Training Log: Entry 237

BJJ and MT class

Summary of BJJ:
Rolling
Re-working kimura

Summary of rolling:
Did better thiss time.  Didn't get tapped much, held good posistioning, and even managed a few subs.  Mainly kimura from mount (new for me, I hate mount), a gullitine, and one straight ankle lock.  Kept my hips low and used my chest to push the kimura.  Good tactic from what I can see.  The cradle is an awesome half guard escape.  Cardio is holding up well.

Summary of kimura work:

Same stuff as monday.  Special note, on the rolling kimura, roll towards side that knee is on belly, not the other side.

Summary of MT:
Drilling
Sparring
Conditioning

Drill: Boxing up top to open up a rib kick

Coaches notes to me: I throw my elbow down to block rib kicks.  I need to keep it in close and simply lower it to protect my ribs. 

Drill 2: Boxing up top with rib kick, defending partner counters with head punch and rib kick.

Notes: Doing alright on head defense.  My kicks apparently allowed my foot to hit right into his liver.

Sparring with stipulation of no leg or headkicks (only rib kicks).

Notes: Did an great job of punching people in the face.  Must thank boxing for that.  Found my range just fine.  Took a few hooks though, not that great at guarding circular attacks.  Think I've finally shaken my ring rust.

Conditioning: Took punches to the gut.  I needed to piss, so it made the drill pretty sucky, but my breathing was just fine.

Training Log: Entry 236

MT class

Summary of class
Drill new techniques
Sparring
Conditioning

Techniques:
Drill 1: Straight shots up top with bodyhook.  Basically learning how to set up.

Notes: Defense is ok, but still need to work on slipping and parrying rather than just straight blocking.

Drill 2: Same as above except allowed to throw headkicks

Notes: Dropping hands a little bit, and throwing the hand/elbow to block low kick.  Bad habit that'll get me KOed one day.  Fix it.

Personal notes: One of my training partners had a pattern of clapping his gloves together in front of his face after every exchange.  Popped him in the face a bunch of times in the middle of a clap.  This is why patterns are bad.

Sparring: Stipulations-no leg kicks, no push-kicks, focus on bodyshots.

Notes: Doing an outstanding job of keeping my chin down.  Was a problem at first, but now that I've focued on it, I've yet to get popped in the chin or throat.  Must continue this pattern.

Without leg kicks, I fought much more on the inside than the outside.

Still hiding behind that jab.  Too afraid to throw that rear hand in a non-power setting.

Got inside on an inside fighter while still making use of the jab. Good posistioning, but need to throw the hooks.

Slipped right into a head kick.  Stupid move. 

Keep hands up more.

Drill: 20 arm kicks on each side.  My forearms still sting.

50 speed kicks on shield with each leg.  Cardio held up fine.

100 crunches with partner standing on stomach.  Aside from indigestion, just fine.

20 burpees.  Was dying at the end.

 

Good training day.

Training Log: Entry 235

BJJ class

Warmup
Drill new technique

Warm-up, rolling at 20-50% intensity, back to back stuff and eyes closed at some point.

Notes: I got tooled today.  Went against the biggest and best guys I could find and just got absolutely stomped and subbed.  Good for my ego.  Lost a lot of subs from sweat, stupid crap like that.  Posistioning was off, stuck in half guard a lot.  Pulled a few sweet reversals and still made use of the cradle where applicable.  Need lots of work.  Cardio held up alright.

Conditioning: Nothing I couldn't handle.

Techniques: Went over a proper kimura.  Palm turned down, not up. 

Notes on properly executing a kimura from side control:
Arm closeset to far hip uses elbow to keep hip in place.  Keep your own hips lower than his center of gravity to put the weight and pressure on them.  Thumb over grip instead of thumb around wrist grip (think proper bench press).  Other hand slides through space created by shoulder rather than tricep.  It cannot be executed without space, and since you can't drive someone's hand through the ground, you need to back your hips away and pull them with you, then torque the shoulder.

Second technique: When they oppose the kimura and straighten out, you apply pressure in the same way for the tap.

