Muay Thai vs. Kickboxing

I'd say Muay Thai as it is pretty much the same but you get to use your elbows and knees...

Its pretty easy to go from MT to KB but harder the other way...

Plus if you ever get in touble on the streets the close quaters knee and elbows may come in handy... Not that you should ever go out looking to use it!

muay thai if your slender. I have a friend that really likes it.

I've been doing Muay Thai for about 5 months now

Really great results for my body and fighting skills.

I definetly recommand it.

I did muay thai (Currently looking for a new place to train it...) and I much prefer it to say boxing, kickboxing, karate etc.

Whilst the moves in muay thai are somewhat slower than those, they are designed to absolutely brutalise an opponent. And if done correctly will annihilate bones and joints with ease, which is one of the reasons it is very popular as a self defense art.

It trains you to harden your bones effectively (I can punch a brick wall as hard as I can without any pain or breakages for example) which delivers extremely painful strikes to your opponent. Regular bones compress or snap fairly easily against a human skull, whereas the hardened bones of a muay thai expert will destroy jaws and skulls with ease.

However this does bring problems when you get older, such as joint pains, ligament damage etc, but the severity also depends on how much you do. Muay Thai masters who have trained it for 30 years or more of their lives often end up with ruined and painful hands and shins, but their techniques for strengthening the bones are far more brutal than what you will find in most places that teach Muay Thai outside of Thailand.


As has been said it is based on counter attacking a lot, so it is very useful for self defense.

Although I would argue about it not being good against grappling. In the lead up to being grappled it is very effective, for example, as someone shoots for a double leg on you, if you have enough time to launch a flying knee and connect, they are going to be KO'd completely. Obviously this depends on how far away they are, and both your and their own speed.

I don't quite see how a martial art such as Muay Thai, which is usually practiced with gloved hands, would help you thicken and strengthen the bones in your hand. I have practiced Muay Thai, but hitting a brick wall with full force? I would like to see a video of that, done multiple times, without any harm being done to the hand.

I never said repeatedly to be honest, also, having done martial arts since age 9, and doing a physical job has toughened up my hands a lot, not to mention the fights I had in school/while out.

The only part of my hand I've broken whilst punching something solid is my small knuckle which I did twice by accident. But you are supposed to punch with the two large knuckles.

A lot of punching (People, heavy bags with bareknuckles) and my Manual Labour job has pretty much removed most of the pain I feel when hitting things with my hands. Once it gets crushed between a washing machine and a doorknob a few times, hitting something hard doesn't really hurt that much.

It's as much to do with having had a lot of pain in my hands before and my general pain tolerance (It gets a lot better when you start sparring with people), as it is to do with martial arts.

Also you only get a sharp pain right after impact, but it pretty much immediately goes.

In Muay Thai they usually train on trees for shins, and very lightly padded boards for punches. Obviously we don't do that over here, but a double weight leather heavy bag does the trick nicely though. Basically you create microfractures in your bones making them extremely hard. Obviously I'm nowhere near as good or as conditioned as Mel Menor for example, but the bone strength is one of the things you do develop:

Sport Science Hardest Kick

And before someone says well he broke it, you didn't break the wall, you'd have broken your hand otherwise. Please watch this:

FSN Sport Science - Episode 7 - Myths -Paul Pumphry

He did have padding, but barely any, not to mention the force of my punch is not 2000lbs.

And no, I'm not saying that i'm able to kick/forearm smash as much as either of them, I'm not claiming to be an elite athlete.

Have to mention that in MT they dont kick trees like oak etc, but banana trees wich is a whole different kind of tree And I know what you mean by mentioning loosing ability to feel pain, I break bricks for fun, and over time your hands adapt to it. You still feel it, but not to the same extent. Admittedly, had not broken in years(shoulder injury), so when a member here asked for a vid I made one..that hurt somewhat as I was no longer used to it.
I would never hit a wall for kicks though thats just silly. With the amount of fights I have been in, I have to say that a face has alot more give than a actual wall

I dont actually aggree with that(not the MT part), if you know how to punch and where, most hands can take the impact of a punch. You make it sound like only MT experts can destroy jaws and skulls..wich is false. Broken/dislocated jaws are one of the most common figt injuries(I have dislocated someones jaw), and I seriously doubt all of them were victims of MT masters

Its as much about how and where you hit as the actual power behind it.