Bodybuilding or Muay Thai? plz help me guys!

Hi there.

The last couple of weeks I have been so freakin confused.. You see for like 3 months ago, right after new years eve, I started 2 x Muay Thai(aka. Thaiboxing) a week. And then did 3 x light weighttraining also in the week on seperated days.

Now as the time has gone by, my passion for Muay Thai have really gained. I now have a pretty good condition and developed good foundation skills. So Im serious considering to do something real with Muay Thai, like training +4 times a week and then, hopefully, do some fights in a couple of years.

The bad news are just that I also love hitting the weights and I wanna build some muscles so Im not skinny anymore(184cm & 70kg). But I know Im going to burn out if I do 4 x Muay Thai and 3-4 x heavy lifting a week.

So I wanna hear if anyone in here are doing a similar sport/martial art that really requires alot of energy? I freakin love Muay Thai, but I freakin hate being skinny! :(

I also do Muay Thai and it is a great conditioning as well as strength building class. If your conditioning is good and you want to build mass you could even do your 4x Muay Thai classes and do at least 2 good full body workouts a week. If you are looking to fight you are going to want to do circuits.

[QUOTE=narv;853292463]Hi there.

The last couple of weeks I have been so freakin confused.. You see for like 3 months ago, right after new years eve, I started 2 x Muay Thai(aka. Thaiboxing) a week. And then did 3 x light weighttraining also in the week on seperated days.

Now as the time has gone by, my passion for Muay Thai have really gained. I now have a pretty good condition and developed good foundation skills. So Im serious considering to do something real with Muay Thai, like training +4 times a week and then, hopefully, do some fights in a couple of years.

The bad news are just that I also love hitting the weights and I wanna build some muscles so Im not skinny anymore(184cm & 70kg). But I know Im going to burn out if I do 4 x Muay Thai and 3-4 x heavy lifting a week.

So I wanna hear if anyone in here are doing a similar sport/martial art that really requires alot of energy? I freakin love Muay Thai, but I freakin hate being skinny! :([/QUOTE]

Do the sport you love most. You'll be in great shape in either.

Also good 'visible shape' ? :O

I cant say ive done martial arts but would love to start. But honestly if you want to take muay thai to a competitive level you definitely should do both. You hear it in MMA all the time that the fight is determined before the fighters even enter the cage, they win because of how well they trained. These guys normally train for 4-8 hours a day lifting, conditioning, and working on their various martial arts and some have jobs on top of that. If this is just for recreational purposes id say bump up lifting to 4x aweek and limit muay thai. But if youre serious about competition youll want to do both aspects with all you got to become a powerful fighter.

[QUOTE=narv;853292463]Hi there.

The last couple of weeks I have been so freakin confused.. You see for like 3 months ago, right after new years eve, I started 2 x Muay Thai(aka. Thaiboxing) a week. And then did 3 x light weighttraining also in the week on seperated days.

Now as the time has gone by, my passion for Muay Thai have really gained. I now have a pretty good condition and developed good foundation skills. So Im serious considering to do something real with Muay Thai, like training +4 times a week and then, hopefully, do some fights in a couple of years.

The bad news are just that I also love hitting the weights and I wanna build some muscles so Im not skinny anymore(184cm & 70kg). But I know Im going to burn out if I do 4 x Muay Thai and 3-4 x heavy lifting a week.

So I wanna hear if anyone in here are doing a similar sport/martial art that really requires alot of energy? I freakin love Muay Thai, but I freakin hate being skinny! :([/QUOTE]


I also love martial arts, and I also tend to be skinny, so when I was training shanshou for three days per week, I had to quite some strength training days, otherwise I lost weight so quickly (at 190 cm I went down to 78 kg).

My advice, if you are skinny and training 4 days per week on muay thai is to train just one day with weights. Focus just on three major lifts, deadlift, squats, bench press and also pull ups for your back. Keep your workouts short and intense (no more than 30 minutes), perform no more than 5-6 reps per exercise to focus on strength, and specially important take lots of carbs and protein on your post workout meal.

Best wishes!

cool so maybe do it like this:
mon: muay thai 1hr
tues: weightlifting and then 4-5 hours later muay thai 1hr
wed: rest
thus: muay thai 1hr
fri: weightlifting and then 4-5 hours later muay thai 1hr
weekend: rest

the weightlifting program:
- squat 4x6
- deadlift 4x6
- benchpress 4x6
- pullups 3xmax rep
- dips 3xmax rep

sleep: +8 hours every night

nutrition:
- no snacks, junkfood, soda, sugar etc.
- minimum alcohol, like 1 'night out' max for each month (Im still young so I wanna have some fun now and then)
- lots of oatmeal in the morning + milk and fruits.
- pasta, rice, fish, chicken, vegetabels, fruits, nuts through out the day.
- lots of protein right after MT/weightlifting like milk/nuts and meat.

