Eat Right to Fight, Round 2: Energy Nutrition

Written by Mark Mian of AlterCenter

Fighters are typically concerned about eating right to maximize their energy, control their weight, and recover from workouts (which includes building muscle). This week, I’ll explain the basics of how to eat for optimum energy before training and competition.

Read more

Kick Your Abs: Basics, Round 2

Written by Mark Mian of AlterCenter

Core/Abdominal training is the foundation of martial arts fitness, period. As mentioned in the first Kick Your Abs post, complete core training means exercising both core movers and “inner” core stabilizers. The first post gave you a program to train all your movers for Muaythai. This month’s KYA gives you a basic-but-vital program to build strong core stability for superior balance, speed, mobility, and power.

Read more

Circuit Training for Muaythai & MMA

Written by Mark Mian of AlterCenter

A belated Happy Thanksgiving to all the Americans on MMT. While the rest of the nation kicks off the holiday season by eating everything within reach, I figure now’s a good time to give y’all a gut-busting antidote to all the holiday cheer and beer…

Read more

Eat Right to Fight: Individual Nutrition, Part 1 (Revised!)

Written by Mark Mian of AlterCenter

[NOTE! I decided the original posting I wrote was a little hard to digest (pun intended). I've revised it to make the info more practical for everyone.]

NUTRITION CONFUSION
Especially over the past two decades, a debate has been raging about the right balance of protein, carbohydrates, and fat for humans to eat. It started with the “low fat” diets of the early 90s, and then switched to the more recent “low carb” and “high protein” diets. All of them have evidence to support their claims and you’ll find many scientists, nutritionists, trainers, athletes and regular people who will swear by one of them. Everyone’s got an opinion about what will make you fat or thin – but it’s usually based on a combination of their own and other people’s experience and ignorance. Don’t trust them.
Read more

Kick Your Abs: Basics, Round 1

Written by Mark Mian of the AlterCenter

Kick Your Abs, Episode 1
Here’s an Inescapable Law of Nature: your core is the most important thing to condition in your body. Period. If you do nothing else to support your Muaythai conditioning, train your core. Actually, if you do nothing else at all, just train your core, dammit. You need a strong core for balance & coordination, speed & agility, posture & stability, strength & power, and vital protection against blasts to your midsection.

It’s so important that I’ve decided that the first Friday of every month will be a Kick Your Abs posting. Every month, I’ll drop more knowledge and exercises for your poor core. Read more

Complex Training for Muaythai Power

By Mark Mian of the AlterCenter

Boxers and martial artists have always been warned about developing heavy, slow and inefficient muscles by lifting weights. Beyond pushups, pullups, and situps, Thai fighters themselves rarely engage in other forms of resistance training to supplement their conditioning. There is some merit to this: simple weight lifting methods alone will not produce much useful muscle for Muay Thai. Why? Because traditional weightlifting movements are generally slow and sustained while Muaythai’s actions are fast and explosive.  However, when used with the correct protocols, training with weights can tremendously increase peak speed and power output.  It’s all in the programming…

Former Lumpini champ Neungsiam Samphusri knocking off some Depth Pushups.

Read more