10 Jump Rope Tips and Tricks For Muay Thai

How To Jump Rope For Muay Thai

Have you seen those videos of Mike Tyson jumping rope like a maniac or Floyd Mayweather skipping rope like an absolute ninja and swinging them around like nunchucks?

Most people think Floyd’s just being fancy and flashy with his jump roping like he is with his pad work, but what people don’t realize is that his skipping is part of what makes him such a great mover in the ring!

But how does this apply to Muay Thai? You’d be surprised.

If you’ve ever stepped foot into a Muay Thai gym in Thailand, you KNOW how big on skipping rope they are. It’s done so damn often. And there’s a good reason why it’s so important to them!

Skipping rope in Muay Thai is even MORE important than in boxing, because skipping rope, like road work, helps to condition your shins! It builds your calves and legs and gives you the strong base you need in order to deliver kicks and take kicks. If you want tough shins that can...

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Muay Thai Styles: Muay Khao

The Muay Thai Knee Fighter

Muay Thai is not one style.

The art of Muay Thai extends to Muay Boran, and from Muay Boran, it extends out even further.

Muay Thai is as mixed as any martial art can be. However, like how boxing has the counter-puncher, brawler, boxer-puncher, etc., Muay Thai has many fighting styles of its own as well.

Today, the focus is on the masters of the clinch, the Muay Khao. Muay Khaos are the smothering fighters. They are terrors to fight and will not give you a single second to rest. You may think of them as the terminator mixed with an octopus. They never stop moving forward. They seek to smother, and when they do grab you, you’ll end up twisted and ragdolled.

In short, it’s not fun. However, the Muay Khaos do have weaknesses that may be exploited. To find these weaknesses, check out the Evolve MMA video below:

As you’ve learned in the video above, distance is a key to defeating the Muay Khao. You may use the jab to create...

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What Are The Best Ways To Recover From Muay Thai Training?

Recovery is an integral part of training for combat sports. No matter how hard you try, you will get hurt in the gym. The key is to recover quickly and bounce back in time for the next hard session. Here’s how. . .  

IF YOU CAN’T RECOVER, YOU CAN’T TRAIN & IMPROVE

We’ve all had those weeks when our bodies are aching for days on end after a single hard session.

When you go back to the gym, you’re not able to give 100% because you’re still sore or your joints ache.

The bad news is that there’s no way to prevent soreness or accidents from happening.

The good news that is that on your end, you can do some things to help speed up recovery between each session. Here are some tips to keep your body in tip-top recovery form:


NUTRITION: YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

What goes into your body will always show during your training sessions. The quality of your food matters as well as the ...

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Is Having Sex Before a Fight a Good or Bad Idea?

As a Muay Thai fighter and athlete, sex is a byproduct of the training you do.

Hours of long training leaves you with an irresistible body, fight posters are sexualizing your physique, and the glory of winning is as good as having a Lamborghini.  However, there comes a time where you have to take things seriously, a fight is coming up and you want to be at peak performance, both physically and mentally.  Whether you are a male or female, the question arises…

Is sex before a Muay Thai fight okay?

Or does it hinder my performance?

Let’s take a more serious, deephard look into whether the century old idea of sex before competition is detrimental to our game.

Muhammad Ali, the greatest of all time, mentioned how he abstains from sex before competition. There have been a number of fighters and athletes to make the same statement, mainly based on the idea that we want peak performance before competition.

Supposedly sex before a fight...

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3 Pieces Of Useless Advice Given To Fighters

Fighters are given unwanted advice all the time, so much so that it could disrupt training and shake your self-confidence. . . 

“BRO, YOU WANT MY ADVICE?” – NOT REALLY, NO.

“So, when’s your next fight? Do you know when you’re fighting next? When do you fight again?”

People just love asking fighters this question. Unknown to them, though, is the pressure they’re putting on the fighter! When you’re lucky enough to have been put on an upcoming card, that’s when you let people know. Usually, what follows after are pieces of advice, especially during training.

While most of it is coming from a good place, a lot of advice is pretty unfounded – and unnecessary, especially if you didn’t ask for it. Here are the top three (or maybe it should be “bottom three”) pieces of unwanted advice that fighters receive.

UNWANTED ADVICE #1: “Knock ’em out!”

KO’s are...

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A Breakdown of Muay Thai Styles: Clinch Fighters

Muay Thai Styles – Clinchers and Knee Specialists

muay thai clinch knee fighter techniqueAn aspect of Muay Thai that is just as essential as being able to kick and punch is knowing how to clinch and knee.

