I chose Muay Thai as a sport for 2 main reasons : fitness and self-defense. I chose this sport over other sports or fitness regimens, such as gymnastics, spinning, or Pilates, as I felt that it would be a better fit for me and provide superior results. I have found it to be a most superior form of training. It is an excellent form of training for purposes of overall physical conditioning, especially when it comes to increasing endurance, resilience, and overall physical and mental toughness. It is a very intense form of conditioning that will help increase your pain threshold. For weight-loss purposes, an hour of Muay Thai is superior to an hour of hiking or cycling.
I have found Muay Thai to also be a superior form of training compared to weight-training with light weights and multiple repetitions. It will only benefit you, however, if you are willing to push yourself past your comfort zone. Sometimes when I am training, I begin to feel exhausted, this is the point at which my mind is disciplined to direct me to complete my workout and ignore the exhaustion. This mental discipline is very important, the mind must have faith that the pain threshold can be surpassed.
When training Muay Thai, I have found that I can eat all that I want, simply because the training burns calories so quickly. I never follow any extreme diets, I eat normal, healthy foods such as pasta, tuna, fruits, vegetables, and I drink plenty of water. Eating healthy, normal foods such as these will help maintain strength and health better than fad diets.
I keep my training schedule at 2 to 3 times per week. I do not train more frequently because my schedule is so busy and I also prefer to have a more toned, curvy body. If a woman trains more frequently at Muay Thai, she will tend to have a thinner, more muscular body, which is perfectly fine, it is just not the look I am pursuing. I train Muay Thai in conjunction with my work as a fitness model and there have been occasions when I had bruises on my legs from the training when I was ready to do a photo shoot, however, I was able to cover this up with makeup.
Unfortunately, our world today can be a dangerous place for a woman. It is good for a woman to be trained in a martial art for self-defense purposes. A woman must be prepared to protect herself if she finds herself threatened by an aggressor. Muay Thai is a great form of training to help provide women with self-defense skills to help them stay safe. Muay Thai teaches a variety of effective strikes and kicks that can be very painful to the recipient. An aggressor who attacks a woman trained in Muay Thai will be very sorry indeed. Muay Thai also helps give women strength of character and improves self-esteem.
Many more women have been training and competing in Muay Thai in recent years. Competition-level Muay Thai obviously requires a greater time commitment to training and greater attention to diet. Women training in Muay Thai include beautiful models such as Catherine Vandareva and Gina Carano, and others who have demonstrated that it is possible to simultaneously compete in Muay Thai and also be successful in the modeling industry.
I hope you have enjoyed this article and that you will consider looking into this great sport, especially you ladies looking for a fun and effective way to get in shape and develop self-defense skills at the same time. Always remember to train hard, have discipline, and learn from your trainer or coach and you will have many successful days ahead.
