For some people, shadowboxing might sound boring and only act as a warm-up to the actual Muay Thai training session. But the truth is, there is so much more to shadowboxing than simply punching out the air for 15 minutes! Shadowboxing is a fundamental part of Muay Thai training which can drastically improve your Muay Thai technique. In this article, we will point out the reasons why it is important to include shadowboxing in every Muay Thai training session.
Why is Shadowboxing Important in Muay Thai Training?
We all know that shadowboxing is a great full-body warm-up before any Muay Thai training session. But there is more to it! Shadowboxing is also proven to be effective to enhance your form, technique, movement, and even helps you build muscle memory.
1. Enhances form
This small yet mighty exercise is the perfect opportunity to focus on your form. While shadowboxing, you won’t get any pressure to throw out punches at your opponent, and there’s nothing coming back at you, so you put more focus on your form by practicing your stance and building up good fighting habits.
2. Improving techniques
A shadow boxing session is also a great time to work on certain Muay Thai skills or techniques that you are struggling with. Be it your punches, footwork, movement, or dodges.
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3. Build muscle memory
Shadowboxing is a great way to build up your muscle memory. Shadowboxing grants you full control of your surroundings without any distractions. Therefore, every striking combination that you perform during these sessions will stick to your memory more easily.
5 Muay Thai Shadow Boxing Tips to Speed Up your Progress
1. Start simply and slowly
Blazing away aimlessly on your shadow boxing session won’t get you anywhere and will only make you tired without achieving much improvement.
You should rather take the simple and slow approach, so you can get the basics right. That’s essential if you want to make any kind of significant progress with your Muay Thai techniques. Once you get the basics down, you could gradually increase the intensity.
2. Focus on your form
Try to get every move as perfect as possible. You shouldn’t just go through the motions without putting your mind on what you’re actually doing. Always use proper form when shadowboxing. If you do every strike with the proper form and technique, you will end up having good fighting habits that will serve you right especially if you are in a Muay Thai sparring session or even in a real match.
3. Try out various combos
This is the perfect opportunity for you to try out various new Muay Thai combinations that you would like to master or the ones that you learned from your recent training sessions.
You can incorporate those newly learned combinations into your moves or you can try to throw them independently. It is also important to have fun while trying out different combinations of punches, elbows, clinch, and kicks, as this is also the perfect time to familiarize your mind and body with them.
4. Implement defensive maneuvers
Defense is just as important as striking in Muay Thai since you won’t be in a fight where your opponent won’t throw any strikes at you. It can be easy to forget to prioritize defensive maneuvers while shadow boxing because exercising on flashy offensive moves is more interesting. Therefore, incorporating a few check kicks, some head movements, and footwork to get in and out of striking distance won’t do you any harm.
5. Visualize an opponent
To make your shadow boxing session more effective while also developing your overall technique, you should try to visualize an opponent in front of you. Visualizing an opponent in front of you will give you a sense of direction in which you can throw your strikes. This technique also helps you to practice defensive maneuvers by imagining where the opponent’s attack might land.
Now that you’ve learned more about the benefits of shadowboxing and how to do it properly, you can start adding it to your daily training routine. Shadowboxing is a skill you take with you wherever you are so make the most of it. Once you’ve added shadowboxing to your Muay Thai training routine, you’ll want to apply those skills you learn to your sparring or even in a real fight.
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