Anyone who’s trained in a Muay Thai gym in Thailand will know that clinch practice is a daily part of training just like skipping rope or heavy bag work.

Two Muay Thai fighters of the past and present who dominate using the clinch are Dieselnoi and Yodwicha.

In this article I will try to give an explanation of what a clincher/knee specialist is in Muay Thai also known as Muay Kao or “knee fighter.”

What does it mean to be a “clinch” fighter?

Typically clinching and kneeing go hand and hand.

People with a boxing background tend to get confused when they’re introduced to Muay Thai clinching. In boxing, clinching tends to be a defensive position used to conserve energy rather than expend it. In Muay Thai it’s the total opposite....

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The Do’s And Don’t Of Checking Leg Kicks in Muay Thai

Pro Fighter Paul “the Reaper” Banasiak Explains Common Mistakes and Tips for Checking Kicks

Fighting is flow. Positioning enables the flow, it’s

It is a flow between offense and defense, and what enables this flow is positioning. If your posture is off when you’re parrying a punch, your countering well be slow. Your positioning is what enables the fluidity of your movement. Imagine a powerlifter who starts his deadlift with a rounded back. He will be slow off the ground and he will be even slower as the bar moves up.

Consider deeply how each position connects to another. Consider how you will flow from a check to a counter roundhouse kick, from a parry to a rear straight. Learning to flow from position to position is learning how to pass the baton. If you’re in a 4 x 100-meter relay, don’t know how to pass the baton, and end up dropping it, you’re screwed. However, if you do know how to flow from position to position,...

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Top 10 Muay Thai Fighter Nicknames

What’s in a name anyway?

Marcel the Shell: Guess what I want but I’m not gonna beg for it?

Guy: Uh…what?

Marcel the Shell: A nickname. Because you can’t—you can’t make it for yourself like you can make
yourself a new hair style, but you can’t say well now I go by the name of the general or whatever…

Justin "Purple People Eater" Greskiewicz

If you haven’t seen Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, go watch it. Now.

Not about quirky animal videos? It’s cool. (You’re missing out.)

Anyway, the little crustacean makes a valid point. You can’t just go out and give yourself a nickname. I was asked to make a list of my top ten favorite Muay Thai fighter nicknames—funny thing is I have been trying to figure out mine for a while now. But as Marcel says, “you can’t make it for yourself like you can make yourself a new hair style…”

So, while friends of mine tried out some on me (Killer Kale, Violence, Watch Out, Ninja...

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3 "Simple" Muay Thai Sparring Tips ALL Students Should Know

Everyone Should Know These KEY Muay Thai Sparring Tips, Drills and Strategies 

“The combatant should be alive in sparring, throwing punches and kicks from all angles, and should not be a co-operative robot. Like water, sparring should be formless. Pour water into a cup, it becomes part of the cup. Pour it into a bottle; it becomes part of the bottle. Try to kick or punch it, it is resilient; clutch it and it will yield without hesitation. In fact, it will escape as pressure is being applied to it. How true it is that nothingness cannot be confined. The softest thing cannot be snapped.”

– Bruce Lee

Getting nervous about sparring for the first time?

Make sure to read my 10 Muay Thai sparring tips for beginners – A checklist for your first spar!

Muay Thai Sparring Tip #1: Have A Game Plan

Way too often I see fighters go into sparring sessions without any sort of strategy. Most fighters just step into sparring without any tactics, strategies or...

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Ultimate Hip Flexibility Tips For Muay Thai

Explosive Muay Thai offensiveness comes from flexible, strong hips. . . 

AVOID TIGHT HIPS IN MUAY THAI WITH THESE BRIGHT TIPS

With our culture centered around sitting at work, on the computer, or even during our leisure time, it’s very easy to find yourself having tight hips. When you have tight hips, doing many things feel like a chore – going up stairs, stretching, sometimes even walking. In Muay Thai, having tight hips means you…

1) …are not able turn your hip over properly when kicking.

2) …are not able to push your hips to where you want it to during punching, kneeing, and clinching.

3) …probably have bad balance.

4) …can’t generate enough power with your strikes.

There are many ways to increase hip flexibility, though. All it takes is some work, patience – and time.

IMPROVEMENT #1: Pay attention to your posture

WHICH ARE YOU?

Posture is so widely and easily...

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