Free Muay Thai Training Exercises by Christoph Delp Page B

recommended to prepare for high kicks. Alternately, you can also carry out the basic techniques of Thai boxing several times and increase your radius of motion each time, for example for kicking height.
      Now you can train your Muay Thai techniques, followed by some strength training.
      If you didn’t find the training overly intensive, you can add one to three intensive stretching exercises for muscle groups where you want to achieve better mobility. If the training in techniques has been exhausting, however, it is best not to do intensive stretching exercises and to avoid injury due to putting excessive demands on the muscles.
      To cool down the body, do an exercise at low intensity for about five minutes. This could include slow jogging or relaxed rope-skipping.
      Finish the training with a few static stretching exercises for stressed muscles. You should not, however, assume any intensive stretch positions, and you should not hold the stretch positions for more than ten seconds.
    Application
    Stretch in preparation for training in Muay Thai techniques and afterward to accelerate the process of regeneration. Well-developed flexibility in the shoulders, hips, and inner and back leg muscles is important in Muay Thai. If these groups of muscles are too short, you should concentrate additional training sessions exclusively on stretching. If you don’t have the time for additional sessions, you can do some static stretching exercises at the end of a Muay Thai training session. Concentrate on the groups of muscles that you want to improve. An extensive stretching program after an intensive Muay Thai training session isn’t useful, as the body is too tired.

    Pre-Stretching: Stretching before Technical Training
    Each training sessions starts with a warm-up exercise. Follow with some stretching exercises with routines and methods, depending on your requirements. More than anything, stretching in the warm-up phase prepares you for athletic demands. You can briefly stretch all the muscles groups or train in a short program for the muscle groups where you have mobility restrictions. These could be the neck and shoulder muscles, for example, or the muscles in the lower back, the hip muscles, the inner and rear leg muscles, and the calf muscles.
    Stretching exercises can be done with a static or a dynamic method. You can also follow stretching exercises with dynamic swinging movements such as leg swings. Instead of swings you can perform Thai boxing techniques at low intensity in the air with ever-increasing pace and range of movement.
    Prior to a competition it’s necessary to do a special warm-up specific to Muay Thai. For example, fighters have to perform a number of techniques in shadowboxing and on the pads to achieve the optimum performance level for competition.
    Frequently Asked Questions: Static or Dynamic Stretching?
    In the past many Western Thai boxers used the warm-up phase for a static stretch program covering the whole body. It was assumed that this kind of stretching would ensure that the techniques could be carried out with optimum range of movement, thus improving performance and reducing the risk of injury. Research has now shown that an extensive static program of stretching prior to practicing Muay Thai lowers muscle tonus and therefore lowers performance potential. It was found, for example, that performance in terms of potential strength and bounce decreases. Some Thai boxers are now convinced that they should completely go without static stretching in their warm-ups and that they should concentrate on dynamic exercises instead. Other Thai boxers don’t share that view and ask why they should change their warm-up routines if their years of static stretching have proved to be successful. When deciding on the right stretching method, keep in mind that the scientific research has produced varying results, and that there has not been sufficient research done into agility training.
    It is important to