Photos: Dan Chen

Name: Chris Gayomali
Age: 39
Profession: Editor, Writer at HEAVIES
Sport: Muay Thai

What's your current training routine?

It’s more than a little kismet that my new job ended up being just two blocks away from my gym, Five Points Academy in Soho/Chinatown, basically my favorite place in the world. Is the proximity to my gym the reason I took the job? It’s not not the reason. Training-wise, I’ve been waking up at 6 a.m. on the weekdays in order to commute in from Bedstuy for two classes from 7:45 to 9:00: some combination of hitting bags, pads, drills, sparring, and strength training. It’s a lot. But I love getting in a hard workout first thing in the morning. It sets a productive tone for the day and gets all my neurons firing. It’s to the point that if I don’t make it into the gym first thing I feel significantly dumber.

Whose style do you try to emulate?

I’ve always been drawn to athletes who aren’t physically imposing freaks of nature, who had to approach their respective games from a different perspective in order to succeed. Especially athletes who are a little undersized. Michael Chang and his underhand serve. Kings-era Jason Williams. Manny Pacquiao, obviously.

In Muay Thai, there are a few fighters I try to copy, mostly in secret. There’s this ONE Championship fighter named Jackie Buntan who coaches at Boxing Works in the South Bay who I love watching. She has an unusually low center of gravity and seems to explode horizontally for all her blitzes. That we are both Filipino-American with large thighs doesn’t hurt. While visiting my parents in Long Beach one Christmas, I dropped in for one of her classes and was more than a little starstruck.

There’s also this young Japanese kickboxer named Ryuki Matsuda who recently became a stadium champion in Thailand, which is kind of unheard of. He’s basically my size, and uses all these unorthodox trips to unbalance his opponents before blasting them with his boxing. There’s this one clip I watch all the time of him sparring a much larger fighter and completely piecing him up. In the video, he's wearing these Jordan-brand basketball shorts, and because I’m a simp who’s easily influenced, I may have copped the same pair from the Nike on Broadway. Strangely, my fighting has not improved.

What’s the best way to recover after a hard workout?

I’m 39, practically ancient. Competition-wise I should probably be gatekeeping this, but I go to this futuristic physical therapy place called MOCEAN near Grand Central. It was started by this guy named Josh Park, who was the medical trainer for the South Korean Olympic team. His philosophy with regard to health and recovery is very much in line with what I believe in: Eastern medicine that's grounded in science with all the latest technology. I swear MOCEAN has my old ass feeling 10 years younger than I actually am.

Who’s the person that had the greatest impact on your training?

My homegirl, Alma Vicencio, who is one of my coaches. She got me into the sport. After a four-year layoff, and after having her daughter, she recently stepped into the ring again to fight at age 41—and almost won against an emerging star in her athletic prime. Real Rocky-type shit. Alma also trains like a demon; after a full circuit of training she’ll casually knock out a finisher of 500 knees and 200 sit-ups. I try to keep up with her as best I can and I’m better off for it.