All right folks, yesterday turned out to be a grappling day. I did two rounds of stand up shadow boxing and then went right into grappling. I did a lot of drilling movements and such, and then focused on ground and pound stuff. I also drilled a punch pass alot and worked on holding knee on belly and working from north south. I didn’t spend as much time as normal on bottom, but did drill a half guard sweep series some and some elbows from bottom guard. Everything seems to be progressing smoothly.
Today was heavy lifting day for me @ Mike’s. Honestly, my hamstrings are still slightly sore from Monday, haha, so today was a good workout from the get-go. I did some squats for sets of 5 with 215 lbs.
These felt heavier than normal today, but my technique, Mike says, has come a looooong way. I also did bulgarian split squats (AKA these fucking suck) with 40 lb DB’s in each hand for sets of 8. I did RDL’s with 225 for sets of 6. I also did blast strap rows, some neck work, and some shoulder health work.
Good workout today.
Today was an easy day for me mostly. I ran for 35 min at a fairly easy pace. Honestly, my legs are sore, so I didn’t push too hard. I stretched for awhile after that. Be sure to support Chris Lytle tonight!!!
Very close fight for Chris. Thought he had it. I had a good lift yesterday. I cut rest times way down to put a bigger emphasis on conditioning since I’m 4 wks out. I did med ball throws, speed deads and bench, bandpressdowns, glute-ham raises (4 sets to failure, ugh), and turkish get ups. Then my buddy came over and we hit mitts together and drilled combinations. We also worked a triangle drill for him and some half-guard stuff.
Ok folks. Today was a good practice. I started things off by working a couple of guard passes (knee up and double under passes). We also worked armbar from knee-on-belly and taking the back from the armbar position. I spent a little time working half-guard passes too. Then we boxed…I went 4 rounds. I felt pretty good. My partner was a southpaw who loves wild hooks. It was a spirited session. 
Then we drilled takedowns doing a 5 takedowns-per-partner drill.
The idea is to practice 5 takedowns (I choose to focus on combining takedowns with strikes mostly) without resistance from your partner. You keep a brisk pace and do it for normal round time. Good workout and practice. Then we rolled jiu-jitsu for 3 rounds. I focused on controlling inside my guard and using the underhook to setup sweeps and such from half guard. Good days work!
I got some ART work done today by Bill Hartman. The guy is simply amazing. He worked (as always) on my elbows, but spend some extra time on my hips today. The difference is simply amazing.
Bad news. My fight on Feb 14th has been postponed due mainly to in-fighting between the promoter and the people that work around him. I’m now trying to get on a card for the next Saturday (21st) and hope it isn’t too late to get on that card. I need to get some fights in really bad.
Can you say a bit more about this ART? I have tried googling it but I don’t think you are talking about painting.
haha…true. ART=Active Release Therapy Essentially the idea is that muscle can become fibrotic or be repaired with scar tissue at times. This happens for various reasons. For example, I’m a right handed fighter. This means my right foot is back, my hips are rotated to the right and my trunk to the left all the time.
Also my shoulders are rounded forward, and I throw hundreds of punches which work all the anterior “pushing” muscles I have. All this anterior emphasis causes a muscle imbalance front to back. No matter how much work you do, some level of imbalance will be there. My scapula is elevated (on the right) and this causes two muscular issues I’ll mention.
First, my lower trapezius is over stretched all the time, and second my pec minor is shortened. When a muscle is in a state of contraction, as these are, that leads to reduced blood flow. That reduced flow leads the body to lay down some scar tissue as a response to damage.
This scar tissue (or fibrotic tissue as it’s often reffered to in the case of muscle) feels and acts differently than muscle. It is not contractile, restricts range of motion, and can lead to muscle tears due to the lower level of flexibility in the muscle. This lower flex can also lead to just general weakness because the muscle can’t fire properly.
Also, if the fibrotic tissue happens to grab hold of a nerve when it is being laid down, you get a nerve entrapment. That causes aching, numbness, weakness, and possibly damage to the nerve if untreated. ART works to break up this fibrotic tissue and encourage a healthy bloodflow into the muscle.
I can honestly say the work that Bill has done on me has greatly improved my squat (I had some issues with hip mobility), punching power (You can’t punch hard if you can’t even straighten your elbows), ability to escape subs (again if you don’t have full ROM at a joint, a sub is super-effective on you), and to recover (I just generally ache less). I strongly recommend trying it.
That being said, Bill is the only person I’ve ever worked with. I know he has a master certification in ART, so I’m not sure of the quality of the general practioner. I’d just ask him. www.indianapolisfitnessandsportstraining.com.
Anyway, that ART coupled with Mike Robertson’s emphasis on soft tissue work and rehab on some back issues I had, has really improved my game. I was able to find a LOT more strength, speed, and explosivenss that I didn’t even know I had because I was just under performing due to the above issues.
Today was a good lifting day. I pushed myself extra hard and hit 215 for 5 reps on squats. After doing that I did 225 on RDL and 40 lb DB’s for Bulgarian split squats. I also did some neck work, some split stance cable chops, blast strap rows, and some rotator cuff shoulder stuff.
I cut rest times down for this day too in order to facilitate some fat loss and up conditioning some. Tomorrow at Mike and Bill’s is a Kettlebell seminar. Visit www.indianapolisfitnessandsportstraining.com for information.
Today i went 20 min of brisk cardio and then did some upperbody conditioning. I basically did 45 sec bursts of lifts with 20 sec rests. For example, I did 15 lb DB hammer curls as fast as I could for 45 sec and then rested 20 sec and did 15 pound DB push press as fast as I could for 45 sec and then rested…etc. Good workout.
