How to Train for a Muaythai Fight in Thailand

How to Train for a Muaythai Fight in Thailand

Training muaythai in Thailand is now accessible to pretty much everyone in some shape or form.

And although people of all ages and backgrounds will find certain gyms that will train them these days, the key thing to bear in mind with regard to muaythai training in Thailand is the different levels – this exhilarating sport can indeed be for everyone, but certainly not on the same level.

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There’s no doubt that doing some muaythai training while on holiday is a great way to maintain or increase fitness levels, and the majority of people who come here in good shape should be able to manage a few sessions in a Thai boxing gym without too much hardship — the main issue is always going to be acclimatising to the type of exertion found in this sport in such heat as is prevalent in the tropical SE Asian climate.

However, if you are a bit more serious about this graceful but highly-effective stand-up striking art – or perhaps you have some training experience and you want to take your current degree of skill to a different level by actually competing in Thailand — then the training required is hardly the same as if you just intended to stay in shape while on holiday.

Planning Your Approach

There is some degree of planning involved in training for a fight, and a few questions to ask yourself beforehand such as how fit you currently are and how much experience you have, how much time you want to put in, what your budget is for training, accommodation, and maybe equipment – along with where you want to stay exactly in Thailand.

Depending on your background in the sport and current goals, you’ll need to consider that even a muaythai ‘training holiday’ is not exactly on the same level of grit as just muaythai training –- without the holiday bit.

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So one thing you could do is go off and stay in a beautiful island resort for a few weeks, train at the local gym every day, and ask them to arrange a fight for you – which they more than likely will do.

On that note — certainly there are some gyms that don’t care too much about your wellbeing and will just train you up and put you a fight in order to make money – including on the bets –- so you should use your judgement wisely when deciding on where to train, although the majority of ‘serious’ gyms value their reputation too much to consider this.

In places like Phuket, Koh Samui, and other island training camps, the gym owners are accustomed to setting up fights for participants with little or no experience, sometimes with as little as just a few weeks training.

This is really ‘holiday fighting’, and although it can be a great experience for many people, it is a completely different matter to what is likely to be found on the actual fight scene in Bangkok.  

Setting Realistic Goals

When deciding to train in muaythai in Thailand proper, though – at least seriously – then it’s time to start preparing for some uncomfortable, if not downright gruelling, exhausting, and possibly painful physical exertion that will be up quite a few notches from anything previously encountered.

Deciding to commit to a fight takes a lot of time and effort – you’ll need to train at least 6 days a week, training up to four or five hours a day.

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Muaythai fighting is not for the feint-hearted, and once making the commitment to engage in competition you will be pushed hard in the gym by the trainers who don’t necessarily take too kindly to the weak-willed (unless you are in a ‘fair-game-tourist-gym’ where the game is to smile and take the money with no real interest or integrity as far as you are concerned).

Even though there are small stadiums all over the country for muaythai events to be held, the real hardcore of the muaythai scene consider Bangkok as the only place to fight (or even see a real fight), with the two stadiums in the nation’s capital city, Ratchadamnoen and Lumpinee, being the only actual legitimate arenas (built on legacy) in the country.

This also means, for the most part, that Bangkok gyms where fighters train are a completely different animal to anything likely found anywhere near a beach resort, with many people considering them to be somewhat less friendly.

Let’s first just try and explain why that might be exactly — by first looking at some of the different types of gyms in Thailand. In simple terms, there are two main types of camps, with various sub-divisions — the authentic/local community-type that rarely encounters a foreign face (or has much interest in doing, unless grudgingly) or the ones geared more towards training foreigners.

Tourist Gyms

The most common muaythai camps in Thailand that people of various levels from abroad visit are the ‘tourist gyms’. Yes, you can train for a muaythai fight in many of these places, but the thing to understand is that the main portion of their revenue comes from tourists paying for training and not the income from their own local fighters.

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Traditional, authentic muaythai gyms are all about the incoming revenue from the purses earned by their own, live-in stable of fighters, whereas the tourist gyms make their income from charging foreigners training fees and perhaps arranging a ‘fight’ for them, although for the most part none of this is taken all too seriously by the Thais themselves as far as actual muaythai goes.

As with all gyms in Thailand, tourist gyms usually have Thai fighters who live and train at the gym full time, but unlike the Bangkok gyms with all the right connections and the best fighters, as well as the right backing, they are pretty much unable to survive without the income of visiting foreigners out on a life mission.

Some of these tourist gyms are actually foreign-owned (or at least partly) and hence are likely to sponsor (higher-level) foreign fighters. This in turn will help in attracting other fighters and generally more visitors to the gym, which is something rarely encountered with Thai gym owners who largely tend to stay away from foreign fighters and sponsorships.

