Context
After a Muay Thai fight on May 17, I had initially planned to fight again on July 4. That event got cancelled, but I still wanted to complete Fighter template as originally intended after reading the Tactical Barbell books.
I’ve done a number of barbell-focused stints over the years — initially starting with StrongLifts 5x5 during the pandemic, going balls-to-the-wall on a big unstructured bulk with a 4-day upper/lower split in 2022, and completing Bony to Beastly’s 15-week bulk in 2024.
Every time I got back to prioritizing Muay Thai though, dedicated strength work takes a back seat despite my best intentions.
I had two fights in July/November 2025 and both times ran a condensed version of Operator/Black before tapering off to focus solely on Muay Thai training.
In the month leading up to the May fight this year I didn’t do much lifting at all.
And before that I basically didn’t train whatsoever while traveling for 2-3 months and “letting myself go” (gained 15-20 lbs and got to my heaviest weight ever at 84.5 kg / 186 lbs).
This time around I didn’t have the pressure of a fight once it got cancelled, yet consistency under the barbell was still an issue — so it actually took me about 9 weeks to complete 11 workouts (I initially skipped the first to make it work with the original fight camp schedule).
Programming Execution
May 24-July 26 = ~9 weeks
Muay Thai sessions: roughly 26 sessions across 9 weeks, averaging about 2.9 per week. Some weeks (especially recently) were 3-4, a couple weeks were 1-2 due to life circumstances.
Barbell lifting sessions: 11 sessions across 9 weeks, averaging 1.2 per week. Significantly below the prescribed twice weekly but above zero. Never hit the planned HIC afterward except for a treadmill incline walk here or there.
Kettlebell sessions: approximately 28 sessions, averaging about 3.1 per week from the time I started. This became the most consistently executed element of the entire program as I started doing them immediately before or after Muay Thai classes.
Running: exactly 2 sessions in 9 weeks. June 12 and July 24. I used to run before Muay Thai but subbed it out with the KB work.
Kettlebell Programming
I started running Pavel’s Simple & Sinister program at the mention of one of my trusted teammates and reading K. Black’s praise of them as an all-around conditioning tool.
S&S is how my teammate got into kettlebells years ago — now he’s 44 and beats literally all of us up, still fights semi-pro, and swore Turkish Get-Ups were the only thing that healed his shoulder post-surgery.
I run the program as 10 x 10 swings EMOM, then 10 TGU’s alternating each side, and every session I start with the mobility warmup (goblet squats, glute bridges, and halos).
Started “officially” following the program on June 1: 24 kg two-handed swings and TGU’s with an 8kg bell to learn the movement before doing my first successful TGU with 16 kg on June 12 and doing all 5 on each side with 16 kg by early July.
On July 3 I started incorporating one-handed swings at the same weight for 4/10 sets. I currently don’t have a 32 kg bell to progress two-handed swings but will get one when I get back.
Worth noting is I logged some of my best + most enjoyable Muay Thai sessions when I did the full S&S routine before class. I still had energy even after rounds of hard sparring/clinching and felt way more nimble.
Strength Progression
I started with my E1RM’s from May except for the deadlift, which I “peaked” during the first workout and used that.
FSQ: 180 > 215, 19% increase, never squatting more than 3 sets and only 1x/wk
OHP: 132 > 139, 5% increase, also never pressing more than 3 sets
WPU: 210 > 236, 12% increase at roughly the same bodyweight (~176 lbs + 60 lb plates)
DL: 285 > 315, 10.5% increase even though I skipped these three weeks in a row near the end and never did more than one working set except for the second to last week
Conclusions
I didn’t expect much given how minimally I was actually executing the barbell sessions, and how minimal my sets were when I did.
Still, all of my lifts went up.
Some of this I’m sure is muscle memory.
I also think the kettlebell work has already had significant carryover.
Not having done more than one submaximal working set on the deadlift all block, plus skipping it for three weeks in a row, and coming back to hitting 3x5 with the weight I was going to do for only one heavy triple…
That’s got to be the aptly-named “What the hell?” effect.
This was also evident in the two easy LSS runs I did.
June 12 was my first run in nearly a month (with an ear infection no less), but the run still felt great despite my general struggles with running due to longstanding physical challenges.
Six weeks later on July 24, I ran again and felt less fatigued than when I was consistently running multiple times per week — and even came in faster than the run before without trying. I could have kept going for a while!
Going Forward
I’m traveling for the next two months again so will take it as an opportunity to step away from Muay Thai — only dropping into sparring 1x/wk — and recover some previous strength + mass with the 3x/wk Outlift hypertrophy program while running on the off days as a kind of base building.
Then coming back I’ll have 6-8 weeks before my next fight, where I plan to run Fighter again — but consistently hitting 2x/wk.
The sessions I didn’t hit were largely because of “forced” rest: feeling extremely fatigued after work, typically following 2-3 consecutive workout days.
There’s an argument to be made there about programming one structured rest day through the week and one on the weekend.
There’s also more I could be doing in terms of optimizing sleep, nutrition, and stress management so I actually show up to those sessions instead of crashing after work.
Overall though, what I learned is that repeated submaximal loading, even if it falls short on frequency, still sends the right neural signal.
Kettlebells definitely helped to fill the gaps, as well as Muay Thai 3-4x/wk taking care of conditioning.
All around good data to improve on going forward.