Notes: keep their wrist torqued with palm facing down and away.  Lower own armpit six inches from their armpit down onto bicep to keep pressure.  More of a pushing motion than a pulling motion.  Keep all good dynamics of good kimura.

Third technique:  This one is tricky.  From an ideal kimura posistion, slide leg furtherest away from head onto belly.  Post on own head.  Roll on the shoulder of the same side as the knee on belly while cranking kimura.  If done fast, their shoudler will pop.  This technique is ideal for when they grip their pantleg to prevent kimura because of the power it generates.  Make sure to kick leg away during roll to prevent them from gripping, and to crank the arm in a semi-circle for maximum leverage.

Great class.  I love the kimura, and learning new and better ways is awesome. 

Training Log: Entry 234

Muay Thai tonight.

Summary of class:
Warm-up
Drills
Conditioning

Warm-up:
Heavybag work.  2 two minute rounds. 

Coaches tips: Stick butt out before launching kick for more power.

Drills:
Focus of tonight was teep (push-kick)

Drill 1: Alternating teeps with defending partner absorbing blow

Coaches notes: Relax while firing teeps, otherwise move too rigid and telegraph.

Drill 2: Alternating teeps with defending partner performing a sweep block and countering with counter outside leg kick.

Note: Sweep block seems like a practical application of TKD low block.  More of a sweeping motion than a destructive downward motion.

Drill 3: Same as drill two with addition of highkick after low counter kick.

Personal note: Still need to realx when attempting to sweep block.  Too much reading means they could take advantage of me telegraphing and feint.

Sparring: Light contact w/no inside leg kicks, main focus on use of teep.

Notes: Fire the jab too much.  Hiding behind it.  Need to combo with it more.  Manage some good headshots on the start student tonight.  Still going too light on the women.

Eat 25 leg kicks each side

Personal notes: When eating a kick, much better idea to take it to the front of the thigh than the side or back.

Conditioning:

40 roundhouses on each leg w/5 power alternate 5 speed
5 sets of 10 crunches off of the ring edge, hold for 10 seconds at the 10th rep while hammerfisting midsection
30 reverse/back crunches off the edge of the ring holding the last rep for 10 seconds

Training Log: Entry 233

BJJ and MT today.

BJJ class summary:
Warm-up rolling (20, 30, and 40%)
New technique
Conditioning

Warm-up:
F-in' ego driven grapplers.  Guy were trying to rip my head off at "20%".  The point of the exercise is just to warm up and try new techniques, not to see how many times you can tap the other guy Rickson. 

Notes: Really need to expand tools in toolbox from posistions.  It's good to be strong with key moves, but more variety would be an asset.

Pulled a sweet cattle-catcher.  I love that move.  Wanna work on it more.

Saw lots of opportunities for sitting out.  Woulda attempted them, but still little iffy on my shoulder.

Cardio sucked.  Of course, that's to be expected when for a warm-up you're fending for your life.

New techniques:

Main focus on guillitine today.  Showed emphasis on placing throat on crook of elbow rather than blade of forearm, turning it from an air choke into a blood choke. 

2 Drills:

Drill 1: From nuetral tie-up, shuck head to same side as leading leg with opposing arm stretched out, then slipping the improved guilltine on.

Drill 2: From the sprawl on the single leg, work the head and arm gullitine (lock both head and arm, grip inside wrist instead of hand, sit out, stick their head on the map, hip out to the outside, leg on back to keep them in place, crank for tap).

Conditioning:

Ugh, cardio was killing me.  Ready to puke.  Tried out the class with mouthguard, might have affected breathing.

MT class:

Warm-up
Drills
Conditioning

Warm-up
1-2-3 to body-headkick
1-2-3 to head-leg kick

Drills:
Same as warm-up, but with partner. 

Notes: Got messed up a little on recovering from blocking body to blocking head.  Learned to block head with more than just a raised glove, but to raise and put it towards the neck and block with elbow, preventing the foot from wrapping around and hitting the neck.

Drills: Alternate between the two with no pattern.