Powerhouse Gyms

In the world of real muaythai, big money speaks volumes. The new breeds of modern gyms have huge financial backing and hence are able to purchase the top young prospects in Thailand and offer the best facilities.

And yes they do actually ‘own’ the fighters to some extent – hence the Thai term for gym ‘Kai Muay’ – literally translated as ‘sell boxer’. And this is Thai culture in terms of muaythai – not exactly representative of the exotic, mystical vision that many people mistakenly come here expecting.

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So you’ll find plenty of current muaythai superstars in powerhouse gyms like Petchyindee, PK Saenchai and Sor Sommai who basically buy a lot of young regional champions from other areas with seeming prospects, who then go on to compete at the Lumpinee, Rajadamern, or Channel 7 stadiums.

Powerhouse gyms are a relatively recent phenomenon in the world of muaythai, and are a far cry from the spit-and-sawdust backstreet gyms where fighters grind away in somewhat more gruelling conditions. These newer places also likely have connections to other big event promotions like ONE Championship, and often have multiple champions from different events within their stable of fighters.

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If you go to train at one of these gyms you won’t get too much attention or be taken that seriously unless you are already reasonably well-known and considered as being of a decent level.

Of course the main focus in these places is on the development of their own fighters, so you certainly won’t get too much by way of any special treatment here like you would do on an island, where even as a ‘nobody’ you are nevertheless the bread-and-butter.

You’ve also got the superstar gyms like Banchamek and Yokkao but again these are just places for name fighters to showcase themselves and promote the brand which will also offer its own line of training equipment.

You might get a few decent photo opportunities but again in terms of being taken seriously of receiving anything even looking like real training you would have to a name fighter on one of the promotions.

Authentic Bangkok Gyms

Grass-roots Bangkok gyms are gritty affairs that usually have a Lumpinee or Rajadamnern champion or two within their midst – either that or a whole bunch of aspiring ones who are putting in the work.

With a stable of young Thai fighters anywhere between 5 and 20, depending on the size of the gym, some of these gyms have developed something of a reputation for accepting and training anything from one to a handful of foreigners at any one time.

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Although this is still not the case for every random muaythai gym in Bangkok, again it is another stream of income for them to train passing foreigners who will help them with exposure via social media and such like, which helps them to top up any income from the purses of their fighters.

While there are a few tried & tested gyms of this type that have maintained their integrity while still accommodating foreigners to train and possibly fight, occasional others have gone a bit downhill in authentic terms as they have become  more popular with tourists and visiting foreigners.

Some of the popular ones for foreigners to stop-off at include Sasiprapa’s, Kaewsamrit’s, F.A. Group, 13 Coins, and Eminent Air, to name but a few.

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So the bottom line is that it pays to do your homework first and decide which variety of gym will likely most suit you if you want to train for a muaythai fight in Thailand.

The Training

The lifestyle of a Thai boxer is all about daily work and then repetition, which requires some serious motivation and dedication.

The training is broken up into 2 daily sessions which can add up to between 4 and 6 hours in total, and this is done 6 days a week from Monday to Saturday with a rest on Sunday. You are expected, as a fighter, to run somewhere between 6 and 10 km before each session, depending on the gym and the area. This means early morning wake-ups at around 6.00 am.

Outside of training there’s usually not too much else aside from resting, sleeping or eating, and then repeating, and if you do fancy going off on a wander to escape some of the pressure you will soon realise how important it is to stay focused on the training. It sometimes seems harder mentally than physically, but without the correct rest it will soon get even harder physically.

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For the majority of Westerners, even those who head out to Thailand in what they believe to be good shape, it is fair to say that the first few weeks is a struggle. No matter how fit or strong you believe yourself to be, the sudden switch-up in training intensity, along with the heat, can be a shock to both body and mind.

Anyone training for anything close to what might be considered a high-level fight in Thailand should be thinking in terms of at least a month or two of preparation. Three would be ideal.

The endless repetition and work is what makes Thai fighters so strong in both body and will, and of course for many of them it is a case of necessity, and has been their normal life since the age of seven or eight.

An Actual Training Session

There is some slight variation in terms of rounds and conditioning between morning and evening sessions, and the exact routines will vary in some way from gym to gym, but generally training sessions in a muaythai gym in Thailand will likely look something not far off from this:

5-15km run

Skipping

Shadow boxing

3-5 rounds heavy bag

3-5 rounds pad work

15-30 mins clinching

Sparring

Conditioning

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So – if you’ve read all of that and still think that you want to train for a muaythai fight in Thailand, then go for it! All experience is good experience. The most important thing is to make sure that you have done the required planning and considered your goals in realistic terms.

If you want to look at some gyms in Thailand then consider checking out some of our previous posts about tourist gyms in Thailand and fighter gyms in Thailand.