"weight lifting should not hinder your main sport"

B

BigSmile

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3/4 times a week thaiboxing, 3 times a week weight lifting.

I am not a pro fighter, not even an amateur. I do train as hard as my body allows me too, even harder.

Should I do less weight lifting and focus more on thaiboxing?

I am not sure anymore what weight lifting really does for me.

Thaiboxing gives me this great feeling because of all the conditioning. Weight lifting most of the time just gives me soreness and lack of energy for some reason.
 
So with that you mean i should just run more, do more jump rope, crosstrainer..etc right? (everything that has to do with making my condition better)
 
Strength training doesn't make much sense if you're doing Thai Boxing. It doesn't make you hit harder, it'll just give you muscles which will make you tire faster.

Thai boxing is pretty much 100% cardio. You'll learn to hit harder with technique, but if you wanna last longer I suggest you do cardio work, not strength training.
 
If your lifting is burning you out for Muay Thai, then, yes, you have problem.

But lifting is an incredibly valuable tool. If you're "not sure...what lifting really does for (you)," you've been doing it wrong.

Why don't you post some more details about your routine and situation so we can help.
 
I felt so dumb asking this question but now I am really glad that I did

There are guys at my gym that can hit really hard and they don't do any weight lifting at all.
But I am so used to do weight lifting, so my first asumption was to either go for strength (strength = harder punch, is what i thought) or go for 15+ reps, but this seemed to much considering 3 times a week thaiboxing

So take out the weight lifting completely?

My routine is:

3 times a week i hit the weights, which I go for 3 sets of 5 reps.

I do the romenian deadlift, I do the bench press, I do some squating.. besides that I do 2 excersises for my shoulders, 3/4 for my back (including the deadlift), and for my legs i also do 3 excersises (including squating) .. I don't really work that much on my arms (1 ex. for biceps, 1 for triceps)

But lifting is an incredibly valuable tool. If you're "not sure...what lifting really does for (you)," you've been doing it wrong.
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This is because we have a pretty killer warm up, then we hit a lot of technique and sparring. I am getting stronger, obviously, but I am not sure if it's because of the lessons from thai, or from weights. Its probably a combination but I also wonder how much I could accomplish with just thai. I might even do better because I have a longer period of recovery, at the moment I only have 1 day + i am pretty active during the day because I walk everything, or use the bike (i dont have a car)
 
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Giant Midget said:
Weightlifting doesn't really help when it comes to Thai Boxing, I would focus more on cardio and technique as these are more relevant than just being strong.
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Nordic Nonsense said:
Strength training doesn't make much sense if you're doing Thai Boxing. It doesn't make you hit harder, it'll just give you muscles which will make you tire faster.

Thai boxing is pretty much 100% cardio. You'll learn to hit harder with technique, but if you wanna last longer I suggest you do cardio work, not strength training.
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This is nonsense. You both speak as if strength is irrelevant in Muay Thai...I suppose that's why they have weight classes, right? :icon_conf

Seriously, where do you think the force for strikes and clinch fighting comes from? "Technique?" Technique is about using your strength efficiently and effectively. If you don't have any strength to begin with, or have strength vastly inferior to your opponent, "technique" isn't going to help you very much.

BTW, I'll also throw out there that some of the best "conditioning" anyone can do, especially for combat sports, involves weight lifting.
 
XTrainer said:
Seriously, where do you think the force for strikes and clinch fighting comes from? "Technique?" Technique is about using your strength efficiently and effectively. If you don't have any strength to begin with, or have strength vastly inferior to your opponent, "technique" isn't going to help you very much.
.
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isn't this why thai box lessons include a lot of bodyweight excersises?
 
Unless you're doing things like handstand push ups, muscle ups, and ring stuff, your bodyweight work probably isn't providing much of a strength stimulus.

As for your routine, it looks like you're kinda flirting with "Starting Strength" but not doing the actual program. I'd give that a try first (don't go adding a bunch of assistance exercises; just the basic 5). If that's still too much, there is a 2x per week adaptation of "Starting Strength" you can try.
 
i kind of love flirting, yeah

with all seriousness, i will look it up

5) Training to near muscular failure has shown to induce identical hypertrophy gains than training to all out muscular failure. The reason you guys can’t train a muscle more than once per week is because you are destroying it when you do train it. Learn to hit or miss that last rep and then call it done. Don’t do ridiculous amounts of forced reps, negatives, etc. until you literally can’t move the muscle. Take it to near failure and then your muscles will recover enough so that you can train them again in 3-4 days.
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See, this is one of the worries. 3-4 days, that will mean I am doing my thaibox lessons during recovery time? If that's the case, I am never 100% during a thaibox lesson and that can't be good right?


So, cut out the bullshit, do the: overhead press, bench press, deadlift, pull ups and squats.. and be done with it. Probably a max of 2 times a week, that's enough for me at this point, see how it goes first

Any people really object? Because the first posters said its kind of useless to do weight lifting, and then another guy said thats not true..

