How To Make My Legs Stronger For Muay Thai?

[perton]

Hello everyone, I just started Muay Thai 3 months ago and I have a question:
What would you recommend I do to make my legs stronger? Is running and jumping enough?

[LengLeng]

On 8/3/2023 at 3:38 PM, perton said:

Hello everyone, I just started Muay Thai 3 months ago and I have a question:
What would you recommend I do to make my legs stronger? Is running and jumping enough?

Depends on where you start, you don't want to get injured by adding too much, too soon.

I switch between training/competing muay thai and lethwei. In lethwei they have some very intense leg training that helped me getting stronger legs (especially calves). At my current gym morning training starts with:

40min moderate pace jogging up and down a hill.

Followed by either sprints (distance and repetition vary) or 3 rounds of frog jumps (bunny hops up the hill abt 100 rep each round) and a final round of uphill duck walks. Frog jumps can also be all kinds of directions (backwards, to the side etc). 

It always varies, but additional movements are added such as 3 rounds of 30 sec lunge jumping or bunny hop on top and in between and on top a tyre. 10 pike jumps are usually added too. Then kicks and knees in the air 3x30 sec. Or carrying or flipping a tyre up and down the hill. 

Usually it's about 1 hour of this stuff before we move into the gym doing bag work, pads and shadow. 

Afternoon usually begins with 4x5 min of tyre jumping (with and without light dumbells) each 30sec you go fast or pike jump on the tyre. Then there's usually some kind of plyometric leg movement added. 

Important to mention: there is a lot of focus on stretching and after the morning run each fighter stretches their legs and there's also a lot of assisted stretching. 

If i were you, I'd start with running and skipping then add some additional movements one by one if you feel it's needed. Tyre jumping is excellent for leg strength. But hard on your achilles tendons. 

[Tom Riddle]

One of the best exercises for strengthening the lower body for Muay Thai and core is the squat. But a basic squat isn't enough; you also need to try various squat variations, like jump squats. You can train using a weighted vest or a set of dumbbells to step up the intensity.