All Aboard the Pork Chop X-press!!

[Pork Chop]

Intro
Alright,
I'm taking another stab at this here blog thing.
My last one went okay; but I didn't like the fact that I had like 3 separate blogs between the beginning of '06 and the end of '07.
2006 was a tough year for me in my personal life.
2007 was a rebuilding phase, but some things had to be torn down before new things could be built - lost my job, but moved to a new city and found a new one; also got a great girl.
Now, in 2008 I'm hoping I can finally get it right.

In December I joined Gold's Gym here in San Antonio.
I got a personal trainer, but it wasn't working great and it was just too expensive.
Started to do my own thing, but it felt a bit too unfocused and repetitive.
In February I picked up a weight lifting book written by a contributor to Men's Health and t-mag.
It's aimed at shlubs like me, who run back to the gym too quick, get injured, and get caught in a nasty cycle of starting over.
I've been working through the book since February, but wanted to make sure I was sticking to it before I started blogging on it.
FYI, the book is "Better Body Blueprint: The Start-Right, Stick-to-It Strength Training Plan" by Michael Mejia, CSCS.

In addition to Gold's Gym about a month ago I started visiting the local Muay Thai gym. There are 2 coaches there from Thailand and it's definitely a good fit for me - especially the schedule, which was always a problem in Fort Worth. After a couple trial classes I decided to join, eventhough it'll make my budget a little tight.

Methodology
My goals are:
1. Lose bodyfat
2. Gain strength
3. Recover endurance
4. Get in Fighting Shape
5. Fight again (if the circumstances allow me to)
6. Stick to the plan
7. Make sure I don't overdo it (doing too much too soon)
8. Make sure I don't go back to being the guy who does nothing but train (letting other stuff fall to the wayside)

My plan:
1. Set a baseline in Muay Thai of 2 or 3 times a week that I do consistently, week in and week out, without losing too much energy for normal activities (like cleaning my house, professional development for work, and maintaining my relationship with my gf).
2. Set a baseline for fitness workouts at Gold's gym of 1 to 2 times a week, under the same guidelines.
3. Use the above mentioned book for my fitness workouts, adding additional Combat Conditioning type training if necessary.
4. Clean up the diet via the Zone (once I'm done reading the book). Diets and me don't get along, I hate obsessing over what I'm going to eat, so my goal is more "sensible" than anything else.
5. Leave the option open in the case of a possible competition- whereby I step up my training & clean up my diet for a minimum of 6 weeks, with the intention of returning back to the baseline once the competition is over.

The Workouts
My Thai class is pretty much in the hands of my coach; however I will be adding extra heavybag work and Combat Conditioning drills (calisthenics, plyometrics, and interval work). I've been consistent about 2 muay thai classes a week; but I think in the next week or 2 I will move to 3 times.

I've completed the first phase of my workout book, which is aimed at correcting structural imbalances and improving posture. Up till now I've only been consistent with 1 fitness workout a week - I'll need to increase this frequency. I'll detail each phase as I go through it and make extra notes as the book calls for them.

In addition to my scheduled workouts, my girlfriend loves the outdoors. We do a lot of hiking, fishing, rock-wall climbing, and other outdoor activities. These activities have already cut into scheduled workouts somewhat, they can be very tiring, I'll blog about them here as well.

Last, but not least, I've still got a couple of sessions left over with my personal trainer and when they happen I'll blog about them here too.

Thoughts
I just want to be a lot more patient this time around. I don't want to set unreasonably high expectations and feel like a failure when I can't meet them. Some of my workouts may appear to be too easy, infrequent, or conservative; my diet way too unstructured, but I'm reserving the right to play within the bounds of what I can handle, regardless of how it looks on paper. It's been a long road to where I am right now and I don't want to get obsessed to the point that I don't appreciate and enjoy the great things that have come my way.

Starting the next phase of my workout and will blog again later tonight.

[Pork Chop]

In phase 1 of my program I had to set some goals, take some measurements, and find my weak spots.

Overall Goals
Be under 200lbs
Bodyfat %age between 10 and 15%
Bench 220+lbs
Squat 365+lbs
Deadlift 405+lbs
Be able to perform 10 chin ups or pull ups
Fit into size 34 pants

2-week Goals
Lock in a good routine according to the book
Finish the Zone book
Establish a baseline workout frequency, preferably 2 times a week

1-Month Goals
Be under 240lbs
Increase Bench to 155, Squat to 225, DL to 225, perform 3 chin ups
Implement the Zone diet

3-Month Goals
Be under 230lbs
Increase Bench to 185, Squat 275, DL to 315, perform 5 chin ups
Increase training frequency to 3 times a week

6-Month Goals
Be under 220lbs
Bench 205, Squat 315, DL 365, 8 Chin ups

1-Year Goals
Be under 200lbs
Bench 220, Squat 365, DL 405, 10 Chin ups

Starting Stats
Starting Weight - 245
Starting Bodyfat %age - 31.3%
BMR = 2273.5
Recommended calories for medium workout intensity & frequency: 3500

Self Assessment
Standing Profile:
1. Lordosis: Moderate
2. Kyphosis: Moderate
3. Forward

Standing Face Forward:
1. Foot Overpronation - both severe
2. Knee pinching - both severe

Standing Face Backward:
1. Shoulder Blade Winging - both moderate

Overhead Squat - Slight over arching

Lower Body Rotational Test - Superior

Modified Sit & Reach - 11 inches - fair/good

Chin Ups - 2

One-Leg Squat:
1. R Leg - knee out
2. L Leg - pass

Neutral Spine Pushup - 11

Leg Lowering - between 45 degrees and the floor - Excellent

Slow Situp - Torso up, slight heel lift

Cardiovascular - 52.53 mL/kg/minVO2max - Excellent

[Pork Chop]

One Month Synopsis:
Still haven't finished reading the Zone so those related goals haven't been met.
I'll keep reading the book though and hopefully be able to implement it shortly.

Also, hadn't planned on extra assessment workouts to see if I'm meeting my bench, squat, deadlift, and chin up goals. As a result, I am tempted to just evaluate them at the end of one year - once I've had a phase that covers those exercises. I will say that by the end of one month i was able to do 3, 20-second, neutral-grip, negative chin ups with ease.

My frequency needs to come up. Due to some external factors I wasn't able to make it to Gold's more than once a week for the last 2 or 3 weeks. So I really need to step that up.

I did, however, basically complete my 1 month goal for weight.

Current Stats
240lbs
27% Body fat

Phase 2
The last phase focused on a lot of dynamic stretching, a tiny bit of medium intensity cardio, and just a few weightlifting exercises meant to correct imbalances. This phase is more about laying a foundation to build off of, strength wise. The reps are relatively high rep to build up tendons & ligaments a little before starting to lift heavy. Somewhat of a preparation phase but at the same time demanding of my endurance.

The workouts are broken up into the following categories, in the following order:
Flexibility
Strength
Cardio
Endurance (aka Using Weights to Burn Fat)
Core

[Pork Chop]

Warm up
5 minutes on the elliptical at an easy pace

Flexibility
These are done as super sets, with a minute rest between rotations
8 to 10 reps per exercise (4 to 5 reps per side in the case of unilaterals)
Went through 2 rotations using 2 10lb dumbbells

Rotational Squat
Reaching Lunge
Side Lunge & Touch
Spiderman
T-pushup


Strength
This section consists of Alternating Lunges bookended by supersets.
Set, Rep Scheme is 10 reps by 3 sets; doing a full 10 reps for each side on unilaterals.
Rest between sets/supersets is 1 minute or less

Superset 1:

Dumbell Squat, Hammer Curl, Press w/20lb dumbbells
Lat Pulldown w/ 110lbs


Alternating lunge w/20lb dumbbells

Superset 2:

Dumbbell Bench Press with 40, 45, and 50lb dumbbells
One-Arm Row, w/ elbow out, w/40, 45, 50lb dumbbell


Cardio
HIIT on the Elliptical Cross trainer
3 minute warmup
15 sets of 15 seconds sprint, 45 seconds rest
(Total time 18 min)

Endurance
This part is a simple superset
done 1 to 2 times (today I only managed once)
for 15 reps per exercise
30 to 50 seconds rest between supersets (should I have done more than one)

Barbell Squat (just the barbell)
Prone Row (T-bar w/1 45-lb plate)
Incline Reverse Crunch
Incline Press (did a machine with 95lbs loaded)
Side Lunge (w/15lb dumbells)


Core
Did 2 rotations of these exercises in superset fashion with about a minute between supersets

Unanchored Sit Up (10 reps)
Russian Twist (10 reps each side)
Lateral Crunch (10 reps each side)
Swissball back extension (10 nut-crushing reps)


Thoughts
This workout takes about an hour and 20 minutes.
It feels like you're there for 2 or 3 hours.
The Endurance superset is almost impossible to do as a superset; as it had me running all over the gym in between exercises.
For each section there are 2 separate workouts to choose from, I chose workout A. I may choose workout B next time.
Takes a bit out of you by the end of the workout, but afterwards I feel pretty energized.

[Oso]

http://www.amazon.com/Optimizing-Strength-Training-Designing-Periodization/dp/0736060685/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1207694269&sr=11-1

it talks of macro-, meso- and micro- cycles with a macro(edit: oops) cycle being a 'season' as the book was written mostly with the seasonally competitive athelete in mind. However, I think the macro- can be whatever large time frame you decide but the emphasis being that over each mesocycle there be a specific goal (strength, power, endurance) and that as you create the microcycles to reach that goal you can then interchange the workouts to suit what you can do on any given day and as long as you complete all workouts in the mesocycle within the timeframe then you are fine.

I think it's going to help two of my biggest problems:
1 - boredom
2 - feeling done in from a days work and trying to get the workout in between work and teaching classes for two hours.

I feel your last goal and thus I'm only going to hit the gym between work and classes on monday/wednesday and saturday mornings and do what I can do there plus the occasional ride on the bike.

[SevenStar]

Are you still doing the drumming?

[Pork Chop]

Are you still doing the drumming?

Not really.
The group was in Fort Worth, the only close group here is Austin and I don't really have time to be driving an hour and a half up there every weekend.


Went to muay thai last night.
Came home and had some nikujaga (ground beef n potatoes) and some miso soup.
Went to bed late, woke up ridiculously late.
Probably should've had another protein shake yesterday.

[Suntzu]

i have some stuff for u re: the zone diet... i'll dig it up when i get from work... must be nice to have a\coach :o..... i JUST missed your call the other day.... i like the goal setting set up....

[BoulderDawg]

1-Month Goals
Be under 240lbs
Increase Bench to 155, Squat to 225, DL to 225, perform 3 chin ups
Implement the Zone diet

You weight that much and you can't bench press 155? I don't even weight train and I can bench 185.:D

[Pork Chop]

You weight that much and you can't bench press 155? I don't even weight train and I can bench 185.:D

I can bench 90lb dumbells for reps and crank out 50 pushups whenever I need to. I just get performance anxiety when I'm under the bar without a spot.

[Pork Chop]

i have some stuff for u re: the zone diet... i'll dig it up when i get from work... must be nice to have a\coach :o..... i JUST missed your call the other day.... i like the goal setting set up....

Appreciate that man. I'll call you asap and we can catch up. When I come up there next month we gotta hang out in the gym a lot- picked up a lot of stuff over the past couple years (albeit some of it contradictory). If I can make copies, got a lot of stuff I wanna give yah.



Sore as heck today.
Just found out my new dog has distemper and may die- even if he doesn't, the chance for neurological damage is high.
Kind of bummed today; lots of stuff piling up.
Have to work real late but if I can, I'm going to hit up Gold's afterwards.

[Suntzu]

crossfit is BIG on zone eating..... check there nutrition forum http://www.board.crossfit.com/forumdisplay.php?f=8
i haven't gone that deep into it.... but my eating is getting better.... well except for the cookies.... reeses pie and beer :p:D

[Pork Chop]

crossfit is BIG on zone eating..... check there nutrition forum http://www.board.crossfit.com/forumdisplay.php?f=8
i haven't gone that deep into it.... but my eating is getting better.... well except for the cookies.... reeses pie and beer :p:D

Thanks for the hookup.

Overdid it a little on tuesday.
My legs are still hurting.
Last night with everything going on, I got out of work at 8, picked up some beer & sushi at the grocery store, went home and just chilled with my girl n my dog.
This morning the legs are still hurting but I'm going to try to make it to muay thai anyway.
My vacation to houston this weekend might be out the window because of the dog.
so i may be able to throw in an additional workout or two then.

[Pork Chop]

Dog's in the hospital again, this time getting IVs.
Have to go pick him up after work, so it remains to be seen if I'll be able to get back into the gym.
My weekend trip to Houston's definitely a no-go, so at least I'll be able to sneak in a couple workouts.

[Suntzu]

more Zone reading.....
http://www.crossfit.com/journal/library/cfjissue21_May04.pdf

[Pork Chop]

Thanks for the additional read.
Finally got back in the gym saturday.
Toned down the weight workout a bit to make sure I didn't overdo it again.

5 minute elliptical crosstrainer warmup

Flexibility
2 supersets, 10 reps per exercise (5 per side), 12lb dumbells
rotational squat
reaching lunge
side lunge & touch
spiderman
T pushup

Strength
3 sets per set/superset, 10 reps per exercise (5 per side on lunges)
Superset 1:
Dumbbell Squat, Hammer Curl, Press w/25lb dumbbells
Lat Pulldown w/130lbs
Alternating Lunges w/25lb dumbbells
Superset 2:
dumbbell flat bench: 50, 55, 60lb dumbbells
1-arm elbow-out row: 50, 55, 60lb dumbbells

Cardio
HIIT on elliptical cross trainer
3 min warm up
15 sets of 15seconds on, 45 seconds active rest, level 17

Endurance
Ended up cutting out this section because it was taking me a minute between exercises and I think just pushing me past the point of overdoing it.

Core
unanchored situps - 3 sets of 10 reps
russian twist - 3 sets of 5 each side
lateral crunch - 3 sets of 5 each side
hyperextension - 3 sets - 6, 10, 12 reps

Chilled out for almost an hour, waiting on my gf to come up.
She said she wanted to learn some boxing.

We did:

3 rounds of jump rope
3 rounds of shadow
3 rounds of heavybag - alternating between just legs and just hands (one bag hung too low for hands, one bag hung high for kicks)

Didn't quite make up for missing one of my 2 muay thai workouts, but it was something.
Ate like cr@p this past week and put on a few pounds.
Got a lot to work on.

[Pork Chop]

So I went back to muay thai again last night.
Workout itself was pretty easy.
Partner wanted to shin bang instead of shinguard up so my shins are a bit tender today but not bad.
Thoroughly convinced that shin banging is not the way to make your shins tough.
I'll keep doing whatever the person I'm teamed with prefers, but if it's up to me, I'm gonna put on the shin guards - so we can speed up the drill a lil.
Going again tonight and (most likely) tomorrow as well.
Not sure when I'll fit in Gold's gym this week - probably friday and saturday.

Diet hasn't been too bad lately, but I don't think I've been eating enough.

[Pork Chop]

Went to muay thai again
pretty good workout
coulda done a lil bit more pad and bag work
sparred my coworker (it was either that or wait on the round robin to get 1 round with the more advanced guys).
had a lot of height and weight on the guy but he did a lot better than I thought he'd do.
likes to pull of taekwondo kicks, so occasionally he'd throw the really quick, kinda uncontrolled stuff; but all in all it was good.
worked on my defense and trying to stand in close range without going immediately to the clinch.
wasn't trying to win but still wasn't 100% thrilled with my performance.
gotta give the guy credit tho; he's fast, he moves a lot better than a lot of the beginners & caught me quite a bit.
guess i forgot to cut my pinky toenails coz he was cut up pretty good at the end - felt bad about that.
stayed after to do some heavybag but a bunch of noobs took all the banana bags so i was stuck with the punching ball - worked a lot of punches, elbows, and knees. finished up with 30 rear leg kicks on the one banana bag i was able to snag just before they locked up. next time i'm pushin the noobs out the way.

[Pork Chop]

Muay Thai again tonight.
Almost wasn't gonna go.
Was feeling sore and sleepy.
Glad I went.
Found my new workout partner.
He's a lil taller- maybe 6 or 6'1.
He's about the same size - 240, but he looks a lot more muscular, less bodyfat.
His technique's pretty solid too.
We sparred at the end of class; couldn't tell you how long.
We were pretty evenly matched.
Me maybe a lil quicker with a lil more experience.
Him more powerful and slightly cleaner technique from that confidence.
I'm really splitting hairs though, coz it was pretty dang even.
It was awesome, we could throw a bit and not worry about injuries.
We were going at an even pace so we didn't have to worry about a spazz injuring us.
Coach had me stand in front of him.
This is something that I've been nervous about for years, solely due to the lack of consistent big guy training partners.
I think maybe I picked up some more power since moving to Texas coz I can remember pulling strafing runs on larger guys in the past, but standing pretty much toe-to-toe wasn't bad.
For once I could put together hand and foot combos without some little guy doing a flying sidekick into my ribs......
Just a lot of fun.
I could see myself becoming a legitimate heavyweight sparring this guy and some others around the gym.

[SAAMAG]

Eric....what's the guy's name you're working with?

I'm only able to make it to Phets during the days....

[Pork Chop]

his name's Brad
he goes in during the afternoons as well.
don't know how long he's trained, but his technique was pretty clean so I'd be surprised if he hadn't been doing it a while.
One of these days I'll have to go on an afternoon as well - maybe veteran's day or something.
craving thai curry today.
gonna hit gold's tonight- 3 straight days of contact training a week is about my limit right now with these old bones.
Shame too coz boxing night fridays is a lot of fun with guys like marcell and the others.

[SAAMAG]

Man...you keep talking like you're actually old. Aren't you like 30 or 31? Same age as me pretty much.

I do notice a bit of difference on how things wear on my body as opposed to ten years ago, but at the same time, a lot of good fighters are in their 30's and you can develop more muscle mass (more easily) in your 30's as opposed to your 20's.

I don't think I know Brad. Marcell is a tall skinny black dude with glasses right? He just sat on the couch all day when I was there!

I met a guy named Ray, been going for about 6 mts--good though. Black guy--stocky--probably a heavyweight. There's a white dude that drives a hummer as well, a little more muscular than Ray. I haven't sparred anyone there yet recently.

[Pork Chop]

The marcel I'm talking about is the diesel looking fillipino dude.

I've really felt a huge slowdown over the last 3 or 4 years.
A lot of it is old injuries that never healed 100%.
I'm still working on it tho.
As long as I take my time, I can increase my training volume - just gotta make sure I don't let my ego get the best of me and rush it.

Friday night I fell asleep after work- I was zonked.
Today (Saturday) I had too much stuff to do and didn't make it into the gym either.
Planning on going tomorrow (Sunday) to at least get one weight workout in.

Next week I'm tagging along with my coworker to his mma gym.
We're gonna do his weight routine.
Plus, thursday I have a pt appointment.

[Pork Chop]

This weekend was bad.
Had a radiating pain coming out my right side and around my back - kinda where a "liver" or "kidney" shot would land.
Didn't get hit there in sparring.
had no energy this weekend.
Slept till 3 in the afternoon on Saturday- which is why I was so busy trying to play catch up with the rest of the day.
Sunday - didn't leave my apartment; stayed on the couch or in bed all day.
What can I say? it didn't happen.

Monday I wasn't feeling great either but I wanted to go work out with my coworker at his gym.
Pretty nice place.

Our workout looked like:

Superset 1 (done 3 times)
-lat pulldown - 8 plates 30 reps
-calf raise - almost the whole stack 30+ reps
-arm curls - 10lb dbells 30 reps ***EDIT: These were standing dumbell flies for the shoulders not arm curls ***

Deadlifts - lots of knee bend
135lbs x 10 reps
205lbs x 10
255lbs x 8
275lbs x 6
275lbs x 5

Little bit of jump rope until the jostling made my side hurt too much.
Switched to shadow for 3 rounds.

heavybag
2 rounds normal
1 round with sporadic sets of 20 knees mixed in (we'd alternate between knees on the teardrop bag & normal bag work on "our" individual bag; switching off)
1 round with sets of 40 punch outs mixed in (punch outs on the teardrop)
1 round with intermittent "sprawls" called out
1 round with sets of 10 fast roundkicks each leg mixed in (on a specific banana bag)

cool down
walking with ab work: 70 crunches, 70 bicycles, 70 frog kicks, 70 leg lifts
stretching
light takedown sparring (he would go for the fit and I would try to defend)

pretty fun workout, probly go back today for more ground type work.

Doctor's appointment wednesday to maybe get some blood work done.

[Pork Chop]

Man, I've been bad about keeping this thing up...

Tuesday
Started out teaming up with my coworker again.

strength circuit, 3 rotations, 30 reps per exercise:
bench pushups (alternating circuits between wide stance & diamond)
preacher bench curl on ez curl bar w/ 10lbs each side

grappling:
ran through some submissions - triangle from guard, armbar from guard, some kind of rolling head & arm choke that you initiate while the guy's in a 4 point stance

standup:
30 minutes on the heavybag working on teaching my coworker the stance transition and weight transfer involved in throwing hooks. Started out on thai pads & ended up on the bag.
threw a good round or two of pure kicking in there as well.

muay thai:
went home after the mma gym, walked my dog, and then caught the last hour of the muay thai class. Lots of heavybag work- kicked the bags approx 200+ times each leg, worked techniques with this girl who can really fight (but was playing gentle with me), and no-contact sparred one of the youngins in boxing (he's a good 170~180, but could probably be 150~160 easy). Good workout eventhough somewhat short, i'd lost all my steam by the end.

I've been having problems with liver or kidney on my right side - i think it's linked to my fatigue lately & it's prevented me from contact sparring and jump rope.
so Wednesday I tried to get it checked out at the doctor.
First appointment got canceled coz i was running late.
Stopped into a clinic and waited for 3 hours until the doc saw me - only to tell me he really couldn't test it.
He thought it was a muscle problem, eventhough I demonstrated no pain in performing any of the exercises that utilize the muscles around the area involved.
He still gave me a couple sheets of exercises anyway.
He said if it wasn't muscular, then there's a chance it's shingles.
Wasted my entire day at that doctor and it was really a waste of time.
Need to find a regular doctor (PCP) so I can actually get a blood test & figure out what's going wrong. Think it may be kidney stones- coz i notice it gets worse when I eat really sugary foods or drink dark-colored drinks (black coffee, iced tea, diet cola).

As a result wednesday was a bust - took a cheat day coz it was the only opportunity to spend any time with my gf until sunday.

tonight I have a personal training appointment.
if i can i'll swing by the muay thai gym afterward.

[WinterPalm]

Good work man!
I've seen your blogs over the years...your ups and downs...seems like you're in a good place right now! Keep training hard!

[Pork Chop]

Thanks WP :)
And you keep those san shou vids coming.
Can't wait to see what you picked up from lkfmdc's seminar.

Hit up my personal trainer tonight; apparently i've still even got 1 more session after today.
I take back anything bad I ever said about the guy.
He put me on a workout of a few supersets that were mostly bodyweight & mostly complex exercises.
Kicked my azz....I was sweating like crazy
had me doing stuff like:
front shoulder raised combined with a side lunge; supersetted with lunges combined with arm curls; and finally pushups into a plank.
The first two exercises were just with 10lb dbells; but that superset was ROUGH - bad enough that i can't remember if i did it two or three times.
The other supersets were no cake walk either.
Very consistent with the supersets from my training book, so pretty stoked.

Afterwards; he used the foam rollers on my shins.
Felt like my calves were giving birth.
Hurt like he||, but wow, what a difference!
I normally have a lot of swelling in my lower legs - so bad that usually when i take off my socks it looks like i've been wearing rubber bands.... poof 15 min of heck and it was gone
not only that, but i've had this lump on the inside of my shin that i got about a month ago when my lead leg was "d@mn near broken" and afterwards my shin felt smooth again.
Marked reduction in the stiffness & pain in my ankles.
Me likee :D
Gonna see if i can get a foam roll once a while to keep my legs functional.

Didn't make it to muay thai afterwards coz i was staying late with the foam roller treatment.
Don't mind too much though coz i think it's really beneficial in the long run.
Boxing night's tomorrow and i haven't decided if i'll go ahead and spar.
Probably try it out for a lil while, keep it light and controlled, and stop if i have to.
We'll see what happens.

[Suntzu]

foam rollers are great...... tennis ball work real good on legs and upper back.... tennis ball + foam roller = all most heaven......

[Pork Chop]

wednesday when i went to the clinic i ran into my gf's friend.
she was there with a sore throat.
i guess i picked it up.
today i'm sick
i woke up with a sore throat
i was trying to see if it would get better and then just go train without sparring or something.
it got worse as the day's gone on.
live to fight another day i guess.
my gf's working all weekend, so i'll have a lot of free time for working out.
my gf's friend was fine after a steroid shot; hoping a good night's sleep will be good enough for me.

[Pork Chop]

So I've been sick since the 25th.
Forum user vankuen called me last night (the 29th) to see if i'd meet up with him for muay thai class.
I was still real congested and couldn't make it.
Sorry dude.

Having to cancel really bothered me; especially after canceling my personal training appointment on Monday.

I think the frustration over getting sick might've had something to do with it; but I woke up early this morning, feeling good for once.
I had great sleep last night.