Sounds good?

try wendler's 5/3/1 2 day split. Youre obviously not going to gain as fast as people fully focused on the BB but this is what I started and a lot of the guys at the gym do with their usual MMA workouts. Its doing the job. Also make sure you are eating ALOT if you want to pack on muscle. Between the lifting and muay thai youll be burning a bunch of calories. got to feed those muscles to grow

[QUOTE=narv;853745203]the weightlifting program:
- squat 4x6
- deadlift 4x6
- benchpress 4x6
- pullups 3xmax rep
- dips 3xmax rep[/quote]Not completely awful. It needs some alterations though.

Cut sets down to 3, for all lifts. Make sure you do warmup sets before these work sets, however.

Replace bench press with overhead press, and pullups with chinups. This will give you a more balanced upper body. Add glute-ham raises (3x12, 3xF, or whatever), or another hamstring-focussed exercise, as well. I'm assuming you'll be doing high-bar squats, here.

For the chinups and dips, use a dip belt, or even just hook a dumbbell, and keep adding weight whenever you get to 3 sets of 12 reps.

Twice a week, on "off days". Or, you could split the routine up a bit, to reduce volume. Recommended...


I think you'd be better served finding an existing routine, however. Here's an interesting three-day workout from Pendlay, for MMA, for example (maybe something to work from, anyway):


[b][U]Monday[/U]

Squat, 3 sets of 5

Bench Press, 3 sets of 5

Rows, 3 sets of 5

[U]Wednesday[/U]

Deadlift, 3 sets of 3

Military Press, 3 sets of 5

Chin-ups, 3 sets of 10 (add weight if necessary)
[U]
Friday[/U]

Step-ups, 3 sets of 10

Push Press or Incline Press or Dips, 3 sets of 5

Power Cleans or Power Snatches, 5 sets of 3[/b]


[quote]lots of oatmeal in the morning + milk and fruits.[/quote]Try some protein in your breakfasts. Eggs are great, f'rex.


[quote]pasta, rice, fish, chicken, vegetabels, fruits, nuts through out the day.[/quote]Meat, eggs, dairy if you like/can. And yes, those other things, though rice and pasta can be considered optional.

[QUOTE=MichaelCJ;855939333]Not completely awful. It needs some alterations though.

Cut sets down to 3, for all lifts. Make sure you do warmup sets before these work sets, however.

Replace bench press with overhead press, and pullups with chinups. This will give you a more balanced upper body. Add glute-ham raises (3x12, 3xF, or whatever), or another hamstring-focussed exercise, as well. I'm assuming you'll be doing high-bar squats, here.

For the chinups and dips, use a dip belt, or even just hook a dumbbell, and keep adding weight whenever you get to 3 sets of 12 reps.

Twice a week, on "off days". Or, you could split the routine up a bit, to reduce volume. Recommended...


I think you'd be better served finding an existing routine, however. Here's an interesting three-day workout from Pendlay, for MMA, for example (maybe something to work from, anyway):


[b][U]Monday[/U]

Squat, 3 sets of 5

Bench Press, 3 sets of 5

Rows, 3 sets of 5

[U]Wednesday[/U]

Deadlift, 3 sets of 3

Military Press, 3 sets of 5

Chin-ups, 3 sets of 10 (add weight if necessary)
[U]
Friday[/U]

Step-ups, 3 sets of 10

Push Press or Incline Press or Dips, 3 sets of 5

Power Cleans or Power Snatches, 5 sets of 3[/b]


Try some protein in your breakfasts. Eggs are great, f'rex.


Meat, eggs, dairy if you like/can. And yes, those other things, though rice and pasta can be considered optional.[/QUOTE]

Quite good this one... I would also add some rice and pasta prior and after any workout/muay thai training if he is skinny...

Anyway, you can always adjust your training and nutrition plan, but I would not go for more than 3 sets for each exercise, some times less is more!

Muay Thai 4x/week, lifting 2x/week

well ur gunna get injured eventually when you fight and then deal with concussions.........

I know in listening to Robb Wolf's Paleo Solution podcast that those guys work a lot with footballers and MMA athletes in this exact situation. It will probably be a good idea to do a little periodization. Put 3-4 months in of serious muscle building: deadlifts, squats, press, weighted pull ups/dips 3x a week and only maybe 1-2 days of Muay Thai training focusing more on technique, while eating a ton of calories - 3000-5000 depending on your size. That would slap some good meat on anyones bones, while allowing you to still train Muay Thai and keeping some (not all) cardio/technique. After that I'd switch over to more maintainence on the strength end (1-2 days compound lifts in the 1-3 rep and set range) spending the lions share of your effort on conditioning and technique.

Hope this helps. It won't if you undereat that's for sure.

I train in muay thai 3 times a week and do cardio twice a week. If you put your heart into each training session and give it your all you will see the rewards in your physique. You will not end up with huge muscles but you will definitely have good strength, tone and definition.