Notes: Need to work on leg checking.  Keep pointing leg in wrong direction.  Need to point out, not in.

Drills: Sparring with stipulation of no inside leg kicks, no headkicks without leg kicks.

Notes: Missed the inside leg kicks.  Still, did alright.  Went too easy on most of the partners sadly.  Need to keep hands up more on right leg roundhouse.

Drills: Bodypunching free sparring with head kicks on command for one round, same as above for another with added leg kick.  Follow both rounds with 30 right leg roundhouse then 30 legt.

Notes: Had no more gas.  Still made it through.

Conditioning:

Was still going strong amazingly enough.  Crunches and push-ups.  Easy stuff.

Training Log: Entry 232

Purchased L-Gltuamine powder.  Should help with muscle recovery while training.

Did weight training today.  Shoulder is almost 100%.  Found out I actually have a dip station on one of my benches.  Might wanna purchase the weight chain belt because the DBs limit my range of motion a little bit.

Training Log: Entry 231

Went for a run for the first time in months.  Legs and cardio held up amazingly well all things considered.  Real short, didn't want to fatigue my muscles by doing too much when unconditioned. 

Shoulder is feeling a lot better.  My diet went to hell as a result, but I'm working out enough so that it can't be too bad of a limit.  Must remember this strategy. 

Injury update:

Woke up with soreness and stiffness in shoulder.  Mostly muscle, very little tendon or joint pain.  Ran it under hot water in shower for 5 minutes and it felt awesome.  Should treat it with heat over my break.

Altered diet to facilitate healing process.  Increase of protein to aid in muscle and tissue repair.  Increased saturated fats and cholesterol to aid in testostorone production.

Training log: Entry 230

Back to back training BJJ and Muay Thai.

BJJ class:

Summary of class
Warm-up
Drill new techniques
Rolling

Warm-up:
Basic PT.  My shrimping is smoother.
Single leg takedowns

New techniques
After he sprawls you, windshield the legs and pull guard with one leg on his hip to keep at a safe distance.  For some reason, came way natural to me.

From under sprawl, wrestling sit-out to rear control.  Was like I was home again. 

From on top of sprawl, when he sit-out, you use the momentum of his head to put him in mount.  Helps if he grabs far in on the leg.  Wish I knew this move back when I wrestled.

Rolling from the sprawl: didn't really throw too many subs, but still never tapped.  Subluxed my right shoulder again.  After that, my rolling went a lot lighter and less strength.

Got way out posistioned by a noobie.  Stupid tard strength. 

Made great use of the cradle as always. 

 

Muay Thai class

Summary of class:
Warm-up
Drills
PT

Drills:  Punches up top, inside leg kick, partner of defense eats kick and counters with leadleg roundhouse up high

Same as above, but with right kick counter

Sparring with the condition that the only kick that can be thrown at any time is inside leg kick, after that a high kick can be thrown as a counter

Coaches notes to me:
Need to stop backing up when being hit.  Need to stand my ground (kinda funny if you think about it.  I went from being too much of a tank to too much of a twinkle toes)

Need to stop leaning back when I throw that leadleg kick.

Personal notes: After these corrections, I was a leadleg kicking machine in sparring.  Also found I did a good job of skeet shooting (blocking punches with elbows while hands are pressed against face).

PT:

100 alternating push-kicks holding 10lb DB in each hand keeping hands up.

Ankles locked together for crunches
Hold half way crunches, go down 1 inch, go down 1 inch hold for 30 seconds X 2

Finally done

Current status: TARFU (Things are really F-ed up) but not FUBAR.  Will be resting shoulder for 3 days and treating mat burns and bruised legs.

 

Training Log: Entry 229

Most work on deadlift form.  Standard weights suck so hard.  Lean too far forward, and lift with back instead of legs.

Training Log: Entry 228

First MT class of summer training session.

Breakdown of class:
Warmup
Partner drilling
PT

Summary of class:
Warmup-some heavybag work and shadowboxing.  Little too crammed to execute technique well.  Oh well, just a warmup.