Technically my cold's in my chest right now, but I took some mucacin and i was good to go.
so tonight i went back to muay thai.

got to practice early so the fact that practice didn't go til 9 didn't affect my workout.
gym looks a lot different now that the mma guys are gone.
did a lot of mitt work and technique work.
my nose started bleeding a bit in the middle of the workout, but i didn't really feel like i was overdoing it.

he said saturday is the day to go to get full on fighter training.
Since the mma guys are no longer there, we can show up as early as 11am.
probably gonna do that on saturdays from now on.

[Pork Chop]

went back to muay thai again today.
solid workout for sure
20 minutes of heavybag
about 10 or 15 minutes on focus mitts
15 minutes of technique work between 2 sessions of 10 or 15 minutes on thai pads
one of the best workouts i've gotten down there.
kinda wussed out on sparring but i don't feel like i'm in the stage yet where i really need it.
at the moment i'm trying to drop weight and get my endurance & technique back, while getting as few injuries as possible.
sparring's integral for timing and hopefully i can get that from some of the back and forth technique work; otherwise my power, form, and speed i can get from the thai pads, and a lot of the strategy is coming from that technique work - which is kinda like one step sparring with a specific attack/counter.

[Pork Chop]

Friday night i hit the gym late.
Cut out a bit of the workout, but it was still a good volume...

Flexibility
3 sets of the following superset, 10 reps (5 each side), 10lb dumbells:
rotating squat
reaching lunge
lateral lunge
spiderman
T-pushups

Strength
3 sets of each superset, 10 reps
compound 1 (squat + bicep curl + vertical press) w/ 30lb dbells -> lat pulldowns with 140lbs
alternating lunge (right foot step forward, right foot step back) x 5 reps x each leg w/30lb dbells
bench press -> 1 armed row x 10 reps each side with: 60, 65, and 70lb dbells

I was pretty dead after that workout.

Saturday was a nightmare.
Got to the gym later than i wanted.
Did a good slam ball workout (medball on a rope)
came back in and loosened up with some shadow

moved on to technique drills with young kid david.
david's 120lbs and about 5'3
The kid has no control, or doesn't feel he needs to because he's small.
kicked me in the funny bone so hard i can't straighten my arm today
"but i'm going light" -him
I take a break to walk it off
next drill he lays a full out round kick on the front of my thigh that wasn't really part of the drill
"it's a great technique, see?" -him
"umm, i'm breaking my back pulling every technique so i barely tap him and he's laying into me"
-me to assistant coach that's "supervising" us
"aww, he's just a tough little kid; he's going to be a champion at 115 soon" -assistant
"whatever" -me

i ask to work on clinch work/neck wrestling to keep it friendly
guess he gets tired of getting embarrassed in the clinch, so he throws 3 knees to my junk
(mind you, we're not wearing cups or mouthguards)
i decide leave my knee up for a while occupying space between us (no contact); eventhough it's hanging there a few seconds he decides to go for a 4th knee to the nuts & jacks up his own thigh on my knee - which was doing little more than protecting my groin
around this time he decides to stop "letting me" get to the clinch (revenge for jacking up his own leg?)
so as i close distance to re-engage the clinch wrestling, he starts throwing kicks and punches.
i catch one of his kicks and literally toss him - he had a good second of hang time.
we take a little break
then he starts up with the same cr@p again - punching & kicking with no shin guards, no cup, no mouthpiece (alternating his targets between my nutz and my head)

i get him in the clinch again, making the mistake of trusting him.
i wrestle him to a position, where i could totally knee him in the head, put my knee in front of him- no contact, i let him back up and he does a quick, full force skip knee to my thigh before he's even upright, followed by a huge punching flurry to my face (see comment about mouthguard), finishing up with a big uppercut to my throat.
i just turn around and walk off, trying to shake off a couple of cheap ones...
"not trying to be a wuss; but you caught me in the throat" -me
"no, it's ok, if you get hit in the throat you get hit in the throat" -him
"yah, i took a break to keep it friendly" -me
"i was going light" -him
"you're concept of light and my concept of light are completely different" -me
end of session.

think i'm gonna call the coach today.
i've been stewing on this cr@p all night last night, i'm ticked, and my thigh & elbow are aching.
at least with a big guy, if he hits me hard or with a cheap shot i can hit him back
but this guy's so tiny, and just a kid...
i want to put him in the hospital soooo bad but doing everything i can to take it light with him...
still, i can't be his punching bag

depending on the reaction from the coach i may not be working out there anymore...

EDIT: Called coach, explained my situation, and he was real understanding.
Gave me some encouragement not to take the stuff so personally.
Said he'll keep an eye on us if we get paired up in the future.
We were laughing by the end of the phone call and it really helped me deal with the anger that was eating me up.

[Pork Chop]

muay thai tonight.
yesterday i was supposed to work out with my coworker at power team but i was busy and starting to feel sick again.
workout tonight went pretty well, eventho still a bit congested.
wish the pad work was more intense.
shoulda done more bag work at the end.

got to meet forum member vankuen; hopefully we'll get to hang out more next time.

[Pork Chop]

muay thai today
got dropped today
sparring with athletically gifted noob.
he's about 6'1 and has a perfect build for 170 or 185lb weight class.
we were doing head movement earlier in the class and i was working with an orthodox fighter.
this guy's a southpaw.
southpaws mess up other southpaws more than the mess up orthodox fighters.
all my reactions were basically wrong.
i did something and the kid lost his cool.
started throwing bombs on me in the corner.
I slipped a couple
guess he got frustrated, because he hammer fisted me on the base of my skull.
lights went out for a split second, as soon as my knee hit the canvas, it woke me back up.
I was on my feet in seconds, but slightly dizzy.
They gave me a few seconds to recover and gave me some headgear, then we were back at it.
Sparred one more guy later on - we had an agreement to take it easy to the head; still caught him throwing a few shots up top - but at least they weren't bombs so it was all good.
got a lot to work on.
hate to brush off the flash KD but i think almost anyone hit in that spot woulda had the same experience - his targeting was perfect.

[SAAMAG]

PORKCHOP?!

Who ko'd you?! I've never seen the guy...but he apparently is in the same general weight class as me. I'm 175lbs.

I'm not going to be going to any more of the night classes...the only time I'll be available for MT now is during the day, and probably only on Mondays when summer session at UTSA starts again.

Who do you train with at Power Team? Are you going to Marraj's near Blossom or Rodrigo's near Brook Hollow? I tried that place out and decided to go with a Judo place in Universal city.

I had a decent rolling session last night, no subs on me but I didn't sub anyone else either. Tried to get a triangle on a green belt but couldn't get my fat legs around his fat neck. I gassed out and just turtled for the remaining time...I often times wonder how things would turn out if I could use strikes...but that's not why I'm there, I know.

I didn't know you grappled...maybe we'll get together sometime on an off day. I suck at groundwork so any training will help me. With you outweighing me by so much it will force me to work on technique and not muscle.

[sanjuro_ronin]

muay thai today
got dropped today
sparring with athletically gifted noob.
he's about 6'1 and has a perfect build for 170 or 185lb weight class.
we were doing head movement earlier in the class and i was working with an orthodox fighter.
this guy's a southpaw.
southpaws mess up other southpaws more than the mess up orthodox fighters.
all my reactions were basically wrong.
i did something and the kid lost his cool.
started throwing bombs on me in the corner.
I slipped a couple
guess he got frustrated, because he hammer fisted me on the base of my skull.
lights went out for a split second, as soon as my knee hit the canvas, it woke me back up.
I was on my feet in seconds, but slightly dizzy.
They gave me a few seconds to recover and gave me some headgear, then we were back at it.
Sparred one more guy later on - we had an agreement to take it easy to the head; still caught him throwing a few shots up top - but at least they weren't bombs so it was all good.
got a lot to work on.
hate to brush off the flash KD but i think almost anyone hit in that spot woulda had the same experience - his targeting was perfect.

Timing and even foot work is specific to training, you fight MT righties, you have difficulties with MT lefties ( or vice-versa) or you have difficulty with anyone that doesn't "flow" like you are used to.
Its one of the problems with sparring in a given rule set / style, you footwork and timing become "sport specific".
Not much you can do about it though other than "ignore your opponent", but that doesn't really apply to sparring/training , only to fighting.

[Pork Chop]

vankuen
The guy that caught me was Jerek - the tall kid with the emo hair cut (he said 6'1, but he looks at least 6'2 to me). I've been KO'd before and that causes a nasty headache that lasts for weeks. I don't have the headaches or any signs of a concussion. It was more like getting stunned for a split second. It was kinda scary, coz I felt the shot and it wasn't a hard one, it was just in the right spot. Kinda like Steve Jennum - Paul Varelans in the early UFCs, but I didn't take a nap - just dropped and got right back up.

I want to try an afternoon class, maybe on the next holiday. I heard it's a lot of fun. The guy I sparred after Jerek was from the afternoon class- he wears Reyes and is also about your size I think.

My coworker that works out at Power Team off of Evers is an American-born Japanese guy named Ken. The gym's at Evers and 410, i don't know any more specific than that. I mostly go to Power Team to help my buddy with standup, lift weights, and just to work on simple grappling stuff. I'm not a huge fan of rolling after a bad experience in maryland but it's something i want to try again some day.

You woulda loved it last night - I fit in a PERFECT seionage on Jerek (just before the hammerfist) - it just came out automatic. Just scored the kuzushi and fit, didn't complete the throw.

I'll talk to Ken. I was supposed to meet him at Power Team monday but got stuck at the DMV renewing my license. Think he might be a lil ticked. Next time we go workout I'll give u a heads up. He likes to work out real early for me - starting at 4pm; so we usually jet work early. He's got a wrestling background and I'm sure he'd like any takedown practice he can get.

sanjuro_ronin
Yeah, in general I was doing alright. Kicked him in the head (lightly) a few times. It's just when he jumped on me with that flurry, i zigged instead of zagged. Instead of using head movement, in retrospect i wish i'd opted for parrying, counter punching, and/or maybe shielding.

I stopped working with a pro boxer a year or two ago because he was dropping elbows on the top of my head anytime i bobbed & weaved under a punch. This was kind of a similar thing.

New guys have funky enough rhythm to deal with, but noobie southpaws should be euthanized. :p

[SAAMAG]

Timing and even foot work is specific to training, you fight MT righties, you have difficulties with MT lefties ( or vice-versa) or you have difficulty with anyone that doesn't "flow" like you are used to.
Its one of the problems with sparring in a given rule set / style, you footwork and timing become "sport specific".
Not much you can do about it though other than "ignore your opponent", but that doesn't really apply to sparring/training , only to fighting.

Good point. Another thing to work on is to become ambidextrious in one's stance work so that one no longer has a preference on which is the lead side. When I teach people something...EVERYTHING is done on both sides, and whatever side was worse, gets more practice than the strong side until there is consistency in application with one side relative to the other.

I fight both in an orthodox manner and as a southpaw (if you want to use boxing terms). In fact, I don't really ever think about what "side" I'm on, I just move in relation to my opponent. I may end up after a kick with the right side forward, fight like that for a bit, and follow through with a left overhand, left low kick or something, and now I'm a left lead.

But I never really thought about it to be that big of a deal to be honest until I sparred with someone who said that he couldn't figure me out because I kept switching stances on him. Interesting...I used to think everyone did what I did.

[Pork Chop]

yah i learned orthodox lead first so in retrospect i shoulda just switched- coz i know i can reverse the southpaw game better than this new guy can play it. gotta go back to training the other side.

[Pork Chop]

Saturday
boss took us to the bar on friday and a beer on an empty stomach hit me hard; so i missed training that night. i was anxious to get in the muay thai saturday and sweat some of it out.
showed up a bit early and started jump roping, did a bunch of slam ball stuff wearing the weight vest.
had a great workout, but about an hour ~ hour and a half in it came to a screeching halt when i had to teach this new kid. finished relatively hard with some pad & technique work.
went home, showered up and drove to houston.

sunday
wanted to make up for my missed workout on friday so i lifted weights at my folks place.
Was using these adjustable bowflex dumbells and a weight bench.

Flexibility - 3 circuits, 10 reps (5 ea side), 7.5lb dumbells (thought that was 7.5lb each side, confusing)
twisting squat
reaching lunge
lateral lunge
spider man
T-pushup

strength - 3 sets, 10 reps
squat, curl, press complex straight into 2-armed lying row (17.5, 35, 35 lb dbells)
forward & backward lunge complex (35lb dbells)
bench press (165) into 1 armed, elbow-out, bent row (52.5 dbell)

afterwards i went swimming for almost an hour.

Don't usually work out on mondays and don't think i'll work out tonight - didn't sleep much last night, if i workout that's 3 days straight & it might hurt me later in the week.

[SAAMAG]

when is the sat class at phets?

[Pork Chop]

He changed the time on it.
Saturdays used to be 2 to 4
These days it's 11ish to 1ish.
Dunno if you heard, but Saturday's become kind of the "fighter day", supposed to be a harder workout, more geared to folks who may want to compete.
So, as a result of that, I was a bit surprised at having to spend so much time on Saturday coaching a total noob - he probably shouldn't be going to that class.

[SAAMAG]

Aw c'mon Porkchop...everyone has to start somewhere...and to be honest you shouldn't have to be coaching anyone. That's Phet's job. If he was your partner holding the pads or something than coach him on how to hold the pads, or have Phet pair him up with someone else.

I personally like teaching new people...I like the enthusiasm levels and the yearning for knowledge. I also like seeing the progression. Anyway...looks like I can't make Saturdays either. I won't be going to Phet much any longer it seems during the summer because of school/work scheduling conflicts.

[Pork Chop]

Phet told me to teach him, it was only his 2nd class. I usually love coaching people, but this kid just didn't seem to want to do anything and wasn't great at picking things up. He started complaining of sore forearm minutes into the workout and didn't seem to want to work hard.

I would've been more than happy to help him on a normal class day, but seeing as how it was a class that was sold as "fighter's day"; it wore my patience a little thin.
Still, I tried to do what i could - half the time spent on proper technique, the other half just jumping head long into mixing up the kicks n punches (at Phet's recommendation).

He was a nice enough kid, i just felt like there was more I should've been doing.

[SAAMAG]

Hmmmm...yep...Phet sometimes has a habit of having the more experienced students teach the noobs. He wouldn't let me put that big black dude into class until I went over the basics with him.

You've got to expect that from Phet and try to get involved with another higher up guy and start going to town there so that he sees you're busy. That's the trick. I learned that about Phet many moons ago.

[Pork Chop]

good workout today, was doing like 10 minute thai pad rounds.
Worked a good 10 or 15 minutes of clinch wrestling at the end.
Got there a half hour early and ran through a stretching routine.

Just found out today on extremely short notice that I will be in Maryland Thursday so all my peeplez keep an eye out for me. I'm going to try to say "hi" to as many of you as I can. I'll be in town until sunday.

[Pork Chop]

had a fun time in maryland.
really great to see you guys again.

friday had a pretty good workout.
was barely counting rounds, mostly just hitting stuff
decent amount of pad work.
was trying some new combos that julio wanted me to get - really awkward stuff.
wrestled with big 280lber and got dominated - think he's top 5 high school wrestler in state of md.

saturday
worked out again.
this one was a little lighter.
hit the sauna and did a TON of flexibility exercises.
shadowboxed a bit then did a few rounds on mitts - again, trying out crazy combos.

took off sunday coz i was traveling and i need a day to rest up after that trip on monday.

Tuesday
hit gold's for a workout in the AM.
going to muay thai in the pm.

morning:
10 minute warm up on elliptical cross trainer, was feeling a little sluggish.

dynamic stretching - 5 each side, 15lb dumbells
rotating squats
reaching lunge
lateral lunge
spiderman crawl
T pushups
note: heavier dumbells took a lot out of me, plus working out in the AM means my heart gets racing pretty quick

strength 3 sets of each number, 10 reps each exercise
1-
squat-curl-press complex with 35lb dumbells
lat pulldown with 140lb
note: long rest after 2nd set, 3rd set went up easy, am workout is rough

2-
step forward, step backward lung x 5 times each leg x 35lb dumbells

3-
dumbell bench w/70lb dbells
one arm, elbow-out, row w/70lbs

crawled out of the gym and went home to get ready for work.
working out in the morning really is an endurance trial.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday part 2
Okay so i got to the gym around 6:15 today.
had a good workout going.
was supposed to work pads with this guy i work well with
coach stuck me with another guy i kinda get along with, who's bigger.
i was a lil ticked coz the first guy and i have this whole pad routine down
the second guy just hold the same combo until i start wanting to vomit - occasionally trying to smack me in the head with the pad in the middle of a punch (ie i'm throwing a right upper cut and he's smacking me in the face on the same side i'm punching with).
thai pads come and it's more of the same bs - i throw rear round kick continuously for 5+ minutes.
of course i hold for him and he does maybe half the workload.
the pads he chooses stink by the way, i think i've got a forearm bruise - there's no padding.
after pads i'm pretty much done and have to take a break - dehydrated & overheating.
then we work technique drills
these go well

then he decides he wants to spar.
in the back of my mind i'm like 'f*ck no, you're wearing 14oz reyes gloves you've been using for 2 or 3 years'; but i man up and go for it anyway.
we're doing alright, but he parries my jab and fires a jab over - catching me real good and knocking my contact out (not to mention stealing my favorite technique).
i say "i don't mind you hitting me in the head, but can you take it easy on my eye?"
his response "you're running into it" (umm no, you're parrying me as i'm coming in and popping me, there's a difference).
so we go a little more i catch him a lil bit, then he does it again.
this time the contact rolls back in my eye.
"can you ease up a lil on my eye?"
"you're running into it".
We start going again and I catch him, but also get a little sloppy coz i don't want to give him the opportunity to pop me in the eye again.
He asks "so I take it you want to step up the pace?"
i say "go hard if you want to go hard, your call man"
he takes a break to go get a mouthpiece.
this time i start shelling, he starts swinging away with a flurry - with 14oz reyes with no padding even "soft" shots don't feel that soft.
he starts to say "look you're running into it"; but he's smoking crack coz i caught his shot with my glove, i reply "i caught you, you didn't even catch me".
I pop him one and roll out, again he says "so you want to step up the pace? coz you're going hard"
I say "go hard as you want man"
This time I stop throwing altogether.
For about 30 seconds I stop leading the dance.
I make him come to me.
parry for the most part and don't even fire back.
he rushes in and i pop him one time pretty d@mn good.
He starts whining at the coach "he's going too hard"
I'm like "i give up... if i tell you that you're going too hard you tell me i'm running into it; but if i catch you good, then i'm going too hard...wtf?" and take off my gloves- I know i'm losing my temper and if i keep going with this guy it's gonna be a war.

we have about a minute or two of b!tch session time.
i bite the bullet and blame myself.
i do feel bad that i was losing my cool; and was kicking myself as i left the gym after profusely apologizing - promising to give him a freebie next time.

Afterwards at the grocery store, i start replaying the events in my head coz it's bothering me and I kinda have a change of heart in regards to my guilt.
I know i was being sloppy and not being a good partner; but am I really being that wrong?
I ask you to ease up after you knock my contacts out of my head and you dismiss it, saying it's my fault; but then expect me not to catch you when I've got an open opportunity?
oh well.
i hate sparring; especially at this place.
If it's boxing sparring, just go hard.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Ah dude, its a contact sport, if you/he doesn't like the contact, don't spar.
Now, its not like you were going full contact ie: going with intent for the KO.

In sparring you need to his hard enough to keep it real.

That is why I Spar with only a handful of guys at both the boxing gym and the MT gym I go do, combined.
The rest I don't bother with.
Every time I spar someone "new" it end sup like what you described, more or less, the only difference is that I tend not to be as nice as you.

[Pork Chop]

I'm trying to get the thai pad work to the point that it's like a good spar- lots of going back and forth, defense & offense, getting hit if i don't defend, but still being able to throw good, full-force shots. I've got a guy that I've been working with who's really starting to get it down- just need to help him put together good fight strategy so he can kinda "mold" me with the pads.

Thursday was a really good muay thai workout.
Killed it in the gym.
jump rope - taichi - ram muay - stretching - heavybag - thai pads (for over an hour) - heavybag - ab work
Left almost everything I had there.
finished up with ab work & didn't get through as much as i wanted before having to take a rest.
coach wants me to work on abs a lot more.
he said i was in good shape though. :D woot

met water dragon last night too; after talking on the phone with him a few times. it was fun, real cool guy.

[Water Dragon]

Yeah, we gotta kick it again.

[Pork Chop]

Yeah, we gotta kick it again.

definitely :)



Saturday was a good day.
didn't sleep much friday night so i had a "5 hour energy" to help me wake up.
mighta been a mistake with the 90+ degree heat.
worked on a lot of crossfit type combat conditioning stuff after some jump rope.
slam ball, sand bag pulls, sand bag carries
mixed in some calisthenics
by this point i was pretty much dying
then the whole gym helped one of our guys get ready for a fight june 21
so we all just tried to wear him out
pad work - clinch - sparring - more clinch
first clinch round i had went well but i gassed after
forgot my mouthpiece so my first round of sparring was kinda short
finished out another round of sparring well
and i finished out a really good half round of clinch after that
we did light sparring for a few rounds too till the guy was all but fried
really great guy to work with though, skill level very high & a joy to spar.
*gasp, i actually had fun sparring someone* :D

worked with another guy to finish out class- teaching him the basic defense drills and some light freestyle with them afterwards (in other words, light sparring).

learned a lot too, constantly picking up clinch tricks; we all like clinch and i think we're going to have pretty advanced clinch for americans in muay thai.

coach told me to add 2 miles of jogging in a day and calf raises - he thinks i can build up my lower legs, which are pretty small. it can't hurt so i'll do my best.

afterwards i rested an hour or two

then i went to gold's gym:
20 laps of swimming freestyle
10 laps of butterfly down, backstroke (just kicking) back
I believe the pool's 25 meters

lifted weights
used 10lb dbells for my dynamic warm up coz i was a bit drained
rotating squat, reaching lunge, lateral lunge, 1-legged calf raise, spidermans, t pushups

squat - curl - press complex w/30lb dumbells -> independent pulley pulldown machine w/120lbs

lunges w/30lb dumbells

hammer strength bench (70lbs each arm) -> t-bar row w/70lbs

finished up with 25 minutes on the treadmill; didn't make 2 miles coz i was beat.
jogged a mile and walked 3/4s of a mile.

afterwards i went to my friend's house for a big UFC party and watched it with one of Mario Sperry's IFL fighters - the guy who beat ivan salaverry was a personal friend of his and we found out the results of that fight before the event even started airing. awesome party. TONS of great barbecue.

[Pork Chop]

monday every gym was closed and i had a little too much fun cooking beer boiled brats so Tuesday i had to recuperate.

I finally got back into the gym Wednesday
Woke up at 6:00 and got there by 6:45

cardio warm up on the treadmill; attempted to get 2 miles again.
In all I ran 15:30.
Warmed up the first 2:30
Ran the next 10 minutes at 7mph
cooled off the last 2:30 for a total of over 1.5 miles
running hurts - my hips, knees, and back are suffering.

after that it was on to dynamic flexibility
10lb dbells, 5 reps each side (10 for bilaterals), 3 times through
twisting squat, reaching lunge, side lunge, calf raise + shoulder press, spiderman, t-pushups

strength exercises was rough, my endurance in am workouts isn't so great
Only went through each superset twice.

superset 1:
squat-curl-press complex w/40lb dbells
lat pulldown w/150lbs

superset 2:
step forward, step back lunges w/40lb dbells x 5 reps x each side

superset 3
dumbell bench x 70, 75lb dbells
1-armed wide elbow row x 70, 75lb dbells x 10 reps x each side

I was basically dead after this workout
went home, showered up, then went to work.

in the evening, it was off to muay thai:
got there early
15 minutes jump rope (hope to maybe hit 20min)
taichi
ram muay
flexibility
intense bag work
held pads for a while
thai pads

1 step sparring. Worked with a small guy, think he was young. He kept trying to "win" eventhough we said no contact due to him wearing mma gloves & neither wearing mouthguards. He kept flurrying up on me & trying to run me over while we were doing 1-step attack/counter drills. first time he ran me over, i accidentally clocked him on the jaw with a reverse elbow just trying to catch my balance. next he went for a knee that caught me in the thigh, i got full clinch on him and held him down, i mighta landed a full power knee in there, not sure, I was trying to keep it light for the most part - but i think i landed one thing hard. 10 seconds later he kneed me in the nuts when i tried to let him up out of the clinch. Kept just reminding him to keep it simple & work on the basics, that i wasn't punching when he was flurrying, coz i was trying to let him get some work in. he kept trying to punch me when i was slowly feeding him leg kicks to catch - he tried to imply i was dropping my hand when i kicked, so i hooked over the top of his little cheap shot & caught him (extra gently). later he tried flurrying up again - this time i shielded up and caught him with a slow motion uppercut that i just pushed right up on through. i think he got the hint. once he settled down, he was a pretty good kid. I think he comes from an mma background so the concept of going light is still very new to him. he's lucky i was, coz with 100+ pound weight advantage & better skill I coulda put him out of commission without half trying. i was doing everything i could to stay calm and not escalate it with him; in the end I think it worked and it turned out half decent.

after that i jumped in the ring with one of the advanced guys and we had a great spar for a couple rounds. i noticed i am really timid to throw my cross and i kept putting myself in bad position by trying to use my lead hand too much. gotta work on that. Otherwise, the advanced guy was a way awesome spar.

came home and took my dog on a long walk.
still rehydrating and wondering if i should do some ab work; reluctant to coz my lower back is aching.

