Overtraining - How many times a day should you really be working out?

It's very normal for guys to come to Thailand and do Muay Thai twice a day, with maybe some Strength and Conditioning or Bodyfit in the morning and MMA at night.  Some people even go to the gym and lift weights with the Thai Hulk between workouts and do a 6k run to warm up.

The Thai trainers will tell you that you need to train twice a day six days a week and you'll feel like you're not working hard enough if you don't.  But maybe there isn't a word in Thai for "overtraining."  The average Thai fighter retires when he is 25 years old and starts teaching because their bodies can't handle it anymore.  Some trainers still fight once in a while, but mainly for some quick money.

What is Overtraining and how to do you know if you are:

"Overtraining is a physical, behavioral, and emotional condition that occurs when the volume and intensity of an individual's exercise exceeds their recovery capacity. They cease making progress, and can even begin to lose strength and fitness. Overtraining is a common problem in weight training, but it can also be experienced by runners and other athletes." - Wikipedia.

Loss of Muscle due to long training sessions:

Over training also causes muscle loss.  Ever wonder why most Thai Fighters are super skinny and weigh only 60kg  - it's because their sessions are too long and they train too often.  There's a word for it that I can't remember right now, but it sounds like "emusculated" or something - where your body starts cannibalizing your own muscle, literally eating itself away for energy.

Studies show that you should never train for more than 1 hour.  At 45 minutes your body starts to eat away at it's own muscle, so anything over 90 minutes is terrible for you.  An hour and a half class is okay since you spend half of it warming up, stretching, wrapping your hands but anything more is terrible for your muscles.

Solutions to the problem would be:  Make sure you sip something that includes BCAAs and Glutamine during your workout such as Scivation Xtend.  Drink a Whey Protein shake immediately, as in within 10 minutes of finishing your workout.

100 Pushups After Every Muay Thai Session:

The other problem with traditional muay thai classes is they have you do 10 pushups between every round of bagwork and padwork during the 1 minute you are supposed to be getting water and recovering between rounds.  Then at the end of the each workout every single day, twice a day, they have you do 100-200 pushups.  The benefits of it is to push you harder during your workout, and develop punching power.  However this eats away at your muscle as well since it never has time to grow or recover.

Solution to the 100 Pushups a day dilemma:  Simple, instead of doing normal pushups every day, switch it up.  Your trainer won't mind as long as you are doing something.  You can do situps between rounds, and at the end of the session you can change it up daily.  For me I alternate between explosive pushups one day, upside down shoulder pushups the next, normal pushups another day, chin ups, then pull ups.

I couldn't find a good video on youtube to demonstrate the explosive pushups and upside down pushups so I just made one.

Cortisol and Training Balance:  "For many athletes the delicate balance of training and recovery poses a significant dilemma – to go fast, you have to train hard, but going too hard without adequate recovery will just make you slow. Push too hard and you end up with the undesirable elevation in cortisol and drop in testosterone. Athletes who excel are those who become adept at balancing the three primary components of their program - training, diet, and recovery."


So how many times a day should you train?

Well, if you're only here for 2 weeks then I can understand why you want to squeeze in as much training as possible, and maybe even a private lesson in between classes.  My advise is that if you are going to train more than once a day, do it for technique.  I personally think doing Muay Thai morning and afternoon is counter productive and will damage you in the long term.  If you want to train hard, I'd suggest, Muay Thai in the morning, eat/rest, followed by any of the following: run/cardio, mma/Brazilian jiu-jitsu, weights, or strength and conditioning. Definetely not all of the above.  And rest at least one day a week.  

Unfortunately Thai's don't understand the concept of over training, muscle recovery, or growth, since it's just the way they've always done it.  They will think you are lazy, especially if you are training for a fight.  My suggestion is to find a good balance of being motivated to train hard, rest, and recovery and show them that you are training hard, just smart.

I used google translate to figure out how to write "overtrain, muscle growth, recovery"  in Thai, hopefully it'll help the Thai trainers understand:  ฝึกซ้อมมากไปกล้ามเนื้อการเจริญเติบโตของการกู้คืน

Warm Regards,

Johnny at My Fight Camp