts, Kettle Bell work.

Plyometric work can also help. Reps are even higher than the last block (20-30 reps, 3-5 sets) with less weight.

Rest is short at around 1-2 minutes between sets. The goal is to increase your overall endurance WHILE doing resistance movements with explosive speed. This is the last block you would have before you have a fight.SKILL BLOCK (2 weeks) — IF YOU ARE FIGHTINGYou work on skill training related to your sport a couple weeks before your fight. This means kicks and punches and whatnot, but for maximum endurance with everything simulated as close to your fight rounds as possible. The goal is to tune your power endurance increase into direct skill movements related to your sport — kicking, punching, clinch, etc. Here’s my thoughts:The key with these strength training movements is to provide a stimulus you can’t (or some cases, easily) replicate in a skill training environment such as MMA class or a Muay Thai session.We are working, here, to improve our Central Nervous System (CNS) connections and increase the length of our muscle fibers when working to build our maximum strength capacity. With something like MMA where you are applying your full strength, more max strength can help — far more than say trying to increase punching power for a sport like Muay Thai.Ideally, 3x a week is best for growth, 2x for maintenance, but if you can only dedicate 1x a week, it’s better than nothing and you will definitely see improvements.

But you’ll have to do a full body workout.Ideally, for 1x a week, I’d just add in something like weighted pull-ups to the 4 workouts listed so it’s 5 workouts. At the cost of another 10 minutes of time, this is worth it.Overhead Press I recommend keeping because it utilizes your shoulders, parts of your chest, and your back. Additionally, you can modify the pressing movement to target more muscles.

If you turn it into a push press rather than a strict overhead press (i.e. You bend your knees and explode upward to help lift the bar) you can use it to train for more explosive strength/speed AND you work your legs out to boot. The DB rows or bent over rows are fine for supplemental workouts, but you hammer many of the same muscle groups using stiff legged deadlifts.And if you are only apply to work out 1x a week, then efficiency is the most important thing here (i.e. You want to get the most bang for your buck, time and energy wise from one workout).So long story short: don’t take out the press. Add in weighted pullups. Weighted Pullups + Heavy Deadlifts will work your ‘pulling’ muscles plenty.Hope that helps!Ben. Hey mate, absolutely.

Just keep in mind the first couple weeks are the warm up weeks — you can’t go from zero to hero strength wise after a long layoff of months or years or if you’ve just started to strength train / lift weights for the first time.The goal is to start with lower weights and work your way up to your max over a few weeks — roughly two weeks. Then when you find your max at 5 reps (i.e. You can do 3 sets aiming for 5 reps each, but you find your first set is not making it to the 5 reps, you keep the same weight and don’t increase the next week).You can’t build the stamina to do all that out of the blue — I find it takes me weeks or even a good month+ to adjust my body to the load after a long break. So keep that in mind — start slow.

How long depends on your age, your genetics, how much training you’ve done before. And of course if you are natural or taking something like HGH/steroids.If you are doing something like boxing, mma, muay thai, you may find it it will take you a while to build up the stamina to throw on 3x a week lifting and training your sport 4+ times a week and doing conditioning work.

There is also the timing for your lifts so they don’t interfere with your sport training. I HIGHLY recommend lifting in the morning, preferably earlier than later so you give yourself the full day to recover (assuming you train in the afternoon).

If you try to lift after doing a session of sport, your strength will be down when you lift. If you lift close to before you train your sport, your central nervous system will be fatigued and your stamina for your sport will drop during the session.Good luck!. Hey Ben,Appreciate your time taken to write these articles. This was exactly the kind of info I’m looking for.Hard to find decent info from someones who actually has first hand experience at combining weight training with a lot of Muay Thai.Do you have any recommendations for training on a caloric deficit for someone trying to lose weight but preserve muscle?If I’m training 100% to lose fat and preserve muscle – would a program aimed more at hypertrophy be a better option?Eg: Same compound lifts and programming you’ve outlined, but slightly higher rep range (6-10). I find going much heavier with lower reps leaves me exhausted and burnt out combined with muay thai.I’m a 30 years old male, 95kgs, 28% BF. I used to walk around at 75 kgs but blown up to 95kg (mostly belly fat) after the last year living in Asia and Thailand.I’m coming from a year of no exercise/ bad eating to living at a gym and am training muay thai 4-5 times a week for 1.5 hours with a 2km run each session.Still trying to figure out optimal way to incorporate my weight training.Cheers,SamI’m currently in Thailand and have a spare 1-2 months to get in shape.

I have no goals to fight – just get in shape. I used to walk around at 75kgs but have gone up to 95kg. 1) keep protein very high (1.5 grams per kilo of bodyweight) during your calorie deficit2) lift HEAVY weights 2-3 times a week with emphasis on compound lifts (deads, squats, bench, press, weighted pullups). Lifting heavy tells your body to KEEP your muscles while you are on a calorie deficeit3) the fact that you are 27% BF means you have more flexibility than someone who is leaner (under 15 percent BF) when cutting weight. You should be able to drop mostly fat with no muscle lose (provided you lift weights while you do your cut) until you are much lower bodyfat. Likely to about 15 percent.