Going to try to work out again tomorrow coz of the damage i did on monday.

[Pork Chop]

okay, so my back's killing me.
what i thought was just a minor ache from the jog, appears to be a pulled muscle in the lower back.
couldn't wake up to go to the gym, got up so late that i really shouldn't go to muay thai class.
plus, I'm not sure i can throw any kicks with my back like this.
I just don't think jogging's going to work out.
I can handle jump rope, so I think I'm going to equate jumping rope for 10 minutes as 1 mile.
Maybe when I drop another 10~20 pounds I can give jogging another shot, but right now, this ain't good.

[SAAMAG]

You know Chop'....there's nothing wrong with resting when your body needs it.

[Pork Chop]

it's just...
when you're a big tubby guy, everyone wants you to do more than the little guys...
in other words, you gotta work harder & do more to make up for the fact that you're built the way you are...
That's the mentality i came up with at most of the places i've trained...

in my head i know - a heavier body means you're already doing more work, that the intensity is higher for even "easy" stuff just because of the extra weight, that it's not how hard you work in the gym, but how much you're body reacts to a given stimulus (how much it heals up & improves from the heck you put it through), and that overdoing it is a bad thing.

the thing is i try to follow whatever people tell me - especially trainers.
if there's extra credit to be done, i'd like to do it.
I know ideally, i should probably be going to gold's 5 days a week and muay thai 6 days a week.
the thing is, i know my body can't handle that volume of training for very long.
even in 05 when i was doing well, the few times i tried to step up my workout from 4 or 5 days a week to 6; i lasted a week or two before i had to take off.

right now i'm doing pretty well working out 3 times a week.
it's a constant struggle to remind myself not to overdo it.

everyone says the reason i'm still big is coz i don't run.
and phet wants me to run too.
but i gotta be honest, running for me, right now, is the difference between having a productive workout week and overdoing it.

today was a pretty good day, but a little light compared to wednesday.

slept for 9+ hours last night
my back is feeling better
but i didn't make it into the gym in the morning
instead i got out of work around 5:15 and headed over to gold's

at gold's i did:

dynamic warmup with no weight and only 2 times through each circuit.
I wanted to use it for it's original purpose, ie dynamic flexibility drills to warm me up and get me ready for other exercises; not something I really had to struggle to get through.
twisting squats, reaching lunges, lateral lunges, overhead reaching calf raises, T pushups, spiderman

strength workout:
again, i went pretty light, mostly on the leg stuff - because i was nervous about re-injuring my back.
EDIT: I also went for speed, and limited rest between sets.

superset 1 - (3 times through)
squat - curl - overhead press complex with 15lb dumbbells x 10
lat pulldown with 100, 120, 130 x 10ea

superset 2 - (3 times through)
step forward lunge - step backward lunge x 15lb dumbbells x 5 x each side
in between each lunge set i did a set of 10 calf raises

superset 4 - (2 times through)
dumbbell bench press x 75lb, 80lb dumbbells x 10
one-armed, wide-elbow row x 75lb, 80lb dumbbell x 10 x each side

Felt alright after this, not overly energized/fresh, but not dead; sweating pretty good & breathing hard.

then I went to the muay thai gym:
20 minutes of jump rope
taichi
rammuay
quick stretching routine (mostly static stretches)
heavybag for 15 minutes
thai pads (holding & hitting, switching off every 2 rounds) for a total of about 8 rounds; it was really hard work coz we were freestyling legs first, legs + hands next & we're both big guys so we didn't have to recover from hard blows much as padholder (30+minutes)
then heavy bag for about a round or two
finished out with 20 minutes of light boxing sparring with a new guy - he was really good about hearing me out on the purpose on the sparring being to refine the technique and build up the reactions.
we were slowly freestyling boxing attack/counter drills so we could lay the ground work for better reactions when we speed up.
It was kind of shocking to see how many times I kept putting myself in the same bad positions that i would get in when the sparring was more intense.
eventhough i've been doing this a good long time, i really see the need for going back to this stuff every time you come off of a long layoff - sometimes your body forgets the right way to move.

all-in-all it was 3 solid hours of working out
a little shorter than i had planned and i didn't really leave it all in the gym, but i guess that's a good thing if I want to work out tomorrow morning.
I did learn some stuff though and hopefully was able to clean up some of my technique.
EDIT: The temp in the gym today was about 93 degrees Fahrenheit; so that does strange things to your endurance.

[Pork Chop]

Killer workout today.
2 hours of really hard work.
lots of slam ball, medball, and sandbag work at the beginning
lots of muay thai drills/sparring/clinching in the middle
and lots of heavybag work at the end
i love this gym, coz not only am I getting good workouts, I'm learning a lot.
helping out another training partner get ready for a fight in june, so we really killed it.
going swimming in a little bit - shoulders kinda sore.

[Pork Chop]

My saturday swim was pretty light - put in some jacuzzi and sauna time too in order to be a lil nice to my body.

Sunday I went to Sea World from 10 in the morning till 5 at night.
The first half of the day was walking around the park looking at the fish stuff
the second half of the day was spent at the water park.
got pretty sunburnt (even with sun screen) and my feet got all torn up

Monday my coworker invited me to one of his semi-private late-night training sessions at his mma gym with Marcello Salazar. (http://www.ifl.tv/Camps-World-Class-Fight-Center.html) I'd met Marcello a couple times before and he's a real good guy. I hit the bags for 30+ minutes and mostly just watched the no-gi grappling. I explained why I'm nervous about the ground and promised to do more next time (Thursday). I ain't gonna lie though, a big part of it was because I'm still healing up from my Sea World trip.

slept in till almost noon this morning. I was draggin a$$ the day before at work and told everyone i was going to come in late- just sleep as much as i needed to so i could actually be productive. I may still be in trouble, i dunno. Probably not a good idea to jet out of here to go to muay thai at 6. So I think I'll work late and go to gold's later tonight. Hope I can work out - my feet are pretty scabbed over.

[SAAMAG]

it's just...
everyone says the reason i'm still big is coz i don't run.
and phet wants me to run too.
but i gotta be honest, running for me, right now, is the difference between having a productive workout week and overdoing it.


Speaking in a non-martial arts context...Phet and everyone else probably are not experts in the field of weight loss the best / healthiest ways to workout. Most people are parrots that simply repeat what they've been told. You know that running isn't the end all exercise, and that there are ways to lose fat percentage without destroying your back, hips, knees, and ankles. If you can't run right now--no problem. My advice would be to get some answers from medical docs as to why your back and whatever else hurts when you run. There might be something out of alignment, could also be something due to your running methodology, could simply be the weight. If it's the methodology or the weight, do some research on either ways to run "better" or find running alternatives.

Since I've started doing interval training in almost everything I do (bag work, pad work, judo, running, swimming, etc) the fat percentage seems to be falling steadily.

FWIW, my back kills me when I run too. I'm working on ways around it...I have an overpronation problem and there are some other things about my anatomy too that cause this, but since I don't want to give it up I've also done the NB shoes thing like you did -- though that didn't help. I may need to stick to swimming instead or using the eliptical. To me...it's all about the heart rate when it comes to cardio.

BTW...I went by Phet's yesterday after class...I guess he's not there around 130pm on Mondays? I told him my new work/school schedule was going to retard my training frequency, an he told me to come whenever that he's always there. Guess not! lol

[sanjuro_ronin]

Even a moderate paced HB workout burns more calories than jogging.
Not sure why anyone would recommend jogging to burn fat ( LOL ) to anyone that is probably doing enough cardio (moderate paced) as it is.

[Pork Chop]

BTW...I went by Phet's yesterday after class...I guess he's not there around 130pm on Mondays? I told him my new work/school schedule was going to retard my training frequency, an he told me to come whenever that he's always there. Guess not! lol

I dunno I haven't been there for an afternoon class ever.
The class times from what I remember are 11-1; 2-4; and 7-9.
The next 3 day weekend I'm hoping i can go work out at all 3 classes.



Not sure why anyone would recommend jogging to burn fat ( LOL ) to anyone that is probably doing enough cardio (moderate paced) as it is.

There is a long standing tradition in boxing and muay thai that road work is where you get your endurance and weight-loss from.

Thinking back, in 05 i was working sprint sessions pretty religiously on the elliptical crosstrainer and I could go all out in boxing sparring at my old gym - guys trying to kill me & me trying to hurt them right back; for 3+ rounds straight without really breathing hard.

Guess I'll stick with my preferred method of endurance work- just need the confidence to follow my own way sometimes I guess.

[SevenStar]

IThere is a long standing tradition in boxing and muay thai that road work is where you get your endurance and weight-loss from.


Bingo. roadwork is at the heart of many a fighter's training and has been for ages... It's like stancework in CMA. Can I find more efficient ways of building leg "strength"? sure I can. Better ways to learn footwork? sure I can. But stance training remains a CMA staple anyway.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Bingo. roadwork is at the heart of many a fighter's training and has been for ages... It's like stancework in CMA. Can I find more efficient ways of building leg "strength"? sure I can. Better ways to learn footwork? sure I can. But stance training remains a CMA staple anyway.

Old habits die hard.

[Pork Chop]

Last night I ended up putting neosporin on my cut up feet and calling it a night.
Just walking my dog was agonizing.
Then, the little git ate my dirty rice. :mad:

My Top Ten gloves came in last night, I'm really anxious to try them out.
They're "sparring gloves" but I gotta break them in for the next week or two.
Plus, Top Ten foam rarely breaks down, so I think it'll be cool.
Once my Title gels come in, I'm pretty sure I'll have a 4 glove rotation.
It's the sweat that really breaks gloves down and gloves last a lot longer if they get more time to dry between uses.

It's time to start a new period in weight lifting, I feel.
I'd been doing the last one about 8 weeks.
Helped my endurance but I'm starting to dread the workouts - they're getting a little stale.

[I'll edit this post later with the plan I come up with]

[sanjuro_ronin]

Last night I ended up putting neosporin on my cut up feet and calling it a night.
Just walking my dog was agonizing.
Then, the little git ate my dirty rice. :mad:

My Top Ten gloves came in last night, I'm really anxious to try them out.
They're "sparring gloves" but I gotta break them in for the next week or two.
Plus, Top Ten foam rarely breaks down, so I think it'll be cool.
Once my Title gels come in, I'm pretty sure I'll have a 4 glove rotation.
It's the sweat that really breaks gloves down and gloves last a lot longer if they get more time to dry between uses.

It's time to start a new period in weight lifting, I feel.
I'd been doing the last one about 8 weeks.
Helped my endurance but I'm starting to dread the workouts - they're getting a little stale.

[I'll edit this post later with the plan I come up with]

Speaking of gloves, I did 8 rounds of HIIT with 16oz gloves the other day, wow, they made a huge difference let me tell you !

[Pork Chop]

Speaking of gloves, I did 8 rounds of HIIT with 16oz gloves the other day, wow, they made a huge difference let me tell you !

Yeah, my Top Tens are 16 oz, have the padding of a 16oz, but are streamlined and look more like 10s or 12s. They're awesome. Sparring they're going to make my defense so tight!
I usually use my Ringside IMF 16oz gloves, but will occasionally switch things up with my 12oz Grant superbag gloves (which are kinda skimpy on the knuckle protection).


Okay, my new workout phase.
Each workout will be done once a week.
The goal of this workout is to go heavy and put on some strength, with more rest between sets.
Looking at it, I was probably going too heavy on my earlier phase.
My ultimate goal may be to lose weight, but I want to make sure I'm not losing too much strength while doing it.

Workout A:
Barbell Squat: 2 sets of 8 to 10 reps
Lying Leg Curl: 2 sets of 8 to 10 reps
Dumbbell Bench: 2 sets of 8 to 10 reps
Cable External Rotation: 2 sets of 8 to 10 reps
Incline Reverse Crunch: 2 sets of 8 to 10 reps
Weighted Russian Twist (med ball twist situp): 2 sets of 5 to 6 each side

Workout B:
Barbell Deadlift: 2 sets of 8 to 10 reps
Dumbbell Lunge: 2 sets of 8 to 10 reps each leg
Assisted Chinup: 2 sets 8 to 10 reps (or 2 sets x max reps if doing > 5 full chinups)
Standing Barbell Shoulder Press: 2 sets of 8 to 10 reps
One-arm Row w/Elbow Out: 2 sets of 8 to 10 reps each side
Back Extension (roman chair?): 2 sets of 10 to 12 reps
Lateral Bridge: 2 sets of 4 or 5 reps each side
Swiss Ball Crunch: 2 sets of 8 to 10 reps.

Cardio
I'm going back to sprint sessions on the elliptical crosstrainer: 2 minute warm up followed by 10~11 minute active and 2 minute rest.
This will be at the beginning of the workout so i can get the most out of the sprints.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday
Today was a good workout, but painful.
My feet got cut up at Sea World and I made the mistake of wearing the same shoes that cut them up, thinking it was only because they were wet- well the plastic ankle support inside of the shoe has bent inward making them almost unwearable.
FYI- these are the expensive new balance joints.
On top of that my hand's cut up - on the inside from my dog's leash, on the outside from a fingernail that tore in half

Skipped cardio coz of my choice in footware and lifted weights first:

Barbell Squat: 135 x 10, 185 x 10; 185 was a lil tough but not bad
Lying Leg Curl: 110 x 10, 155 x 10; first set too easy
Dumbbell Bench: 80lb dbells x 10, x 2 - hurt myself on this one, will explain later
Incline Reverse Crunch: 2 sets of 10 reps
Cable External Rotation: 20lbs x 10 x 2 x each arm - this was murder
Weighted Russian Twist (med ball twist situp): 2 sets of 5 to 6 each side using medball w/handles

The injury i got on the dbell bench was due to the only open bench being a decline bench.
Had a hard time getting on the bench with the weight- no spot.
First time, some a-hole nearly clipped my arm - mighta clipped the weight, and i kinda lost it for a sec- this mighta been when i hurt it. Second set I tried doing it differently and my left arm lost it again worse - so i picked them back up & sat the other way on the bench, making it an incline. Right now my shoulder is really sore about an inch outside that bump on the top (trap insertion point? scapula?).

Got some protein afterward then went to muay thai.

Didn't jump rope at muay thai coz my feet were still hurting - just did taichi and some stretching before hitting the heavybag with my new Top Ten gloves- which were murder to break in due to the aforementioned hand issues.

Did a lot of sparring (like 6 to 8, 2min rounds nonstop) and got hit a lot - resigned myself to just getting beat up. I guess I did pretty well; but I was mostly just thinking about survival.
First few rounds were boxing, and eventhough my left shoulder was hurting, i managed to land it a couple times alright - if it was in top form i would've been able to defend myself better; took some shots i didn't have to.

My new, sleek, gloves didn't help my defense any- which is actually a good thing. They're 16 ounce gloves but less bulky than 12oz gloves, with no wasted padding; all of it residing on the knuckles. I got hit a lot but in the long run it'll help me get better. Oh yah, I also love my new-ish Title MMA slip on shinguards, they're even better than my windy's.

Finished up with a lot of technique work with a young kid and tried to stretch a minute or two before going home.

Pretty good day I guess, we'll see what tomorrow brings - want to try to hit up the night time class at 11 and I have to be somewhere saturday so I gotta get whatever workout I can get in.
Hope my shoulder feels better tomorrow; though it could very well be serious.

[Pork Chop]

went back to muay thai thursday
did my 20 min jump rope and all my calisthenics before class officially started
did about 25 min of heavybag straight
then i started holding mitts for a newer guy
then i had to work the jab for about 10 min while he worked his defense
in the second hour i sparred a relatively new guy
someone i'd worked with a week or two earlier
i tried to do the same slow sparring we did before
but he didn't want to do slow, 1 and 2 step sparring
he started turning it up - trying to run me over with combos
then i started turning it up
i turned it up just enough so that we were both scoring - he wasn't an easy spar
figured i was just more tired than i thought i was
turns out the relatively new guy's been working out down at the gym for 7 or 8 hours a day
must be nice not to have a fulltime job
he's become a beast in a very short time
it's like people going to camp in thailand i guess.
boney dude, i got all banged up - didn't think i'd need shin guards.
happy he's getting so much better.

[SAAMAG]

http://www.muaythaistuff.com/products/thaismai-shin-guards-black-tsm-lp182-black/

I got a pair the other day with some dragons on them...can't get away from the whole asian thing ya know.

I'm going to invest in some thai pads and a body protector so I can get with a partner to work on the stuff. I don't particularly like Phet's equipment and he won't order this stuff because he won't be able to sell most of it to the people there.

[Pork Chop]

I love the gear on that site but the shipping fees are just too outrageous.

I don't like the black foam (top contender?) thai pads Phet's got, but the windy ones are nice from a weight & shock absorption standpoint.
The buckles on the Windy thai pads aren't great to deal with and some people complain of the straps digging into their arms.
I have a pair of title thai pads that are just re-badged twins, with velcro enclosure.
I'll let u try them out sometime if you want.
Those are my 2nd favorite after the windys.

I have a body protector that i leave up at the gym - the big silver title one.
I should be getting a belly pad sometime this summer.

My legs are total hamburger today.
I feel like roadkill.
Don't mind lifting weights, but i doubt i'll be able to kick anything.

[Pork Chop]

Friday has been one of those days where you give everything you got but everything you got still feels really inadequate.

Still hurting from everything that's happened in the past week (especially my shoulder); I didn't want to go today, but i did anyway.

started off at gold's

5 minute warm up on the elliptical, i just didn't have the sprints in me and really didn't have time.

Barbell Deadlift: 2 sets of 10 reps (135lbs, 185lbs)
Dumbbell Lunge: 2 sets of 10 reps each leg (45lb dbells each time)
Assisted Chinup: 2 sets 10 reps (14 plates/76lb assist, 13 plates/72lb assist)
Standing Barbell Shoulder Press: 2 sets of 10 reps (90lbs, 100lbs)
One-arm Row w/Elbow Out: 2 sets of 10 reps each side (80lb dbells each time)
Back Extension: 2 sets of 10 reps
Lateral Bridge: 2 sets of 5 reps each side
Swiss Ball Crunch: 2 sets of 10 reps.

Then I went to muay thai early.
Started off with "combat conditioning" type stuff, wearing the 23lb weight vest.
10 left-handed slam ball slams
10 right-handed slam ball slams
10 suicides up and down the ramp
20 two-handed slam ball slams
10 suicides up and down the ramp
20 one-handed twisting slams x each hand
20 squats with vest and medball
10 laps down and back with vest, carrying 45lb to the chest (the sand bag was awol today)

after that i did some stretches
then a lil heavybag work
some handpad stuff for about 4 rounds each
asked ku phet if i could skip out on sparring coz i was banged up from this week
felt like a wuss for doing it
spent at least 30 min on the heavybag, doing 2 min rounds before having to call it a day.
My tank was pretty much empty.

Had a gatorade and a protein shake between workouts.
Downed a muscle milk and a lot of water once i finished up

my shoulder was killing me
i didn't kick anything coz my shins are hamburger
apologized a bit for not sparring like everyone else
felt kinda down
guess it mighta been me crashing

Think I left the 2 shirts i sweat through up there.

[Pork Chop]

I've been thinking about it since Friday and I'm going to take some time off.
I've got a lot of nagging injuries, some of them may be serious.
It's really hard to sleep with this level of pain.
I don't need to be 100% to work out, but there's a limit on what you can push through - especially if you start experiencing diminishing returns.
My shoulder particularly worries me.
While my shins (actually a contusion in the muscle) are taking an extra long time to heal - i'm still pretty confident they will heal given enough time.
I've even still got those cuts on my feet from the other week which haven't healed up yet either.
Thinking I'll get back in the gym on monday - sooner if things start healing quicker.

[SevenStar]

Friday has been one of those days where you give everything you got but everything you got still feels really inadequate.

Still hurting from everything that's happened in the past week (especially my shoulder); I didn't want to go today, but i did anyway.

started off at gold's

5 minute warm up on the elliptical, i just didn't have the sprints in me and really didn't have time.

Barbell Deadlift: 2 sets of 10 reps (135lbs, 185lbs)
Dumbbell Lunge: 2 sets of 10 reps each leg (45lb dbells each time)
Assisted Chinup: 2 sets 10 reps (14 plates/76lb assist, 13 plates/72lb assist)
Standing Barbell Shoulder Press: 2 sets of 10 reps (90lbs, 100lbs)
One-arm Row w/Elbow Out: 2 sets of 10 reps each side (80lb dbells each time)
Back Extension: 2 sets of 10 reps
Lateral Bridge: 2 sets of 5 reps each side
Swiss Ball Crunch: 2 sets of 10 reps.

Then I went to muay thai early.
Started off with "combat conditioning" type stuff, wearing the 23lb weight vest.
10 left-handed slam ball slams
10 right-handed slam ball slams
10 suicides up and down the ramp
20 two-handed slam ball slams
10 suicides up and down the ramp
20 one-handed twisting slams x each hand
20 squats with vest and medball
10 laps down and back with vest, carrying 45lb to the chest (the sand bag was awol today)

after that i did some stretches
then a lil heavybag work
some handpad stuff for about 4 rounds each
asked ku phet if i could skip out on sparring coz i was banged up from this week
felt like a wuss for doing it
spent at least 30 min on the heavybag, doing 2 min rounds before having to call it a day.
My tank was pretty much empty.

Had a gatorade and a protein shake between workouts.
Downed a muscle milk and a lot of water once i finished up


very nice.

[SevenStar]

we had a foo foo class you would like today in place of zumba - they had a demo of another dance class... but the first half of it is based on drumming. One of our trainers is japanese, and I guess she knows some drummers or something, I'll ask her. The second half of the class was break dancing, well, poppin and hip hop, mostly.

[Pork Chop]

Sweet.
I wonder if it was Eisa, you guys do have a good group there in Indiana:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UicvUCx7tNY
I haven't done it in a while.
I miss it a lot.
There's a group here that does it but they're all old ladies.


I ended up working out tonight.
Coworker wants me to teach him muay thai & fix his boxing.
He's a buff 5'7 170, mostly natural - good genetics, wrestled & baseball in school, lifts once in a blue moon.
I held pads for him and did a couple rounds of kicks with him on the heavybag after I showed him the basics.
Cleaned up his boxing a little- he's got a clubbing right hand like you wouldn't believe from the baseball.

We did some lifting afterwards

Superset:
3 clean & press + 3 cleans
4 times through, 135lbs; first set did 7 cleans after 3 clean & press.

Superset 2:
calf raises on leg press sled (90lbs each side)
swiss ball crunches
4 times through, did between 10 and 20 reps each exercise - wasn't really paying attention.

Kind of a light workout, surprised how well my shoulder held up. My final set on the superset of clean & press was my best; it was just a matter of getting comfortable with the form & exploding from the bottom.

[Pork Chop]

worked out once in the last week plus (my last post) and I just don't feel like working out yet.
My shoulder's still bugging me - cramps up & spasms; think it's a muscle thing not a joint thing.
maybe i'll try to work out one day this week.
have plans to go to the gym tomorrow with a coworker and am already a couple hours ahead on my time for the week.
probably take off early and at least do that - go to the thai gym too if i feel up to it.

Lately, i've been thinking about giving it all up, joining a swim team, and going full time till I lost the weight. It's about the only working out I really feel like doing.

[Suntzu]

Lately, i've been thinking about giving it all up, joining a swim team, and going full time till I lost the weight. It's about the only working out I really feel like doing. i know the feeling...this (http://trailblazers.ning.com/) is all i've been into lately..... with some sparring here and there..... i'm good.... i know i'm gonna miss getting in the ring while at the fights (http://combatinthecage.com/) this weekend tho.... brandon should do well... he's been kickin' my butt lately....

don't give up..... i think u are just a bit overtrained..... niggas ain't 24 no more..... you gotta rest up and get more massages from wifey ;)

my advice........ stop stressin' the weight..... keep training.... get good rest..... just have fun with it..... the body is gonna adapt how it wants to.....

and chill out with those men's health workouts:D

[Oso]

yea, what he said.

martial arts has been such a stresser for me the last 7 years that I feel on the verge of throwing the towel in too.

but, I'm gonna keep doing the fu 3 days a week, get more regularish exercise in, get the fug back on my bike and try to keep the rest of my life straight.

R - didn't know you rode...where are the mtn pics from? you're welcome down here anytime, we've got some more than decent rides...many of them 5 minutes from the house.

[Suntzu]

o - i just started like a month ago.... several face plants later, i'm hooked.... the pics are from new zealand.... i wasn't into riding then, sadly..... but i did try out their muay thai and judo....


many of them 5 minutes from the house. i wish..... i'll have to take u up on that once i get my $ right....

join the group, we need members... even tho its not ready to launch....

[/hijack]

[Pork Chop]

Thing is, I was trying to take it slow with the 3 days a week.
I didn't want to be totally about training all the time anymore; but I ended up becoming that guy anyway.

I've been pushing it so hard in the gym coz I keep getting told "oh if you weighed 30 pounds less, you could fight next month". This is probably the 4th gym I've heard that from; coz even hard sparring doesn't exhaust me & my technique's pretty clean.

The other week, tripling up on my training really burned me out... and i probably just need more rest from it; just have this feeling like a week shoulda been enough.

I have absolutely no interest in hittin stuff at the moment and I guess that's the biggest problem.
I figured after a week of doin very little that I'd be amped to get back into the gym.
Instead, there's a significant part of me that doesn't really care if I don't go back

I've talked it over with a few people and taking a couple months off to join a swim team & drop some pounds doesn't sound like a bad idea.

