Workout Recap - Week of August 31, 2025

The statutory holiday here on Monday threatened to disrupt my usual workload, but as chance had it, I was able to do a training session on Saturday this week to help make up for it. The grind swirls and churns unending.

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Tuesday

Muay Thai class

This was a stamina-focused class, in the vein of typically starting off the week that way despite the holiday. We did some multi-kick work, followed by a drill station gauntlet rotation, and then a bunch of calisthenics to finish. The gauntlet shouldn't have been too bad with only six stations (plus a freestyle heavy bag station), but I was dead by the end of it for whatever reason; even took noticeably longer to finish drinking my water after the class than I typically do. In any case, I shall come back stronger for it.

Wednesday

Muay Thai class

This was a hard padwork day, working on stringing together sustained offense, finishing up with some high-volume round kicks. It was tough of my stamina, especially after the previous day's class, but I was still throwing knee strikes like a battering ram by the end, so I'll take it. The kru even asked me to stick around a bit longer afterwards to do some extra clinched knee practice with a newer person, which was cool, even if I did eventually have to leave after a few extra rounds.

Thursday

Muay Thai class

The kru was focused on fighter preparation this day, so one of the experienced old hands took over as guest coach for the class and had us drill on level changing. It was a nice mix-up from our usual practice, as well as a fine way to close out the week.

Saturday

Muay Thai class

My schedule happened to work out to have some free time to train more this day, but when I got to the gym, it turned out the competitive fighters were in the middle of a double-session, so I did my own bagwork off to the side to avoid disrupting their even number. One of them wanted to swap partway through some belly-padded body-level striking practice, though, so I went in their place to partner with the guest kru from earlier this year, who's also training to compete at our upcoming major event. It's possible that he underestimated what he was getting into, because once it was his turn to wear the belly pad, he was grunting and getting knocked back far more by my knee strikes than I'd expect from the size difference between us. He even asked for a quick pause at one point, though it might've been because my knee landed a little low (though I did still hit the pad, in my defense, just below the main target spot). I have suspicions about how much other people play along with my strikes because most are notably-to-significantly larger than me (as was the case this time, too), but I do have some confidence in my knees actually being dangerous to receive when I'm throwing them hard.