Combat sports organizations worldwide have caused Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Muay Thai to gain widespread popularity. BJJ is a gentle grappling sport that does not involve striking, but its submission holds can be painful and cause damage. Conversely, Muay Thai is a more violent sport that includes many striking techniques, and the risk of injury and irreversible damage is higher. Today, we will delve into the debate of BJJ vs Muay Thai.
Main differences between BJJ and Muay Thai
BJJ and Muay Thai are very different from one another in terms of style, technique and application.
Style
The basic difference between BJJ and Muay Thai is that one is a grappling martial art, while the other is a striking martial art. BJJ focuses on chokes, locks and holds, whereas Muay Thai utilizes punches, kicks, elbows, knees and clinching.
Belts and Ranks
BJJ has a very complex belt ranking system which includes five belts of white, blue, purple, brown and black colors. Each belt is awarded four stripes over the passage of time before moving onto the next rank, although that’s not always the case. Sometimes, students can level-up without the stripes. Overall, it takes around 10-15 years for BJJ practitioners to master the sport. There are no formal rankings in Muay Thai, however. Instead of BJJ-like belts, Muay Thai fighters receive championship belts and trophies.
Uniforms
Most traditional BJJ fighters wear a Gi. Compression pants, No Gi shorts and rash guards are most used in No-Gi competitions. A traditional Gi is always tied together with the belt ranking. Muay Thai fighters normally wear shorts and use Muay Thai gloves. They also wear praciats or prajeads which is purely a symbolic armband to represent the sport’s tradition.
Rules and Scoring
BJJ has rules that define legal and prohibited submissions, disqualifying moves such as leg locks and neck cranks. A point system awards control positions like mount and back control. Muay Thai also has rules, disallowing headbutts and groin attacks, but allowing punching, kicking, and knees. Unlike boxing and MMA, it scores fights as a whole, allowing a fighter to win by inflicting damage, even if they’re narrowly down by four rounds.
Toughness
BJJ vs Muay Thai is an interesting topic to deal with when it comes to toughness and endurance. Both are taxing in different ways. In Muay Thai, a fighter gets hit constantly and waits to counter. The constant back-and-forth action can take a massive toll on the body and test endurance to the limit. In BJJ, a practitioner is expected to keep a hold of their opponent on the mat and maintain strong positions as the adversary tries to reverse the moves. Without toughness and endurance, it’s very easy to slip up.
Similarities between BJJ and Muay Thai
In the above section, we learned about the differences when it comes to BJJ vs Muay Thai. In this section, we will take a look at some of the similarities between the two forms of martial arts.
Clinching
Clinching is a very important part of Muay Thai and No-Gi BJJ. Most matches will start in the clinch in No-Gi BJJ, so a good BJJ practitioner should be well-versed in hand fighting. This is very similar to hand fighting and clinching in Muay Thai. Although there are no strikes in clinch in No-Gi BJJ as compared to Muay Thai, where knee and elbow strikes are allowed.
Sweeps and Trips
BJJ and Muay Thai both utilize sweeps and trips but in different ways. Muay Thai practitioners use knee taps, leg sweeps and body lock takedowns, although they don’t lead to anything because Muay Thai doesn’t allow ground fighting. In BJJ, sweeps and trips can help fighters secure dominant positions.
Traditions
Like all forms of martial arts, BJJ and Muay Thai are all about traditions and respecting your peers and opponents. Both BJJ and Muay Thai have traditional aspects to them. The Gi itself has a traditional significance. Bowing and at times lining up by rank after class is also considered as a sign of respect. Muay Thai holds its tradition of group training mentality and wearing head and arm bands during fights, as well as bowing.
Is Muay Thai Better Than BJJ?
Muay Thai and BJJ have their advantages and disadvantages. Muay Thai provides a range of striking tools for self-defense, but it can cause serious injury and legal consequences. Controlled aggression may be necessary in self-defense situations. BJJ is safer for both parties, allowing easy control of an untrained adversary until help arrives.