I'm constantly stressed over training coz I can't get roadwork in like other fighters.
With weight being such an issue for me, this point is driven home extra hard, coz what I'm doing isn't really working in that capacity.
I really like swimming and it's my lds cardio of choice, plus i have a history of it shedding weight off of me (in high school, college, and after).

The problem with swimming is that I'm at the level where it'd require a serious time commitment to see good results.
I have a pool I'm already paying for, but I think I'd get a lot more out of a formal practice with a coach; so that ends up being a monetary commitment as well.
If I spend 2 or 3 months swimming 3 times a week for a couple hours a shot, with some weight lifting & sprinting on the sides, I should drop a good 20 pounds.

I also keep looking at other aspects of my life and feel like I'm just letting too much drop.
I haven't been studying japanese much at all.
Aside from some lasagna last week, i haven't been cooking at all.
Haven't been taking my dog to obedience school or taking my girl dancing or a lot of the other stuff I'd said I wanted to stay on top of.

Swimming addresses this, coz a couple hours in the pool doesn't have the after-effect that a couple hours hitting the bag and sparring do; with the bumps, bruises, and sheer trauma.
I'm not going to have to walk around smelling like old people, busting out a half a tube of Icy Hot to be able to sleep at night. The nagging injuries have basically taken my normal insomnia to a whole new level. That's why I'm so un-focused in the other areas of my life.

I may just drop the muay thai down to once a week & spend more time doing the other stuff.

These are the 3 swim teams I'm considering:
http://www.geocities.com/bjbigsplash/
http://www.mastersofsouthtexas.org
http://www.nisd.net/aquaww

I'm leaning towards the first one with both am and pm practices.
Probably call tomorrow.

PS
Rock-
nice website.
I do get at least 2 massages a week from my girl.
Wow, brandon's really improved, hope he does well.
You really don't like my workouts huh?
Oso-
Ultimately, yeah, I'd just like a little more balance.

[Suntzu]

You really don't like my workouts huh?i'm more of a Westside/"Hybrid" guy atm.... the stuff u are doing isn't bad tho.. just giving u sh!t.....

[Pork Chop]

i'm more of a Westside/"Hybrid" guy atm.... the stuff u are doing isn't bad tho.. just giving u sh!t.....

Well I'm doing it more for hypertrophy, coz I'm tired of looking like Louie Simmons :p


Went to muay thai today.
Kru wasn't there so I explained my situation to the assistant instructors and wrote the gist of it down on the sign in sheet next to my name.

They didn't argue with me, kinda seemed to understand where I was coming from.
Especially after i explained that weight's my biggest issue, that I'm not losing much weight from the workout, and the weight is putting a lot of added stress on my body doing the workout - putting a lot of wear & tear on this old body.

Went through class.
Was not a normal class.
Kung fu guy down there took over.
So we did a TON of calisthenics.
BTW- at the start of the workout the official reading for san antonio was 98 degrees; cooled down to 91 by the end.

I did what I could but we weren't resting, just wave after wave of bodyweight exercises.
My shoulder was shot so by the time we got to 8 count (2 pushup) burpees, I only did a few of the 10, but made up for it with the 10 reps of 1-2 sprawl.
At least I made it through the 75 pushups in the first part of the workout.
We even did horse stance drills & wing chun chain punching.
Some of the more pointless stuff I had a hard time really pushing it.
The front half of the class also missed the first half of the workout, so those of us in the back felt like we were slacking - when i looked over, the other 2 guys with me were dying also.

We did some bags and pads.
That was kinda the easy part.
I knocked out the roundkick holder. LOL
He was using an old-fashioned big kicking shield for catching roundkicks to the body and it was just way too much stress on his ribs & abs; poor choice by the instructor.

Finished up with some boxing pad work.
Sharp pains in my shoulder but i think i did alright.

When I do start swimming, I may have to ease into it a little slow.

[Satori Science]

Hey man,

Some of the guys I am training with right now are taking this stuff,
http://www.supplements.net/SuperCissus-RX-USP-Labs-p/supercissusrx-90caps-usplabs.htm&click=2?gclid=CLqOyfaYg5QCFQ4hnAod3Hf9WQ

it is supposed to do wonders at rebuilding joints and healing injuries, just an idea from one who has been held back more that enough in the last two years by being hurt. A few f my boys swear by it

I feel ware your coming from, last summer I had a "crisis" about why I was training, it was the first time in 5 years that I lost my motivation, ended up doing some serious couch surfing and watching a lot of south park for a few months, but worked thru it and am better for it.

Just sayin I feel you,

One.

[Suntzu]

brandon won.... 3rd round... rear naked.... put the dude to sleep....

[Chief Fox]

Wow man, it sounds you're getting really down here.

I haven't been around much, what up with your shoulder? Tendonitis?

It sounds like you need a bit of a break, think about something else for a while and then re-evaluate.

I had shoulder issues for a while and it was weird but BJJ pretty much took care of it for me.

Although I haven't trained in BJJ in about a year.

Not sure where I'm going here brother but hang in there. Mix it up a bit. Take a break. Do something different.

Good luck.

[Pork Chop]

brandon won.... 3rd round... rear naked.... put the dude to sleep....

Wow! Congrats to him! Brandon's becoming a beast... must be something about guys named brandon from baltimore, huh?


Fights this weekend really picked me up.
A lot of guys came down from my old gym from fort worth.
I didn't know it but the guy I been working with for the past couple months was scheduled to fight a friend of mine from my old gym.
I found out about them fighting like 5 minutes before the fight; what sux is that i even called weeks before the event to find out and make sure there wasn't a conflict of interest there..
They had a close fight, but the guy (Sergio) from new gym had better hands and a better clinch.

The rest of the fighters from Fort Worth all won their fights.
One of them kind of got a gift decision against one of Kru Pong's guys out of Houston - apparently the judges didn't feel like scoring kicks because dude was dominating with kicks.

Went out to dinner with the Fort Worth guys afterward.


Started swimming this morning.
It was SO much fun, got a bit tired by the end and was a lil pukey at one point.
Looks like it's gonna cost a pretty penny - going to run about what muay thai costs monthly.
I feel real good today from waking up early & working out, i think it's worth the cost.
Going to take a long lunch this afternoon and go get swimming gear.
My shoulder's bothering me a little bit - mostly a dull ache and a bit of a sore-muscle feeling, if i stretch it at awkward angles i can get some sharp pain, but not like last week.
It was almost healed over the weekend.
I think it's a strained muscle and not a joint thing.
Swimming's about the least-impact thing I can do with it; aside from not using it at all.

So the plan right now is to swim every morning this week that I can wake up.
Next week I'll try doing some two-a-days: morning practice 6-7; evening practice 5:30-7.
If my shoulder lets me I want to lift some weights a couple times a week, on the same program I just started the other week.
I want to work up to two-a-days 5 times a week for swimming, 2 weight sessions, and a muay thai + combat conditioning session (if I figure what to do about tuition).

Started out the diet this morning; it's still early to tell how that's gonna go.

I like waking up early.
Might be the solution to my insomnia.
For now I'm hyped to do the swimming; once I get 3 or 4 weeks of the routine under my belt, it will become habit.

[Pork Chop]

Wow man, it sounds you're getting really down here.
I haven't been around much, what up with your shoulder? Tendonitis?
It sounds like you need a bit of a break, think about something else for a while and then re-evaluate.
I had shoulder issues for a while and it was weird but BJJ pretty much took care of it for me.
Although I haven't trained in BJJ in about a year.
Not sure where I'm going here brother but hang in there. Mix it up a bit. Take a break. Do something different.
Good luck.

Thanks Chief.
I wasn't thinking about giving up, just a change in the focus of my training.
The weight gets me frustrated; coz it really holds me back - so I'd like to knock it out of the way.
Growing up, I was a swimmer, never a runner.
So there's something very satisfying about getting back into it.

The shoulder might be tendonitis, but I think I just strained the muscle when I was doing decline dumbbell presses almost a month ago.
I only worked out 2 times in the last 2 weeks; so while that might not be enough rest for my shoulder, I really don't want to sit sidelined much more than that.

[Pork Chop]

Satori
I ordered some of that stuff, coz I had to reorder some supplements.
let you know once I've tried it.


Monday
I ended up doing an evening workout coz my coworker wanted me to teach him.

3 rounds jump rope
3 rounds shadow (1 empty hand, 1 with 5lb weights, 1 with gloves & kicks)
3 rounds heavybag (1 boxing, 2 hands & feet)
3 rounds thai pads (1 boxing, 1 boxing & knees, 1 hands & feet) - I just held during these rounds

then lifted weights for a lil, trying to be wary of my shoulder:
3 sets of 10 lat pull down: 130, 140, 150
3 sets of 10 seated row: 100, 130, 160 (last 2 reps sukt)

finished up with ab circuit:
2 times through
10 reps apiece (10 each side)
incline reverse crunch, hyper extensions (back), incline crunch, lateral crunch, weighted twists w/90lbs

Tuesday
My dog ate something that made him sick so he woke us up at 4 in the morning.
Went swimming again this morning for about an hour and a half (got there early).
It was intense and I'm a little tired.
My shoulder's doing alright though.
Sticking to my diet pretty well; not strict as just oatmeal - eating some veggie soups, but I think it's good for what I need & much better for portion sizes.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday

Hard time waking up this morning.
Went swimming and fell a little behind on one of the sets because I chose to do backstroke, while everyone else did the faster freestyle; ended up trying to play catch up until I had to take a break.
Put me about 350m behind on the total workout, but my warm up was 400+m and I did a 100m cooldown so I think it shoulda balanced out.
When I was resting, coach told me to take Thursday off & come back strong on friday.

Supposed to lift & do muay thai with my coworker tonight.

Eating clean as heck, was rough the first day or two, but I think I'm starting to get used to it.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday part 2

So I took a 2 hour nap after work and then went to go work out with my coworker.
Ate a couple carrot sticks before I went so it wasn't completely on an empty stomach.

started off with sprints on elliptical cross trainer
The machine's real weird, it only has set sprint intervals of increased resistance, not like the aerobic cross training routine of LifeFitness elliptical cross trainers.
I set the resistance like 15 on regulars (which is pretty high) and 17 or 19 on sprint sessions (which is really high). I tried to recreate the aerobic cross training routine on my own, but it just wasn't the same. Got a good workout,b ut I miss my old machines.

after that we did leg workout

squats:
135 x 10
185 x 10 - my buddy didn't like my form on this one, was going down low but not looking up enough or squeezing my shoulder blades tight
225 x 5 - this one my form was good but I was going "thighs parallel" instead of "low as I can"
275 x 5 - this one was horrible, felt like quarter reps, was scared to go too low
275 x 5 - took a wider sumo stance, my buddy said i was doing really well & it looked easy.

lunges:
mini olympic bar (i think it was 25 or 30lbs) + 25lbs on each side for a total weight of 75~80lbs
Did 3 laps across the length of the upstairs section of the gym, 10+ steps each leg
real good workout, each time i lifted the weight off my shoulders & set it down after the set was over, my heart started racing for at least a good 30 seconds.

then we went into the muay thai kinda workout
3 min rounds 1 min rest
3 rounds of jump rope
3 rounds of shadow (first round boxing, punch + kicks after that)
3 rounds of heavybag (first round boxing, punch + kicks after that)
3+ rounds of thai pads (with defense work)

Feeling pretty good, just a lil tired.
The boxing round on the heavy bag put some strain on my shoulder but otherwise it's been feeling good today.

Diet more on point than ever.

[Oso]

yea, it's hard to do sprint/interval training on most any machine but I agree Lifefitness stuff if the best out there...though I still hate all ellipticals....

[Pork Chop]

I realized today that I'm probably not going to need that much sprint work outside of the swimming.
My coach tried to kill us today.
On our team if someone swims 500 meters straight, doing perfect butterfly stroke; they achieve a rank of "butternutz", as in: "this person's not just nuts, but butternuts".
Someone on our team was going for it this morning before practice and I made the mistake of telling the coach that it was one of my goals....in maybe 3 months

After we were already over 1000 meters into our workout the coach hit us with this:
25 meters of butterfly x 20, with 5 to 10 seconds rest between each.

Doesn't look like much.
But by the 8th or 10th, when your heart is about to explode, you realize you might actually drown just swimming across the pool.

All of you guys doing Tabatas or the ones saying jogging's the only way to get your cardio up & maintain weight know nothing of this pain... which is basically a 30~40 second "on", 10 second "off" tabata session for 20 intervals.

That swim works out to 500 meters of butterfly stroke.
If I can do that straight through (usually takes in the ballpark of 9 or 10 min) then I will probably be able to out cardio anyone fighting.

I had a great time this morning.
Can't believe how much I missed this stuff.

Tonight scheduled to lift a lil & do some muay thai with the coworker.
I'll post first 2 weeks results a week from Saturday.

[Pork Chop]

Friday part 2
So I went to the gym for my evening workout.
My coworker never showed up.
I did a really respectable 12 min sprint session on the elliptical crosstrainer - level was 19 most of the time.

i lifted some weights until my shoulder started bugging me:
reverse flies with 30lbs - 3sets x 10reps

I shadow boxed for 3 rounds of 4+ minutes
I jumped rope for 10 minutes
I finished up with 2 rounds of 5 minutes on the heavybag, trying out some old gloves; again my shoulder flared up a little so i took it easy.

afterwards, i met up with some friends.
We stayed out till 3 in the morning, dancing from 12 to 3; stuck with my diet- just drank water.

[Pork Chop]

This weekend was a rough one...
Saturday I went toobin down the comal river for a couple hours and then went to austin.
Got home from austin around 5 in the morning.
Dog got sick being left alone for 13 hours; not sure how.
We tried to let him sleep in the room for once and he puked on me.
Needless to say, I didn't get to sleep till after 6am.
At least I had some good southern food in austin, with like 5 different veggie sides - all of them delicious, especially the collards.

Sunday I wanted to rest all day but my girl had made plans to go to a dinner party and I wasn't allowed to say "no".
We left the house at 5pm and didn't get home till almost 12.
Didn't start heading to bed till 12:30.
Got to sleep by 1, but my girl woke me up with a coughing fit.

Monday was a comedy of errors.
After waking up at 3; going to swimteam at 5:30am just wasn't in the cards.
Tried to go to the 8:30am class but after driving all the way down there, I realized I was missing my clothing bag and my goggles.
As I turned to go back home, I just said "screew it, I'm getting some rest" and called out for work.
Spent the day recuperating and eating fresh tuna (sashimi style, no rice).
Ended up sleeping in the study so as not to be awoken by any coughing fits.

Tuesday I decided to make up for monday.
I went swimming at 5:30am; which was 30 min early, so i did about a 1000m warm up.
The workout was pretty hard; felt tired when it was over.
After work I decided to make up a swimming workout, so I went swimming at 5:30pm as well.
The workout was roughly the same as the morning workout, just a little more volume (without the warm up).
Went home and my coworker was ready to go to the gym.
Went to gold's and started out on free weights:

Clean&Press:
65lbs x 10
95lbs x 8
105lbs x 3
135lbs x 3
135lbs x 3
105lbs x 3
95lbs x 10
65lbs x 10

Squat:
95lbs x 10
105lbs x 10
135lbs x 10
185lbs x 3
225lbs x 3
275lbs x 3
135lbs x 10

Assisted pull up:
12plate (64lb) assist x 10
10plate (52lb) assist x 10
bodyweight x 3 + 1 negative (coz the third was ugly)
bodyweight x 3 + 1 negative (coz the third was ugly)

Assisted dip:
10plate (52lb) assist x 10
8plate (40lb) assist x 10
bodyweight x 3
bodyweight x 3

Then we went upstairs for some skills workout:
3 rounds of shadowboxing
3 rounds of jump rope
My buddy was in a hurry so I just watched him hit the heavybag for 3 rounds (one of which was while I was jumping rope- he only did 2 rounds of that)
I'd already put my shoulders through the ringer today, so I thought it best to not punch anything.

Since sunday I've been eying this bottle of Squirt. It's 200calories, so I added an extra 200 calories on the elliptical cross trainer to make room for it.

Just got home about 30 min ago and I'm going to try to down a protein shake, take a shower (3rd one today), take some zma, and hit the hay. Pretty freakin exhausted.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday
Today I just went swimming for an hour and fifteen in the morning.
Passed out after work for a couple hours, was even having a hard time staying awake at work towards the end of the day.
Tried Amp2 around 3 and think it might've actually caused me to crash.
Had a pretty good nap - i'm getting more rest on the bed in the study; but am still a lil sore and pretty fatigued.
My coworker wanted to take the day off as well - it was his idea and I didn't complain.

Started taking SuperCissus today as well.
Between the SuperCissus, the Glucosamine/Chondroitin, CLA, Omegas 3-6-9, ZMA, Amp, Amp 2, exotic berry (has acai & other stuff), and my multivitamin - it feels like I'm swallowing a small pharmacy on a daily basis. It's getting me through, so I guess I can't complain.

[WinterPalm]

Keep me updated on the Supercissus. I just started taking it today as well...if it does nothing we can hold Satori Science responsible.:D

[Pork Chop]

WP - sure thing

Thursday
Got to the pool a few minutes later than normal, so swam maybe 45~50 minutes instead of the full hour. Mighta been a good thing, coz I really didn't sleep much Wednesday night (like less than 4 hours) and I was sore as heck. My elbow & shoulder joints on both arms started stinging with sharp pains during the swim. I don't think it's from the SuperCissus, but it's weird that it started after my first day on the product. Even with the shortened duration, by the end of the session, I was spent.

Got out of work early and caught up on some sleep, taking a 2 hour nap.

Hit the gym around 10pm.
Had a really good 10 minute (8 interval) session on the elliptical crosstrainer.
Then it was on to weights:

Deadlifts (traditional)
135 x 10
135 x 10
185 x 10
225 x 10
275 x 6
305 x 3
305 x 3 The last set wasn't all that. It felt much lighter my first set of 305, to the point that I was almost thinking of increasing weight.

T-bar row (just going to include the weight I added to the bar):
45 x 10
70 x 10
90 x 10
115 x 8
135 x 5

incline hammer strength bench lever (it's a lever not a machine so nyah! again, weight added)
90 each side x 10
90 each side x 10 shoulder was flaring up

decline hammer strength bench lever (weight added)
70 each side x 10
90 each side x 10 - nice burn on the chest on this one

Calf raise (machine):
both legs together x 125 x 10
each leg x 85 x 10
each leg x 100 x 10
each leg x 110 x 10

weighted crunch (machine)
90 x 20
125 x 20
125 x 20

weighted back extension (machine)
125 x 20
140 x 20
155 x 20

My coworker wanted to hit the gym in the middle of my dinner so i didn't go with him and didn't do any boxing/kickboxing stuff.

I would've liked to have done more jump rope this week. With my joints being the way they are, holding off on heavybag might've been a good idea- especially with the cr@ppy heavybags Gold's has.

I can't wait until the swimming gets a little easier so i can mix more of the muay thai stuff back in.

[Oso]

so what is your opinion of the hammerstrength machines? I like using them because I don't need a spotter and I don't have to worry about my shoulder as much.

[Pork Chop]

so what is your opinion of the hammerstrength machines? I like using them because I don't need a spotter and I don't have to worry about my shoulder as much.

same here
the absence of a pulley means no mechanical advantage is being used.
The fact that it's each arm weighted separately keeps it from being too much of a bilateral movement.
I think it's at least as good as a T-bar row...


That being said, I didn't lose a single pound the past 2 weeks..... talk about depressing.... I've been swimming like a maniac, eating like a POW, and lifting like a powerlifter....
the electronic scale did say i lost like 2% bodyfat, but nobody believes that cr@p
argh....
visually i've been told my face looks a little thinner and i think my arms look much bigger in the mirror.

i'll still keep it up till september coz i don't know any more surefire way to lose weight but it still sux.

EDIT: my power went out early friday morning so i didn't make it to swim team. I still didn't eat bad until after I weighed in tho.

[Indestructible]

Try isagenix products. I had killer results with their 9 day program.

http://stevensmith1.isagenix.com/us/en/nineday.dhtml

[Pork Chop]

Try isagenix products. I had killer results with their 9 day program.

http://stevensmith1.isagenix.com/us/en/nineday.dhtml

Looks really interesting; unfortunately I don't have the money right now to try it out - saving up to go to Japan & already spent a lot on supplements.
I think I'm going to do a new year cleanse after the holidays and will pick it up then, thanx.

[sanjuro_ronin]

same here
the absence of a pulley means no mechanical advantage is being used.
The fact that it's each arm weighted separately keeps it from being too much of a bilateral movement.
I think it's at least as good as a T-bar row...


That being said, I didn't lose a single pound the past 2 weeks..... talk about depressing.... I've been swimming like a maniac, eating like a POW, and lifting like a powerlifter....
the electronic scale did say i lost like 2% bodyfat, but nobody believes that cr@p
argh....
visually i've been told my face looks a little thinner and i think my arms look much bigger in the mirror.

i'll still keep it up till september coz i don't know any more surefire way to lose weight but it still sux.

EDIT: my power went out early friday morning so i didn't make it to swim team. I still didn't eat bad until after I weighed in tho.

Here is a quick way to see if you are gaining muscle and not just size and are losing fat and not muscle.
Its quick and easy.
Get a tape measure, measure your bicep ( probably your right if you are right handed), measure your bicep circumfrence.
Measure it relaxed and measure it flexed.
The difference is what is going on in your body.
You want it to be 1" difference or more.
If your relaxed measurement is gaining and the difference is decreasing you are gaining fat.
If the difference between relaxed and flexed is getting bigger ( even if flexed is getting smaller as can happen when you lose weight), you are getting more muscular while shedding fat.
The relaxed measurement is done in the same position as you do the flexed one, just relaxed instead of tense and flexed.

[Pork Chop]

Here is a quick way to see if you are gaining muscle and not just size and are losing fat and not muscle.
...

Thanks!
Gonna try that tonight

Went swimming this morning.
Have a project due today for work so I don't know if i'll be able to do anything this evening.
My shoulder's really bugging me again so I may just lift on Tues & Thurs, only doing squats & lunges.

[Pork Chop]

Monday I was in a really bad mood most of the afternoon.
Was kinda spacey and light-headed too.
Kinda like low blood sugar or something.

Slept in on Tuesday - till almost 10am.
Didn't work out.

This morning, Wednesday I went swimming.
It was a good swim, very exhausting
Tonight my girl & I got dance lessons and I may go to late night training with Marcello Salazar- not every day you get invited to hold pads for a guy that fights on TV.

Got a pair of Twins "super bag gloves" in the mail.
The leather smell coming off those gloves as I unwrapped 'em reminded me of old baseball mitts from when I was a kid.
These are definitely authentic Twins gloves and not just some sort of super bag glove.
They look even better constructed than pairs I've seen in the past - and certainly more impressive than Windy's. I may try them out tonight.

[Pork Chop]

Friday morning, swimming again.
Not sure what happened Tuesday and Thursday.
Woke up around 10 both days.
Thursday I even had a hard time getting out of bed at 10.
I even went to bed on time both days.

Shoulder flared up today after swimming.
Not sure what to do about it, guess I should see a doc.
I do feel it's getting better tho, slowly.

5k swim on sunday that i wanna try.

Gotta figure out how I can add back in muay thai and weights without killing my shoulder.

[Suntzu]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys4q72RC9Yc

enjoy

[Pork Chop]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys4q72RC9Yc

enjoy

yikes :eek: I remember being a lot smoother than that.
Julio's got a way of making anyone look uncoordinated. LOL
Shoulda got when you and I were holding for each other. :p
Seriously tho, thanx for posting it.

Monday
Went swimming again.
Could've done a lot better last weekend about eating & living healthy so it felt good.
Felt fresh today, fresher than i have in a while.
Taking it easy last week might've been a good idea.
The guys in my lane didn't look as fresh - one of them swam the 5k this weekend that I slept through - they usually swim faster than me and I was having to slow down not to run 'em over.
Really feel like getting back on it this week.
I'm setting Saturday as my goal day to go back to muay thai.
I've been reluctant coz I know I haven't lost any weight; but at least I've gotten over the break in period of the swimming, so at least I'm in prime position to melt off the weight doing both (plus a little lifting).
My shoulder's not 100%; but I am starting to doubt that it ever will be; I do think the SuperCissus is helping.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday
Well I can definitely say the shoulder's improving.
Swam Tuesday morning.
Came home at lunch time to pick my dog up from the groomer and do some work from home.
Weighed myself the first time yesterday and I was 235.2 on a relatively full stomach.
My shoulders weren't bugging me so i swam again in the evening; from 5:30 to 7.
The evening session was the same routine as the morning session, with some relatively easy stuff added at the end.
It was still brutal swimming in hot water under the bright sun.

Wednesday
Weighed myself this morning before going swimming again and almost couldn't believe it:
231.6
That's like 7 or 8 pounds since 2 weeks ago.
Needless to say I was pretty motivated this morning.
Swimming went well; good workout, but wasn't super exhausted.
Tonight I'm going to try to hit muay thai for a light to medium workout (in other words, not really gonna try to kill myself).
Think I may lay off the weights a little while, no more than once a week, just to facilitate staying in weight loss mode.
Weight's more important than bodyfat %age to me right now, but I'm eating healthy & eating a lot of protein, so I'm doing what I can to keep the weight coming off mostly fat.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday part 2
Went back to muay thai tonight.
Coach jetted before I could pay him.
Feel kinda bad about that.
Next time I'll pay first.

