Guide Rating -

"Muay Thai Kickboxing" bills itself as "The Ultimate Guide to Conditioning, Training, and Fighting." The book is comprehensive, providing extensive photos and descriptions of techniques and drills. Over half of the book is devoted to conditioning--basic physical conditioning exercises like calisthenics, weight training, and roadwork.

It's this emphasis on basic conditioning that disappointed me on my first reading. While the book started out great with detailed descriptions of Muay Thai techniques and their application, the bulk of the book is about physical conditioning--a topic on which that many hardcore fighters already have plenty of references to consult.

What I was looking for was Muay Thai-specific information: what kind of conditioning is best for Muay Thai? What do Muay Thai fighters do to prepare for fights, and once they get in the ring?

Author Chad Boykin does include an extensive list of Muay Thai drills, using a set of shorthand codes to make the list easier to follow. A drill like "upward elbow-hooking elbow-grab-straight knee" becomes "UE-HE-G-SN". Boykin provides a ton of these drills, but he doesn't really describe many in detail.

Fight strategy is covered primarily in just seven pages, while almost 40 pages are devoted to weight training. Novices to training will get a lot out of the descriptions of basic exercises like the bench press or power clean, but folks who have been training for a while won't need that section.

"Muay Thai Kickboxing" is a comprehensive book on conditioning, and a fair introduction to Muay Thai techniques. But, it lacks the extensive discussion of Muay Thai fighting that I would like to see.