Strength & Conditioning for BJJ and Muay Thai in Edinburgh
Programming built around your sport, not a generic gym split.
Apply NowStrength and conditioning for BJJ and Muay Thai has to do two things at once: build the qualities your sport actually rewards, and leave you recovered enough to still train it properly. Coached in person at Hanuman Muay Thai in Leith, Edinburgh, from £50 a session, or online from £120 a month, including weight cut management for competition.
Most gym programmes are written for general fitness or for how someone looks. Combat sports place different demands: explosive output when already fatigued, grip and core endurance measured in minutes rather than reps, rotational power, and joints that hold up under repeated awkward loading. A standard hypertrophy split does not target any of that, and worse, it competes with your sport for the recovery you have available.
Callan has spent 14 years coaching strength and conditioning, works from a working combat sports gym, and competes in Muay Thai and BJJ himself. That last part matters mainly because it means the programme will never be written as though your sport is something that happens in the gaps around lifting.
Why generic programming falls short
A standard hypertrophy or fat loss programme is not designed with your sport in mind. It will not account for the grip endurance grappling demands, the hip-driven rotational power striking relies on, or the fact that you already train four to six hard sessions a week against a resisting opponent.
The failure mode is predictable. The athlete adds a full training split on top of an existing fight schedule, the recovery demand exceeds what is available, and within a month performance on the mats drops, small injuries start clustering and sleep gets worse. They conclude that lifting made them slow. It did not. Adding a bodybuilding programme to a fight camp made them tired.
Programming for combat athletes has to work alongside the sport rather than compete with it. In practice that usually means fewer gym sessions than the athlete expects, placed carefully in the week, with a clear order of what gets cut when the schedule tightens.
What BJJ actually demands
Grappling is largely a game of sustained isometric effort and repeated positional exchanges, which is close to the opposite of what a conventional strength programme trains.
- Grip and forearm endurance. Grip is usually the first thing to fail in a long roll, and once it goes, so does your ability to control anything. It needs training for endurance under sustained tension, not just heavy pulls.
- Posterior chain and hip strength. The engine behind takedowns, sweeps, bridging and hip escapes. Hinge patterns and loaded carries transfer here far better than machine work.
- Isometric and positional strength. Holding a frame, defending posture and resisting a pass are all about producing force without movement, which most programmes never train deliberately.
- Work capacity over realistic durations. Conditioning built around the length of an actual roll, so you can still make good decisions in the last two minutes.
- Neck, shoulder and lower back resilience. The areas that take the most punishment and the ones most likely to end a training block.
Weight cut management sits alongside this for anyone competing, and is covered below.
What Muay Thai actually demands
Striking is a power and elasticity problem before it is a strength problem, but the strength underneath it determines how much power there is to express.
- Rotational power through hips and trunk. The actual engine behind every kick and cross. Trained with intent and speed rather than slow grinding reps.
- Single-leg strength and balance. Checking, kicking and clinch work all happen on one leg. Bilateral squatting alone does not prepare you for that.
- Elastic qualities and rate of force development. How quickly you can produce force matters more than the absolute maximum you could produce given three seconds.
- Clinch strength. Sustained upper back, grip and trunk work under fatigue, closer to grappling demands than striking ones.
- Round-structured conditioning. Built around the work-to-rest pattern of actual rounds rather than steady-state cardio, which trains a quality the sport does not ask for.
- Joint resilience for hips, shins and shoulders under repeated impact and volume.
How the programme is built
Every programme starts from your competition calendar and your current training week, not from a template.
Off-season or no competition scheduled
The window where actual strength gets built. Higher gym volume, heavier loading, and the time to address whatever weakness has been limiting you. Usually two or three sessions a week.
In-season or camp
The gym work shifts to maintenance. Maintaining strength takes considerably less work than building it, so volume drops sharply while some heavy loading stays in to keep what you have. Typically two short sessions, placed away from the hardest sparring.
Competition week
Nothing done in the final seven days will make you stronger or fitter, so the entire week is about arriving fresh. Volume drops hard, some speed and light load stays in to keep the nervous system switched on, and nothing new gets introduced.
