Coming from a background in Weightlifting and understanding periodization quite well, it's frustrating to see how little what we know is applied to combat sports. So many folks think that suffering = success and just do not understand survivors bias. Great stuff here
Even my coach. And most coaches here in the UK only emphasise endurance training (50 push ups, 50 squats etc) smashing pads then sparring… most proper are smashing pads too tired to fight and sparring way too tired to maintain good technique.
Thanks for sharing that perspective too. There are so many different disciplines/fields exploiting advantages in different ways - we can learn a lot if we're open minded and pay attention to what works, and why. 🙏
I used to train every day and hated it. Now, I'm in my 50s and hit pads twice a week and bags on my own once a week. LOVE it and learning so much still. I do pilates other days, yoga, run, hike, swim, even private time with GF (she's colombian!) so enjoy life. Thais are engaged in a darwinian struggle starting at 12 so of course they want to get the .001% like Super Lek.
Nice! Yes, it can be easy to forget that aim is to progress/learn/grow, not just to work as hard as possible all the time at the expense of that progress. 🙂👊
I've thought about this a lot. Unfortunately it's not only in Thailand, it happened to myself at my first gym. I trained religiously from 13-20 years old, very quickly I built up to training 5-6 days a week for 90 minutes to 2 hours Muay Thai, + 3 days weights training and 3 days 5+ mile runs. I competed every 2-3 months, + from 16 onwards I was doing a Sports Fitness & Development course where we did about 10 extra hours per week of sporting activity. Awake at 6am to get ready and 1 hour bus to college, 1 or 2 hours of sports between theoretical classes, cardio or weights training + bag work at the college gym after lunch, then wait around for 2 hours before getting a ride to my Muay Thai class, another 20 minutes further away from home, 7:30-9pm. Home by 11pm, in bed by 12pm, asleep by 1am if I was lucky (had a very party heavy household with loud music and drunks over 3-5 nights per week). Also had relatively poor nutrition. I tried talking to my coaches about this and they just brushed it off comparing it to Thailand training, which I had experienced, so I considered that I just needed to push through it and get tougher. I kept it up somehow for almost 8 years, finally left that gym and for 3 months trained at a very very good gym full of champions and a really knowlegable and friendly coach with 50+ champions to his name, who got me entered for a regional championship fight within those 3 months. The gym was another 30 minutes further away from home than my original gym. 2 weeks before the fight I had a physical and psychological breakdown and never conpeted again. Too little too late, terrible circumstances, and an unfortunately ignorant and careless first gym and head coach who dismessed my concerns. I began training after a year completely off Muay Thai, and within 1 week of training 3 sessions I broken through and beyond the flatline my training progression had taken for perhaps the last 18 months before my breakdown. Now I run my own small gym and take much better care of my students than I was ever cared for. With a college education in Fitness and Development, and a degree in Sports Therapy, plus my own severe experiences with physical and mental burnout, I really really appreciate the content you put out and the passion with which you present it.
Sincerest thanks for sharing this. You're absolutely right, too many Western Muay Thai gyms mimic the traditional full time Thai training model without understanding that: a) It isn't appropriate for fighters that also have work/family commitments outside of training, and b) There are many ways to progress training without just doing more! I hear from so many fighters that have physically gone backwards by attempting to match an arbitrary schedule, only to come back better than ever once they listened to their body and scheduled things in a way that's personally productive for them. And it's awesome to hear you've taken everything you've learned from your (bad) experience and are passing on a more effective and healthier training philosophy to a new generation of Muay Thai enthusiasts and fighters. Top stuff! 😀👍
Damien is the man! But I had a great experience training in Thailand for 2 months. I don’t cut a lot of weight, so I eat well. Which made it easy to train twice a day. Maybe it was the city or gym he trained at that wasn’t so nice? Sitmonchai and Khongsittha were unbelievably hospitable to me.
Thanks for sharing. More gyms in Thailand are finding a better balance for those for those coming out for relatively short stays, but it’s certainly not the norm. It’s good to hear you’ve had a good experience, and managed your training well. 😁👊
Fantastic video. I hope this becomes common knowledge in the future. Training in Thailand can be rough, and the training camp I went through for my first fight over there was nothing but gruesome. Sadly in a non-productive way. But it's just so tied into their culture, so I knew from the start what was ahead of me 😅
I’m an ex navy diver and it was/is the same story in the forces (though it’s much better now thanks to the marines) You’d be expected to PB on runs/swims daily which is just crazy! You need to stimulate then rest, mixing harder sessions with easier sessions focusing on the technical aspects is the way to go.
Iam in Thailand now and Kru at the local gym told me that he retired when he was 29 because he was overtrained. Waking up every day at 4am, training twice a day
"I dont hear thais talk about overtraining" Of course, thaiboxing puts food on the table. The same way your beloved father dont complain about shit at work to you as a kid
5 mins of cone sprinting is NOT minor on top of an already considerable work load. Maybe your clients can take it better because they aren't already maxed out in training.
Thanks for sharing and that's a good point. But, it wasn't additional training volume-load that was the issue in this case. Rather it was the unfamiliar loading from changing direction causing DOMS.
@@heatrick And it will probably accelerate with younger ex athletes getting involved in training and running gyms, who had contact to successful western athletes and their training culture and had started to use western methodology for themselves. BTW, what happens to those kids from poor backgrounds who ruined their joints or burned out mentally and had to drop out, when they do not have a plan B in the form of any kind of school education. These boxing gyms should be required to offer these kids at least basic school educaton besides the sports training.
@@petraireneexpecting gyms to provide an education is a nice idea, but is also unrealistic. It's not as if they can afford to get teachers in. Full time training is also, as alluded to in the video, something that really does need to be full time. If you're training 6 hours a day then the rest of your time needs to be spent resting and recovering.
@@VinOptimaxxx I don't know. Here in Germany there are sports schools that turn out olympic athletes as well as students ready for university. The teenagers have an academic and athletic program running parallel. I don't see why this can't work for martial arts. If betting is financially lucrative part of this sport, I would assume that the sums the boys get paid to fight is breadcrumbs of what is earned there by the bookmakers. These boys are probably financially exploited in that industry. And of course, because the boys get zero education they are easy victims. When even Buakaw was cheated out of his earnings by his management early in his career, this is probably common practice. And the less of a general education you have the less you are able to see through it and stand up for your rights. By the way, what about sexual abuse in those boxing gyms? Here in the west these days all types of athletes are coming forward with gruesome stories of how they were sexually abused by trainers. Even someone as high ranking as Simone Biles reported a nasty me too story. I'm pretty sure that there is a darker side in these gyms that train children and teenagers.
@@petrairene obviously Germany is a very, very different country to Thailand. And yes, I agree that the possibility of exploitation and abuse exists. All I was saying is that your idea of gyms providing education to their child fighters is not going to happen any time soon. It's a different world to the comfortable western world that we live in.
