My experience: Honour Muay Thai Gym in Thailand

In early 2025, I trained for three weeks at Honour Muay Thai Gym in Thailand and had an amazing time. Because I had no idea what to expect back then, I want to share my experience for anyone thinking about training Muay Thai in Thailand.

Training

At Honour Muay Thai Gym, training runs six days a week.
There’s no training on Sundays — instead, you can treat yourself to a well-earned massage for cheap. It’s very much the “it has to hurt before it gets better” kind of massage… but afterwards you genuinely feel way better :)

A typical training day has two sessions: morning training at 8am and an afternoon session at 4pm. The sessions usually follow a similar structure:
Before each training, you warm up on your own. At 35°C, that doesn’t take long ^^
The session starts with the group stretching together to proper Thai music and some shadowboxing. 
After that, the group splits: around two-thirds work on the heavy bags, while the other third gets 1-on-1 pad work with the very experienced trainers. (Pro tip: especially at the start, rotate trainers each session — you’ll pick up different pointers from each one and quickly find your favourite.) After three rounds, the pad-work group swaps with part of the bag group until everyone has done three rounds with a trainer.
Sometimes the group then works together on a specific technique.
But what is kept consistent are four rounds of Muay Thai sparring, followed by either clinching or pure boxing sparring.
To finish, you do 100 reps of two of these exercises: push-ups and sit-ups, or front kicks, knees, or round kicks.

Food

If you book the all-inclusive option, you get a meal after every session. A whole book could be written about food in Thailand — but I’ll keep it simple: it tastes incredible and it’s genuinely healthy.

Between sessions

Most of the time, I slept between training sessions. If I wasn’t sleeping, I’d do things like have a go at pool, go shopping, chat with the other fighters, or head to the sea. In the evenings, it was best to sit together, have a barbecue, or watch live fights at the local Landmark Stadium — or on TV.

The people

In a Thailand gym you meet all sorts of people from all over the world — but everyone is united by a love of combat sports. You make friends quickly and just click straight away. Going through tough training together day after day strengthens that sense of community even more. You can genuinely meet friends for life there.

Cost

It all sounds great — but what does it cost?
I paid around €800 for three weeks of training, a small room at the gym, and two meals a day. On top of that you’ll have extra costs like additional meals, a scooter, fight tickets and massages — that part depends on your lifestyle.

Tips

A few final tips:

1. Stay hydrated

If you’ve never trained in Thailand, it’s hard to imagine how much you’ll sweat. A simple trick is to weigh yourself before and after a session. If you’re 1kg lighter afterwards, you should drink roughly that much.

2. Electrolytes!

You lose electrolytes when you sweat. I dissolved 2–4 servings of electrolytes a day in my water and drank that. You can get them at any Thai pharmacy.

3. Start slow

The training volume is massive — especially if, like me, you’re used to only training twice a week.

4. Cream for tougher skin

After a few days, the skin under the ball of my foot was completely rubbed raw. Luckily, one of my new friends knew the problem and gave me some kind of German hiking skin cream — it helped a lot. Might be worth looking for something similar in your local drugstore.

5. Thick shin guards

After 1.5 weeks in MMA-style shin guards, I had to admit my shins wouldn’t survive three weeks. So I bought Twins Muay Thai shin guards at the gym. The difference when checking low kicks is huge.

6. Mark your hand wraps

After training, everyone hangs their wraps up to dry. If yours aren’t distinctive, they can easily get mixed up.

7. Sore wrist

A trick from my trainer: wrap a second hand wrap around your wrist. It stabilises a sprained wrist, enabling you to train as long as you go easy on your punches — very useful if you don’t want to miss sessions.

8. Sleep a lot

With that training volume, recovery is everything. Sleep is when your body rebuilds and your brain processes what you’ve learned. Train > Eat > Sleep > Repeat.

9. Balm

Something is always going to hurt. Balms like Tiger Balm — or the stronger Scorpion Balm — really help. Just apply it to sore areas shortly before training.

10. More than just training

I went to Thailand for the training, but once I was there I realised the country has so much more to offer. I’m really glad I travelled around after my three weeks at the gym. Training first, then exploring the country made it an unforgettable experience for me.