Maldini

Hello, I am an 18 year old uni student who has been training weights in the gym for two years now. Nearly all the training i have done has been focused on big compound exercises such as back squats, deadlifts, pendlay rows, bench press, barbell press and recently power cleans. I also have the intention of learning some olympic lifts in the holidays when i have more time.

Currently, my workout schedule is based on the 5x5 Program by Bill Star, where my focus is to increase the weight on all my lifts on a weekly basis. To me, this is a somewhat intense workout routine although i have more than enough time to recover for it as it is based on a monday/wednesday/friday weekly cycle.

My concerns arise now that i wish to learn a form of martial art. I have no previous experience of any fighting or any martial arts, and my "fitness" is no where near optimal as my training has solely focused on weightlifting.

I have found a few nice schools around my area, and they both hold muay thai and jiu jitsu classes on a daily basis. Due to the timetabling of these classes and the fact that i go to uni 5 days a week, i can only regularly attend two classes of muay thai on tuesday and thursday, and 1 class of jiu jitsu on saturday.

So if i do decide to commit to this, i will be gyming on mondays/wednesdays/fridays, and attending classes on tuesdays/thursdays/saturdays. I would like to know if this is actually a maintainable training schedule as i do not really know how intense these muay thai sessions will be. I know it depends on the actual school and the way they teach, but i would like to know if two sessions a week of muay thai is actually enough for me to learn sufficiently? Or am i expected to make the full 5 classes each week?

Am i trying to do too much? Do i really need to cut back on gyming to be able to take up muay thai or is this actually a viable option to do both?


Thanks for the help.

Halfraq9

If I remember right weight lifting is designed around getting big muscles. Big muscles use ALOT of oxygen. This is a potential problem for you cardio wise, especially with fighting type arts like MMA, jits and Muay Thai.

Cardio becomes much more important than strength, and the workouts (from my experience) are designed around stamina. After re reading your post, I don't think your workouts are incompatible. You will probably end up tweaking some things a little depending on what happens with the Muay Thai and Jits workouts.

Good Luck and have fun.

recon6991

The type of lifting he is talking about is very good for MMA. OP, keep doing the oly lifts, but mma skill and conditioning is more important than your lifting.

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gosuu

First off, there's really nothing you can do that will prepare you for muay thai or BJJ except to practice mauy thai or BJJ. You could be the most well conditioned 'you name it' and after 3, 3 minute rounds on the heavy bag you'll definitely be feeling it. After about 3 minutes of rolling you'll be feeling it as well. This isn't to say being in good shape won't help you because obviously it will. There's just sport specific things that can't be simulated as well, if at all.

In response to if you're trying to do too much at once. That's for you to decide when you start your new plan. A big factor will be how much you spar at this MT place because that's where you're going to get a lot of bruising in your legs, everywhere as well. You also don't want to overtrain but I'm sure you'll be able to tell if things start feeling like too much. You're always going to be having some serious aches though rofl.

Gym's also don't care how often you come, you can come and go as you please, you paid after all. I know of people who go to a practice once a week because that's all they really have time for and you will definitely learn. Ideally, as many sessions as you can attend would be for the better, obviously.