Comprehensive RAMP Warm Up for Muay Thai Training

You walk into the gym. Perform 2-3 of your favorite stretches. Skip rope for couple of minutes with the heavy thai ropes. You shadow box a few rounds then jump straight into class.

Does this sound like you?

The traditional Muay Thai warm-up that many fighters comfortably default to leaves a lot of stones unturned when it comes to getting the most out of your Muay Thai training.

Primo Fightwear, Fight by Science and I have teamed up again to bring you the training solution - a comprehensive 3-phase Muay Thai warm-up based on the RAMP protocol commonly used in strength & conditioning circles.

Our objective was to create a time-efficient, streamlined warm-up that prepares fighters for the training demands of Muay Thai training, drilling and sparring.

This is video shows snippets of each exercises, in each warm-up phase. For details on warm-up duration, read further.

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The RAMP Protocol

The RAMP protocol is a principle-based warm-up method to prepare athletes for any training sessions. The acronyms are as follows:

(R)AISE BODY TEMPERATURE

(A)CTIVATE MUSCLES

(M)OBILIZE JOINTS

(P)OTENTIATE TO REACH INTENSITIES SEEN IN THE TRAINING PROGRAM

While there is a lack of data showing that warm-ups reduce the risk of injury, many coaches and athletes understand that by gradually increasing exercise/training intensity, we give our body and mind time to acclimate to the training environment. Anecdotally, fighters perform better mentally and physically following a comprehensive warm-up.

For this Muay Thai warm-up, we’ve separated it into 3 different phases.

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Phase 1 - raise temperature & mobilise

The main objective of Phase 1 is to raise the core body temperature and simultaneously mobilise the joints. Exercises and movements in phase 1 are considered lower intensity. We’ve selected exercises in the order of head-to-toe - first warming up the neck as well as eyes, moving on to the shoulders, hips and lower legs.

Phase 2 - Activation

Phase 2 involves exercises that stimluate the muscles involved in striking, clinching and stabilisation. Single leg stabilisation is paramount to kick and kneeing performance in Muay Thai, this is addressed by one of our favorite exercises, the single leg kick outs into hip airplane. The cork screw push ups and mountain climbers develops many of the same shoulder and core muscles used in clinch training.

Phase 3 - Potentiation

Potentiation refers to the excitatory response of the neuromuscular systems following a high-intensity training stimulus. By “waking up” the nervous system prior to training, athletes are expected to show a higher degree of power and reactivity in their padwork, drilling and sparring. In our warm-up, this is addressed by the use of plyometric exercises - progressing from plyo pogo jumps in various stances to a plyo pogo flying knee exercise.

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warm-up duration and exercise selection

This RAMP protocol slowly introduces exercise intensity and is a streamlined way to ensure you’re performing at your best within any given training session. Depending on your familiarity with the exercises, each phase should take anywhere from 4-6 minutes to perform. For Phase 1, perform exercises for 20-30 seconds per variation. For Phase 2, perform anywhere from 8-15 repetitions, and lastly for Phase 3, perform 1 set of plyometric pogo jumps in each direction. Aim to finish this RAMP protocol warm-up routine in 15 minutes.

This RAMP Muay Thai warm-up is a blueprint, its open to adjustments and different exercise selection, feel free to add in some of your mobility, core or plyometric exercises - just follow the principles of the RAMP protocol.

Perform this warm-up consisently throughout the training week and you’ll see improvements in your physical and mental readiness during your Muay Thai Kickboxing pad work, drills and sparring.

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FREE EBOOK CHAPTER DOWNLOAD

Want to learn more about exercise selection for combat sports?

Chapter 7 of my Strength & Conditioning for combat sports eBook, “The Sport-Specific Trap - Revisiting Dynamic Correspondence for Combat Sports” talks about key concepts to consider when selecting exercises to enhance combat sports performance and some common mistakes coaches make.

Optimizing The Warm-Up Using RAMP & Mobility Flows

Its the general consensus that a warm-up is a mandatory component of any training session, no matter what sport or athlete you’re working with. The warm-up is also a component I’ve never stopped trying to refine over the years of coaching. I continuously ask myself: how do I help my athletes reach physiological and psychological readiness in the fastest, most efficient way possible?

As a result of poor practices in the past, as well as noticing trends in the high-performance world, I remain unconvinced on the concept of needing to perform an overabundance of exercises to “activate” muscles or “mobilize” the joints prior to training. Banded distractions, foam rolling, all the bullshit that people waste their time on because “that’s how everyone else does it in the industry”.

I was unsatisfied and baffled over the fact that a warm-up could potentially take up 25% of the time out of a training session. The warm-up is the low hanging fruit in terms of programming improvements. Simple changes to the warm-up protocol afford coaches and athletes more time to put into more meaningful training that develops athletic performance.

Out of a necessity to make my personal coaching sessions run in a more smooth and efficient manner, I’ve created a mobility flow warm-up as a way to address the first 3 letters of RAMP within one series of exercises.

A few principles I utilise follows the “RAMP” acronym. 

(R)aise body temperature

(A)ctivate muscles

(M)obilize joints

(P)otentiate to reach intensities seen in the training program

In this mobility flow, I’ve sequenced multiple foundational movement patterns together such as squatting, hinging, lunges, pressing and rotating. Alongside the obvious rise in body temperature from performing this, the emphasis on large range of motion movements and anti-rotational positions addresses both the “activation” and “mobilization” aspects of a warm-up, saving time that can be put into actual, meaningful training.

While this mobility is ground-based and has a lot more potential for additional exercises, the principles I work with remain the same - achieve rise in body temperature, put muscles and joints through a large range of motion and improve proprioception as quick as possible. Modify this flow as you see it fits your training demands.

After the mobility flow, some sort of potentiating training follows in order to reach the intensities seen in the training session (whether the session is strength-based, plyometric-based or concurrent). More details about exercise order and potentiation can be found in my exercise order article.

Application

This mobility flow can be performed as a warm-up, as a cooldown, or as an active recovery protocol.

Warm Up: 1-2 sets of 3-5 minutes

Cooldown: 1-2 sets of 3-5 minutes

Active Recovery Protocol: Multiple sets of 3-5 minutes, or one long set of 15-30 minutes (Keeping HR in Training Zones 1 and 2)

Great response from my athletes so far. Will be refining this over the next few months. I hope you enjoy it.

FREE EBOOK CHAPTER DOWNLOAD

Chapter 7 of the eBook, “The Sport-Specific Trap - Revisiting Dynamic Correspondence for Combat Sports” talks about key concepts to consider when selecting exercises to enhance combat sports performance and some common mistakes coaches make.