Partner drilling-Partnered up with a new guy.  Met him in the grappling class the last night.  Pretty big dude, around my size, little shorter than me.  Lotta heart, but no real clue what he was doing.  Meant my training was a little less dynamic than I wanted, but still got in a good sweat.

Drill: 1-2-3-low roundhouse-high roundhouse.  Offense partner throws solid technique.  Defense partner defends hands and high roundhouse, takes low roundhouse.

Note: Slipping and evading comes a lot more natural to me than blocking.  However, my hands drop when I slip.  Need to fix this.

Drill: Same as above, except defense partner now evades high roundhouse instead of blocks.  Little too crammed in the ring for a good high roundhouse.

Drill: Similar to above, except we through the high roundhouse at the end of the combo at random intervals to make sure people were defending well.

Drill: Light contact sparring using the above techniques with stipulation that every high roundhouse must be preceeded with a low roundhouse.

Note: Hands were dropping too much in sparring.  Need to fix that.

Kicking drills on kick shield-50 hard roundhouse kicks with each leg.  Then 50 fast roundhouse kicks.

Note: Partner couldn't keep the pad angled right.  Kinda pissed me off.

PT: 50 crunches off the side of the ring with partner putting shins on shins followed by 50 crunches with partner standing on abs.

Note: Was about to crap myself while they were standing on my abs.  Need to have better nutrition timing.

Overall: The coach doesn't speak much.  He likes to show the technique without any speech.  It works for me because I know what the hell he means, but for the new guys, they still have no clue.  Still, he offers good pointers and fixes mistakes when he sees them.  Not a bad class.

 

Training Log: Entry 227

First grappling class of summer session.

It appears that the rolling I did at the MMA club was more than just maintenence.  I tapped every single person I rolled with tonight.

Class structure:
Free rolling for first half hour for warmup
Drill techniques
Conditioning

Free rolling summary
I arrived late, and only got to roll like 4-5 times.  I did an awesome job of getting and maintaining side control (I don't like mount) on most of the folks I rolled with.  From there, I went for the far arm kimura, and got it more often than not.  One person I kept cranking and nothing happened.  Needed to tuck it in more.

My bottom of the guard game was actually decent for once.  I messed up a triangle attempt but saved it by turning it into an armbar.  Armbarred the same guy twice more from similar circumstances.

I jumped guard a few times (guess I am now a dirty dirty BJJ whore) with a slick guilltine choke.  Didn't have much trouble with that.  One time I didn't have the choke, but it led to another armbar.

I got put in a ankle lock.  When I was rolling, I wanted to go for them, but then I remembered it was a BJJ school and they tend not to allow white belts to go for them.  Since this was the novice class, I didn't know if it was allowed.  I found out quick.  Didn't let it happen again.

Still roll like a wrestler.  Spun out on a guy's back, put folks in cradles, etc.  Meh, they work.

Note: Next time, pick bigger people to roll with.  Also, my cardio held up pretty fine, while other folks were dying.

Takedown training:

Bah, for a wrestler, I suck at this stuff.  From a nuetral tieup, get the underhook while the other hand holds the back of the hand, raise up his elbow while pulling down on their head, step back with the leg on the same side as the one holding the head, shuck and snap down.  From here, a nifty trick.  Follow them down, get one arm under their arm, one arm over their arm going for the choke.  Now, the key is, the hand not going for the choke goes on top of the bodylock.  The guy on the bottom instinctively goes for the top hand, peels it away, letting the hand that applies the choke slip right in and lock up.  From there, put in the hooks and perform the RNC.

Might not make any sense, but I know what I mean.

Drills:

Two men lock up in nuetral and go for any takedown.  I was still shakey with the one they taught us, so I was just going for single legs and ankle picks.  I was pretty shakey with this, but eventually got my groove.  I never got taken down, got 2 single legs, 1 firemen's carry into a single leg, and I think an anklepick.

Conditioning:

Nothing I couldn't handle.

 

Final notes: Not a bad class.  Instructor was cool.  Made me wanna learn.  People were friendly.  Low ego environment.  Might try the more advanced group sometime, but baby steps for now.  Next time, should wear cup, knee pads, and mouthguards.

