Sanda and Thai Fighters

[Kellen Bassette]

What is your training schedule? Please share! Thanks!

[Pork Chop]

Umm for a fight?
Typically 5 or 6 days a week
Workouts typically involve a couple hours of fight training including sparring and an hour or so of conditioning, possibly 30 min to an hour of pure cardio. Conditioning and fight training are not always on the same day.
Fight training consists of jump rope, shadow boxing, bag work, pad work, and partner work. Sparring tends to vary, some folks do it every day, others just once a week.
Conditioning is usually some sort of circuit work, either consistent with crossfit or some other mix of endurance & strength, maintaining a high heart rate.
Pure cardio tends to be steady state cardio like jogging, swimming, stair master, or elliptical.

[Kellen Bassette]

Thanks Pork Chop, I was kind of hoping people would post how many rounds, of bag work, pad work a day, how many times a week they spar/rounds, miles run, how much weight training, ect..

Just to see what peoples schedule like...

[Pork Chop]

All of that stuff is variable depending on the gym and the fighter.
In Thailand, 5 rounds of 5 minutes pad work is pretty common; as is 45 min jogging, 10 min jump rope, and 3 to 5 rounds 5 min bag work. Work outs tend to be twice a day: a morning & afternoon session, sparring is usually kept light at maybe a few rounds, clinch sparring is much more common.
Sanda tends to do more takedown work in place of pad work, training drills to supplement the throws, and harder sparring.

[Kellen Bassette]

That seems pretty standard...when I trained in Thailand, we also did morning and afternoons/evenings, lots of running, shadow boxing and defense drills in the mornings...in the afternoon, usually 4 or 5 rounds of bag work...that we're supposed to be 5 minutes. We had a make shift outdoor "gym" no ring timer. They just used a watch and it seemed like they ran a lot longer than 5 minute rounds...a few rounds of pad work, sparring, (I also felt this to be on the light side)...clinch work and conditioning exercises. Always started the afternoon workout with massage.

I was hoping we'd hear from more guys...see how the workouts differed camp to camp, fighter to fighter, Sanda to Thai.

Not as much interest as I expected, guess it's off to the Wing Chun forum to argue about snake engine and lineages. :rolleyes:

[Pork Chop]

I was hoping we'd hear from more guys...see how the workouts differed camp to camp, fighter to fighter, Sanda to Thai.

Youtube has training footage for almost any camp or fighter you can think of in the US, Thailand, or even China.
It's hard to make more than just general statements.
I've got experience with a bunch of flavors of muay thai, a bunch of flavors of boxing, a bunch of different mma camps, and a few flavors of sanda/sanshou; the only thing I can say for sure that outside the "standards" it varies from fighter to fighter, week to week.

For example, my friend's got a fight Mar 23rd, mma, and he's got some stuff to work on - so we're going to hit that hard with a lot of pad work. He has his own grappling & conditioning routines. The other guys fighting on the same card are not working on the same things or training in the same way. Other guys in the gym who are training for a muay thai event aren't training the same ways either.

If anything, I would say in the states it's a little more tailored to the individual than most thai camps. People have a limited amount of time to work on stuff & they do what they can to emphasize their strengths and cover any weaknesses.

[Kellen Bassette]

If anything, I would say in the states it's a little more tailored to the individual than most thai camps. People have a limited amount of time to work on stuff & they do what they can to emphasize their strengths and cover any weaknesses.

I hear that...it's hard when you got to fit a training camp in around a full time job...

[Golden Arms]

+1 to what Pork Chop said above.

For reference, I have done about 38 San Shou and Kuo Shu fights now if I recall. In general, if training for a fight, I will touch on each of these regularly, with training starting about 3 months out:


6 x 3 min heavy bag
3 x 3 min shadow boxing or mitts
3 x 3 min (or more) sparring (how hard depends on where in the cycle you are)
Jumping rope
Running 3 or more miles regularly
Sprinting stairs
Explosive plyometrics
Takedowns, and clinch work
Fighter specific focuses


It can be tough to balance getting the development you are looking for with not allowing injuries to stack up too much. Having a good coach is a huge help.

[Kellen Bassette]

Thanks Golden Arms...was this 4,5,6 days a week, generally?

[SevenStar]

I hear that...it's hard when you got to fit a training camp in around a full time job...

That is why you start early. a customized program starting 12 Weeks out. During these Weeks, you are focusing on skill training, increasing attributes, etc.

[Golden Arms]

Thanks Golden Arms...was this 4,5,6 days a week, generally?

I generally start 3 days a week, and as I get closer I ramp up to 5 or 6 days a week. Its important to leave it all behind and have an off season after 3-9 months of training this way though or you can end up with a wrecked body.

[pazman]

I trained with the Wuhan sports university's "professional team" for three years. Since I had a job, my schedule was much lighter than my training partners. Training was twice a day, six days a week. Each of those days at a morning session and an alternating afternoon/evening session. The days with no afternoon session we were expected to have an extended afternoon nap. Within a week, there were two sessions devoted to weight training, one session having us do sprints, and two sessions involving some kind of game. My training partners preferred soccer but we also played a kind of indoor rugby, and a team sumo game which split the class into two teams and we had to push the other team members off the lei tai. That was my favorite, but it was also too dangerous to do all of the time. The rest of the sessions focused on pad drills, clinch drills, free wrestling, sparring, etc. Usually, we had mock competitions on Saturday morning.