Best Upper Body Exercises for Muay Thai: What Helps and What Wastes Time

April 23, 2026

Learn the best upper body exercises for Muay Thai, what they actually improve, and which common gym choices waste time or beat up your shoulders without helping your fighting.

Best Upper Body Exercises for Muay Thai: What Helps and What Wastes Time

A lot of people training Muay Thai make one of two mistakes with upper body gym work.

The first mistake is doing almost none of it because they assume pads, bag work, clinch rounds, and sparring already cover everything.

The second mistake is going too far the other way and turning upper body training into a bodybuilding day full of pressing, shoulder fatigue, and junk volume that leaves them flat for actual fight training.

Neither approach is great.

Upper body gym work can absolutely help Muay Thai. It can improve posture, durability, clinch strength, balance between pushing and pulling, and general resilience through the shoulders, upper back, and arms. But it only works when the exercise choices actually match the sport.

The goal is not to build a chest-and-arms routine that looks hard on paper. The goal is to build an upper body that supports striking, clinch work, recovery, and long-term shoulder health.

If you want the broader gym side too, read Strength Training for Muay Thai: Best Exercises (and What to Skip) and Strength and Conditioning for Muay Thai: What to Build in the Gym (Without Slowing Yourself Down).

What upper body training should actually do for Muay Thai

Upper body training for Muay Thai should help you:

• stay strong in clinch exchanges
• maintain posture under fatigue
• improve scapular control and shoulder function
• build pulling strength to balance all the striking volume
• improve general resilience and tissue tolerance
• support power training without wrecking recovery

What it should not do is:

• destroy your shoulders before pad work
• make you sore for days from useless volume
• replace technical training
• turn every session into bench press obsession
• leave you carrying muscle that adds fatigue without useful transfer

That is the filter. If an exercise helps one of the first points and avoids the second list, it is probably worth keeping.

The best upper body exercises for Muay Thai

These are not the only exercises that can work, but they are the ones that usually give the best return for the least nonsense.

1. Pull-Ups and Chin-Ups

If you can do them well, pull-ups and chin-ups are among the best upper body exercises for Muay Thai.

They help build:

• lats
• upper back strength
• arm strength
• grip contribution
• general pulling ability

That matters because striking gives you a lot of repeated front-side work. Pull-ups help balance that out and build the kind of upper body strength that carries over better than random machine work.

If strict reps are not there yet, use:

• assisted pull-ups
• band-assisted pull-ups
• controlled lat pulldowns

The point is not to make the exercise fancy. The point is to build real pulling strength.

2. Rows

Rows are essential.

For most people training Muay Thai, rows should probably be a bigger part of upper body programming than heavy pressing.

Good options include:

• chest-supported rows
• one-arm dumbbell rows
• cable rows
• seal rows
• barbell rows if recovery is solid

Rows help with:

• upper back development
• posture
• scapular control
• structural balance
• shoulder support

If you spend a lot of time punching, shelling up, or carrying tension through the front of the body, rows help restore some balance.

3. Push-Ups

Push-ups are still one of the best upper body exercises around.

They are simple, shoulder-friendly for most people, and useful because they train pressing together with body tension and basic trunk control.

Good variations include:

• standard push-ups
• tempo push-ups
• paused push-ups
• ring push-ups if shoulder control is good
• weighted push-ups
• explosive push-ups in moderate doses

Push-ups also fit Muay Thai better than a lot of people think because they are easier to recover from than chasing barbell numbers all the time.

4. Landmine Press

Landmine press is one of the best pressing options for fighters.

Why?

Because it usually gives you a much more shoulder-friendly pressing angle than forcing heavy straight overhead work or endless flat pressing. It also brings in:

• core involvement
• scapular movement
• athletic pressing mechanics
• cleaner joint positions for many lifters

If someone has cranky shoulders from bag work, pads, and clinch volume, landmine press often works far better than trying to grind heavy overhead presses all year.

5. Dumbbell Bench Press

Bench press is not evil. It is just often overvalued.

For Muay Thai, dumbbell bench press usually makes more sense than building your identity around the barbell bench. Dumbbells allow a more natural path, often feel better on the shoulders, and still build useful pressing strength.

That makes them a better fit for a lot of fighters.

Use them as a tool, not as the centre of the universe.

6. Face Pulls and Rear Delt Work

These are not glamorous, but they do matter.

A lot of striking athletes get more than enough front-side work and not nearly enough rear-side support work. That is a bad trade.

