Hi
I've been doing muay thai for about 3 years now and was in the same position as you when I started - curious about how best to train outside of muay thai to make what I do in the classes more effective. Through experience I found that its best to get a good mix of steady-state cardio, interval training, and resistance training. But the trouble with this approach is that if you try to fit these things into your weekly schedule in addition to two full kickboxing sessions a week it leaves very little time for rest and recovery. In the end I found it best to fit my training around the kickboxing (tues,wed and sat) because depending on the session/mood of the instructor you could leave some weeks with ruined legs, or a ruined chest, or both. You get the idea. Consequently after a 'ruined legs' day I would never attempt a 5 mile run or a HIIT session. Conversely if we'd been doing pressup/burpee etc. drills to failure I wouldnt rock up to the gym the next day and attempt a chest/triceps workout. It may take a while to adjust to, but you have to listen to your body and try and adapt your gym training to compliment the kickboxing. An example of a typical week might look like this:
Mon - Kickboxing
Tues - Resistance Training: Back/Biceps
Wed - Kickboxing
Thurs - Rest
Fri - Steady-state cardio OR HIIT session
Sat - Resistance Training: Chest/Triceps
Sun - Rest
Slotting in some steady-state cardio (like a 5 mile run) is important for overall CV fitness. Similarly HIIT training is great because it more closely matches the nature of ring competition which tends to be small-medium bursts if high intensity effort followed by brief pauses/intervals between rounds. Both are important. I dont know what your kickboxing sessions are like, but we did so many bodyweight squats/jump squats etc. I found I never needed to do any leg work outside of training, especially if you're throwing CV into the mix on non-kickboxing days.
The other thing to consider is that both my instructors were hard as nails, and yet neither ever really bothered with resistance training. All-out kickboxing burns energy like hellfire, so you need to eat bucketloads if you want to train AND put on muscle mass. Therefore the alternative is that you scrap the resistance body split, and set aside one day to do an upper-body workout. Not only will this give you more rest between kickboxing and weights sessions, it also gives you another day to focus on HIIT training or similar.
Mon - Kickboxing
Tues - Rest OR CV
Wed - Kickboxing
Thurs - Rest OR CV
Fri - Steady-state cardio OR HIIT session
Sat - Upper Body resistance Workout
Sun - Rest
This also gives you the flexibility to take more or less days off as you require, because some days you will feel like you need to rest/eat properly and your body will let you know about it. I'll say it again - listen to your body. I have made the error before of smashing a HIIT session the day before muay thai, and then totally failing at the squat drills, thus earning me the evil eye from the instructor. Not a great feeling.
I've already alluded to this, but the over-riding factor here,
the one of paramount importance, is diet. You can't do this kind of thing and not feed you're body properly, because it will grind to a halt (speaking frome experience). Ideally you should be taking in a high-quality protein source after every kickboxing session, and certainly the weights session(s). I found the classic '2g protein per kg bodyweight per day' worked well for me. And just as important, plenty of complex carbs to keep your muscles fuelled during the day and at night - chicken breast and brown rice was a winner after muay thai.
You say you've been trying to gain muscle mass, but dont worry if you can only fit in one or maybe two weights sessions a week. If you keep yourself rested for the kickboxing classes and give them everything, AND keep your diet top notch, you will notice big changes in the way you look. And
best of all the muscle you gain will be
functional muscle that will improve your martial arts performance. I was a pretty big guy when I started muay thai, but a lot of what I had was unconditioned and made it harder for me. If you decide that kickboxing is what you want to do, and that you want to be the best you can be at it, then let the kickboxing guide the rest of your training, not the other way round - a big mistake of mine from the beginning.
I hope some of this has made sense. I realise its a bit of a ramble, but in summary:
- 1. Good CV fitness gets you a lot further than having a back like a barn door but not being able to survive a few 3 minute rounds without keeling over
- 2. Let the kickboxing training guide the way you plan the rest of the week's gym training - dont over-train if your body is suggesting it might like its legs to have a rest - there are plenty of other useful things you can do with your upper body, and vice versa.
- 3. 1 and 2 fall apart without proper diet. Lots of protein, lots of complex carbs. You have to giv ethe furnace enough fuel or it wont burn anywhere near as fiercely as it is capable of and you wont make the massive gains in strength and performance that you otherwise could.
Good luck with the training.
