Lions, and Tigers and ... oh my!

Time for my weekly digest. Good week. Could have trained more, but I feel like full of energy and strong. Whatever I'm doing different (be it the running, bodyweight routine, grappling, getting some free weights back into the routine, eating more, or some combination of the above), it seems to be working. Last week I felt a bit beat up, but this week my body seems to have come around.

OCT 29 2011 : GREAT WESTCHASE 5K AND SYSTEMA

RACE, RUNNING, SYSTEMA

Woke up early this morning and ran a 5k race, the Great WestChase. My run program needed me to run a 5k this week, and this one wasn’t too far. It was a cool misty morning. Finished in 23:26 at about a 7:34 pace.

Later went to Sarasota for a little gathering of some Systema folk and some weapons work. It was fairly loose training and mostly worked on breathing and flow and then some multiple attackers with weapons work. Good times!

OCT 30 2011 : FITOCRACY GRINDING

RUNNING, WEIGHT-LIFTING

This is an absurd workout. I’ve been playing with Fitocracy recently and started poking around at the achievements and quests after inadvertently achieving a couple. I had planned to do a basic lift day (really wanting to do deadlifts), so I just made a workout wherein I could knock out as many of these using a barbell as I could and still get in a decent workout. Basically, I made a list of achievements and quests and turned them into a single workout. One was to run a mile in under 7 minutes. I haven’t tried that since I recently started trying to improve my running, so I added that in and smashed it. I came in at around 6:40. Not where I want to be, but not bad for where I have been. The 275 deadlift was a personal best.

• Deadlifts
• 135×10
• 225×5
• 245×3
• 275×1
• Bench Press
• 135×10
• 185×5
• 205×1
• 225×1 (assisted)
• 225×1 (assisted)
• Squats
• 95×20
• 135×10
• Pendlay Row
• 115×8
• Barbell press
• 135×1
• Standing calf raise (on machine)
• 225×12
• Crunches
• 1×25
• Ran 1 mile in 7.2 minutes

OCT 31 2011 : FOUR STRIPES

BJJ, MMA

Today was the normal routine of MMA striking in the morning for an hour and Drilling Gi BJJ in the evening. In striking we worked on the flowing hands to kicks and shots again. I worked with Marcos. I love his intensity. Nice to train with someone diligent who will will give you a good straight right to close a feedback loop quick. In BJJ we worked the twister half guard. Did drills and competitive drills in the half guard (with and without underhook). At the end of class, Matt gave me 4 stripes on my belt. One away from that blue. He told the class that if I came more often that I’d probably have a blue with some stripes on it. I just want the blue for now. Belts aren’t very meaningful to me (and stripes less so), but the blue opens doors in BJJ circles and opens the door to the competition team for me.

NOV 01 2011 : SECOND WEEK OF BODYWEIGHT ROUTINE

BODYWEIGHT, BOXING, RUNNING

This morning I had my private boxing session with coach. We worked on being snappier, working my range, set-ups, moving, etc. We’re moving into a different phase of my training now. Good stuff. Shoulders on fire at the end of that hour.

After work, I came home and Erica and I did the second week of our bodyweight routine. This week is the same number of Pull-Ups, Push-Ups and Squats, but we only have 50 seconds rather than a minute. That worked out to look like this:

• Pull-Ups on Rings
• 10×5
• 5 every 50 seconds until complete
• On the 6-10th sets, I had to break them up into 4+1 or 3+2, but finished all in the 50 second windows.
• Push-Ups
• 10×10
• 10 every 50 seconds until complete
• Prisoner Squats
• 10×10
• 10 every 50 seconds until complete

We then ran 2 miles with the dogs at the ball park at a leisurely pace. We finished up with 50 crunches to satisfy another Fitocracy Quest.

The plan was to drop 10 seconds each week on the bodyweight routine. I’ll have to see how I feel come Saturday (the third time we’ll do this workout at 50 seconds). I’m thinking that our next jump may be to 45 seconds rather than 40. I hope we adjust quickly enough to jump to 40, but we’ll see.

NOV 03 2011 : LAST DAY BEFORE BALTIMORE

BOXING, MMA

Erica and I are leaving for Baltimore tomorrow, so today I could only do the two group sessions with the teams. This morning I worked out with the MMA team and we worked on some nice set-ups and counters and counter exchanges using combinations of hands and kicks (including counter-kicking). Good stuff. Today was the first day that I felt pretty good about my kicking in flow. Not great, not even good. But not horrible.

Tonight I came back in to train with boxing team. It was a small group and Josh from the MMA team joined us. Coach had us work hard on bag drills. My shoulders are lumps of gelatinous flesh now. Nice.