The workout was pretty brutal.
Me and my favorite workout partner held pads for each other after warm ups:
3 rounds of thai pads (5 min, 3 min, 3 min) each
3 rounds of focus mitts (5 min, 3 min, 3 min) each
worked a round on the heavy bag and was basically done by that point.
My endurance is not 100%; but some of the rounds didn't burn me out like I expected.
Didn't spar, coz I wanna get back into a routine first and then build up to it.

Came home tonight and a guy I couldn't see was honking at me as I was pulling into my spot.
Normally, this guy uses his motorcycle to reserve a spot in front of his apartment for his truck, but tonight he was also trying to claim a spot for his girlfriend as well - a spot i was apparently taking.
The selfishness of the situation kinda caused me to blow up.

I can't tell you how many nights I've come home with groceries and couldn't park in front of my building coz his little motorcycle was sitting all alone in a spot, just so he could come home after midnight and park in front of his apartment.
He had the nerve to ask me "well where's she supposed to park?" and I shot back "Where the rest of us are stuck parking; on the other side of the lot!".
He's probably gonna do something to my car... o well, it's old anyway & I know what both his motorcycle & truck look like.
After our little tiff, he told his gf to go park in the handicap spot.

I know my grumpiness is getting the better of me coz i'm tired and worn out, but I've had it out for this guy for months. Ever since back in February; when my friends came to pick me up, but he ran out and told them they couldn't park in the one empty spot in front of the building because his friends were coming later and deserved the spot more. I was actually in the parking lot approaching my friends' truck and saw the exchange - if I'd actually heard what he'd said, I probably would've knocked the jerk out then.

For a little background, my apartment complex is horrid for parking. I am paying 30 extra a month for a reserved spot and it's on the exact opposite corner of the entire complex - they couldn't have possibly assigned me a spot further away from my apartment. So this guy reserving spots like that's just way too much for me to stomach.

[SAAMAG]

Hey Chop...what apartments do you live in? (PM me considering it's a public forum)

I can solve problems ya know!

[Pork Chop]

Was still sore from Wednesday so I took Thursday off and still had a hard time waking up on Friday.
Ended up going to the 8:30am practice.
Swam for about 1 hr 15.
Coach wasn't there, but she left a workout.
Kinda went at my own pace with nobody to really push me.
Good workout, but not a killer.
Don't think I mind though coz I needed a medium-intensity day.

[Pork Chop]

Nice, lazy weekend.
Decided to make my weekends my "cheat days", instead of just having one.
The reason is because in the past, with one cheat day, I'd rush out and eat as much junk food as possible in that day and sometimes rack up 10K calories.
If I stretch it out over 2 days, I tend to binge a whole lot less- just the occasional bad meal.
We'll see how it works.

Monday morning was surprisingly easy to wake up to given that I went to bed around 1 and got about 4 hours of sleep.

Swimming was fun, lots of sprinting.
It was a lesson in pacing.
In the past I had bad performance anxiety whenever getting back into swim meets after long layoffs, I think fighting is much the same way.

The sprints were 200s, broken up by 50s.
So sprint a lap down & back, get exactly 10s rest, then go again for 4 times straight.
We did 2 200s with a few minutes in between.

The first 200 I did try to pace myself, but ended up sprinting from the get go, i could feel myself tensing up. I made the first 2 in 40s each, but lost 3 seconds by the third (43s), and another 5 seconds after that (48s) - I was just plain exhausted.

The second 200 I did a much better job of pacing myself, the first 3 I came in at 42s and the final one I came in at 44s (messed up the flip turn).

In training it's good to go all out; but I think when it comes to doing it for real - much better to operate within my bounds; instead of going all out, in order to maintain a faster pace for longer.
In doing it for real, it'll just need the presence of mind to be able to shift gears down & the defense to be able to keep myself doing it. I have been pretty good in sparring about doing just that; even when going hard - but I'll need to make sure to keep it in mind come fight day.

Feel pretty good today - the distance today mighta been a little short at around 2200m.

[Pork Chop]

Got tired towards the end of the work day and went shopping right after for groceries (also needed some more Omega3-6-9 and some joint health).

Went to bed around 9:30. Had a couple interruptions, but slept pretty well.
Weight was up to 234 this morning even though my stomach has very obviously changed.

Swimming Tuesday morning was a ton of sprints.
Feeling worn out and it's almost lunch time.
It was actually supposed to be a "tapering" day as the coach and another lady are competing this weekend; but it sure didn't feel like a taper.
On the main set I swam the fastest 50m of freestyle that I've swam in a long time.
600 warm up + 450 extended warm up + 9 x 50m pull on 55s (450m, fast pace) + 5 minute kicking sprint (probably 250) + main sprinting IM sets of 9 x 50m alternating stroke (450m) + 50 cool off + 150 sculling drill = 2400m...about a mile and a half... pretty good little distance especially considering the sprints.

Have to see how I'm feeling tonight, but I was thinking of going to do some elliptical sprints and lift some weights. Right now, I could easily go back to sleep.

[Pork Chop]

couldn't wake up wednesday
It was one of those mornings where your alarm is set for 5:15 and your back up alarm's set for 5:45, but you wake up at 9:30 with both of them going off....
Guess my body needed the sleep.

Went to swim after work (took off an hour early).
I did a 500m warm up and we got about 650m into the workout (total 1150m - bout half a workout) till it started thundering and we had to get out of the pool.

After that I went inside and jumped on the elliptical crosstrainer.
The elliptical was a star trac one, and it was my first time on that one.
It's weird, coz the arms and legs aren't connected to each other.
The arms have a separate resistance setting and alternate positions to accommodate pushing or pulling.
The legs have a lot of bounce to them so it feels more like running.
All in all I liked it.
I did a "total body interval" workout on the "difficult" setting at level 15 for 30min with a 2min cool down.
At one point the pushing resistance was so high it was like lifting weights; thought my heart was gonna pop.
Good workout, tired me out real well.
I wanted to do weights after but there was no assisted dip/pullup machine and I think all of the squat racks were actually smith machines.

Hoping the hurricane gets all its rain done with tonight so tomorrow morning I can go swimming again. If I get rained out tomorrow morning I may go lift weights early and swim after work - assuming i have an easy time waking up.

I've decided not to go back to muay thai for a while btw.
My decision is purely financial as I can't afford paying over 200 a month for various gyms.
Gotta try to live as lean as possible the next 2 months so I can save up enough for my trip to Japan, which is going to cost a pretty penny.

[Pork Chop]

Woke up Thursday morning to check the weather.
At 5:30 it was drizzly out, so I went back to bed - pool's out door's.
At 7:30 there was the occasional light sprinkle.
Around 8 I called the swim coach asking if there was practice.
Around 8:20 she finally called me back.
Rushed out to the pool and got in the water by 8:45.
Swam from 8:45 to 9:30 and was really booking it to make up for being late.
I missed about 400m off the workout- so not a huge deal.
Gonna jump rope for 15 min tonight sometime to make up for it.
Gonna be at work till real late though.

[Pork Chop]

Friday
A typical pool is 25m long, making a typical lap 50m.
A mile is 1600m (give or take a few meters).
This morning I swam 3,300 meters in an hour and 15 minutes (with some breaks).
I barely have energy to type this.

[Pork Chop]

Okay, so my lil brother was in town last week.
I had to entertain him and really didn't have the time or energy to work out.
Keeping up with a 17 year old is hard work.

Tuesday I still couldn't wake up on time so i went to work a bit early and went swimming afterwards. This was probably a huge mistake. A new coach was there, he's going to be taking over the evening swimming. He coached Olympian Josh Davis when he was in high school; so the guy's good. He didn't know where we were at so he just tried to stress test us. The problem is that I'd already warmed up for 800m before we even got going.
In the end I swam a total of 4100m (yeah, almost a 5k - brutal); which consisted of many laps of IM (including butterfly) and finished up with 100m sprint.
My lower legs (just below the calf) were cramping up BAD and still hurt.

Wednesday I actually DID wake up, coz i didn't want to suffer any more of the other coach. Put in close to 3k today. My shoulders are killing me.

Good news is I didn't gain much weight during my week and a half of dirty living.
I'm still hovering around 230 and I have a feeling I'm going to drop more in the next few weeks as I get back into clean eating and working out.

[Pork Chop]

Last Thursday I was dog tired.
I went home after work and slept.
Woke up around 10 and didnt get back to bed till after 3.
Needless to say, I wasn't able to wake up at 5 for swimming on Friday.

Saturday I went to Corpus Christi; actually the beach we went to was on Padre Island.
Spent a good 5 hours catchin small waves on my bodyboard and actually managing some good rides on my skim board (requires lots of little sprints).
Pretty good workout when you do it for that long.
Went to this awesome seafood (sushi) buffet afterward before driving home.
At home had a little beer and went to bed kinda late.

Went to bed late on Sunday; woke up a bit late on Monday.
Went to the 8:30 swim practice - got there more than 15 min early.
Had a good hard swim; but came into work later than normal coz i had to talk with the coach for a while after.

I got 5 weeks left till I go, so it's time to stop screwin around.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday
As soon as I finished my warm up (300 swim 300 kick in 15 min), it started to thunder and lightning; so we had to get out of the pool.
In the evening I went to gold's gym.
I did 33 min on the elliptical for around 500 calories (i was booking it).
Squats w/ 135 4 or 5 sets of 10 -either way, my legs were cramping by the end; the cardio took a lot out of me.
around 15 minutes (130 cal) on the recumbent bike - first few minutes hurt my knees, after a while it was okay, not my favorite exercise for sure; but not that difficult
around 15 minutes (200 cal, 3500+m) on the rowing machine - again, was weird on my knees at first, but was okay after a while

Wednesday
Woke up nice and early for swimming; which actually hurt a bit.
Swimming went okay until we got to these 3 sets of 200s.
The workout was mostly for distance, but i was treating these 200s as speed sessions; going easy the first 2 or 3 laps and swimming hard the last 1 or 2.
By the final one, it was just too much - especially combined with all the water I was accidentally swallowing today (an unusually high amount) and I puked on the deck.
My morning workouts are usually on an empty stomach so at least it just looked like water.

EDIT: Wed night time workout
13 min on the elliptical, lots of sprinting
abs -
crunch machine: 100lbs x 30; 110lbs x 30; 120lbs x 20; 130lbs x 30; 140lbs x 10; 150lbs x 10
twisting oblique machine: 6plates x 30 each side, 7 plates x 20 each side, 8 plates x 10 each side
reverse crunches: 30, 20, 10 - unweighted
boxing workout -
jump rope: 10 min straight
shadow: 3 rounds of 3 min
heavybag: 6 rounds of 3 min
Duration around 1 hour, 45 min; a lil longer than I wanted to be at the gym.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday
woke up bright and early for swimming.
waking up hurt, but was bearable.
at the pool, i must've been suffering grumpiness from exhaustion; coz i wanted to start a fight with this dude in my lane- he kept swimming over the black line down the center and smacking me.
the first 3 times, i swam into the next lane over (either into or under the lane ropes); but eventually i just got tired of it and we collided a bunch.
Until I got angry at the guy, I had no explosiveness in the pool whatsoever.
I couldn't kick up my speed when i wanted to - the anger didn't really help till the end.
I came to work today with good intentions of doing a little lifting this evening, but my body's stiffened up so bad and become so sore that i almost think I'll be lucky to make it home.
Gonna try to get some rest tonight and swim tomorrow.
It would be nice to get one more weight session in this week and 1 more swim team workout.
There's an open-water, lake swim saturday morning that I'm thinking of doing as well.

Another month of weeks like this and by the time I hit Japan, I should be in the best shape i've seen for a looooong time.

[Pork Chop]

Friday morning swam again.
Felt so sore and stiff and weak i could barely move when i started.
by the end of the workout i felt loose and could at least speed up a little.
didn't kill myself though.
gf has off tonight, will probably hit the weights tomorrow after the lake swim.

[SAAMAG]

Dude...PC...do you ever WORK?

How do you find all this time to train?

BTW, since I'm not able to make it to Phet's anymore, I have since employed one of my best friends as a training partner on Sundays and during the week where possible. Strictly boxing and muay for now. I may incorporate the judo and jujutsu later once we obtain mats.

Let me know if you're interested. If you still have my number give me a call because I got a new phone and lost all mine.

Peace out yo!

[Pork Chop]

I changed my number too, so I'll give you the new one over pm.
I'm interested in working out with you guys, I just don't know if I'll have time.

I do work, I just have very flexible work hours. :)
Swim team has the following practices: 6am to 7, 8:30am to 9:30, and 5:30pm to 7pm.
I usually do the 6am and get there 15 min early or so to get in a good warm up.
Occasionally I do an evening swim as a 2-a-day or make-up, but there's a new coach for that one and swim practice under him is like running a mini marathon.
It's an outdoor pool, so we get kicked out the water if lightning and thunder come.
Yesterday I didn't go coz I thought it WAS lightning, turns out they were having practices anyway.

Tuesday morning I did go to swimming, but I still gotta make up for yesterday so I am definitely going to do some sort of workout tonight after work- possibly the 5:30pm workout.
This morning's workout was a lot of breath stroke (breast? - I dunno, I just hate it) so distance wise it wasn't long or intense.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday night my girl and I went up to the gym at 8.
Did 32 min of cardio (high intensity) on the elliptical for about 500cal.
Then my coworker showed up and we did a muay thai type workout upstairs:
3 rounds of jump rope
3 rounds of shadow
3 rounds of heavy bag

after that, i had nothing left. I was supposed to lift chest and back but just didn't have anything in me. It was 10pm by then and past my bed time. Didn't get to sleep till around midnight.

Wednesday morning I woke up LATE. I barely remember my alarm going off. I went to 8:30am swim practice, only to find out my swim bag was stolen. Luckily i was able to borrow some goggles & fins. Finished out the workout - it was demanding but not a total killer. Overall distance might have been a little short.
I'm torn between whether I want to rest a bit tonight or lift a little for chest & back.
Gotta find time to go buy some more swim gear.

[Pork Chop]

bought more swim gear on wednesday.
went to bed early for once

Thursday was going great, one of my earliest days out the door.... that is, until I got to the pool. Turns out the power went out during the evening and all the chemicals were off. No practice.
I came back Thursday evening for night time work out.
Man, that coach likes to try to kill folks...
We swam around 4k. I was already 2k into it by the time we even started the main body of the workout; around which time i started cramping up bad.
I made it through.
The rest of the evening rounded out a pretty rough day - argument with the gf, probably ate too much, had a rum & coke to calm my nerves a bit, dog peed on the carpet, and got to bed late.

Friday i remember my alarm going off. I remember sitting down for a second to catch my breath- alarm almost gave me a heart attack; took a deep breath and looked at the clock to see that an hour had passed.... sometimes I hate time travel. So I went to 8:30am workout (no afternoon workout so i did what I could). We worked on butterfly stroke (with drills and stuff) so it was a medium-light workout. Picked up breakfast tacos coz i owed some people at work. Definitely going to workout one more time sometime this weekend: tonight or tomorrow.

As corny as it sounds, I'm starting to get into Manowar. Found some of their music on youtube and it's kinda cool. If anybody has any, hook me up :D

[Pork Chop]

I know where you're coming from on Manowar. Got into a couple of their songs a couple of months back through youtube but rarely admit it to anyone.

Yeah, in high school I bought one of their albums; thinking it was going to be the penultimate of awesomeness - due solely to the painting on the cover.
When I played it, it was like "meh, kinda corny; little too much 'opera', not enough 'a$$kick'".

These days i'm a bit burned out on a lot of the "angsty" cliches that show up in a lot of american rock/alt music- half of the "kicka$$" songs out there are either in a cookie-monster voice, or actually turn out to be about a dude standing up to some chick who's treating 'im bad (wtf?).

If you road the wave from punk, through metal, grunge, alternative, et al... by the time you got to the recent emo trends; chances are you probably got a lil tired of guys singing about how cr@ppy their lives are (most of the "Used" songs I've heard sound like bad parodies).

That's kinda the refreshing thing about Manowar.
I dig the viking imagery as told by folks from over there.
I'll probably end up sniping just the songs I like from iTunes because they do have some tunes I'm not big on; but it would be nice to find a way to pick some stuff up without going broke. ;);)

[Pork Chop]

so friday was a tough day as far as dealing with other human beings.
it set the tone for my whole weekend - as i just stayed home and chilled the entire time.

Monday I woke up late, but knew I would coz i went to bed late sunday.
I went to swim team after work (taking off early).
After the warm up, during our first or second training set, it started lightning & thunder- so we got kicked ou tof the pool.
I spent the next hour and a half trying to get a good workout in the fitness center:

dumbell bench: 40lbers x 10; 50lbers x 10; 60lbers x 10
seated row: 130 x 10; 130 x 10; 140 x 10
lat pulldown: 120 x 10; 130 x 10; 140 x 10
bodyweight dip - 2 sets of 3 (my shoulder started killing me)

heavybag for a good 5 or 10 minutes

elliptical cross trainer - 30 minutes for about 295 calories (sounds a lot easier than it was)

better go to Gold's for fitness stuff from now on, this gym just doesn't have enough stuff.

Tuesday morning I woke up without my alarm eventho I went to bed late - AWESOME. :)
Went swimming

[Pork Chop]

woke up again wednesday morning before my alarm; which is nice, but i still felt like azz.
went swimming.
it was a pretty good workout - swam almost 1k as a warm up before the coach showed; so it gave the workout a bit of needed distance, coz at the end we were doing single lengths of each stroke as perfectly as we could; which was actually somewhat tiring eventhough we had some nice breaks in there.
My weight's still around 230... 232.4 after the workout... no frustration like busting your hump and not losing any weight. My girl and I had a huge fight about it - she basically asked me to stop trying to diet, seeing how much it bothered me.
If they ever figure out how to "turn off" the "efficiency" gene that tells people to store fat & slow down the metabolism in lean times, I think I'd be a prime candidate - heck, i'd probably end up ripped if i was ever able to take it.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday & Friday I started feeling like I was getting sick. I had no energy, I was completely worn out and all of a sudden I couldn't wake up to save my life.
I took those 2 days off; plus the weekend and monday (labor day).

Tuesday I woke up feeling pretty refreshed - was up by 4 and just chilled until 5 when it was time to get ready to go.
I swam in the morning.
In the evening i went to Gold's gym:
11 min on the elliptical - 8 rounds of 30s sprint, 30s rest.
Superset of assisted pull/chin-ups & assisted dips -
14 plates x 10 (each exercise), 13 x 10ea, 12 x 10ea, 11 x 10ea
Squats:
overhead with the bar x 10, backsquats w/65 x10, 95 x 10, 115 x 10, 135 x 10
Finished out with 30 minutes on the elliptical at a decent clip (390+ cal)

Wednesday I went back to swimming.
Trying to make going to Gold's after work a daily habit, so it's back there this evening.
The protocol is: 2 min warmup into sprints, 1 push exercise in a super-set with 1 pull exercise, followed by a leg exercise, and finish out with 30 min of cardio.
I think if i can do it consistently, it'll be a nice compliment to my swimming & i might start seeing some weight actually dropping off.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday evening
Was real sore after work.
11 min on the elliptical as a warm up - only did 1 sprint round & was dyin so i just tried to keep up a quick pace.
My legs were super sore so I figured I'd take a relatively light day on the weights:
clean & press:
bar x 10, 65 x 10, 95 x 10, 95 x 10
I can do more, but i was suckin wind by the 3rd set; so i figured i was accomplishing what i set out to.
finished up with 30 min of cardio at a blistering pace- the most i've sweat in a loooong time. Felt bad for the folks around me coz the sweat was just sprayin off of me with every stride.

Thursday morning
Went swimming again. Was a few minutes later than normal, but still got in a long warm up (800m I think) and my total distance was somewhere around 3km.
Huge difference in speed between wearing the drag suit and not; almost fast enough to be a first lane swimmer without it.

[MasterKiller]

but it would be nice to find a way to pick some stuff up without going broke. ;);)

Google this:


intitle:index.of + mp3 + "manowar" -html -htm -php -asp apache

[Pork Chop]

MasterKiller
much thanx.... i'll check it out later :)

Thursday night
Went to the gym after work.
As the week goes on, I get stiffer and more sore; but I'm trying to grin and bear it.
Lifted first:
cable chest press (the one with independent cables for each hand)
60lbs x 10, 70lbs x 10, 80lbs x 10, 80lbs x 10 - this was really hard for some reason
cable pull down (again, separate cables for each hand)
60lbs x 10, 80lbs x10, 100lbs x 10, 120lbs x 10 - much easier, was doing first 5 both hands together, second 5 hands pulling alternately

jumped on the elliptical and went 45 min at a moderately intense pace.
went home and i had a choice of cabbage stirfry with corned beef (the thought of which still makes me queasy) or going out to eat - so we went to this turkish/mediterranean place for some salad, chicken & lamb kabobs, hummus, and rice. Good stuff.

Friday Morning
Swimming again.
Swam like 3300m this morning - in the ballpark of 2 miles.
was kinda burnt for a lot of it, but managed to get my heart going.
Was planning on doing lunges tonight to make up for no legs yesterday - but we'll see how much i stiffen up by the end of the day; I've been having a hard time walking from the leg soreness.

[Pork Chop]

Went to Houston this weekend, got back kinda late on Sunday and took Monday off.

Tuesday I went swimming and am starting a fast for some personal reasons.
Not eating during daylight hours.
I can basically drink water, (green) tea, (black) coffee, and even diet soda - nothing with any serious calories/sustenance. Sugar free gum should be okay too.
In the evenings going to try to make my meals as veggie-heavy as possible.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday Swimming again.
It went well, kinda short, but i was going fast.
Apparently, without my drag suit holding me back, I'm pretty close to being a "fastest lane" guy.
My back is bugging me today and i'm hungry as heck...

[Pork Chop]

Stopped the fast like thursday night.
Took off thursday morning and it was just too much.
Swam friday morning.
Lots of houston refugees at my place over the weekend.
Didn't make it to the pool again till wednesday morning.
Swimming at an outdoor pool in 55 degree weather is really cold.

[Suntzu]

just checkin on ya.....

[Pork Chop]

Swam after work on Thursday.
The afternoon workout was long, but not killer.
I was swimming with some high school kids and they wanted to talk more than they wanted to swim - so every lap was some excuse for stopping & talking about it; and every new swim set was an excuse for taking a 2 minute break and asking a ton of questions.
I got frustrated and just started swimming.
My overall mileage may have been shorter than a normal afternoon workout, but i was doing my best to put some effort into it.
I'm faster than those competitive high school swimmers, so that's pretty cool.
The water was a lot warmer for afternoon practice.

Went to 8:30 swimming on Friday morning.
It was still cold - thought i was gonna die the first 5 min or so.
I imagine 6am practice was probably a lot worse.

So the plan is to work out through this weekend & swim one last time on monday so that come tuesday my body has no objections to sitting on the play for 15 hours.

[Pork Chop]

So, I'm not dead yet - just getting close.
I know I fell off the face of the blog planet but i actually did work out quite a bit - at least until about the last month.

I've joined another gym (Power Team) at $10 a month for open use of the facilities; which is nice because I couldn't afford my old muay thai gym anymore in addition to gold's & the swimming.

Lately, I've finally decided to get serious about getting healthy.
I've got a pretty strict diet going and am working my way back into the gym.
Since it's too cold out to do outdoor swimming, I've decided to substitute with an hour of cardio on a daily basis - doing the elliptical cross trainer.
I'm going to treat this hour like brushing my teeth; ie it's gotta be done even if I'm sore.
I've managed to put in this hour a day today and monday; averaging about 800 calories a shot.

Beyond that, I'll be lifting more for endurance & doing some basic muay thai workouts on my own (or with a coworker). Tonight I'm going to the gym after work.

Seeing my wedding pictures on facebook is a painful reminder of how bad I've let things get. Knowing that my cholesterol is bad, knowing what that means to my health, knowing that I've got a kid on the way who I want to see grow up, and not wanting him/her to see me at this level of obesity is providing me with a lot of motivation this time around.

Let's get it done.

[WinterPalm]

So, I'm not dead yet - just getting close.
I know I fell off the face of the blog planet but i actually did work out quite a bit - at least until about the last month.

I've joined another gym (Power Team) at $10 a month for open use of the facilities; which is nice because I couldn't afford my old muay thai gym anymore in addition to gold's & the swimming.

Lately, I've finally decided to get serious about getting healthy.
I've got a pretty strict diet going and am working my way back into the gym.
Since it's too cold out to do outdoor swimming, I've decided to substitute with an hour of cardio on a daily basis - doing the elliptical cross trainer.
I'm going to treat this hour like brushing my teeth; ie it's gotta be done even if I'm sore.
I've managed to put in this hour a day today and monday; averaging about 800 calories a shot.

Beyond that, I'll be lifting more for endurance & doing some basic muay thai workouts on my own (or with a coworker). Tonight I'm going to the gym after work.

Seeing my wedding pictures on facebook is a painful reminder of how bad I've let things get. Knowing that my cholesterol is bad, knowing what that means to my health, knowing that I've got a kid on the way who I want to see grow up, and not wanting him/her to see me at this level of obesity is providing me with a lot of motivation this time around.

Let's get it done.

Good luck man.

A friend taught me a great method for mental and physical toughness. It's called
F uck the B itch!
Don't let all the excuses and shortcomings distract you from your goal.

