Hi! Currently I have stopped my Muay Thai/ Kick Boxing training for fear that it will mess up my goal to gain more muscle mass. My Muay Thai training is two and a half hours long. 30 minutes is spent on Cardio. 30 minutes is spent on a bodyweight circuit of skipping rope, push ups, crunches e.t.c
The remainder of the time is spent on shadow boxing,sparring,pad work. I do the above two times a week. Is all that time spent on cardio and muscular endurance going to lead me into a catabolic state and cause me to lose muscle? Or will it make gaing muscle mass more difficult?If I want to gain mass as well as continue my muay Thai training what must I do?
Try to take kassein and some slow carbohydrates one hour before training, just before and during practise you could sip on a very dilluted (sp?) wheyprotein or some weightgainer like surge. After training it´s time for some gainer or surge again.
One of my friends only take a gainer after kickboxing and his biggest problem is that he allways have to reduce musclemass during kickboxingseason for weightclass reasons.
Just be sure you are getting the extra calories in to fule your artial arts workouts, maybe add some Flax Seed Oil too…
KickBoxer, do you have to do cardio & circuit
in your KickBox training? It seems to me that you might be able to include the ‘physical’ part of the training well in your own workout routines and you would only need the sport specific training, which would cut down the time to about 1 1/2 hour. You might want to ask there…
Anyhow, if you are really ambitious/competitive you will have to set priorities. In general it takes time to gain muscle mass and still keep the endurance for long fights (Is it five rounds in Muay Thai? Whatever…).
I have been lifting weights and doing various martial arts/boxing for over 30 years. Your schedule shouldn’t be a problem as long as you eat enough. Your only doing your Thai Boxing a couple times a week, it gets trickier when you start training more than 5 times a week. As it is, lift weights on your “off” days (4 days a week of lifting with one day completely off everything should work just fine). Again, just remember to eat more. Are you fighting professionally? Weight classes make it trickier too (because then almost all your gains have to be lean muscle). Good luck.