Training Log: Entry 226

First boxing class for the summer training period.  I'll refrain from posting the entire class as I did in the previous period (mainly because they don't change too much) and just make note of important items.

1: Conditioning is pretty bad, but that's expected.  Should build up over this time.
2: For some reason, everytime I step into the boxing gym, my upperback towards my right shoulder is killing me.  I had this problem all during winter.  I really don't know WTF is going on.
3: Need to work on keeping one hand covering my face while the other hand punches.  Gonna try to overcompensate in training.
4: Noticed the effects of my power training in class.  We did frog jumps across the room for conditioning, and I was way ahead of the class on distance. 
5: Need to relax more.
6: Keep chin down.  Quit looking for shots.
7: Elbows in.

Training Log: Entry 225

End of semester evaluation.

Had to have been my best semester ever in terms of strength and conditioning.  After initial confusion of where to go, I got guidence from Faxandu and started up on the best muscle training program of my life, let alone this training log.  Squat went up about 75lbs, weighted dip went up 65lbs, my bodyfat must have dropped a few points, just overall feeling stronger, and always moving up when I hit the gym.  Bench is still stuck, but still a respectable level. 

Cardio is ok.  Not really a focus while at school, but can still work a heavybag without puking and run some cardio circuits.  This summer while I'm in training, I can fine tune it. 

Skillset: Well, better than last time at least.  The MA club gave me a chance to at least attempt to maintain my skill level through once a week rolling and sparring.  Only real problem is the fact that, like always, I'm the biggest guy there, so I don't get much resistance.  I'm also the strongest, so my grappling is a lot of muscling with a little skill.  Still, I learned a new sub from that club, and got to work on my evading and headmovement, so not a total loss.  Now the real training begins.  Handspeed has gone down, but a good month of boxing will fix that.

Nutrition: Better than last year at least.  Eliminated a lot of the fried food I was consuming, replaced with simple PBJ or healthier meats.  Consumed more water as well, which is always good.  Also began eating oatmeal everyday with breakfast, very positive change.  Hope to improve even more while at home.

Supplementation: This is where I really excelled this semester.  Finally started a basic multivitamen in my regimine, which was one of those really basic "no duhs" that I should have covered earlier.  However, the major change was consuming dextrose and malto (in the form of sweet tarts) post lifting.  This was a huge change.  Paired along with the improved routine, I've seen the greatest gains in my life and never felt better.

Projection: Now that school is out, strength training is going to take a back seat to my skill training.  I'll still be trying to hit the gym about 3 days a week to maintain and possibly even gain, but I'll prolly have to tone downt he volume to prevent overtraining.  Nutrition needs to be top to reduce the severe catabolism I had over my winter break, but I can always put the muscle back on when I get back to school.

Goals for training: 2 Muay Thai classes per week, 2 grappling classes a week, 1 boxing class a week. 

Training Log: Entry 224

Summary of ME upperbody day

Weighted dips at an all time high of 125lbs for 4 reps +1 cheat (swung my legs).
DB shoulder press still increasing

Summary of ME leg day
Broke previous record with 5 reps at 315 and then two reps at 335.  Had enough gas for a third, but didn't want to injure from poor form.  Improved weight on both single leg squat and DBSLDL.  Gonna run the rack soon.

Moving day, got to lift and move tons of boxes and fridges.  Didn't even feel the weight.  PL has payed off.

Summary of semester to come.

Training Log: Entry 223

Had a great new training idea on the heavybag.  I tied it at a slight angle using a hook on the wall and the loop at the bottom.  Turned it into a slip and uppercut bag.  When I would uppercut it, it'd swing back at me.  Drilled all sorts of combos I had never been able to drill before (1-2-3-4, 1-2-slip-3, 1-2-slip-3-2, etc etc).  Worked well until the hook at the bottom tore from that bag.  Cheap POS.

Drilled my shin conditioning.  My thai kick is getting fast but looks sloppy.  Oh well.  Function over form.