And now I am at a point I see I do to much at the gym, but still not absolutely sure how much weight lifting will do for me (i do think it has some benefits, but I want to know more from the camp that says: weight lifting is kind of useless in thaiboxing)
 
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BigSmile said:
i kind of love flirting, yeah

with all seriousness, i will look it up



See, this is one of the worries. 3-4 days, that will mean I am doing my thaibox lessons during recovery time? If that's the case, I am never 100% during a thaibox lesson and that can't be good right?
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I agree with everything XTrainer has to say.

Not that I know crap about Thai Boxing, but I in essence you only have so much energy to expend during a given time period. So yes, you will neve be 100% for your lesson if you are lifting. That can be ok for your goals. If you don't plan on fighting for awhile and your goal isn't to increase weight I would say learn to fight first then add the strength work.

I guess I realized that I will never be 100% when I train grappling, until I am a week about for a competition. This is the only time I taper and stop lifting.

I would start with a clear definition of your goals, it will make this easier for you.
 
My goal is to become the best person and fighter I can be.

But one thing you can not forget in the advice you are giving me: I have the thaiboxing, I have the strength training....... but I also have my education!

Since the chances are slim of me becoming a pro fighter that can make big bucks with this sport... I also need my focus to go to my education. Study hard, very hard

It has no use for me to get to a point where I am very strong, and very good at thai boxing ..but didnt have the energy to study. I don't want to become the smart guy that now cleans the park, know what i mean?

I have such a hard time balancing all this
 
BigSmile said:
My goal is to become the best person and fighter I can be.

But one thing you can not forget in the advice you are giving me: I have the thaiboxing, I have the strength training....... but I also have my education!

Since the chances are slim of me becoming a pro fighter that can make big bucks with this sport... I also need my focus to go to my education. Study hard, very hard

It has no use for me to get to a point where I am very strong, and very good at thai boxing ..but didnt have the energy to study. I don't want to become the smart guy that now cleans the park, know what i mean?

I have such a hard time balancing all this
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All about choices. Sounds like you have enough info to prioritize.

1. Education - because you have decided this will be your living
2. Thai Boxing - because you like to do it and sounds important to your overall happiness
3. Strength Training - third because it is nice to have and will help your thai boxing and increase your quality of life, but because it is a support role for your second priority you will probably need to make sacrifices here.

The truth is you can't do it all 100% but if you budget your time you'd be surprised what you can get accomplished. Trust me, there is someone out there working harder than you and doing more, they just figured out a way to do it and stay motivated.
 
pliftkl said:
Don't worry, it gets much easier once you have a full time job and a family.

(Why scare him? Ignorance is bliss!)
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haha i have enough friends with kids and full jobs.. it scares the shit out of me :)
 
Graunie said:
All about choices. Sounds like you have enough info to prioritize.

1. Education - because you have decided this will be your living
2. Thai Boxing - because you like to do it and sounds important to your overall happiness
3. Strength Training - third because it is nice to have and will help your thai boxing and increase your quality of life, but because it is a support role for your second priority you will probably need to make sacrifices here.

The truth is you can't do it all 100% but if you budget your time you'd be surprised what you can get accomplished. Trust me, there is someone out there working harder than you and doing more, they just figured out a way to do it and stay motivated.
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Yeah

I am going to do twice a week of strength training, where I focus on the most important excersises, so just training a lot smarter. 3 times a week thai boxing

Makes up for 5 days, once I feel that I can take on 3 times a week of strength training, I do it. But the energy tank is one not to fuck with, i rather build it slowly and feel great, then go out and kill myself feeling to sluggish to do whats very important in my life, which is educate myself
 
Nordic Nonsense said:
Strength training doesn't make much sense if you're doing Thai Boxing. It doesn't make you hit harder, it'll just give you muscles which will make you tire faster.

Thai boxing is pretty much 100% cardio. You'll learn to hit harder with technique, but if you wanna last longer I suggest you do cardio work, not strength training.
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good advice
 
Giant Midget said:
Most forms of weightlifting won't give you functional strength though, and is therefore not as relevant to MT as you seem to think. A few days ago I clinched with a bodybuilder who has about 15kg on me and a threw him off his feet 4 times, I haven't lifted a weight in years.
The only way to get true power into your shots is to polish your technique, you can be the world's strongest man but if you don't have good technique then your movement will be laboured, meaning you will have no power. Go watch Pudz try punch.

TS, running and skipping are excellent for cardio mate, if you have time then try doing some swimming as it is excellent cardio but it is also low impact and won't leave you feeling tired and sore like you said in the OP.
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You threw a bodybuilder who has never done any sort of wrestling. That must mean strength isn't needed in greco/thai clinch, yeah... that's why there's no weight categories in greco, it doesn't matter if you are a 130kg guy like Karelin, or a 60kg olympic gold medalist. Strength doesn't matter, it's all technique...
 
Just because strength isn't as important as technique or cardio doesn't mean it's not important at all. Are there any successful fighters that lift weights?

The only things you need to ask yourself: are you strong enough for your weight class, is there anything else lifting will help to improve or maintain your game.

Also, statements like "weights will slow you down" are complete horseshit.
 
TS, if you're "not a pro fighter, not even an amateur", then you might want to take into account that (properly planned and executed) strength training has a lot more benefits for your long-term health and every-day life than thai-boxing training.
 
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