Explosive power for Muay Thai

[Darth Diaz]

Hey fellow Sherdogs,
I have been doing bodybuilding for 2 years and a half and i have some respectable numbers. 150 kg dead-lift, 110 kg bench as well as a 75 kg seated shoulder press. i have been training muay thai for a month now and I was wondering if I should do vertical jumps for explosive power. and if i should do explosive training which exercises should i do and why.
Thanks in advance

 

[spdrew2143]

Troll?

 

[Noodles03]

I say do kettlebell swing even though it's not an explosive movement.




Sweet, I just got my yellow belt.

 

[Darth Diaz]

Troll?

no what makes you think that

 

[Darth Diaz]

I say do kettlebell swing even though it's not an explosive movement.




Sweet, I just got my yellow belt.

will that increase my punching power?

 

[bushman505]

Training Muay Thai will improve your Muay Thai.

Learning how to punch will improve your punching power.

If you want to get better at a sport, your training focus should be on the sport.

 

[Darth Diaz]

Training Muay Thai will improve your Muay Thai.

Learning how to punch will improve your punching power.

If you want to get better at a sport, your training focus should be on the sport.

so are you saying that explosive training is not beneficial and if so then why

 

[bushman505]

so are you saying that explosive training is not beneficial and if so then why

I'm not an excercise scientist so take what I say for what it is.

The point is that if you want to get better at Muay Thai, you are better off using that extra gym time to train Muay Thai.

Punching power is mostly technique, there are things you can do that will help a bit but most of it comes from training the movement.

I think explosive training is good, but theres evidence that suggests it dosent really carry over to sports nearly as much as people like to think.

You can look how most pro kick boxers train and I don't think you are going to see them doing much explosive work outside of actual kickboxing work. Basically they aren't doing all sorts of snatches and stuff like that.

I guess if I was going to do some explosive work for Muay Thai (I did Muay Thai for like 15 years), I'd choose something like sprints or hill sprints, I'd also stick to a basic strength program focusing on things like squats and deadlifts, overhead presses and bench and then use the extra time to add more Muay Thai sessions.

If you've only been at it a month, you still have a long way to go, check back in 6 months of consistant 3-5x a week training.

 

[Noodles03]

will that increase my punching power?

The kettle bell swing allowed me to learn how to put more of my hips behind the punch. So in essence, yes it will help with punching power.

 

[MandirigmaFit]

Complex movement patterns, like punching, requires recruitment of specific motor units and a high speed.

With that being said, nothing will be better than training- the Punch technique. Once your technique is better, then you can implement outside training modalities, such as resistance training.

Also, when training to learn new movement patterns/techniques, stop when you're fatiguing and take a break.

 

[Kiwi Tricker]

RE kettlebell swings- they're a ballistic movement, if you do them correctly they're a perfectly "explosive" movement.

Your deadlift only being 40kg behind your bench tells me your lower body probably isn't as strong as it should be in order to get the most benefit out of plyometric exercise - I recall reading something a while back that recommended that in order to reap the most benefit from them, plyometrics should be introduced when an athlete is around a double bodyweight back squat - which isn't really too hard to get to, although I'm not so sure that it's strictly necessary.

We know your pressing is behind your pulling, how is your lower body strength in general? You might need to bring it up to par before you worry about everything else. Asides from that I can't really tell enough about you from your post to recommend else.

 

[JauntyAngle]

I recall reading something a while back that recommended that in order to reap the most benefit from them, plyometrics should be introduced when an athlete is around a double bodyweight back squat - which isn't really too hard to get to, although I'm not so sure that it's strictly necessary.

I don't think this is a great rule at all actually. Just my uninformed opinion, but:

I think a better (but less simple) rule is that athletes should introduce plyometric exercises once they are well out of "noob gain" territory. Once it is some serious effort to add 5-10lbs to your squat and it might possibly make it hard to do other stuff, that's the time to start doing stuff like plyos. If you are training hard in your sport and conditioning, and you don't have the greatest ceiling/trainability, it's very plausible that you might hit that point before you hit 2x BW.

It's possible that a lot of athletes do hit the point of serious diminishing marginal returns when they hit 2xBW, especially if it's a sport where they can justify training more times a week and a bit longer. In which case 2xBW is fine. But the "do it once the boon gains are clearly gone" rule is going to be more flexible and more accurate.

 

[Kiwi Tricker]

I don't think this is a great rule at all actually. Just my uninformed opinion, but:

I think a better (but less simple) rule is that athletes should introduce plyometric exercises once they are well out of "noob gain" territory. Once it is some serious effort to add 5-10lbs to your squat and it might possibly make it hard to do other stuff, that's the time to start doing stuff like plyos. If you are training hard in your sport and conditioning, and you don't have the greatest ceiling/trainability, it's very plausible that you might hit that point before you hit 2x BW.

It's possible that a lot of athletes do hit the point of serious diminishing marginal returns when they hit 2xBW, especially if it's a sport where they can justify training more times a week and a bit longer. In which case 2xBW is fine. But the "do it once the boon gains are clearly gone" rule is going to be more flexible and more accurate.

For sure- but as I recall this was more for athletes looking to optimise their gains from plyometric training, as well as for injury prevention as the connective tissue would need to be well-developed to protect against risk of injury from plyometric activities.

I think people can start working them in sooner, but for real, OP is only deadlifting 150kg - I think there's a lot more he can gain from increasing lower body strength a measure first (just a hunch).

 

[JauntyAngle]

For sure- but as I recall this was more for athletes looking to optimise their gains from plyometric training.

But this is kind of my point. If you are thinking about total athletic gains from your 2x 60-90 minute sessions a week (while doing lots of other stuff too), if you are already well into intermediate numbers, the gains from continuing to plug away at your squat might be quite minimal. By contrast, adding a block of lower body plyometric work while doing some easy maintenance on the squat might make a bigger difference to your performance.

You can probably envisage a case where the gains from plyo would be even higher if the athlete was even stronger. But that's not necessarily a reason to avoid the plyos- they can still give you best bang for your buck given your current level of athletic development and time budget for S&C.

for real, OP is only deadlifting 150kg - I think there's a lot more he can gain from increasing lower body strength a measure first (just a hunch).

Very probably!