Muay thai is an incredible martial art to learn and train and the benefits of muay thai are numerous.
In this article we look at 6 of the top benefits of muay thai that anyone can experience.
Whether you join a muay thai gym or learn and train solo at home, you also can reap these benefits from training muay thai.
1. Muay Thai can be Trained Solo at Home
While your chances of becoming a champion or of even competing at a high level are not great if you purely study muay thai alone.
You can learn a lot and make great progress through practicing regularly alone.
This is unlike the other marital arts such as grappling arts, including BJJ and Judo or wrestling where a partner is essential in almost all facets of training.
With the striking arts such as muay thai, a major benefit is that a practitioner is able to practice regularly along with a heavy bag and effective shadow boxing.
There are also a few online programs where you can take your training to the next level all in your own time and the comfort and safety or your own home.
Can you became a high level competitor or champion without joining a gym and having face to face instruction and regular sparring partners?
This is very unlikely.
However as pointed out, muay thai has the major benefit in that a beginner can learn a lot and make significant progress through learning and practicing at home with a minimum amount of equipment.
Experienced muay thai students also can further their progress and improve even faster with solo training outside the gym or when the gym is empty.
2. Muay Thai Burns a Ton of Calories
An 2017 article by UK newspaper, The Independent, found that:
out of 36 different physical activities and exercises, martial arts such as muay thai burned around 752 calories/hour for an average women of 168.5 pounds and 937 calories/hour for an average man of 200 pounds.
The Independent published these findings based on research done by Mayo Clinic, drawing on research published by the National Institutes of Health which ranked 36 popular forms of exercise based on their caloric impacts.
Martial arts like muay thai were ranked third equal in calories burned per hour behind ‘Jumping Rope’ and ‘Running’.
Jumping rope and running were ranked equal #1 at 861 calories/hour and 1074 calories/hour for an average female and male respectively.
And BOTH jumping rope and running are essential parts of muay thai training especially in Thai gyms with pro fighters.
This clearly points to the effectiveness of muay thai training in burning calories to help you lose or maintain your weight.
3. Stress Relief
Really there is something to be said about releasing tension and relieving stress through physical training.
In comparison to other physical activities, however, muay thai has the added benefit of blowing off steam through striking an inanimate object such as a heavy bag or the thai pads.
This does wonders for stress relief and blowing off some steam.
To be honest some of the most relaxed and stress free people I have ever met are Thai boxers who know when to flip the switch and train or fight hard.
By releasing that tension and stress through muay thai training, this can makes you more stress free and relaxed in your everyday life.
4. Muay Thai is Great for Self Defense
Learning any martial art can be particularly useful in terms of self defense and handling yourself in a physical altercation.
Let’s not forget that muay thai is a fighting art and was first developed several hundred years ago as a form of close combat.
Thai boxing was the unarmed part of combat skills Thai soldiers trained in the old Siam Kingdom.
Krabi Krabong is the training weapons techniques that were employed by the original armies of Thailand to protect against foreign invaders.
It was in the 1930s that muay thai became officially set up with rules and regulations and weight classes to make it a safer ring sport.
While most aspects of muay thai practiced and taught today focus on the ring fighting aspect, make no mistake that muay thai is a devastating martial art and form of self defense with a deep and long history.
Muay thai’s effectiveness as a self defense system has been documented in historical texts and is still widely practiced by the Thailand military to this day due to its effectiveness as a self defense and close combat martial art.
If you are more interested in the original style of from which contemporary muay thai is based then google ‘muay boran’ which is the original boxing style from Thailand. There are a few online resources you can use for your own training.
5. Self expression
As a creative outlet, once you master the basics, muay thai is great for expressing creativity through movement.
Through your heavy bag training, shadow boxing and fighting style – a person is able to express themselves through muay thai.
As said by Bruce Lee – “martial arts means honestly expressing yourself”.
Within muay thai itself there are different styles of fighting that also reflect the attributes of the fighter who express themselves through their muay thai.
6. Community and friendships
As stated some of the most relaxed and stress free people I have met in life have been Thai boxers.
The muay thai community online and in person are generally very welcoming to newbies and helpful to those wishing to learn the art of 8 limbs.
Becoming involved in muay thai, whether you want to learn at home or join a gym and train, will provide great opportunities to meet and interact with a really cool bunch of people that are most welcoming to newcomers.
As with anything there are also those gyms that are not so focused on newcomers and who only train serious fighters.
But these days you can research gyms and teachers online before signing up and read what others opinions are on those gyms and whether they are a good fit for your goals.
Online and in person there are always newer and more experienced people who are willing to share and help others in their training and practice through sharing of experiences and tips.
Nak Muay Nation is one such community that is accessible online and is beginner all the way up to expert level friendly with a lot of helpful people willing to share with others.
Top 6 Benefits of Muay Thai : Wrap Up
To sum up, there are many benefits of muay thai.
I have just listed my top 6 muay thai benefits here in my personal opinion.
Whether it be for weight loss, stress relief or self defense and boosting your confidence, training muay thai can be a great benefit to you and is one martial art you can get started with learning from home asap.
