7 Muay Thai Shadow Boxing Drills to Add into Your Training

Shadow boxing is a must in muay thai. It is part of every training session and even pre fight routines.

As someone starting out it is easy to feel a bit funny doing shadow boxing as you are not sure of exactly what to do and how to move.

The muay thai shadow boxing drills below will help provide an overall easy to adopt approach to shadow boxing whi1le also incorporating challenging movements.

muay thai shadow boxing drills

They will help both beginners and more experienced nak muay alike.

Use them as part of your training warm up and cool down or perform them standalone in the morning and evening to work on technique, cardio and dropping weight also.

What’s great is no equipment is necessary all but one of these drills. Even then a simple slip line is all that is needed. OR you can use an imaginary slip line too.

You can do these muay thai shadow boxing drills almost anywhere, anytime.

1.Straight Line shadow boxing

First I would like to look at how my teacher taught me to shadow box as well as some other methods that will help you move in a purposeful way when shadow boxing.

This is a very basic way to shadow box but very effective.

You will only move forward or backward within the space you have available.

When you come toward the end of your space you can perform a roundhouse kick and land 180 degrees from your starting position for the kick.

Then work your way the other way and repeat.

This method is very good for beginners to focus on good form and only moving forward and backward with strikes.

Also with this way of shadow boxing you don t have to think too much about when to throw a roundhouse.

Only at the end when you want to turn around 180 degrees will you throw the roundhuouse.

2.On Grass with sneakers/shoes

Jeff Chan from MMA shredded suggested this in his video you can see below.

This adds a further challenge especially on your calves and feet as well as helping with balance and endruance/cardio overall.

Add in some muay thai shadow boxing with shoes on grass to mix up your training and challenge your muay thai training.

3.Include a small hill or incline

Doing muay thai shadow boxing on grass with shoes adds a bit more challenge.

You can further increase the challenge by incorporating a small hill. This was also suggested by Jeff Chan from mmashredded.com. He does this type of shadow boxing in the video above.

The incline will add further challenge to you legs and forward uphill movement.

You can even move backward uphill or sidewards.

Make us of the incline to challenge your footwork and movement in a different way when muay thai shadow boxing.

4.Shoe Shine Drill

Boxing is a big part of muay thai and adding in the shoe shie drill will help with hand speed, muscular endurance.

You dont have to do the shoe shine every round of shadow boxing. 

But add it in to the end (i.e last 30 secs) of different rounds to challenge you further with your muay thai shadow boxing.

5.Slip Line Shadow Boxing

The slip line is a standard in WEstern boxing.

While muay thai does not encourage slipping overall, the best muay thai fighters all used slipping in their game i.e Samart, Somruk and saenchai.

Lerdsila is another active top level muay thai fighter who uses slick head movement in his fights to hit and evade with style and accuracy.

Incorporate strikes, counter punches and elbows into the slip line and see your head movement and counter striking improve over time.

6.Guided shadow boxing

This would involve either an audio instruction or video plus audio for the virtual pads.

This way you can incorporate new drills designed by experts who put together audio instructional for shadow boxing.

Make use of mp3 shadow boxing instructional or follow along with video instructional so that you don’t always get comfortable with performing the same techniques every time you shadow box. 

7.Virtual Pads

Virtual pads, so far I have only seen done by the hugely popular YouTube channel owner JT from Precision Striking.

So again you will not need any equipment and you can get guided virtual pad holding you can incorporate into your shadow boxing.

The virtual pad workout in the video above is 12 Rounds and 48 mins long. Give it a try and see how you like it.

JT has more virtual pad videos on his YouTube channel that you can incorporate into your muay thai shadow boxing drills.

While I am yet to find a ‘virtual’ thai pad holder, I still think it is a useful exercise especially with the sound effects of connecting with the pads as in JT’s video above.

If anyone finds one please let us know in the comment section below!

Helpful Tip for Muay Thai Shadow Boxing

My most important tip for shadow boxing especially when training solo at home is – video yourself.

You have to be your best teacher and instructor when training solo.

Compare yourself with the experts and pros when they shadow box and try to be as smooth as them.

You can monitor your progress best if you video yourself.

Of course the best overall is for someone who is an instructor to watch you live. But video is the next best thing!

Also it is encouraging to see your improvement over time.

Incorporaing these muay thai shadow boxing drills

With normal muay thai training you would probably be doing 3-5 rounds of shadow boxing per session.

You could implement certain aspects straight away such as:

  • Starting you shadow boxing off with the ‘straight line’ method described above
  • Try shadow boxing on grass with sneakers and a small incline a couple times of week before or after your running.
  • Use the shoe shine at the end of ‘boxing’ focused muay thai shadow boxing rounds where you just use your hands. Or really at the end of any round of muay thai shadow boxing.
  • Set up a slip line at home an do your own slip line shadow boxing at home to get extra rounds of work in

There are man ways to switch up your shadow boxing and these drills are just some suggested ways.

Please feel free to comment below if you have any other suggestions for muay thai shadow boxing drills to perform!

If you are interested in more shadow boxing tips then have a read of this post, 8 Tips to get the Most out of your Shadow Boxing.