Yesterday was, again, my speed day. I did med ball tosses, deads, bench w/ bands, glute-ham raises, band pressdowns. I also did 8 tabatas on the airdyne bike. And a couple sets of two-handed swings. Good workout for sure.
In other news, I got a fight! I’ll be fighting for Total Fight Challenge again, Feb 21st, in Hammond, IN. Tony Wisnewski will be the opponent. Looks like a tall guy whose pretty tough.
Ok folks, here in Indiana, we have about a foot or so of snow. This has pretty much ground my neighborhood to a halt as plows seem to be pretty scarce around here. Therefore I stayed home today and hit the bag some. I did three hard rounds on it and then 2 rounds of slipping with a towel. I notice Shane Mosely doing this in the locker room during one of the look-ins before he beat the shit outta Margarito. All you do is get a partner to hold a towel (i used one that is a hand towel and I think that’s what Shane used) and swing it at you.
They can do different angles, speeds, hands, and I had mine add in shots to the leg too. As I slipped, bobbed, etc, I worked on throwing combinations out of the movement. It was a nice drill.
Then I got creative. I decided to finish my workout I’d go out and run in the snow. I have big snow boots and coveralls, so off I ran. The snow is mid-shin deep pretty much everywhere and there were drifts just above my knees. This was a killer killer killer workout. Eskimos must have fucking huge calves because mine are absolutely cooked. I ran for 20 min…including two 30 sec sprints, and pushed some guys car out for him. Add in the shoveling today (about 45 min worth) and I feel like I trained well.
Hey everybody. Yesterday was drill day. I hit the bag for two rounds, but other than that I just drilled combinations for a long time. I worked on throwing punches into a high double leg, punches with a straight kick combo, punches to high kick combos, a lot on body shots (my next opponent is quite tall I think), and some fun kick combos like you’d see Shogun (well the old Shogun anyway) throw. Good workout for sure. Feeling like my rhythm is coming.
Oh, the day before that, sorry, was sparring day at practice. I went and sparred 3 five min rounds with boxing gloves, shin guards, and headgear. We went everything including takedowns. I did pretty well, I landed a lot of good leg kicks, didn’t get hit much, one nice side kick, and several superman punches. That’s one I’ve been working on. I did get hit real solid once. I think it’s good for you to get popped some in practice, just to take the edge off when the fight comes.
Last, we put on the MMA gloves and worked out on the ground. I had a couple nice sweeps, a knee bar off his single leg attempt, and did ok. Still having trouble getting stuck on bottom of half guard, but working on it. Good days work.
Yesterday I hit mitts. I did the towel drill again to work head movement and then hit mitts for 4 rounds. The 1st and last round were just pure boxing combos. The middle two I worked on specific combos, focusing on overhand rights and rights to the body.
Ok yesterday was lifting day. I did the usual speed stuff for Monday. Speed deads, med ball throws, glute-ham raises. But yesterday, because of some elbow pain, I layed off the bench with bands and did fairly easy pushups istead.
Also, Mike and Bill got a new chest supported row from Elite. As with all the stuff from elite, this thing is huge and awesome. So I played with that yesterday too. Next to pullups, CS rows are my favorite back exercise. More snow here in Indiana. I’ve also decided, after this coming fight, that I’m going to cut down to 155 for the future. So that’ll be fun…ha!
Sorry for big delay…very busy week.
Tuesday I just worked the heavy bag and did some gnp work on bag as well.
Wednesday: Started out with nice jog, sprawl to knee warmups, stretching. Then proceeded to spar (in mma gloves) 6x5 min rounds. To give some insight into Integrated’s training philosophies, we typically spar one of two ways. We will put on headgear, shin guards, 16 oz gloves or bigger and spar. This allows us to strike with a pretty high intensity. We also work takedowns during this, but because of bulkiness of gear, we don’t really work on the ground. Second, we spar in mma gloves only. This is more of a takedown/takedown defense workout because striking is very light. We do work on the ground here, and are mostly in the cage so we can work cage techniques.
Thursday: Started out drilling shots and sprawls up and down the floor. Then drilled where we allowed a partner to pick up a single leg and we tried to prevent takedown from there. Wrestled live for 2x5 min rds. Then put on mma gloves and sparred 5x5 min rds. Finisher today was a kicking drill where one guy holds a kick shield and the other kicks for 5 min solid. Big thing here is for the shield guy to move himself and the target around quite a bit.
Friday we had a new guy come in from about an hour away. Coach had called me the night before and asked if I’d come in (because we are same weight) and work him out some. His coaches wanted him to get a chance to spar around and get work in. Coach told me a couple other guys around my weight were going to come in to work him also. Turns out the other sparring partners did not show up. Damn them. So I grappled 2x5 min rds, sparred in full gear 3x5 min rds, and sparred mma gloves 3x5 min rds. We finished with 60 jump lunges and a pushup ladder drill. I do one, he does one, I do two, he does two, etc. Stay in pushup position the entire time to 10 reps. Suffice to say, I’m pretty sore a tired at this point.
Overall with sparring this week I did not have good days in particular. I was disappointed with my takedown defense and I am still struggling on bottom of half guard and side control. But I’m working hard on it and my striking is pretty sharp at this point. Thanks for reading, any questions just ask.
After 21 rds of hard sparring in three days, I took today off as far as workouts go. I saw Bill today and he performed ART on me. I am having a problem with my right hamstring/gastroc/soleus. Essentially sharp pain and stiffness right behind my right knee. He worked on that some today and my left elbow. Those two areas were the worst def. Other than that, easy day.