- By Owen Reilly
Muay Thai is a striking art that emphasizes elbows, knees, clinches, and sweeps. Although regular training sessions with a coach are necessary to hone your fighting ability, individual conditioning and technical drills at home can be the difference between winning and losing a fight. In this blog, we review five drills that can be done at home with minimal or no equipment.
Shadowboxing
Shadowboxing is an incredibly effective drill that can be utilized in some form for nearly every martial art. When utilizing this drill for Muay Thai, be sure to throw elbow and knee strikes along with practicing avoiding clinches as well as sweeps. Shadowboxing can also allow you to work on your head movement, parries, and other defensive movements. Completing three to five rounds with each round lasting three to five minutes provides you with ample time to work your endurance and technique.
Heavy Bag Work
Although requiring a heavy bag, heavy bag work is a great way to improve power as well as endurance. To work on power, repeatedly throw combinations as hard as possible such as a jab-cross-hook-kick. For speed, attempt to throw combinations as fast as possible while keeping your technique. The heavy bag also allows you to work on accuracy. When throwing strikes such as a teep kick or a high kick, attempt to throw your strikes at the correlating point on someone's body. Lastly, the heavy bag is a great tool that can be used to work on endurance. Similar to shadowboxing, three to five rounds of three to five minutes of repeatedly striking the heavy bag without stopping can greatly increase one's endurance when fighting.
Footwork Drills
Footwork drills help to increase one's offensive and defensive capabilities. Understanding how to fight moving backward, forwards, or when angling off. Some at-home drills to work on footwork include the cone and tape drill, lateral movement drills, and the circle drills. The cone and tape drill includes setting up a T-shape on the ground with tape and placing cones at the ends of the T to mark the border of the drill. You should get in your stance standing in the T and throw various strikes using the tape to correct your footwork. Lateral movement drills are simple drills that see the athlete moving side to side in their stance while angling off. This drill is often utilized in tandem with shadowboxing. The circle drill includes moving circularly around an object. Doing so while throwing strikes allows you to learn how to effectively strike when moving circularly. Each of these drills, although simple and somewhat similar, improves footwork and your ability to fight while moving in various directions.
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Knee and Teep drills help to improve not just the techniques, but also your balance and control. To perform this drill, continue to throw teep kicks or knees toward a wall without falling backward. Doing so also allows you to improve your understanding of range. When throwing, be sure to focus on keeping proper posture and hip extension. When completing this drill, throw fifty teep kicks and fifty knees with each leg to refine your technique and improve your endurance.
Strength and Conditioning Drills
Simple strength and conditioning drills can work wonders for your endurance. Simple bodyweight exercises including jump squats, push-ups, sit-ups with an elbow twist, and planks to explosive jumps can give you the strength and stamina necessary for competitions. Further exercises include burpees or interval sprints. Long runs also greatly increase one's cardio.
Each of these drills are able to improve some aspect of your muay thai skillset. All of these drills can be done with minimal or no equipment. For more drills and techniques, check out the course below.
