By Don Heatrick

Let's face it, Thai boxers don't find running the most exciting activity. But… endurance is the foundation of a fighter's performance—your strength, speed and skill will abandon you as you tire.

Applied correctly, regular running drastically improves your fighting ability. This two-part article explores how to get the best results from your running, and make it palatable to us 'fighting types'.

Specific fitness

Your training needs to be sport specific to be of any benefit. For example, 100m sprint athletes can't run marathons effectively, and marathon runners can't run 100m sprints efficiently. The two athletes are conditioned to use entirely different energy systems. Sprinters use the anaerobic system (without oxygen) for powerful bursts of energy lasting up to 10–seconds, and marathon runners use primarily the aerobic system (with oxygen), maintaining a punishing rate for two to three hours.

As a nak muay, you predominately use anaerobic energy. It's estimated that you'll use 70-80% anaerobic and 20-30% aerobic energy during a bout. The anaerobic work entails explosive kicking and punching at high intensity for short periods of time. The aerobic portion of a bout takes place when you are circling the ring (catching breath) or resting in between rounds.

Your running training should take this into consideration. Training like a marathon runner may improve your aerobic capacity—your ability to recover between rounds, but will not improve your ability to fight (anaerobically) the rest of the time.

Why run?

You may be thinking, "We're Thai boxers, why not get all the conditioning we need from sparring and padwork? Surely you can't get more sport specific than that?"
Padwork and sparring will place strong demands on your anaerobic system, but won't stimulate your aerobic system enough to encourage significant improvement. Meaning that your recovery rate will be lousy!

Generally, Thai boxers use regular running to achieve three main goals:

• To develop an efficient cardiovascular system, improving aerobic fitness (faster recovery)
• To control competitive body weight
• To warm up before training!

In addition to these three elements, Thai boxers will benefit in other ways if the running is conducted correctly. Using functional running methods you can improve your anaerobic and aerobic performance, strengthen and condition you legs, improve your psychological determination and also burn fat.

These methods will be elaborated on in the second part of this article, but first let's establish the different types of running at our disposal:

• Distance running
• Interval running
• Sprint running

Each form of running has a different effect on your body and its subsequent development.

Running to burn fat

Distance running involves running at a steady pace continuously for at least 30 minutes. The running pace used will determine the effect on your body. A faster pace will develop your cardiovascular system, enhancing you aerobic capacity. A slower pace provides a fighter with the opportunity to burn fat reserves. As far as weight control goes, this is the method to use. Exercising at a heart rate of 60 – 70% of maximum for 30 minutes or more will encourage your body to burn fat reserves for fuel.

Running harder than this will better develop your cardiovascular system but will also encourage use of the carbohydrates you've eaten for fuel rather than your stored fat. Fat needs oxygen to allow it to be processed into a usable energy source. So, if you're out of breath then you aren't burning fat!

Depending on your current fitness levels, you should be aiming to cover between 3 to 6 miles minimum when using this form of running. My tip would be that if you want to burn fat, then run for an hour at a slow, steady pace that doesn't get you significantly out of breath. You should be working hard enough to break a sweat, but steady enough to still be able to chat!

Running for fight endurance

>Wind sprints for fight endurance

Interval running involves running hard for a period followed by a rest interval, and repeating this cycle a number of times. These work and rest intervals can be based on either a time period or a specific distance. Interval running allows a fighter to develop both aerobic and anaerobic capacities, duplicating the demands in the ring. By running hard for a two or three minute duration and then slowly jogging or walking for another 30 to 60 seconds to get your breath back, you'll develop the specific kind of fitness required to fight. Quite simply, interval running will make you a fitter fighter.

Try running as hard as you can for 3-minutes, then jog very slowly or walk for 1-minute while breathing deeply to maximise recovery. Then explode into the next 3-minute round of hard running. Repeat this for as many rounds as it takes you to complete 3 to 4 miles! This kind of training is very intense and should only be conducted two to three times a week with a days rest between each interval running session.

Wind sprints are a specific form of interval running. They use a work and rest ratio, except the work period involves flat out sprinting! Again, this type of training will directly contribute to better fight performance. Try slowly jogging for one-minute and then sprinting for the next 15-seconds. Repeat this cycle continuously for as many rounds as you can manage.

Alternatively, a 100-meter distance based method can be used. Sprint 100-meters, then jog back 100-meters to the start. Immediately repeat this sprint-jog sequence a total of three times, then take one-minute rest. That's one round of wind sprints! After the rest interval start the sprint-jog sequence again. You should complete at least three rounds of wind sprints in one sitting.

Last year at the WMF Amateur Muay Thai World Championships, the England squad coaches, Kru Yai Vinnie Deckon and Kru Gary Wright, had the fighters perform 100-meter wind sprints in hot and humid Bangkok. This was the first training session after the long flight to Thailand, and was a real shock to the system. I found it gave me a healthy dose of reality (a test of mental strength) and was exactly what I needed before fighting in the championships.

So get running…

If you use all three of these running methods in your training regime the benefits will multiply. For example:

• Running at a slow pace (without getting too out of breath) will help you cut some fat, but will not develop your aerobic capacity
• By pushing your running pace in the interval running sessions your aerobic capacity is forced to increase
• This in turn will mean that you can run faster without getting out of breath – so you'll burn more fat calories per minute when you return to slow paced distance running
• Burning extra fat will also make you lighter, increasing your power to weight ratio and making you more efficient during your interval or sprint training!

So you can see how these methods are complementary, and using all will improve your physical fight conditioning drastically. Having outlined running methods and the benefits they provide a Thai boxer, the second part of this article will concentrate on the running itself. See you next issue…