[Pork Chop]

Well that was short lived
Wednesday I got food poisoning.
i didn't go to the hospital until saturday morning
today's about the first day i can eat without getting sick
i've got my japanese test in dc this weekend
christmas comes in a couple weeks.
i'll do what i can, but i'm probably not going to be able to start my trek back until january - and i HATE having to avoid the New Year's Resolution folks at the gym.

[zhugeliang]

Japanese test? In DC? You're going into the Foreign Service or what?!

[Pork Chop]

Japanese test? In DC? You're going into the Foreign Service or what?!

nah just been studying japanese for 15 years and want a piece of paper to say i know what i know. the goal is, in the next few years, to take the 2 tests after this one and basically be certified to do stuff like translation or getting a job in japan.

my wife's kind of against living over there again unless she can get an american job on base at one of the hospitals/clinics. I'm kinda leaning the same way - wouldn't work over there unless it was on base.

[Pork Chop]

Saturday
I got in a light workout in Baltimore with Julio; it was about an hour long.
Slight taste of calisthenics, a smidgen of sparring, some shadow, and a bit of bag work.
gave me my motivation back.

Tuesday
My first day back at Power Team since being in the hospital for food poisoning.
I'm trying to take it slow & think long term, so I didn't kill it.

Did a pretty extensive circuit with light weight & med/high reps
3 rounds of jump rope
3 rounds of shadow
5 rounds of heavybag

Probably coulda pushed it harder, but felt pretty tired at the end.
Today I feel sore.
Gonna work out again Thursday.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 12/11
Worked out with my coworker in the afternoon.
We did a lot of upper body lifting.
Finished up with 2 sets of 1-minute bodyweight squats.
in the evening i went up to the gym
jogging & calisthenic warm up
3 rounds jump rope
3 rounds shadow
3 rounds heavybag
3 rounds teardrop bag

Sunday 12/14
Went on a 1.5 to 2 hour hike.
I think it was just under 5 miles.
A lot of it was straight up a hill that would've made some of those stairways in China nod their head in respect.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday Dec 16
Afternoon weight workout -
Superset of assisted dips and assisted chin/pullups 3 sets of 20 reps per exercise
Superset of abs and legs 2 times through, 20 reps each exercise first time, 10 reps each 2nd time.
Included: med ball twist passes, med ball situp passes, leg lifts, bodyweight step ups, bodyweight squats.

Evening workout:
good calisthenic warm up
shadow boxing for 3 rounds
5 or 6 rounds on heavy bag
held thai pads for 4 people, 10 ~ 15 min per person

Wednesday Dec 17
Afternoon weight workout:
20 rep deadlifts w/135, 185, 155, 95
overhead presses w/35lb dumbells x 20 reps x 11 reps x 10 reps x 15 reps
ab circuit 20 reps apiece of: crunches, leg lifts, bicycles, oblique crunches

Evening workout:
3 rounds shadow boxing
long stretching workout - covering dynamic, partner, and static stretches (30+min)
held pads for 10 or 15 minutes
hit thai pads for 6 rounds

Thursday Dec 18
Going to the gym after work today (afternoon workout partner left for the holidays already).
Really sore, really hungry.
Hopefully my motivation gets a little better once I get there.
Gotta go coz a few of my coworkers are going and i promised.
May end up spending most of my time teaching.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday Dec 18
So yesterday I did work out.
Warming up went pretty well.
The 3 rounds of jump rope wasn't bad.
A minute into the first of 3 rounds of shadow boxing, I realized I wasn't going to just be able to free shadow box on my own.
Those 3 rounds I tried to get my 3 little padawans to throw basic stuff properly & not go too crazy.
After that I had them work straight punches on the bag for 2 rounds apiece.
Next it was a round of teeps.
Gave 'em 10 to 20 low round kicks next, based on what their shins could handle (had to remind myself that not everyone wants to turn their leg to hamburger on the first day).
Finished up with 20 rounds before releasing them to either go home or do free work on the bag.
Did 3 rounds (mighta been 6) on the bag myself at the end.
One of the guys stuck it out with me, but aside from trying to show him a spinning backfist, he was mostly un-supervised.
I think all 3 made significant progress for their first or second time.
For myself; trying to get warmed up again on the heavybag after getting cold while coaching made me think I was more tired than I really was. (that sentence probably won't read well, but it makes sense to me).
I didn't eat enough yesterday, so I was starving at the end of the workout.
I picked up some chicken on the way home.
After eating, I was wide awake- a sign I didn't work hard enough.
Didn't get to bed till 3.
Currently working my way through a 52oz coffee....mmmmmm..... man i'm wired.

Going to the gym today after work to work on some pushups.
I need some more explosiveness in my upper body if I want to have good punches; my legs are strong enough but I'm losing the connection in my upper body (shoulder, chest, & tricep).
My shoulder still bugs me, which is why I usually skip the pushups; but I need them so I'm going to work slow- maybe 10 at a time.
Might do some heavybag and/or stretching too; we'll see what the situation is when I get there.

[Water Dragon]

Oh Boy! Playmates!

[Pork Chop]

Friday Dec 19
Went to the gym.
Warmed up with laps & stretches.
My legs were tight.
Did over 100 reps of pushups in increments of 10.
I did regular pushups, side-to-side pushups using the med ball (one hand on at a time), clapping pushups (clapping above the med ball), and hopping pushups onto a heavybag,
Took me a little while, but I got it done.
Afterwards I did some shadow boxing, double end bag, and heavy bag.

Saturday Dec 20
Went to the gym again.
Was supposed to work with the big-talking noob coworker (as opposed to my other coworkers who train) starting at 4pm but he was in the middle of a class so he just did his thing and I did mine.
Did laps for warm up.
Lots of leg stretching, though my legs were sore and tight.
Did shadow for 3 rounds - stuck mostly boxing to give my legs a rest.
Did 3 rounds of double end bag
3 rounds of tear drop bag.
finished with 3 rounds on banana bag.

Aforementioned coworker came by to have me check his technique before he left for 2 weeks in Mexico.
Hard trying to knock a guy down a few pegs from thinking he's got it already, while at the same time still be a caring, interested, and encouraging coach.
in any other gym I've ever trained at, this guy would be matched up against someone of reasonable skill to let him know exactly how low on the totem pole he still was.
One or two sessions and he "feels (he's) penetrating through the bag correctly".
Anyway, I gave him some pointers and got outta there.

The last two days I've still been pretty sore.
Didn't live healthy this weekend- drank a little and ate too much so i gotta work on that.
Mondays I don't go to the gym and tonight I'm going home for the holidays.
I'll be back on Friday for at least a couple workouts this week if I'm lucky.

[Pork Chop]

Oh Boy! Playmates!

Lots of people have told me they're coming out in January.
Suntzu should hopefully be coming sometime that month as well - you guys can have a Judo lovefest.
Most of the others are beginners, but if we're lucky at least a couple guys with experience will show up.

[Water Dragon]

Very cool. I'm always down to meet forum members. Is it to early for you to get a boys nite out? It would be nice if we could all go out and just kick it somewhere. I have a couple people who are interested as well. One of them is my 12 year old. He's a lil nervous, but I think he may have more combat experience than most of these guys :D

[Pork Chop]

Yah, we'll definitely be doing that type of stuff if/when folks make it down.
Did 30 min of cardio this morning but didn't go to sleep last night so i will be checking out of work early.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday, Dec 30th
Had a good day
now i'm payin for it :)
think i may be coming down with something, which explains the body aches a bit.

30 min of cardio in the morning

1 hr of lifting at lunch
did the following circuit twice:
clean & press (x5)
overhead press (x10)
step ups (x10)
bench press (x10)
squats (x10)
crunches (x10)
dumbbell row (x10)
power cleans (x5 - supposed to be 10 but was too much)
overhead tricep extension (x10)
bicep curls (x10)

The first time through i did it with 25lb dumbbells, except for bench & squats - where I used 45 lbers.
Second time through I did it with 40lbers, except for the bicep curls - where I dropped down to the 25s. On the Overhead Tricep extensions, supposed to use a dumbbell in each hand but the second time through i only used the one 40.

After work, in the evening
3 rounds jump rope
long jogging warm up with plenty of stretches & calisthenics
3 rounds of shadow box
held thai pads for about a half hour (maybe more).
hit the thai pads for about 4 rounds (probably more).
Basically ran out of time tonight; wanted to hit heavybag and/or double end bag; but the workout was already bordering on 3 hours.

Also having a very hard time getting to sleep.
Feels like every muscle in my body is sore; eventhough I hardly feel like i killed it in any individual workout.

[Water Dragon]

Hit me up next time, Bro.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday
Pretty light day.
Was still sore.
Definitely was coming down with something.
20 minute walking warmup on the treadmill.
Did the circuit 2 times through, using 10lb dumbbells:
clean & press
overhead press
step ups
bench press
squats
crunches
dumbbell row
power cleans
overhead tricep extension
bicep curls
First time through was 10 reps; second time was 20 reps.

After that I went and did my new year thing.
The drinking and smoking took my little cold and made it worse.
New Year's Day I didn't do anything - didn't even get out of bed.

Friday, Jan 2
Met my buddy up at the gym for another workout.
30 min on the elliptical
did the circuit twice with 15lb dumbbells.
First time through was 15 reps, second time was 20 reps.
Finished up with ab work:
med ball twists 15 each side
med ball passing situps 20 each (40 total)
leg lifts 20 each
sat in a stinky sauna for a bit to sweat out the cold.

This weekend I was hurting.
My little cold progressed to dang near walking pneumonia.
Saturday was a nightmare.
Sunday I slept all but a few hours.
Woke up early this morning and don't feel quite as bad but am still really congested.

[Pork Chop]

Monday
Went to the gym and had a good workout - maybe too good.
Did a lot of laps jogging & stretching to warm up, calisthenics too.
3 rounds of shadow.
5 rounds of heavybag.
held pads for the other 2 guys before doing a few rounds of pad work for myself.
finished up on double end ball.
Seems like a short workout, but I think I was there about 2 hours.
My lungs were aching.
Bit of "tightness of breath".
Went home and my lungs started filling with fluid.
By 10 o'clock, i was constantly out of breath and wheezing just laying on the couch.
Got too tired to cough up anymore phlegm.
Went to bed wondering if I was ever going to wake up.
Kinda scared me.
Woke up real late this morning, feeling a lot better.
Still, the event scared me so i'm gonna take it easy today (Tuesday).
Going back tomorrow probably and Thursday for sure (from 4pm).

[Pork Chop]

Rested Tuesday but Wednesday I was back.
Still have a bit of a chest cold so trying to work up a sweat and waiting till i'm 100% to really push it.
Worked out with a coworker.
It was his first day.
He was my guinea pig.
I think I finally have a structured workout to follow for a while that covers all my bases fundamentally and provides good conditioning.
It's never too late, but i wish I'd come up with this back in the doldrums of the 3x3x6 days; ie 3 rounds jump rope, 3 rounds shadow, 6 rounds heavybag - my boring, old, standby workout.
The workout's just a mix of stretches, calisthenics, and attribute drills that get the blood flowing.
Very similar to stuff I've done at almost every gym I've been to.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday I hit the gym for a couple hours.
My conditioning section is going pretty well; still undergoing minor tweaks - but I think it covers everything I consider vital (flexibility/mobility, bodyweight/functional strength, anaerobic, & aerobic endurance).

My focus now is mainly to tweak the technique portion.
I am borrowing some "shortcuts" that my gym in fort worth (a fairtex gym) used for maximum efficiency in the shortest amount of time.
I need more partner work, but about half the guys aren't ready for that yet.
Also need to incorporate more drills that are akin to round pacing - though time becomes an issue.

One great thing about last night was the Return of the Great Guapito - my coworker & training buddy from the muay thai gym finally came back to work out for the first time since like June.
He helps because it's one more assistant to help with the guys who aren't getting it.
He also has patience to explain stuff in a more verbose fashion than I do sometimes, which helps the newer guys understand it a little better.

Found out the guy that teaches muay thai in the mornings is supposed to be some sort of AKA grad who moved out here from Cali. One of the other guys at the gym; who's still new but has trained with the with the guy, talks about him like he's magic. If he's on a totally different level than me skill-wise, oh well. Not too worried about losing my little thing before it starts because he doesn't come in the evenings and he also costs extra money. Going to make an effort to hook up with him one of these weekends to touch base and see if he's got a lot to teach me. But if touring around the country has taught me anything, it's that regardless of technique preferences that vary from gym to gym, skill is still skill and short of something magnificent, my training background has held up wherever I've gone.

The morning class guy has said he wants to start having smokers soon. That means aside from the opportunity to do a boxing smoker every friday night, I should have opportunities to get in some good kickboxing/muay thai work as well.

My biggest personal weaknesses right now (besides my weight)-
I'd like to maintain a more intense pace throughout the round, I'm hampered by a chest cold at the moment, but in general I'd like to return to the round pace that I used to have.
Want to clean up some of my technique - watching a video of me from earlier in the year was embarrassing (yeah, i'm looking at you BbmoreSanDaKng). Some of it's as easy as looking in the mirror when I'm shadowboxing or remembering small details. My punching needs a little work.
I need to get my timing & movement back; which will come with more sparring & better shape.
Takedowns - gotta freshen the skills i used to have & learn some more if I want to do sanshou.

In the short term, hopefully next week I can breathe normal again and get back on 3-a-days.

[Pork Chop]

Saturday night was some local fights.
I saw VanKuen and a bunch of buddies from work & various gyms.

Monday got to the gym around 5.
Ran a pretty killer workout.
My shins feel like they're starting to get back to normal; even if my kick is feeling a bit awkward.
Might drop the reps down on the kicks tomorrow to focus on both form & power.
The guy I've been working with since september's having a bit of a tough time on pads; which is part of the reason behind the awkwardness.

Hopefully sometime this week I can get back to working out multiple times a day.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday
Nice long workout.
The owner of the gym approached me before class and kind of threw off my rhythm.
I get the feeling he's trying to stamp me out.
He doesn't want anybody teaching anything at that gym without paying him first.
Told me I'm using too much of an "instructor voice", that it was confusing people, and that I needed to tone it down a little.
Next thing I know, the morning muay thai instructor shows up 10 minutes later.
He brought all his thai stuff, but only ended up working out in the gi.
The vibe was that he's gonna have the morning guy teach a class at the time I've been using just so I've got nowhere left to go.

First off, you got a muay thai coach who only teaches at 9am in the morning - who works out at 9am? I don't know. but the majority of folks are there in the evenings after work.
You've also got a boxing coach there, who's a good guy & talented, but not always around.
So I'm about the only option in the evenings for people wanting to train stand up.
If he starts a class soon just to snub me, great; but it does seem a little spiteful.

Second, the people I work with are friends. There's nobody joining the gym to work with me, that I don't know already. These are people I wouldn't charge anyway because I'm also benefiting from them being there. Yeah, some of these folks are only paying the $10 a month fee to use the facilities; but they're in the door - the onus is then on him and his staff to make these people interested in the other classes offered. Granted, none of my friends will pay any extra for any classes, including the "official" muay thai guy.

Third, I'm the equivalent of a student barber. There's no reason anybody should be paying me full price to work out, because I'm not a big name coach. People who are already paying for all the classes come to me and ask me to hold pads. I'm not charging anyone. Not making any money off of this. Just doing it to have fun and meet my own goals with it. I get out of the way of the paid-for classes & I help out around the gym.

Which brings me to my final point - i don't see how I'm doing anything to hurt the gym. I help out people already there & I've helped bring in 5 other people who have/will sign(ed) up. The greedy guy's not making money off of me and I'm not the best coach out there, but I think I still add something to the gym. So why stamp me out?

The owner's kind of a greedy pr!ck and the rumor is that he'll be leaving soon.
I may never be one of his official instructors; which means I just have to keep doing my own thing & hopefully fighting until I can become a bit more established.
If all else fails, as soon as my swim team contract's up, I'll go back to Phet's.

[Pork Chop]

so the greedy b@stard owner went ahead and scheduled a class for the morning muay thai coach during my workout time (7-9 MWTh); in order to run me & my guys out.

Now, instead of working around the boxers, I just won't be able to work out at that time.

Sad thing is that the greedy b@stard is moving back to portland in a week.

Before we even heard about the new class, my buddies who train with me already decided to start working out earlier; so that should work in the short term.

In the long term I may head back to Phet's gym.
So much for trying to save a few bucks and/or starting my own program, but better than dealing with petty little f*ckers like that.

Part of me feels like the whole ordeal was a huge diss to my skill level.
Part of me wants payback - I don't really care if the other muay thai guy really is AKA certified (though all I can find on the guy is that he was an instructor at Roc's Tae Kwon Do & a blue belt in BJJ).

All I can do now is wait out the next week or two to see what happens after greedy b@stard leaves.

Just wrote the pool an email to see if i can get out of the $80+ I'm wasting on that each month - freeing up some $ for muay thai.

Didn't work out tonight; just resting up & going to get to bed early.
Tomorrow's going to be a big workout day.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday night I went back to Phet's - the actual muay thai gym.
He wasn't there, but most of the advanced guys were.
Had a lot of fun, not just catching up with everyone, but training with all those guys (and girl).
Having some supervision's always a good thing, so is having good examples to watch and someone who can actually hold pads.

My workout was kinda like this:
3 rounds of jump rope
bunch of laps around the gym with calisthenics (75 reps each total):
--pushups
--crunches
--bicycles
--leg lifts
--jumping squats
heavybag:
--2 rounds of boxing
--2 rounds of pushkicks
--2 rounds of round kicks
--2+ rounds of mixed (forgot how many - spent a lot of time working on punching power)
thai pads for 3 rounds
slam ball:
--20 slams w/rope around right arm
--20 slams w/rope around left arm
--10 overhead squats
--20 situps
--15 seated twisting slams w/rope around right arm
--15 seated twisting slams w/rope around left arm
heavybag for a couple more rounds and then called it quits.

My nose actually started bleeding once I got home and sat down to dinner.
Might have overdone it.
Body really tightened up before bed.
Need to make sure I do stretches somewhere in there next time.
Went to bed around 11:15, took me a little while to get to sleep, woke up after 9am - my body was like f*ck you mutherf*kker....

[Pork Chop]

Phet's again Saturday.
Mostly did sparring.
kinda got my a$$ kicked.
got dropped by a nasty knee to the ribs at the end.
Nice thing is that there's nowhere to go from here but up.
little disappointed in my performance, but kinda comforting knowing that working out there again's going to make me a lot better.
Apparently my lips were turning purple and I wasn't breathing.
Still got an annoying cough, wonder if it's from that.
Body's kinda achin at the moment.
Tomorrow back to the other gym with Water Dragon.

[Water Dragon]

Unfortunately, we're not making it to the gym today due to the fact that I cannot stand up completely straight. I've been out for about 7 months, ended up getting my gall bladder taken out. During that time, we got about 6-7 new guys in the dojo. The little f@ckers were hungry, and I had to establish my place on the mat with them.

[Pork Chop]

no problema man
we'll get in there and get working
a good rest day's often a blessing. :)
sorry i kinda called you out on the previous post.

[Pork Chop]

Monday I didn't end up going to the gym.
I woke up feeling real sluggish.
My rib's still bothering me.
I played Wii for a good 5+ hours though (including 2.5 hours each on DDR and Wii fit).

Stretching actually made it worse.
it's like an intercostal muscle around my pec.
Pushups are okay, but dips are out of the question.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday was kind of a light day.
In the morning i did 30+ min of Wii fit.

After work I went to the gym and coached my buddies for over an hour, doing a bit of the warm up with them - but going pretty light for the most part.

Around 6 I went to Phet's gym to start working out.
Struggled through a little bit of a warm up & resigned myself to just working on kicks.
100 push kicks each leg.
100 low kicks each leg.
100 rib-level kicks each leg.
Power was a priority (as much as I could generate anyway).
Held pads for around 5 rounds at the end.

My rib is all about f*cked.
I'm going to keep trying to work around it, but I can't jump, I can't really run, I doubt I can really even punch. As soon as I stop doing exercise, it starts to cramp up real bad- so even when I think I'm fine, I"m not.
Phet was cool with me taking my time though, coz he knows how ribs are.

I think the Wii fit may have aggravated it, not sure.

[Pork Chop]

kinda killed it Wednesday Jan 21
went to Gold's at lunch - did 15 min of cardio and a quick back workout:
the dual cable row/pulldown x 4 sets x 20 reps per set 5plates, 6, 7, 8
the horizontal row machine 6 plates x 20, 7 plates x 15, 8 plates x 20

went to alivemma after work, around 4:30 and taught my coworker
went through the warm ups with him, but holding back on some of the calisthenics
the ab work and the jump squats were particularly tough with my rib.
the second 30 minutes was technique work, so I was mostly babysitting him while he was throwing stuff
finished him off with knees.

got over to the muay thai gym by 6:30
warmed up with more jogging
went into heavybag work
started off with 100 skip knees each side
then a round of jabs
then a round of more knees
then a round of crosses
then another round of knees
then a round of light hooks (ribs preventing me from throwing my money shot) and uppercuts
then another round of knees
then a round of combo punches (keeping my rear stuff as stiff as possible)
then 100 high round kicks each leg
then 100 push kicks each leg
started working on 100 low kicks on the hardest bag before my coach had me working clinch work with my friend sergio
worked clinch work for what felt like 30 min; we were in the ring with Kru Vong - my coach's teacher.
i believe the dude's had around 100 fights in Thailand, and definitely shows it.
we thought we had decent clinches, but then he gave us a master's course - changing our thinking on everything from fundamentals to more advanced stuff
then he took us on the heavybags and had us working on the "quiet" round kick
Left the gym after 9

Didn't really get to do WiiFit yesterday and woke up late this morning (my wife & I were relying on her alarm clock, which didn't go off - she was late to work). Want to do the wii fit daily, but haven't done a great job of consistency this week.

[WinterPalm]

kinda killed it Wednesday Jan 21
went to Gold's at lunch - did 15 min of cardio and a quick back workout:
the dual cable row/pulldown x 4 sets x 20 reps per set 5plates, 6, 7, 8
the horizontal row machine 6 plates x 20, 7 plates x 15, 8 plates x 20

went to alivemma after work, around 4:30 and taught my coworker
went through the warm ups with him, but holding back on some of the calisthenics
the ab work and the jump squats were particularly tough with my rib.
the second 30 minutes was technique work, so I was mostly babysitting him while he was throwing stuff
finished him off with knees.

got over to the muay thai gym by 6:30
warmed up with more jogging
went into heavybag work
started off with 100 skip knees each side
then a round of jabs
then a round of more knees
then a round of crosses
then another round of knees
then a round of light hooks (ribs preventing me from throwing my money shot) and uppercuts
then another round of knees
then a round of combo punches (keeping my rear stuff as stiff as possible)
then 100 high round kicks each leg
then 100 push kicks each leg
started working on 100 low kicks on the hardest bag before my coach had me working clinch work with my friend sergio
worked clinch work for what felt like 30 min; we were in the ring with Kru Vong - my coach's teacher.
i believe the dude's had around 100 fights in Thailand, and definitely shows it.
we thought we had decent clinches, but then he gave us a master's course - changing our thinking on everything from fundamentals to more advanced stuff
then he took us on the heavybags and had us working on the "quiet" round kick
Left the gym after 9

Didn't really get to do WiiFit yesterday and woke up late this morning (my wife & I were relying on her alarm clock, which didn't go off - she was late to work). Want to do the wii fit daily, but haven't done a great job of consistency this week.

Awesome Thai workout, man! Looks like you're putting in some serious effort.

[Pork Chop]

Awesome Thai workout, man! Looks like you're putting in some serious effort.

Thanx! :)
Can't wait till i'm a little more healthy; these dang ribs are annoying.
Whether the weight comes off or not, i'm going to crank it up to 11. :D

Thursday 1-22 was a pretty good day.
Like I said, I woke up too late to do wii fit.
I went to Gold's in the afternoon as part of my quest to get reimbursed $150 for 120 workouts.

16 minutes on the elliptical, high setting, nice sweat.
4 sets of incline shoulder press machine 5 plates x 20 reps, 6 x 20, 7 x 10, 8 x 10
4 sets of seated row (the weights are slightly guessed) 65lbs x 20, 80 x 20, 105 x 10, 120 x 10
4 sets of triceps extensions (again, not sure on the weights) 15lbs x 15, 30 x 15, 45 x 15, 60 x 15
3 sets of ez bar curl 40lbs x 20, 50 x 15, 60 x 10

went to mma gym after work to teach coworker.
held pads for the first 30 minutes
worked 4 rounds of bags together
took turns throwing 20 rep skip knees each leg on bag for 2 sets

cruised over to muay thai by 6:30
held pads for 5 rounds or so
round of heavy bag
30+ plus minutes of shadow, with a lot of input on my defenses from the coach
Over an hour and a half of partner work with the guy who hurt my ribs in the first place.
He and both coaches provided a lot of input and really did a lot of work on my game.
Took a little shot to the exact spot on my ribs, which re-aggravated the injury a bit.
Skills-wise, today was a huge step forward.

Sleeping was kinda tough last night, the ribs were aching with more intensity than before.
ok now i think.

no wii fit again last night, but really had no time; spent almost 5 hours in the gym yesterday.

[MasterKiller]

If you are using the Wii, my wife uses Wii Fitness Coach, which is pretty cool. It allows you to schedule different workouts (cardio, yoga, strength, and flexibility), designs those workouts around your fitness level, and then increases/decreases the level of difficulty based on your feedback.