Session placement inside the week matters as much as the content. There is a full breakdown of how to structure the week around sparring, and what to cut first when it gets full, in how to structure your training week around sparring.
Weight cutting, done properly
Making weight is where most competitors do themselves the most damage, and it is one of the areas Callan works on most.
The distinction that matters is between cutting in a way that preserves strength and energy for the day, and cutting in a way that gets you on the scales and leaves you empty when it counts. Aggressive last-minute cuts reliably cost performance, and repeated over a competitive season they cost more than that.
Done properly it starts weeks out, not days: bringing body composition to a sensible starting point in advance so the final cut is manageable, planning the descent so training quality holds for as long as possible, and having a refuelling plan for after the weigh-in that actually restores you. Nutrition being included in the coaching rather than sold separately is what makes this possible to manage as one plan.
Anything with a medical dimension should go through your GP, and this is not a service for making a cut that is not safely achievable.
Training around injury and getting back on the mats
Combat sports produce a steady supply of shoulders, knees, necks and lower backs that need working around. Rehab and return to training is one of the main areas of the practice.
The approach is to build around what you can safely load now and progress towards what you want to do later, rather than pausing everything until you feel fully recovered. Long complete layoffs cost conditioning, strength and often confidence, and the return is usually harder than it needed to be.
Anything requiring diagnosis or treatment goes through your GP or physiotherapist first. The coaching handles the loading and the route back, not the diagnosis.
In Leith, or online anywhere
In-person sessions run from Hanuman Muay Thai, 70 Jane Street, Edinburgh EH6 5HG, a working combat sports and performance facility in Leith rather than a commercial gym. £50 for a single one-hour session, £180 for a block of 4, £320 for a block of 8. More detail on the Leith page.
If you train elsewhere, online coaching delivers the same programming at £120 a month on a rolling contract, with check-ins and adjustments built around your training and competition schedule wherever you are based.
Who this is for
- BJJ or Muay Thai athletes preparing for competition, including managing the weight cut
- Recreational grapplers and strikers who want to train smarter and get injured less
- Athletes returning from injury who need a programme built around rehab rather than around ignoring the problem
- Anyone whose current gym programming feels disconnected from what they actually need on the mats
- Fighters who suspect their strength work is making them more tired without making them better, which usually means the week is structured wrong rather than the exercises being wrong
You do not need to train your sport anywhere in particular to work with Callan. If you are looking for somewhere to train jiu jitsu in Edinburgh, Method Jiu Jitsu is worth a look, run by Niall Campbell, a brown belt and multiple-time UK and IBJJF medallist.
Common questions
How many gym sessions a week should a fighter do?
Usually two, if you are training your sport four or more times a week. Three works in a quieter block. Two well-placed sessions produce most of the available benefit, and beyond that you tend to add fatigue faster than you add strength.
Will lifting make me slow or bulky?
No. Getting significantly bigger requires a calorie surplus and specific programming, neither of which happens by accident. Strength work trained for power and rate of force development makes you faster, not slower. Feeling slow is almost always a fatigue and scheduling problem rather than an effect of lifting.
Do you help with weight cuts for competition?
Yes, and it is one of the areas Callan works on most. A proper cut starts weeks out rather than days, protects strength and energy for the day itself, and includes a refuelling plan after the weigh-in. Anything with a medical dimension should go through your GP.
Can I train with you if I do BJJ or Muay Thai somewhere else?
Yes. Plenty of clients train their sport at other gyms across Edinburgh and come here for the strength and conditioning side. The programme is built around your training week wherever that happens.
What if I am currently injured?
Programming is built around what you can safely load now and progresses towards what you want to do later, rather than pausing until you feel fully recovered. Anything requiring diagnosis or treatment goes through your GP or physiotherapist first.
What happens after I apply?
Callan reviews every application personally within 24 hours and replies by email with next steps. The application takes about five minutes.
Get started
If you are training BJJ or Muay Thai and want strength and conditioning that is actually built for your sport, apply and Callan will review it personally within 24 hours.
Apply Now