Face pulls, rear delt raises, and similar upper-back support work can help with:

• shoulder balance
• postural endurance
• scapular control
• general joint tolerance

No, they are not magic. But they are useful.

7. Carries

Carries do not look exciting until you realize how much they train at once.

Good choices include:

• farmer’s carries
• suitcase carries
• front-rack carries

They build:

• grip
• trunk stiffness
• shoulder stability
• posture under movement
• overall durability

That kind of full-body control matters in combat sports more than a lot of isolated upper body work.

8. Medicine Ball Throws

This is not max-strength work, but it is useful upper body power work.

Medicine ball chest throws and rotational throw patterns can help bridge the gap between strength and fast force production. The key is keeping the volume sensible and the throws sharp.

This is where a lot of people go wrong. They either skip power work completely or do too much of it badly.

If your main goal is carryover, quality matters more than quantity.

9. Dips, Used Carefully

Dips can work for some people, but they are not automatic.

If your shoulders tolerate them well and you keep the volume sensible, they can build useful pressing strength. But for plenty of fighters, dips turn into front-of-shoulder irritation fast.

So the answer is not “dips are amazing” or “dips are trash.”
The answer is: use them if they suit your structure and recovery, and drop them if they keep beating up your shoulders.

10. Small Amounts of Direct Arm Work

A little direct biceps and triceps work is fine.

It can help with:

• elbow comfort
• tissue tolerance
• general balance
• some added arm strength

The problem is not doing curls. The problem is acting like curls and cable pushdowns are now the foundation of your fight-performance program.

A small amount is enough.

What wastes time for Muay Thai?

This is where people sabotage themselves.

1. Too much pressing volume

A lot of fighters already have tired shoulders. Then they add:

• heavy benching
• incline benching
• overhead pressing
• dips
• machine chest press
• endless push-up variations

all in the same week.

That is not smart programming. That is just piling fatigue on top of fatigue.

2. Training like a bodybuilder when performance is the goal

If your upper body day looks like:

• chest
• shoulders
• triceps
• biceps
• more chest
• pump finishers

then you are probably drifting away from what Muay Thai actually needs.

Some hypertrophy work is fine. But the base should still be built around useful movement patterns, not mirror-muscle obsession.

3. Ego benching

Heavy benching is not automatically useless. But for many Muay Thai athletes, chasing a bigger bench becomes a side quest that gives less and less back.

If it helps and recovery is good, fine.

If it is constantly making you stiff, sore, or shoulder-beaten, it is not helping enough to justify the cost.

4. Ignoring pulling volume

A lot of upper body plans are still pressing-heavy and pulling-light.

That is backwards for many fighters.

Most Muay Thai athletes would benefit from at least as much pulling as pushing, and often a little more pulling than pushing.

5. Wrecking your shoulders before skill work

This is a huge one.

If your upper body gym session is so hard that your next pad or bag session feels flat, slow, and mechanically worse, you went too far.

Gym work is supposed to support the sport, not compete with it.

For weekly planning, also read Muay Thai Workout Plan: How to Build a Weekly Gym Program Without Ruining Your Fight Training and Muay Thai + Gym: How to Balance Both Without Burning Out.

A simple upper body structure for Muay Thai

You do not need ten upper body exercises in one day.

A simple structure works well:

• one main pull
• one main press
• one secondary pull
• one shoulder-support movement
• one carry or power option
• optional small arm work

Example:

• Pull-ups or pulldowns
• Dumbbell bench press or landmine press
• Chest-supported row
• Face pulls or rear delt raises
• Farmer’s carries
• Small amount of curls or triceps work if needed

That is enough for most people.

How often should you train upper body for Muay Thai?

Usually 1–2 times per week is plenty.

That depends on:

• how much Muay Thai volume you do
• whether you also train lower body hard
• how well you recover
• how demanding your clinch, sparring, and pad sessions are

More is not automatically better.

If your shoulders feel cooked all the time, you probably do not need more upper body work. You probably need better exercise selection and better volume control.

Final thought

The best upper body exercises for Muay Thai are usually the ones that build strength, posture, balance, and durability without trashing your shoulders or draining your recovery.

For most people, that means keeping it simple:

• pull-ups
• rows
• push-ups
• dumbbell pressing
• landmine pressing
• rear-side support work
• carries
• a little power work where it fits

That is enough to build an upper body that actually helps your Muay Thai.

You do not need a flashy program.
You need one that gives back more than it costs.