At the heart of Muay Thai training is a flawless system called Pad Work that can truly elevate one’s skills. Make no mistake – all great fighters in this sport are regularly conditioned by pad work to maintain their fighting prowess. It helps improve stamina, strength, agility, reflexes, memory, and technique. Moreover, it helps systematically improve the fighting rhythm. It can be quite rigorous and in certain cases even more intense than an actual fight.  

There are broadly two different methods to go about it – predetermined techniques and freestyle techniques. Predetermined involves a set of agreed techniques and movements between the pad-holder and the striker. The pad-holder thus remains in control throughout the practice. Freestyle is a bit more advanced wherein the pad-holder must anticipate whatever technique the striker chooses to employ at the moment, both working in an equal time response. 

Delving deeper into the predetermined method, there are various pre-set combinations of techniques to follow. 

Technique 1

The first technique in this method uses one straight jab followed by one thrust kick/low kick/switch lead leg angle kick. Basically, the striker needs to complete one punch and one kick, thereby engaging both limbs and fine tuning the co-ordination. 

Technique 2

This is a set of two punches and two kicks. The striker starts with a straight jab, following through with a low kick and a cross jab, and finishing up with a lead leg thrust kick.  

There are total of 10 combinations comprising 30 techniques in Muay Thai Pad Work that will be covered in the upcoming posts. Meanwhile, try to find a training partner or pad-holder, so you can play the role of striker and practise these techniques.