Most guys with a heavy bag at home hit it the same way every time. Jab, cross, hook, maybe a lazy kick. No structure, no purpose, no progress.
These 7 Muay Thai heavy bag combinations come from the FightScience Muay Thai Home Study course. Each combo builds on the last, and together they give you a complete heavy bag workout that develops power, timing, and technique across all 8 limbs. Scott Sullivan's rule for bag work: "In my sessions, I never go completely freestyle. I'm always doing some drill in the beginning."
How to Use This
Run these as a workout: 3-minute rounds, 1-minute rest. Start with Combo 1, add one combo each round. By round 7, you're throwing all of them in sequence. 21 minutes of focused work that's better than an hour of random bag hitting. Wrap your hands, wear bag gloves, and remember: "Generally speaking, each punch would be about 75%. You'll be able to fight longer that way."
1. The Foundation: Jab, Cross, Lead Hook
Every Muay Thai combination starts here. The 1-2-3 teaches you to chain punches with proper weight transfer and return to your guard between each strike.
The key: don't arm-punch. Each strike starts from the ground, rotates through the hips, and follows through. As Scott teaches it, "Your body weight going into this person by means of your fists is what's causing the damage." The lead hook is the most commonly butchered punch. Keep your elbow at 90 degrees and rotate your whole body, don't just swing your arm.
Once you have the combination down, don't just stand in one spot repeating it. Move around the bag. Change the rhythm. Put defensive slips and covers between combos. "Don't let more than a couple of seconds go by without throwing a punch."
2. The Body Snatcher: Hooks and Body Kick
Body shots are the most underused weapons in casual training. This combo teaches you to go upstairs/downstairs, attacking the head to drop the guard, then ripping to the body.
Jab, cross, lead hook to the head, rear body kick. The kick should feel like it comes out of nowhere. They're reacting to the punches and the kick arrives while their guard is occupied. Scott's tip from the heavy bag lessons: "Drop the knees, bang the body, come up high, bang the head." Mix levels on every combination.
3. The In-Fighter: Elbows and Knees
Close range is where Muay Thai separates itself from kickboxing. When you're too close to punch with power, elbows and knees take over.
Jab to close distance, lead elbow, rear knee. This combo teaches you to transition from punching range to clinch range seamlessly. Most beginners never develop this skill because they only train at one distance. Get your face right on the bag for this one, shoulder touching. That's where elbows and knees live.
4. The Knockout Setup: Teep to Power Kick
The teep (push kick) is the jab of Muay Thai's kicking game. It controls distance, disrupts rhythm, and most importantly, it sets up the power roundhouse.
Throw the teep to the body. When they lower their hands to defend the teep, the head kick has a clear path. This setup has finished more fights in Thailand than any highlight-reel spinning technique. If you have a banana bag that reaches the floor, you can practice low kicks and teeps to the thigh area. A standard hanging bag works fine for mid-line and high-line work.
5. The Thai Combo: Full Arsenal
This is the combination that puts everything together: punches, kicks, elbows, and knees in one fluid sequence. It's the most demanding combo in this workout and the one that will make you feel like a Thai fighter.
Jab, cross, lead hook, rear kick, step in with lead elbow, rear knee. Six strikes across three ranges. If you can flow through this smoothly, you've graduated from bag hitter to Nak Muay. Scott's advice applies here more than anywhere: "Not every punch should be a killer punch. You want to mix it up. Change the rhythm up on the power."
6. Machine Gun: Volume Punching
Sometimes you need to overwhelm. Scott calls this drill "tap, tap, boom." Roll left and right punches continuously, alternating soft taps with hard shots. Soft, soft, hard. Soft, soft, hard. Never stop moving your hands for the entire round.
"Do that for three minutes and I guarantee you're going to get a great workout." This round is pure hand speed and cardio. Don't worry about power on every shot. Let the volume do the work. Your shoulders will burn. That's the point.
7. Close and Destroy: Clinch Entry
The final combo teaches you to close distance and enter the clinch, the position where Muay Thai fighters do their most devastating work. It also builds on the in-fighting skills from combo #3 above.
Jab, cross to close distance, collar tie, pull their head down, three alternating knees. On the bag, this means getting close enough to grab it, pulling it toward you like you're controlling someone's head, and driving knees. "Get tired, you know? Happens to everybody. Clench the bag. Just like you might in a real fight. Catch your breath. Break off and start punching again."
Your Workout
7 combos across 3-minute rounds = 21 minutes of focused Muay Thai training. Add a 3-round warmup (shadow boxing) and a 2-round cooldown (light technique) for a complete 35-minute heavy bag session. Remember to move around the bag, mix up power and speed, and put defensive movement between combinations. Static bag work builds bad habits.