Muay Thai is ideal for fitness, weight loss, movement, and overall health. BJJ also provides health benefits, but is more demanding than Muay Thai. BJJ feels like a life-and-death struggle; a five-minute session can leave you breathless. Though both are beneficial, BJJ offers advantages over Muay Thai in safety and body benefits.
Muay Thai vs BJJ: Which One is Harder?
Muay Thai is undoubtedly brutal. However, Muay Thai or any other striking-based martial art is far easier to learn than a grappling one. In this case, BJJ is much harder because a lot of techniques used in BJJ are not intuitive, at least not for beginners. In contrast, everyone knows how to kick and punch even if they have never entered a martial arts dojo in their life.
BJJ training mostly revolves around direct and close contact with a training partner as you learn various techniques. The close contact and scrambling isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and most beginners find it extremely hard to muscle through tough situations. It gets better with practice, technical knowledge and experience. Also, a 5-10 minutes grappling session with a training partner can be exhausting.
In Muay Thai, you can acquire skills quickly, and without a partner, by improving technique with striking pads and shadow boxing. There are sparring sessions in Muay Thai gyms as well, but beginners mostly are exempt from sparring sessions and only put light-contact when they reach a certain level of skill and experience.
Muay Thai vs BJJ: Which Burns More Calories?
How many calories you burn depends on the sort of training you undergo, your physical attributes and the intensity of your training sessions. For a start, let’s compare the data for an hour of hard sparring in Muay Thai and BJJ.
Karsten Øvretveit, physiologist and PhD candidate at the K.G. Jebsen Center for Genetic Epidemiology, recently published a research paper on the physiological and perceptual responses to Brazilian jiu-jitsu sparring. According to her findings, a 30-minute hard BJJ sparring session burns 530 calories and an hour-long session burns twice as much. The 30-minute duration consisted of five 6-minute rounds with 90-second intervals between them. The participants had an average age of 31, an average BJJ experience of 4.6 years and weighed nearly 180lbs on average. Other research works also claim that a 60-minute hard BJJ sparring session burns 800-1000 calories and even more.
To calculate the amount of calories burned during a hard 60-minute sparring session of Muay Thai, let’s take into account its MET (Metabolic Equivalent of Task). The MET value of Muay Thai varies from 9.3 to 10.3 according to various online sources. Suppose we want to find out the calories burned by a 180lb Muay Thai fighter during a 60-minute session.
By multiplying the MET value with the body weight in KGs, and then multiplying the result by 0.0175 and the duration of the session, we can find out the amount of calories burned. If MET of Muay Thai is 9.3, the calories burned will be 797, whereas for MET of 10.3, the value is 883.
BJJ vs Muay Thai in the UFC
To reach the top in MMA, one must be well-rounded, or unique. Muay Thai is excellent for striking in MMA due to its pace and pressure. However, relying solely on Muay Thai won’t suffice. Even with exceptional striking, a lack of grappling experience will leave you vulnerable to takedowns and submissions.
Similarly, if you are a BJJ guy with below average striking, you will come across someone with a decent submission and takedown defense and that will be your undoing. UFC flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko, for example, is a Muay Thai phenom, but her BJJ is outstanding as well, which is why she dominates most of her opponents. Similarly, Charles Oliveira is a BJJ phenom, but has come leaps and bounds in terms of his Muay Thai. He can outstrike some of the best fighters in the world, and then when the fight hits the mat, he’s all over them.
In MMA, it’s important to have a strong base, like Muay Thai or BJJ. Great BJJ and Muay Thai fighters can easily get past bottom tier fighters, but to become a champion, a mix of both Muay Thai and BJJ will be needed.
Final Thoughts
So far in this article, we have learned about the similarities and differences between BJJ and Muay Thai and their many facets, which make each better than the other, but equally significant at the same time. So who wins the BJJ vs Muay Thai debate? Personally, I’d go with BJJ since it has many advantages, and it guarantees safety, but if you are an adrenaline junkie, Muay Thai is the right martial art for you. Whatever you choose, sky’s the limit.