[Pork Chop]

that sounds a lot like the wii fit i was talking about
takes your weight, bmi, age, flexibility, strength, and balance
then you work out on a daily basis and try to meet the goals it gives you
the workout types are: yoga, strength, cardio, and balance
i did pretty well the first 2 days on it but ran out of time the rest of this week.

i definitely plan on playing it tonight; but I probably won't make it to Gold's for an afternoon workout.
may go to Gold's later for some cardio if tonight's a slow night.
I study japanese on friday nights, so I usually don't hit up any gyms.
I like having the one dedicated night during the week to do something else so I don't feel like my life is swallowed by the gym.

[Pork Chop]

Saturday, Jan 24
Went to watch the smoker fights/sparring matches at my gym today.
They're technically not full contact; but they're close enough to get a feel for competing.
Guys from my gym did real well.
Might've participated as a last-minute entry if my ribs weren't still less than 100%.
Definitely going to do it next time; 6 weeks from now.
The guy that dropped my with the knee to my ribs last weekend dropped his opponent/partner; so I didn't feel so bad.
Saw Affliction tonight.
Went kinda how I pictured it would.
The 2 big KOs of the night still gave me that "holy f*ck!" reaction.
Motivation got a nice shot in the arm today.
Still glad I had an extra day of rest - the past week banged me up pretty good.
Haven't gone back to Wii fit yet - need to do a better job of that; just seems such a hassle to completely rearrange my living room.

[Pork Chop]

Sunday 1/25
I broke out the Wii for a while.
Did 30 min on Wii Fit and over 300kcal on DDR.
My rib was aching, might've re-aggravated it (again).

[Pork Chop]

Monday 1/26 was a good day

Woke up and did a little Wii in the morning.

at lunch I went to gold's to work out for an hour:
16 min on the elliptical crosstrainer
(the weights may not be 100% accurate, working off of memory)
free motion bench 50lbs x 15, 60lbs x 15, 80lbs x 10, 90lbs x 10
free motion pulldown 50 x 15, 70 x 15, 100 x 10, 120 x 10
free motion shoulder press 50 x 15, 60 x 15, 80 x 15
free motion row 80 x 15, 100 x 15, 120 x 15

after work I went to the mma gym to work with my coworkers for an hour.
almost killed both of them - lots of calisthenics & stretching exercises.

got to the muay thai gym more than a 1/2 hour early
worked for over 2 hours on jump rope, bag work, and partner work.

bit tired today, ribs still bugging me.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 1/27... still not sure how I survived.

wii in the morning for a little bit

gold's in the afternoon
15 min elliptical crosstrainer
my knee's been buggin me so I did some exercises that I normally associate with "rehab".
single leg quad kickouts - 30lbs x 15each leg, 60 x 15ea, 90 x 15ea, 90 x 10ea
single leg hamstring curls - 30lbs x 15 each leg, 60 x 12ea, 60x8ea (left failed around 8, right finished 10)

went to the mma gym after work & started working out around 4:30.
good warm up because temperature dropped really quickly in the afternoon & it was cold all of a sudden
worked shadow, bag, thai pads, and 2 person drills.

got to the muay thai gym by 6:15
coach tried to kill me
don't think i've ever done that many squat thrusts in one workout.
loooooots of calisthenics
a 5 minute round of continuous skip knees (reminded me of the zen mindset of horse stance)
did some pad work, clinch work, and partner work (with some light technique sparring)
some how made it to almost 9pm

This morning I feel surprisingly "ok" for coming off a 5 hour day and 9 hours in the last 2 days.
There's a part of me that's screaming to take off today (okay, well my wife and one of my training partners too) but I think I should be okay if I lower the intensity a little.

[Pork Chop]

Wed 1/28
Want to get this down before I forget.

Tiny bit of wii in the morning.

At lunch I went to Gold's.
15 min on the elliptical - had a d@mn good elliptical workout, much better than yesterday.
seated military press w/dumbbells - 40lbs x 15, 12, 10. First shoulder workout in a while, got a lot of work to do
Hammerstrength pulldown - 45 each side x 15, 70 ea side x 10, 70 ea side x 15, 70ea side x 15

So far today I feel much more awake & less sore than yesterday.
Still going planning on making all my workouts, but there's definitely a part that wants me to take it easy.

[Pork Chop]

Wed 1/28 part 2
My coworkers all canceled on me to go to to the mma gym after work.
As it was only 4pm & I was done with work - 3 hours before the night time muay thai class, I decided to go home and take a nap. We all know that never works for working out.
Got hungry as soon as I got home so I had some italian food.
Fell asleep around 5:30 and woke up at 9:30.
had a hard time getting back to bed after that, woke up late this morning.
Funny how this stuff tends to snowball.
Basically I cut my wednesday workout day in half, did the first half of the day yesterday and will do the second half tonight.

The rest was a good thing, my knee's feeling about 50% better (puts it around 75~80%) and I feel refreshed to hit the gym again.
Ribs still buggin the cr@p outta me; especially since kinda re-injuring them tuesday.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 1/29

So I woke up so late that I couldn't do wii in the morning or go to the gym in the afternoon.
My coworkers canceled on me for the after work workout as well.
But all was not lost.
I went to Phet's and KILLED it.
One of those workouts when you are constantly pushing the pace for 2 hours.
I got there an hour early and finished up about 30 min before the class was officially finished, but it was a hard workout.

[Pork Chop]

Friday was my rest day.
Saturday 1/31 i was dreading going into the gym this morning and actually had to force myself to go in - seriously contemplated taking the day off.
I think it's coz my ribs are still bothering me and Saturdays are typically sparring.
The highlights were 5 rounds of pad work and a return to the slam ball w/100 slams.
Took a little break for about 5 minutes after some of the more intense stuff and finished up the last 15 min or so on heavybag.
Pretty good workout, I pushed myself, but one of those days where maybe you thought there was something you should've done.
Weird day.
Not sure that I'm gonna go watch the fights tonight.

[Pork Chop]

Sunday, I played wii for a bit, but it was mario kart, so nothing that required any effort.

Monday 2/3/09
20+ min of wii fit in the morning

had some stuff to take care of at lunch
everyone at work's been canceling on me as far as after work gym time.
went to gold's after work by myself:
30 min of cardio
7 sets of free motion cable pulldowns
50 x 15, 60 x 15, 70 x 15, 80 x 15, 90 x 10, 100 x 10, 120 x 6
My goal right now is to work my back as much as possible so I can do pullups.
My back's been neglected for way too many years so until I can start doing pullups, it's getting the majority of my attention.

went to muay thai gym after that.
another class was going on so i didn't start working out right away.
Ended up getting cold & sleepy, so starting back up was kind of a pain.
LOTS of calisthenics
a bit of pad work
LOTS of clinch work - can't beat semi-private tutoring on the clinch from a Thai with over 100 fights.

came home and did more wii.

good day. 3.5 hours total, so a little shorter, but I wasn't dragging a$$ after 8pm.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 2/3 was a little better than decent.
Tiny bit of wii in the morning

at lunch i went to gold's
20 min on the elliptical crosstrainer - good clip on high level.
t-bar row: 45lbs x 15, 90lbs x 10, 90lbs x 10, 90lbs x 8

after work went to the mma gym (from 4:30 to 6)
didn't kill it so much on the calisthenics, cos i knew hard times were coming.
mostly did warm ups, stretching, shadow, and bag work.
finished up with a little partner work.

muay thai gym in the evening (from 6:15 to 9)
jump rope
killed it on calisthenics
shadow
30+ min straight bag work - had to throw combos & mix up levels every time - basically killed me.
2 insane rounds of high paced pad work, with a round of knees on the bag in between
partner work
finished up with 20 min of shadow, focusing on my teep.
could barely walk when i got home.

slept in a bit this morning because even my ankles were starting to bother me.
feel a bit better now.
meeting for work tonight, going to sneak in some Gold's time before hand.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday 2/4/09 ended up being a rest day
and i'm glad i did
i feel a lot better today
my legs were definitely "stale"
guess it's part of getting older- knowing when to take a day off if your body's telling you.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 2/5/2009 was a pretty good day.
I got to work really early.
Didn't do wii in the morning - just wanted to get to work.
Jetted out of work at 2:45 (yeah, I was that early).

I went straight to Gold's gym and worked out from 3:10 to 4pm.
30 min on the elliptical
4 sets of assisted pullups - ribs were really hurting 15plate (88lb assist) x 10, 15 x 10, 15 x 10, 20plate (around 100lb assist) x 20 for a burnout at the end. Yes, my pullups are pathetic but my ribs were really holding me back.

From there I went to the mma gym. We started working out at 4:30 because they were mopping the floors (no, that's not a euphemism for grappling :D ).
Did a lot of calisthenics in the warm up; with some good stretching.
After about 5 rounds of shadow - which included punching & footwork drills; I had them do partner work for another 5 rounds. We finished up with a round on the bags.

Left there a little after 6 and was working out at the muay thai gym by 6:30.
TONS of calisthenics & conditioning.
Second half of class was partner work.
We wrapped up around 8:40 or so.

Got home and didn't feel like a zombie for once... score! :)
Grabbed a shower, did a little wii (my wii fit age was 26!), ate some sausage gumbo that my wife cooked, and laid down to read before bed between 9:30 and 10.

Woke up early again this morning, still feeling pretty good.
My new gloves come today so I may be sneaking into the muay thai gym to try them out.

[WinterPalm]

What kind of gloves are you using? Any preferences?

What are you consuming between all those workouts? It looks like almost 4 hours straight!

[Pork Chop]

Err... consuming between workouts? what's that? :p
I had a couple granola bars and some apple sauce at 2 and didn't eat again till 9.
I've decided to just eat comfortably this time around - no protein shakes and no overkill on the supplements (multivitamin, efas, supercissus for the joints, and allergy medication).
I eat breakfast, a midmorning snack, lunch, a mid day snack, and dinner.

As far as gloves go; I'm a huge glove freak.
I rotate my gloves because working out with wet gloves is not only nasty - i think it drastically shortens the life of the glove.

The gloves I ordered are Boon.
Boon used to have the best custom short site on the net & they made my Pork Chop shorts.
These days, they rolled the short business into their gear business and require a $2500 minimum purchase (ie distributor status) in order to order straight from their site.
Their gear is like works of art. Just check out their belly pads & thai pads (http://boonsport.com/index.php?option=com_easygallery&act=categories&cid=18&Itemid=41).
Luckily, I found their lone US distributor (http://www.boonsportusa.com) and I decided to check out their gloves to see if they really are the best gear.
Here's their Canadian distributor (http://www.RDFC.tv).

My favorite gloves include:
super bag gloves - Grant Super Bag Gloves, Ringside Ultimate Classic Super Bag Gloves, regular Ringside Super Bag Gloves
sparring gloves - Top Ten Sparring gloves.
all of the above - Ringside IMF gloves (this glove's basically the overall champ in durability, comfort, and performance in all areas of training).

Gloves I have not liked:
-Cleto Reyes. They don't fit me, the seam on the palm is uncomfortable, not enough padding, don't like laces, and I feel they're overpriced for what they are.
-Ringside Ultimate Training gloves. These are marshmallow gloves. Twisted my wrist using them, even with handwraps, because the padding will squish & shift during contact.
-Everlast High Performance. HATE these. Everyone wears 'em. Almost to refusing to spar with people who do wear them, because they're usually the same gloves those people use on the heavybags & they have a propensity to cut.
-Twins available through Title at 16oz, especially elastic enclosure. Twins used to be my favorite gear company but my old gloves were 14oz and I think that may be the reason.
-Windy. Though I admit I didn't really break them in, they were just uncomfortable and front heavy.
-Grant 16oz Training Gloves lace up. I swear their super bag gloves have more padding than these things.

Not a huge fan of Title Gels, they just don't fit me well.

I want to try Winning one of these days, but want to wait till I can get 2 pairs of velcro enclosures.
If I like them, I'll want to stay consistent between sparring & bag gloves.
I think gloves with laces are a waste of time, especially in a muay thai gym.

Some other models of Top Ten gloves would be nice to try as well.
Thumb's a little stiff, but once broken in, the ones I have are nice.
I hear the newer Top Ten product lines are even nicer (and being in Canada Land you can get ahold of them).

I hear good things about Rival gloves - which is a Canadian company (Russ Anber).

[Pork Chop]

The Boon gloves are awesome by the way.
They look a little like Everlast High Performance gloves, because of the 2 tone, but don't be fooled - everything about them is much higher quality.
Both the 14s and the 16s have a huge velcro strap with very strong velcro - it provides a ton of wrist support, almost that of the lace up gloves i have.
The padding feels like what maybe the twins should've been.
Don't even feel like I really needed to break these gloves in; I imagine the only change over time is that the padding will actually soften up (like it did with my Grant Super Bag Gloves).

friday 2/6/09
Was supposed to hit Gold's.
Got busy at work, ended up staying late.
As soon as I got out of my chair my knee stiffened up on me again - pretty painful.
All I wanted to do was go home and check on my gloves - I did, they came.
I played with 'em for a bit and then decided to take a nap - it was barely 4.
Woke up around 8; feeling better.
My wife and I went to eat and by then it was too late to work out.

I went back to bed by 11 and when I woke up Saturday 2/7/09 my leg wasn't hurting at all (first time in like 2 weeks).
Tried to go into muay thai early at 10:15 but nobody was there.
Waited around till 10:30 and went home to chill for a little while.
Went back up at 5 or 10 after 11 and the coach was there.
Put in a hard work out, very intense with my slam ball, my weight jacket & all that stuff.
Kinda gassed doing clinch & sparring at the end.

Went home and kinda caught my 2nd wind.
Didn't feel like sitting in the house all day.
Wife and I went to Gold's to go hang out - they have a pool at the one near my house.

I did 30 min on the elliptical, including 15 rounds of sprints.

While I was on the elliptical I noticed a guy playing with kettlebells.
I was like "holy cr@p! my gym has kettlebells!" - see I usually have to buy my own and I end up giving them away when I move, so I've bought 3 sets so far.

on the kettlebells I did:
20 right arm swings w/ green one (think it's around 1 pood, not sure)
20 left arm swings w/ green one
20 swings with both arms - green one in left hand, black one in right (black one is 1 pood but felt heavier because of small handle)
20 snatches right arm w/black one
20 snatches left arm w/black one
20 swings w/both arms - green in right, black in left

Jumped on the heavybag for a bit.
Did almost 10 minutes on a small boxing bag - just hands
did about 3 to 5 minutes on the bannana bag with hands & feet.

After that, took a quick shower.
Then I went to lounge in the pool, the hot tub, and the sauna.
Felt pretty refreshed.

[WinterPalm]

Thanks for the extensive post.

I've always wondered about the Reyes gloves...seemed a little expensive.
I'm a big fan of Fairtex products...I have bought several pairs of gloves from them and really like the fit but they do have to get worn it...good protection for me on the knuckles though.

I recently received a pair of Green Hill 16oz gloves (Olympic or former Olympic supplier) and they fit incredibly well but the knuckle coverage on my pair is garbage and I re injured my right hand on a guy's head. The 14oz Fairtex hold up well under the same force-impact.

I'm going to look into the Boon gloves maybe this summer when I need to buy another pair.

Man, if I put in that many workouts consecutively without consuming anything, I'd be dying or dead!:eek:

Yesterday I did 5 rounds of San Shou sparring (hard contact), 3 rounds of pads, a little coaching, and then Fight Gone Bad (3X5min circuit) and I was dying for food!

To each his own I guess...

Congrats on finding a gym with kettlebells...I love the things but it seems like a gym would rather dump $2000 on a bloody machine that only does bicep curls then invest maybe half that on a couple sets of kettlebells!

[Pork Chop]

Green Hill stuff's supposed to be great. Unfortunately they lost their Olympic certification a few years ago, so unless things have changed, their gear's not certified for proper amateur competition - but it's supposed to be nice stuff. I've heard some guys say their head gear is even better than Top Ten.

The only problems I've ever had with Fairtex are the thumbs - a little hard to break in. Stubbed my thumb a few times borrowing some pairs. One of my old coaches said he and his guys had the same issue. Dunno if they've changed their design and I'm not sure it affects everyone. Otherwise, Fairtex is super high quality across the board - can't really go wrong with them.

Going back to Reyes - some folks feel they're the best gloves ever created. Regardless, I still wouldn't use them to spar with anyone I was friendly with.

About the food - I was supposed to get a protein shake at Gold's once I was finished, but it slipped my mind when I was asking the lady at the desk to fill out my pass book. See I have the pass book because if I go 120 times in the next 365 days I get a $150 refund from my health insurance company.

Monday 2/9/09
Woke up a little later than I should.
Got to work at 8:15.
Coworker said he was going to the other gym at 4:30.
Skipped out on Gold's so I could be there for him.
Of course the guy shows up 30 minutes late and keeps me waiting.
We had a good workout; but I wish I knew how to convey skill to this guy better.
I hate the thought that maybe some folks aren't coordinated enough to pick it up, I think it's more a weakness on my part.
We'll keep pluggin away and hopefully experience some breakthroughs.

The workout with that guy was an hour, but I was hitting the heavybag with the 14oz Boons while I was waiting. The 14s definitely require a bit more breaking in. At the moment the 16s feel better.

Went to the other gym around 6:15, but didn't start working out till almost 7 because there was another class in there.
Pushed it through till 9.
The conditioning was pretty murderous.
Right now 180 degree jump squats are tha debbil.
I can't do them at any sort of normal pace without almost falling over.
Worked with a guy from Ultimate Gym in NYC.
Was really nice with the focus mitts.

My apartment complex is harassing me again.
Last time they locked me out a day after we paid rent.
This time they're threatening us with late fees & crazy charges a week after they itemized our bill in person & we paid in full.
Kicked it up their chain of management, so hopefully some resolution will come.
Have to take time off work tomorrow to argue with them.
Think maybe I should draft up a bill for my time that they're wasting.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 2/10/2009
Got stuff sorted out with my apartment today, which was cool.
Otherwise, today I felt like I had endurance, but limited explosiveness.
Kind of a flat day.

Gold's first.
20 min on a new elliptical.
Much larger range of motion on this elliptical (a cybex one) and it tired me out real good.
Did T Bar row after that:
55lbs x 20, 70lbs x 15, 90 lbs x 10, 100lbs x 10
Then I had to get back to work.

MMA gym next
Mostly just watched my friends & gave them pointers.
Did enough heavybag work to break a sweat.
It was hot in there and I was sweating a lot.
Saw some of my friends at that gym and explained that the reason they hadn't seen me is because I'd been coming early - also that the manager was being a jerk, which they agreed with.

Muay Thai gym after that.
The phrase "calisthenic he||" comes to mind when I think about this workout.
cranked through more floor work than I'd ever done.
Second half of class was focus mitts, thai pads, and technique work.

Was down at 227 when I got home (the lowest I've weighed since 2006, I believe). Oh yeah, it was hailing out.

[Pork Chop]

Every wednesday I say I'm going to try to sneak a workout in and every wednesday I wake up late for work and am so sore, stiff, & hungry by the time I get out that I just eat and go to bed. Last night was no different. Feel much more fresh today so I guess not sneaking in that extra workout does have its benefits.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 2/12
Pretty good day that kinda cr@pped out towards the end.

Waited too long to go to Gold's so I left work 30 min early to go.

30 min on the cybex elliptical - this thing's a killer, when I get off of it, my whole posterior chain cramps up for a second
Assisted dip - 20 plates (112lbs assist) x 20, 18plates (100lbs) x 15, 16 (88lbs) x 10, 14 (76lbs) x 10, 12 (64lbs) x 5, 10 (52lbs) x 3

Went over to mma gym by 4:30
did my calisthenics workout but didn't stretch much.
after the floor workout, i spent the rest of the time holding pads for the 3 people I was working with.
finished up late.

got over to muay thai gym by 6:30
calisthenics death again
instead of 5 jumping jacks + 1 burpee for 25 sets, I was trying to do 10 jumping jacks + 10 pushups (jumping up at the end) for 6 minutes; I think I made it 3 before I couldn't do pushups anymore.
Finished up with another 10 sets of 5+1.
Again, once I finished up with floor work, not the most intense workout.
Coach wasn't there today so I pitched in and helped with the noobs.
Spent the class shadowboxing simple stuff & asking questions.
Did learn a bit from a couple of the other guys.

Found out that MWFs are the main nights for the muay thai gym when both of the coaches are there and most of the fighters. Going to have to rearrange my schedule. Going tonight with the goal of getting some good padwork. Was going to go to Gold's again too but got to work late, so don't know if that's gonna happen. Want to take the conditioning easy today and go hard on the skills stuff; even if it's just 30 min of heavybag and 10 min of pad work.

[WinterPalm]

Tell me this is expensive for a pair of gloves:

http://www.fullcontactsports.ca/everlast-protex-training-gloves-p-309.html

What's the most you've paid?

I've ordered stuff from the USA and it went, with shipping, around $150...but this price just seems outrageous.

[Pork Chop]

Most I've ever paid was:
http://www.grantboxing.com/detail.aspx?ID=22617
and I LOVE these gloves - still use them 3 years later with HEAVY use.
don't like their training gloves tho, weird
(EDIT: checked on Grant training gloves, which are going for like 150; I seem to remember getting mine for around 120)

I can't justify spending 200 for a single pair of gloves.
Lately I'm finding any excuse I can to use my Boon (http://www.boonsportusa.com) gloves and I can get 2 pairs for 153, including shipping!!!

If I ever do spend 200 on a pair of gloves, it'll be on Winnings, not taking a chance on everlast; though the Protex 2 (the cheap version) was better than I thought it'd be.

[Pork Chop]

Friday 2/13

Was hurting today at work but actually made it to muay thai.
Got in a good workout, all things considered.
Finished up with about 10 min of sparring.
Lots of fun.

[Pork Chop]

Saturday 2/14 was a weird day.
Wife woke me up around 5:30 in the morning when she went to work, it was cool coz we were asleep by 10:30. I'd totally forgotten about VDay - thought it wasn't till monday for some reason.
Grabbed some breakfast by 7 and thought about what to do for her - decided on cooking & a little bit of cleaning.
I was still beat up from thursday and friday so I didn't get far into cleaning.
Every time I sat down it was like "okay I'm gonna clean for a bit and then go to the gym".
Every time I stood up it was like "owowowowow, no thanks, better sit back down".
Happened about 4 times by 11:30 (saturday practice starts at 11).
Then I took a nap and woke up at 4:30.
Think my body needed the time off.
Went back to bed that night by 2 and woke up by 9 and couldn't sleep any more.
Sunday night I went to bed at 9:30, and today (monday) I woke up after 9.
My body really needs a lot of sleep lately; but hopefully it'll prevent overtraining.
Can't say I feel 100%, but a lot of my aches & pains are gone by this morning.
Bad thing is my diet this weekend was garbage- and I can feel how bad food affects me; especially sugary stuff & sodas.

[Pork Chop]

Monday 2/16
pretty good day

gold's around 3:20
30 min on the cybex elliptical, heart rate around 170 for a lot of it, probably averaged in the 160s.
did a kettlebell workout after that
green one - 10 right + 10 left + 10 both (nonstop)
black one - 10 left + 10 right + 20 both (nonstop)
black one - 20 left + 20 right + 20 both
Then I caught a quick rinse & jumped in the pool.
swam a couple short laps and chilled in the hot tub for a little bit.

got to alive mma before 5
coworker was like 'didn't think you were gonna show up'
and i started to lose my temper - this is the same guy that, a week earlier, told me he was going at 4, so I left work a half hour early, only to wait for him at the gym for a half hour.

tried to get him to do some simple stuff for his foot work - because he doesn't have the lower leg strength yet to do any of the kicking techniques & it's hampering his boxing.

the work out was jump rope 1 round, jumping jacks 1 round; repeat for 2 sets.
dude wouldn't even jump 10 consecutive jumps, or do more than 15 jumping jacks. every word out of his mouth was "i can't", "i'm sore", "how long does it take to stop hurting?".
He laid down after the first set of jumping jacks.
I know he was working out before I got there, but still.....

After those 4 rounds, we went to shadow for 3 rounds.
I let him do his own thing as kind of a "loosen up" kinda thing, with stretching during the breaks.
He acted like it was a marathon.

We were going to finish up with heavybag stations
20 push kicks each leg
40 continuous straight punches each arm
20 round kicks each leg (for speed)
20 skip knees each leg.

I doubled each set for myself and blew through all of them.
He'd barely gotten to the round kicks and he was totally halfassing it
I'm like "just go for speed not power"....
him: "i can't this is killing my leg"
me: "well you're not evening doing it right"....
him: (snapping at me in a really whiney voice) "i can't move my body like that!!"
i lost my cool
"we're done, forget about it, we're done" is all I said.
said it like 3 times and went back to my workout.
He left.

It's an attitude thing.
I would totally be cool with the guy if he had to go slow to stick it out.
If he didn't put any power on anything and just went slow to have good technique (like I've been asking him to).
Even if I got the sense he was trying, I'd be encouraging.
Throwing 2 kicks and giving up is not going to cut it with me.
Jumping over the jump rope 5 times and bleating like a baby calf doesn't fly with me either.
I've been through way too much.
I weigh more than this guy & had to struggle as much or more because of my messed up foot.
Things never came easy for me, but I don't ever remember having that attitude.
It was always "yes sir", "is this right? let me try again", "i know it's bad, i'm working on it, but I'll try harder sir", "I'm sorry it's not good enough yet, I'll do my best to make it better", or "sorry I'm slow, but I will finish".
Maybe this makes me a bad teacher, I don't know; but I don't know that I've seen any coach beg and plead with a trainee (especially a noob) who didn't want to be there.

