Some Muay Thai Fight Recovery Tips

[Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu]

I just fought two fights in two nights, then drove 7 hours back down to Pattaya with very little sleep and not really eating properly for the three days I was traveling. The fights make me sore and you I have some dings, but the traveling and eating and sleeping really is what makes me tired.

I don't really take pain-killers. We have Ibuprofin in the house but I'm sore all the time, so I don't take it for soreness as I would be eating them all the time. Instead I rely on this post-fight medicine that Thai fighters swear by, "yaa nam la damphon," which is essentially a laxative but it flushes out your whole system and makes you heal up from bruises and soreness much faster. I took the medicine upon arriving back home last night and a little more this morning when I woke up, just to really flush out my body. The way laxatives work, however, is to pull water from out of your body to your intestine, so it's really important to drink a lot of water when you take this medicine, so you don't get dehydrated. 

My weight dropped down from the travel, fighting and not really eating much (or training), so I'm recovering with some salt (the salmon is quite salty), quality protein and some easily digestible carbs of honeydew melon and a tortilla. 

You can put your body through a lot. Being tired and sore is okay, just make sure that you take care of yourself when you're asking a lot of your body - my trainer at Lanna, Den, used to always say, "eat good, sleep good." That's really the whole of it, other than drinking a lot of water also.