This varies but I’ve found personally I don’t lose much strength or any until dropping below 12 percent. This may be different for you, but I don’t think you have much to worry here about losing strength.4) try. This diet can provided when you cut that can help preserve your strength even until you get to low body fat levels. IN my case, I lost almost no strength when I cut from 16 percent body fat to 10 percent bodyfat while on IF.5) make sure you get plenty of sleep6) if you are cross training with Muay Thai and doing something like 5-6 times training a week or twice a day sessions for 4 or more days per week in addition to strength training, you may want to look at lowering your calorie deficit. Typically most people cut around -500 calories a day to lose 1 pound of fat a week (this is not precise but it’s the rule of thumb).

However if you are doing a lot of cardio on top of your caloric deficit via diet and you are lifting weights, you do need enough calories to power your body through all this activity. Dropping your calories can drop your energy levels. Lowing your deficit to about 200-300 instead of -500, can give you more energy to train while still allowing you to cut weight, though a little slower.There you go! Some tips to help with your cutting. Good luck!Ben. The reason why you do the lower reps is that lower reps + heavier weight builds strength. The bodybuilding reps (12×3 as you say) work on hypertrophy — building muscle size (actually, allowing your muscles to hold more fluid).For sports performance, you need to train for strength, not muscle size (building muscle size does not necessary make you actually stronger).A lot of the adaptions developed from strength training can help your performance in sports (better muscle control, longer slow twitch (aerobic muscle fibers) which the extra surface area of fiber can help your muscles better handle more oxygen, etc.

And then there is the benefit of actually being stronger, which means you have a higher potential threshold to produce force with your muscles.Normally, if you ONLY strength train, you would do something like 3-4 times a week. I suggest the 2x a week if you are doing a sport like Muay Thai where you are training at least 4x a week for 2 hours a day. Doing too much strength training will interfere with your Muay Thai performance (you’ll feel sore, lack endurance sometimes). Your CNS (central nervous system) gets fried from strength training, which can interfere with your sports performance.There’s a lot of variability of course — how new you are to training, how much work ability your body has, your age, your diet, etc.So no, don’t waste your time with light weights. Do proper strength training with heavy weights for 4-6 reps x 3 as outlined.

Just do it 2x a week with the sessions spread out so they least impact your MT training.Cheers. Hi Ben,Just want to say thank you for posting such a detailed explanation of strength training. Hopefully one day I’ll have the chance to take some time off work and live in Thailand for a bit and simply eat and breath fighting and training. However, at the moment I do work full time and I was wondering if you could answer a couple questions for me regarding my plan I have set up. It’s quite hard to give specifics.

It’s a bit of cope out (but true) to say everyone responds differently to training. Some people can handle more training load than others, especially if they have been doing S&C work already and have built up a strength & conditioning base to handle more load.My take on the smaller exercises is to do them after the compound work (squats, deads, press, bench). The reason being is that if you work the smaller muscles out, your all out lifts that recruit maximum muscule groups won’t push as much weight due to the smaller groups being fatigued.

This depends on a case by case base though. I highly doubt that say arm curls will limit your deadlifts if you do them after. But doing something like overhead presses or a serious ab workout before will.So I try to start with my biggest lift first then move to smaller lifts after.

Smaller lifts you can work more reps while the bigger lifts are more about lower reps, but more weight.If you are time taxed and you need to say do boxing / MT / cardio in the same training block, DO your strength training FIRST then your other stuff after. IF you do training /cardio before your lifts, your lifts will be 20-30 percent less for weight and your stamina for reps decreased.If you can get in 2-6 hours before your training on lift days, that is enough time to recover mostly so you can hit your cardio / training pretty hard. It’s not ideal to do training after your lifts, but if you have to do what you have to do.Your schedual looks about good. You might want to take the rest day though in the middle of the week rather than on sunday. This means you have 3 good days and 3 good days, not 3 good days and 2-3 shitty days as your body gets fatigued. BUT, play it by ear. If you can handle the load and get away with it, then that’s fine.Hope that helpsBen.

Thank you so much Ben, Can’t believe you responded so quickly, that is amazing. I’ll definitely take that on board. What do you think of this? Maybe for my strength days I’ll say do.3×5 squat3×5 bench3×5 row2×8 dips or chinsthen work 15-20 min on press to handstand practice, planch (bodyweight skills strength)then Core (dragon flags, ab wheel etc)Ill keep the schedule as is with conditioning/boxing in between strength days and If i feel I need a rest day at any time ill just take one then continue as per the schedule. Or if I have to ill do Strength in the morning and boxing/conditioning in the afternoon so I have more rest days.Thanks Ben,K. Hi Ben,First of all thanks for putting the article together.I fall under your category of “STRENGTH TRAINING FOR THE CASUAL MUAY THAI TRAINEE” – I’ve been training boxing/MT for a year but then dropped to do a starting strength program.

I’ve never managed to combine both, which I’m now looking to do.You mentioned that for us we can pretty much add 3-4 gym sessions a week to the current MT training without too much trouble. I’m thinking of doing 3-4 lifting sessions (probably 5/3/1) in the AMs then 3-4 MT sessions in the evening.Could you recommend how I should structure this? Should I do both on the same day then have rest days in between or should I try to space out across the week as much as possible?Thanks in advance.