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Before Muay Thai, I was playing soccer and had to stop due to a knee injury (torn meniscus). I was looking for a sport to do for the fitness side without any risk of further knee injuries, but somehow ended up doing Muay Thai. I fell in love with this sport immediately and nothing was going to stop me not even my knee. It's been two years and probably twice a year I get bad knee pains mostly from running :( it gets so frustrating, it stops me from kicking and especially running sometimes for a week or possibly a month. At the moment I am contemplating whether I should have surgery on my knee before I leave for Thailand (hopefully around August). I don't want to go to a gym and say I cant run because I'm worried they will think I'm using excuses. I just choose to skip for longer rounds as it gives me a lower risk of an injury. I'm worried to have surgery but then again it could end up well? Sometimes I believe it can be healed with rehabilitation and strength training and just being cautious, but then again I don't want to go to Thailand and have anything stop me from my goals...

I'm posting this article by Aaron Jahn here because it is a great breakdown of the science behind the Thai (and western boxing) focus on running. There are arguments out there against the importance and efficacy of running for fighting, but the Thais believe in it whole-heartedly, and I've embraced it despite a really heavy work load. It just makes you better. Better both physically and psychologically. I've seen the arguments for HIIT and sprints replacing longer runs for equal cardio benefit, but I've always believed that running was at the crossroads of physical and mental in a way that short "hacks" aren't. I don't always share Aaron John's stuff because he puts some pretty sexist, and to my ear anti-female content, but this article is definitely worth reading: Don't Run, Don't Fight - The Science Behind the Thai Obsession with Running Some parts that I liked include: The other benefit of having a lower resting heart rate is that it will take you longer to reach your anaerobic threshold – the point you switch from producing the majority of your energy aerobically to anaerobically. As Mike Robertson puts it, athletes need to increase the gap between their resting heart rate and anaerobic threshold – the aerobic window. The aerobic window is worked out like this; Anaerobic threshold – resting heart rate = aerobic window For example, if Thai boxer “A” has a resting heart rate of 70bpm and his anaerobic threshold is 150bpm, then his aerobic window is 80bpm. Thai boxer “B” has a resting heart rate of 55bpm and his anaerobic threshold is 180bpm, giving him an aerobic window of 125bpm. Clearly, Thai boxer “B” has the largest window in which to primarily utilise aerobic energy and won’t tax the fatiguing anaerobic systems as quickly as Thai boxer “A”. The cardiac output method is very efficient in reducing our resting and working heart rate and improving one side of the aerobic window spectrum. With regards to raising the anaerobic threshold, there are more specific methods we can use, such as threshold training." And I’ve also learnt that shunning a particular training method which has been implemented by hundreds of thousands of fighters that has served them extremely well over decades of practice because of a few misinterpreted studies is arrogant. Not only is it arrogant, but it is detrimental to the growth of the sport, not to mention the potential counter-productivity its affects will have on fighters. Obviously there are considerable roadblocks to running for many people: shin splints, bad knees, heel spurs, etc. These very common running injuries are largely absent from any of the Thai fighters I've known and/or trained with. A number of these typical injuries are due to a "too much, too soon" approach when westerners touch down in Thailand. Build up gradually - I recommend people get their mileage up before getting to Thailand for their trips. In the article the author suggests there are other cardio options for building up aerobic capacity, but doesn't explicitly give any examples or suggestions. For those who cannot run, Joel Jamieson, who Aaron Jahn sites does suggest a regime of non-running exercises that may give you what running does. Check those out. In that article, Running 2.0, there are some good summations on the weakness of an interval-only approach: Another of the arguments often used to support the exclusive use of interval methods instead of steady-state training is that combat sports are explosive and therefore anaerobic in nature. The biggest problem with this argument is simply that it’s not true. On the contrary, combat sorts require high levels of both aerobic and anaerobic fitness, but the overall majority, i.e. greater than 50% of the energy necessary to fight, comes from the aerobic energy system. How do we know this is the case? Well, for one thing, performance in sports that really are highly anaerobic, sports like like weightlifting, Olympic lifting, 100m sprinting, field events, etc. cannot be repeated without very long rest periods. Try asking a sprinter to run 100m at full speed and then run another one 20 seconds later and see what happens – I guarantee he or she will look at you like you’re crazy! In combat sports, the skills are certainly explosive, but they’re also highly repetitive and sub- maximal. You aren’t throwing every single punch or kick as hard as you possibly could. You aren’t putting every ounce of strength and power into every single movement because everyone knows that if you did that, you’d quickly gas out. The bottom line is that all combat sports require a balance of both aerobic and anaerobic energy development. Writing off methods like roadwork that have been proven for years to effectively increase aerobic fitness simply because they may appear slower than the skills of the sport is like saying there is no reason to do anything but spar because that’s the closet speed to an actual fight. A lot of proponents for the “nothing but intervals” approach also argue that even if roadwork is effective, it simply takes too much time and you can get the same results with less time using higher intensity training. The truth is that roadwork does take more time than doing an interval workout, there is no doubt, but this also is part of why it’s able to deliver more long-term results. As discussed previously, higher intensity methods often lead to greater progress in the short run, but this comes at the expense of plateaus and stagnation. Lower intensity methods may not work as fast, but they produce much more long-term consistent increases in aerobic fitness and when it comes right down to it, improving conditioning and performance requires time and hard work. As much as it might sound good to say you can achieve better results in 4 minutes than you can in 40 minutes, the real world has proven this idea to be nothing more than wishful thinking.

It's pretty well known that all top nak muays run. But there are different ways of running, and they bring different benefits. Sprinting in short intervals seems to be more effective when it comes to building cardio than running longer distances at a lower pace. The more classic medium distance running builds endurance in the leg in a way that short intervals doesn't though. What way do you find most benefitial for muay thai practitioners, and why?

I used to box in western style and recently picked up Muay Thai and am now in Bangkok training. As an active boxer I ran religiously, but it's been awhile. One thing that I noticed whenever I come back to running after some time off, is the massive calf pain that lasts sometimes for almost 10 days. I wonder if anyone else has experienced this, and others can pitch in on ways to avoid or at least minimize this inconvenience. I'm diligent in easing into it, but still have not been able to avoid it.