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In Muay Thai, the dominant hand is one of your best assets because it is your power hand. But once you injure it, it can get frustrating. However, when training in Muay Thai, you have other tools that are as strong of an asset as your power hand.
Injuring a muscle part of your dominant side doesn’t mean you can not train. In a situation like this, there are other things you can practice. There is a reason why Muay Thai is called the art of eight limbs. So if one limb is out, you can practice the other 7.
Practicing the other seven limbs is a way to equalize them to become as strong as the power hand. There are many pros involved in what you can even out, and we will describe the eight types.
Table of Contents
Dominant Hand | 8 Pros of Training Muay Thai Without it
1. Strengthens Your Lead Hand
One of the pros of training without your dominant hand in Muay Thai is to practice improving your techniques that involve just your lead hand. Training this way can help improve the power & precision of your jab, lead hook & uppercuts.
Once those techniques excel, your lead hand will be as strong as your dominant hand. To read more about excelling your lead hand techniques, also check out our article “8 Pros of Training Boxing Without Your Dominant Hand”.
2. Strengthens your Head Movement
Besides strengthening your lead hand, working on head movement is another option. Enhancing the head movement would be a powerful asset to excel in Muay Thai. The use of head movement is similar but different compared to boxing.
The reason is that kicks are involved, which means being more cautious to avoid getting kicked in the head. Once you have this drilled into your mind, you will see your defense excel & have better prevention from getting hit.
To find out more about the similarities & differences between Muay Thai & Boxing head movement, give the Evolve Daily‘s article “3-Must Know Muay Thai Head Movement Techniques And How to Drill Them” a read.
3. Prepares for Worst Case Scenarios
Realistically in a Muay Thai match, some fighters hurt their dominant hand during competition. Whenever that happens, the fighter would stop throwing it to prevent the pain from getting worse & they would have to think of something else to use.
Having an injured dominant hand from training can teach you how to train for worst-case scenarios. Training this way causes you to think as if you hurt your power hand in the fight.
For Muay Thai, there are more options to work on to prepare for the worse.
For example:
- Lead hand combinations that will follow up with the lead & rear kicks
- Combining with knees, teeps, & the lead elbow
4. Improves Lead & Rear Roundhouse Kick Accuracy
If you are training in Muay Thai with an injured power hand, there are no worries because you have your kicks to practice.
Practicing the lead & rear roundhouse kick is also a positive alternative because you can improve the form, power, timing, placement & accuracy.
Not only does it make those types of improvements, but it also helps condition your shins to become stronger.
5. Improves Your Teep Accuracy
Besides roundhouse kicks, practicing your lead & rear teeps are optional as well.
If teeping in Muay Thai is a weakness, having the opportunity to work on it & focus on it while injured is beneficial.
Once you’re back at 100%, you’ll see a difference in your timing & distance when performing it.
6. Improves Spinning Kicks
To make your training even more interesting, adding spinning kicking techniques into your regime would be another positivity.
Spinning back kicks are one of the kicks that is difficult to perform in a live situation. The more you rep them out, the better your timing becomes with performing it.
More repetition of this means incorporating it into other combinations as well.
7. Enhances Lead Elbow Accuracy
Besides practicing lead hand techniques, adding the lead elbow is another option to include in your training. When practicing it, you can train the two variations behind it. One would be the lead-up elbow, and the other would be the lead-slicing elbow.
You can train both variations as just one strike or follow up & add them into a 3 to 4-strike combo instead. Training it this way helps you be more creative with the lead elbow techniques.
8. Improves your Footwork
When your power hand is out of the question, practicing your footwork would be another thing to work to improve on.
If you know about footwork that applies to boxing, you will realize both disciplines have similarities & differences in the use of footwork.
Therefore, training it on your own teaches you how to differentiate the usage between the two styles.
9. Improves your Rhythm
Depending on the injury, there are some people out there who can still shadowbox even when their dominant hand is injured.
Shadowboxing is an excellent way to work on the flow of everything you know. When everything begins to flow, your rhythm excels tremendously.
As your dominant hand slowly heals, & you feel the progression of being able to move it properly, begin to add it back into your shadow boxing.
When everything you know flows together as you shadowbox, you can feel and see how artistic it is.
Conclusion
When your power hand is injured, it is essential to let it recover and heal properly. But while recovering, it does not mean you can not train. The art of 8 limbs also means you have many creative techniques to use.
So when one limb is out, you still have the other seven, which you can use.
Like your lead hand techniques, roundhouse kicks, teeps, footwork, head movement, spinning kicks, lead elbows, knees, rhythm, and preparing for worst-case scenarios. All of these are something you can be creative & put together even with an injured power hand.
Once recovered, add the power hand techniques back along with everything else to see how the flow of everything turns out.
If you have any questions about the 8 Pros of training Muay Thai without your dominant hand, please leave a comment or send us a message.
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Hi there! I’m Austin Hoang, an editor & writer focusing on Martial Arts. I am also a martial artist who has spent most of my life learning different disciplines and also have competed in Amateur Boxing and a Muay Thai tournament-based competition. Based on the experiences I have gone through, I would like to share with you all the cool ideas I have. Thanks for visiting my page and I hope I get the most out of educating you all about what martial arts brings in life.
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