Hate to say it but I hope he learns from this that I've got better things to do and if he's not going to put forth 110% effort, then I'm not going to waste my workout time

Oh yah, after that I went to the muay thai gym.
Kids MA class was going on so i didn't start till 7.
Worked hard during the workout, must've done 2 10-minute rounds of padwork.
He was burning me out the last half of the second one and I kinda gassed - stitch in my side and everything.
The burnout was vicious (think 10-20-10 on steroids).
We were supposed to clinch for 3 rounds after that and we ended up just doing semi-live clinch technique drills (ie start in double plum and fight out of it using a specific technique). Barely made it through the toned down version.
Finished with a lot of attack counter stuff (kinda like 1 step sparring).

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 2/17
Light workout yesterday at the mma gym; just enough to get a sweat going.
Long talk with the "problem child".
I think we're on the same page now.
Will probably have to mix it up with him - 1 day focusing more on technique, another focusing more on calisthenics.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday 2/18
Went to gold's after work.

45 min of elliptical crosstrainer.
kept my heart rate between 145 and 155 the whole time (with the occasional 157).
fingers were going numb by the end.
it was tough.

did power lifting type sets with assisted pullups.
Assist was at 16 pounds.
did 5 sets of 3
failed on a lot of the third reps
30 seconds rest on the first few sets, 1 minute rest before last 2 sets

had a protein shake after gold's - this made a lot of difference.

went to the muay thai gym early; around 5:40
Worked a guy on pads from 6 to 6:20
did my own workout from 7 to 9.
spent a LOT of time working technique today.
I was kicking pads for 30~45 minutes; but it was a lot of power shots at a bit more of a relaxed interval. I still didn't get tired & sleepy during the 2nd half of the workout.

this new schedule is interesting - feels like my weeks are spaced out a little better; I work with my coworkers mon, tues, thurs and double duty gold's and the muay thai gym monday, wednesday, friday, and saturday (if possible). it's thursday and eventhough I woke up late today, I don't feel like I"m falling apart.

protein shake made a ton of difference.
I was wired after class and even had a hard time getting to sleep.
tomorrow i will try to space my workouts out a little bit more - doing gold's earlier and drinking the protein earlier, so i don't have a hard time sleeping.
to offset the calories, the protein will take the place of my afternoon snack; plus I'll try to cut back a little on dinner.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 2/19
pretty good workout, eventhough it was supposed to be a "light" day.
jump rope, shadow, 4 cycles of 30 second sprint stations on 3 heavybags, 4 rounds of heavybag, 1 of slip bag, and 1 of double end
didn't kill it but was a lot more intense than tuesday.

[Pork Chop]

Friday 2/20
Woke up early today

went to gold's after work
sprint workout on the elliptical crosstrainer
20 minutes total
after a minute or two warm up,
i did 30 seconds on 30 seconds off
it was a hill interval - 2 minute hills, 2 minute valleys
half way through i started going as hard as i could on the hills & doing 1 or 2 sprints for 30 seconds during the valleys.
good workout, i was sweating buckets by the end.

moved on to t-bar row
45 x 20, 70 x 15, 90 x 10, 115 x 8
Was getting kinda tired, but felt stronger on this exercise than last time - could probably do 3 plates next time.

went home, drank a protein shake and passed out for almost 2 hours.

woke up and went to muay thai.
muay thai was another one of those days where you spend the entire day trying to fix stuff - at first it was my switch kick, then my round kick, followed by my knee, and finally my cross. little tiny details that change everything but are hard to correct because they've already become habit.
threw the switch kick for 30 min straight - my shin feels surprisingly sore.

had Mediterranean food tonight for dinner

[Pork Chop]

Saturday 2/21
finished out my 6th workout this week
did a lot of weight vest stuff today.
didn't spar; but the weight vest stuff kinda killed me.

[Pork Chop]

Monday 2/23
Kind of a cr@ppy day.
Workout wise it was okay:

golds for over an hour-
30 minutes, intense as I could manage elliptical crosstrainer; heart rate 150+ first 10 minutes, 160+ second 10 minutes, 170+ the last 10. Took a lot out of me.

kettlebells
1st super set - (heavy) black one - 30 left arm swings, 30 right arm swings, 50 double arm swings (this basically killed me).

2nd super set - (heavy) black one - 10 left, 10 right, 20 double

3rd super set - (slightly less heavy) green one - 10 clean & press left, 10 clean & press right

4th super set - black one - 10 clean & press left, 10 clean & press right

After that, I showered, went home, walked my dog and grabbed a protein shake.

Left for muay thai class 30 min early.
Class went well, lots of clinch work. Didn't get to work pads with the older kru, though he did try to fix my round kick a little bit. Worked a lot with the younger kru.

Realized that the protein shake must have a lot of caffeine.
Couldn't sleep till after 1:30.
Gonna cut out coffee and try to avoid the protein shake as much as possible.
Hip still flaring up, but at least the knee's a little better.
The rest of my day just sukked.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 2/24
Coach asked me to start coming early on tuesdays and/or thursdays so I could get an extra workout with nobody there.
I was gonna try yesterday but frankly, I just didn't have it in me.
Didn't sleep well Monday night.
Got to the mma gym late to help my coworker.
Did a very light workout - shadow for a few rounds & then held pads for 15~20 min.
Went home, cooked some italian (i seem to crave tomato sauce on Tuesday nights) and went to bed early.

Woke up late today, but still had some leftover hours from working on the holiday last week.

Found out this morning that they're going to deduct 300 from my paycheck this time for some accounting error last year. The hits just keep on comin....

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday 2/25
Good enough workout day that I'm still feeling it hours after finishing.

Just because Winter Palm asked, I'm going to go into great detail... :D

Gold's gym 2:45 till almost 4
45 min on cybex elliptical crosstrainer; resistance was 50%, incline grade 30%, averaged 150+ bpm heart rate & 90 rpms the first 15 minutes, 160+ bpm and around 100 rpm the next 15, and around 170 & 95 by the end. sweat buckets. kept alternating grips because my left shoulder was getting a little irritated.

had to cool down for a few minutes after that, it took a lot out.

moved over to assisted pull up machine.
20lb assist x 5 reps x 3 sets
did a couple no-assist pullups at the end but i was pretty burnt.

went back to work by 4:15
Worked till after 6

Got to the muay thai gym by 6:20 and started working out early.
10 min jump rope

5 jumping jacks + 1 burpee x 15 sets - while wearing the weight vest
15 lunges each leg - still wearing vest
25 squats - still vest
10 180 degree jump squats each direction - still vest
25 calf raises -still vest
50 high knees each side - still vest

shadow box for about 6 minutes - still wearing the vest

took off the vest and stretched out a tiny bit
before jumping in with the class

laps around the gym, broken up with calisthenics
5 reps each of: pushups, crunches, bicycles, leg lifts
more laps
10 reps ea of: pushups, crunches, bicycles, leg lifts
more laps
15 reps ea of: pushups, crunches, bicycles, leg lifts
more laps
20 reps ea of: pushups, crunches, bicycles, leg lifts

back to calisthenics:
10 reps of 5 jumping jacks + 1 burpee
13 lunges each leg
25 squats
25 calf raises
50 high knees
more stretching

bout a round or 2 of heavy bag

pad session with the older kru; around 2 continuous rounds straight through, was pretty done after that; kicking as hard as I can every shot, trying to have perfect form even on my stance between shots.

back on the heavybag for a round or two

3 rounds of clinch sparring with one guy who's mostly mma. good grappling endurance, if i had to guess I'd say he walks around over 185 and competes @ 170; taller than me though. it was tough, he was slick.

rest for a hot minute - thought I was done working out.

sparred a round with brad- a legit heavy, I was pretty gassed & basically his punching bag
sparred a couple more rounds with Sam - the guy who dropped me when I first started coming back; kicked me so hard with a side kick to the solar plexus I almost pooped myself- kept going till he re-aggravated a prior leg injury and had to stop. I was doing a lot better than that first round.

Went home and jumped on the scale to find I lost another pound - 226.8.

Having a hard time sleeping right now - might be my bed.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 2/26
Was a little late getting over to the mma gym and didn't see anybody there.
Just took the day for rest.
Whole body felt like I'd been in a car wreck, especially my neck.

Had a seared mahi sandwich for dinner, did my taxes, and went to bed kinda late.
Sleep was restful, though shorter than ideal- my wife and i switched sides of the bed.

[Pork Chop]

Friday 2/27
Not quite sure what happened today.
think it's a combination of a bunch of things.

haven't been sleeping well.
tax return was one of the smallest i've ever had this year.
my company is making me reimburse them $300 for an accounting error they made.
money's feeling extra tight and i got a baby on the way.
been reading baby books instead of my normal fiction/entertainment before bed.

had an eye doctor appointment this afternoon - left work a couple hours early.
Something about the appointment gave me the feeling of being off the hook.

Overall I feel bored and/or depressed, maybe a bit stressed out.

Bottom line, I had zero interest in going tonight and didn't go.
My body feels okay; little soreness, nothing terrible.
Mentally, just don't feel like doing anything.

hoping i feel better tomorrow.
if i don't, this will go down as my worst week lately- heck even if i do go, it may still be my worst yet.

normally when my head's like this, i get drunk.
sunday will be 2 months no alcohol, no smokes.

here's hoping tomorrow is a better day...

[WinterPalm]

Maybe you can reimburse them one penny per month.

[Pork Chop]

Maybe you can reimburse them one penny per month.

That would be funn :)
Nope, no payment options, no withholding it from my paycheck so at least i get a break on taxes, none of that stuff that plays to my favor at all - just "give us a check for 300 bux"....and they wonder why they're losing some of their best people...

Still in that funk.
Just going to let it play itself out this weekend and charge it on monday.
Just gotta find something to do this weekend to take my mind off of everything; something that doesn't include drinking or binge eating.

[Pork Chop]

Sun 3/1
Spent the day prepping for he|| week - ie the 2nd to last week before my smoker & the hardest week of training before a fight.

I think I got my mind out of the funk & the 4 days of rest have helped my body feel a lot fresher.

Prepped all my lunches for the week, did laundary & have clothes ready for tomorrow, even picked up Rocky 6 (Rocky Balboa) and watched it to get my motivation back. Lotsa good lines in that one, pretty good message.

[WinterPalm]

Good luck on the smoker. I've got two weeks left of hard training before I'm fighting San Shou. They joys of being in the gym...

[Pork Chop]

Thanks, good luck to you too. :)

Mon 3/2
he|| week got started off pretty good.
Was up around 5:45 to work out at Gold's.

Did 30 min on the elliptical.
first 10 minutes was a motivated warm up
Then I did 3 rounds of "sprints" - not true sprints, but 3 minutes of hard as I could go with 1 minute rests.
Finished out the end at a medium-high pace.

moved over to T-Bar row
70lbs on the bar x 20, 90 x 15, 115 x 10, 135 x 8

Went to work and felt totally energized till around 1 or 2 in the afternoon; started getting sleepy.

After work, went to the mma gym.
Lots of calisthenics
2 rounds of shadow
3 rounds of jump rope
then held pads for the last 30 min or so.

cruised on over to the muay thai gym for jump rope followed by calisthenics & shadow boxing with the weight vest before class got started.
class went pretty well, too many people to do sparring, but at least got some technique work & some good pad work in.

slept okay

Tuesday 3/3 - am
Woke up before my alarm this morning, before 5:30.
headed over to gold's.
Turned in a 45 minute cardio session from he||.
Calorie counts on those things don't carry much weight with most people, so i'll quantify it by saying my shirt was soaked, I was out of breath, my fingers were numb & stayed numb until I'd completed 3 laps walking around the gym. Called it a workout after that. Was considering kettlebells, but 45 min just takes too much out of me. Think I'll stick to 20 ~ 30 on weight days.

Not feeling quite as energetic today after the morning workout - feeling kinda achey.
Started coughing up interesting stuff yesterday - wondering if it's new parts of my lungs that have finally healed from the damage I've caused.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 3/3 pm

After work I headed to the mma gym.
Did a lot of stretching, a good amount of shadow, and a lot of bag work (mainly burnout stations and some double end).

got to the muay thai gym by 6:15
the highlights of the workout were lots of rounds of focus mitts & thai pads with defenses mixed in.
I was pretty burnt afterwards.

Tuesday wasn't calisthenic heavy - skipped my pushup-crunch-bicycle-leg lift-jump squat complex in both evening workouts (not exactly intentional) and I didn't do any lifting in the morning workout. This might turn out to have been a good thing. While I slept in this morning (wednesday) instead of a 6am workout, because I needed sleep, I don't feel quite as dead as I was expecting. It's still early in the week though and I have a lot of workouts left to survive, not even half way.

EDIT: the weight was down at 226.8 last night before dinner and down even further at 226.6 this morning on waking up, for a new pr.

[Pork Chop]

Wed 3/4
Having a hard time getting to bed so I'm gonna blog.
Made it through the half way point.
One minor casualty though; get to that in a sec.

Gold's at lunch
30 min on the elliptical crosstrainer
kept alternating every 2 minutes between high resistance + med speed and med resistance + high speed. Good workout.

Was a bit burnt when i got to kettlebells.
2 supersets of:
10 swings right, 10 clean & press right, 10 swings left, 10 clean & press left, 20 swing both
On the second one, transitioning from the right to the left, i felt something tweak in my lower back. Was going to do a 3rd superset, but the pain was getting worse and I called it a day.

after work I went to the muay thai gym.
sparring, pad work, the works.
Did shadow in the vest, but not much more in order to take it easy on my back - the weight vest puts a lot of strain on my back.

Right now the pain is enough to be annoying and to keep me from being able to sleep, but I wouldn't call it "agony" - probably thanks to the 2 Alieve I popped. Wish I could sleep though.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 3/5
One of the weirdest effing days of my life.
The strangest part might be that I'm actually grateful.

Came in to work and found out 2 of my buddies were getting laid off - they'd been having some issues for a while, so while it's sad, it wasn't completely unexpected.
One of them's been my main training partner since last fall; so I really hope things work out for him.

Tried to go to the gym at lunch, but got in a car accident.
It was the other guy's fault and my car's not too bad, so it wasn't the end of the world.
What almost gave me a heart attack was the fact that I hadn't printed off my new insurance cards and my wallet was still back at work.
Luckily the cop was nice to me.
Felt bad for the other guy, he was just coming from his send-off luncheon after getting laid off.
Nice guy though, hope he's able to find something better.

Work went weird. I didn't get the email to start working on something for Tuesday until Wednesday. Eventhough I was late, I still plugged away at it; when I did have an opportunity to just blow it off. The plugging away should've just been an exercise in following procedures but I actually found something that needed to be fixed. While fixing it is kind of a p.i.t.a. I'm glad I didn't take the lazy route for once.

After work went to the mma gym.
Started out with a lot of light cardio, footwork drills, and stretching.
It was hot & stuffy in there; eventhough outside was very comfortable.
Made it difficult to work out with intensity.
One of the guys that always hits the bags around our time wanted to jump in on our pad work, which was pretty cool - alternated rounds between him and my coworker.

As soon as we finished the workout another coworker who was going to meet me at the muay thai gym called to tell me that the coach was sick and that it's closed.
I drove over there anyway to see it for myself - took some pics with my cell phone, might post 'em.
He waited for me to show up, so we hung out and BSed for a while.

Then I took off for Gold's gym for the cardio workout I was trying to do that afternoon.
30 minutes of cardio.
Felt like I was stuck in 2nd gear - not in the sense of being sluggish, but in the sense that maintaining my normal pace & intensity felt like an all-out war.
Sweat buckets.
Was spent afterwards, so I showered up and headed out.
Saw Aaron Rosa (http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Aaron-Rosa-15129) at the front counter of the gym, while I was talking to one of the guys from muay thai. He used to work out at the muay thai gym when we had Mike Rangel's mma class there. He even got started under my muay thai coach before going mma. He was close with the guy I was talking to, don't think he remembered me too much. I'm closer with his friend Marcel (http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Marcelo-Lumakang-23940) (that record's not complete - he has won a few (http://knowpain.us/marcel.html)).

Went home and my wife; who normally works 1 to 2 hours overtime, was 3 hours late due to a difficult patient. Got home around 8 and by around 9:30 I was sick of waiting for her and basically delirious from hunger & exhaustion. Picked up some chicken wings & strips with fries. Not my most nutritious meal ever, but I didn't pig out on the scale that I've done in the past. It surprised me that I got really full pretty quick.

I weighed in at 225 when I got home from the gym. This morning; after the buffalo chicken strips and some seasoned fries (not a whole lot), I was back up to 227 - sodium making me retain water, not too big a deal.

I'm very grateful to have made it through yesterday, safe and sound.

[Pork Chop]

Friday 3/6
had an eye doctor's appointment in the afternoon so i went into work early.

went to gold's around 3
20 min of cardio - including 4 rounds of 3 min "sprints"
did assisted pullups to failure - 10 @ 10 plates of assist, 8 @ 9 plates, 6 @ 8 plates, 5 @ 7 plates, 3 @ 6 plates - just burnt.

Got to the muay thai gym around 6
lots of everything, except maybe sparring - finished out with clinch instead.
complete burnout session

[Pork Chop]

Saturday 3/7
finished out he|| week with a nice, vigorous workout.
Didn't completely die - worked with a newer guy on thai pads for a long time, picked up some more tips on certain things, we worked some more punching defense. Finished out with the sledgehammer stuff on the slam ball.

Hit up some Thai food after the gym and wanted to go to Gold's after but just didn't have time.
We went to a MMA event that night and didn't even get to eat dinner.
Left the mma event early coz the striking was pretty atrocious and I was so hungry I was getting woozy.
Ate some Korean food and went to bed.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 3/10
Got back on the horse today.
Took monday off because after a 6-day week, 1 day off wasn't gonna cut it.
Still felt a little worn out today, so even one more day wouldn't have hurt.

Gold's after work around 5
30 min of cardio - pretty low intensity
assisted pullups - 100lb assist x 20, 80lb assist x 15, 60lb x 10, 50lb x 6, 40lb x 5, 30lb x 3, 20lb x 2 (the assist got stuck so the second one was basically no assist).

Muay thai gym after that 6 to 8:45
jumped rope for 10 min
lotsa calisthenics - without the weight vest, they were almost easy.
jogging with more calisthenics
held focus mitts for about 10 min
hit focus mitts for 15 to 20 min
held thai pads 3 rounds
hit thai pads for a round and a half - had to cut it short coz it was Gabbie's birthday and we had a cake for her.
finished up with defense drills for punches, teeps, and roundkicks

pretty good workout, it was very humid and a bit hot so it took a lot out of me.
back down at 224 tonight too - even though my diet hasn't been great lately.

[Pork Chop]

Wed 3/11 was my LDS day.
Everything was pretty much low intensity to keep my cardio up and get my blood flowing to heal up as much as possible.

45 min of very low intensity on the elliptical - heart rate didn't get up to 130

went to the gym after that
10 min of jump rope
10 min of stretching
1 hour of shadow boxing
5 min of jumping on the tire

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 3/12
Did more than I should've today.
Got the thai pads & belly pad I ordered in today so i was stoked about that.
Turns out I might've overpaid by 10 or 20 bux, but o well.

worked out at mma gym after work
lots of light cardio, some calisthenics, stretching & technique/shadow.
supervised my coworkers through partner drills after that
total time was an hour and a half

went over to the muay thai gym
didn't even bring workout clothes
held pads for about 5 rounds

came home and got real grumpy
ticked off right now and not sure why.

[Pork Chop]

Friday 3/13
went to a coworker's going away party after work.
ended up being a late lunch - iced tea (unsweet) turned out to be a mistake.
then hit the gym hoping to kick the new pads, but the other coach wasn't there.
ended up doing a bunch of shadow and some solid clinch work.
came home, tried to rest and relax as much as i could
did some meditation
sleep didn't come easy
wife having to wake up at 5:30 didn't help
woke up hungry but nauseous
just ate a bowl of cereal, gonna try to take a nap before heading over in 4 or 5 hours.
nerves s*ck.

[Pork Chop]

Saturday 3/14
After all that training, all that nervousness, i still can't believe how it turned out.
Only one other gym showed up to our interclub event.
There wasn't really anybody to spar with.

I ended up getting paired with one of our rising stars - a young girl that can't get a fight in Texas because she's got so many knockouts. She's been doing this stuff for years and is in the process of applying for that Fight Girls show with Master Toddy.

D@mned if ya do, d@mned if you don't kinda situation.
Nobody else wanted to do it either, which says something.

She hits real hard and tries to go for the kill, any small slip and she'll make you pay for it.

I didn't pitch a shut out, but I did get complemented by a lot of people for how I walked that fine line between protecting yourself & being a bully. Had a little bit of a hard time dealing with her Superman punch - she caught me with it a couple times.

Overall, I just feel kinda disappointed and depressed.
Going to get back on the horse monday, switching up my routine a little bit to incorporate some periodization so i don't get stale the next 4 months.
Man I miss beer.

[Pork Chop]

Sunday 3/15
Fun relax day today at Gold's
Did 2 rotations of a little circuit:
Sauna - cool shower - pool - jacuzzi - cool shower
My whole left leg's been having issues and today helped it feel a bit better.

[Pork Chop]

Wed 3/18
Finally made it back to the gym yesterday after a few days of feeling very burnt out.
Good workout, not too easy, but not too crazy.
Gained like 10 pounds in the 2 days I took off.
The sweat from the workout dropped me back down to 5 over, but I really don't get it.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Get what Bro?

[Pork Chop]

Get what Bro?

oh i just don't get how my weight can fluctuate *that* much.
I was 224 Saturday morning after breakfast, with no real sweat going.
I was 233 yesterday at the beginning of the workout, 229 by the end.

My mantra thus far has been not to obsess over the weight - to just focus on being able to do crazy things in the gym, and it's done me well; but Saturday the one guy that showed up from outside our gym was 191. Couldn't go up against him coz of the 30lb weight difference. I'd like to get under 200 without any crazy dieting. I think I just gotta stay focused on getting the work done in the gym.

My usual training partner (said yesterday he's 6'3.5") weighed in at 210 on saturday and was down to 185 earlier this week. He was back up to 212 yesterday; which is kind of a relief, the idea of him fighting at 185 is scary. lol One of the other guys I work with is exactly 6 foot and weighed in at 245 yesterday, he'd probably be pretty cut at 225; he's real strong too.

The next 4 to 6 weeks will be focusing on raw strength so I imagine my weight's not going to be too cooperative.

Got another interclub May 16th and I might possibly have a spot on a local card in June, July's still my main goal.

[sanjuro_ronin]

oh i just don't get how my weight can fluctuate *that* much.
I was 224 Saturday morning after breakfast, with no real sweat going.
I was 233 yesterday at the beginning of the workout, 229 by the end.

My mantra thus far has been not to obsess over the weight - to just focus on being able to do crazy things in the gym, and it's done me well; but Saturday the one guy that showed up from outside our gym was 191. Couldn't go up against him coz of the 30lb weight difference. I'd like to get under 200 without any crazy dieting. I think I just gotta stay focused on getting the work done in the gym.

My usual training partner (said yesterday he's 6'3.5") weighed in at 210 on saturday and was down to 185 earlier this week. He was back up to 212 yesterday; which is kind of a relief, the idea of him fighting at 185 is scary. lol One of the other guys I work with is exactly 6 foot and weighed in at 245 yesterday, he'd probably be pretty cut at 225; he's real strong too.

The next 4 to 6 weeks will be focusing on raw strength so I imagine my weight's not going to be too cooperative.

Got another interclub May 16th and I might possibly have a spot on a local card in June, July's still my main goal.

We all have a natural BW, a weight that we maintain WITHOUT dieting, exercise or eating like a pig.
That should be our goal.
It will fluctuate as we age and such, but that is to be expected.
But, if your weight is all over in a space of hours, it may will be just your scale.
:p

[Pork Chop]

We all have a natural BW, a weight that we maintain WITHOUT dieting, exercise or eating like a pig.
That should be our goal.
It will fluctuate as we age and such, but that is to be expected.
But, if your weight is all over in a space of hours, it may will be just your scale.
:p

Good point about the scale.
I thought 224 was low on Saturday just like I think 233 was high yesterday.
My home scale's a lot more reliable.

When I'm eating normal (ie moderation - not too much bad, not too much good) & not killing myself in the gym, for the last 2 or 3 years my weight is pretty stable in the low 230s.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 3/19
mma gym yesterday for a lot of bag work - even got in some slip bag and double end bag rounds.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Good point about the scale.
I thought 224 was low on Saturday just like I think 233 was high yesterday.
My home scale's a lot more reliable.

When I'm eating normal (ie moderation - not too much bad, not too much good) & not killing myself in the gym, for the last 2 or 3 years my weight is pretty stable in the low 230s.

If your weight is stable in the 230's you will have to accept that, regardless of what you do in terms of diet and exercise, it will creep up there when you stop for whatever reason.
So don't beat yourself too much when it happens.
Besides, on some people their weight can fluctuate quite a bit from the tiem they wake up to the time they go to sleep.
anywhere from 5 to 8 lbs in some cases.

[Pork Chop]

Friday 3/20
Had a good workout Friday night.
Got to class early and worked hard.
Finally got to kick the new pads - unfortunately they're tearing up my kru's arms real bad so someone's gonna have to get him some others.
ended the night sparring with no shin guards - kinda got sloppy but not too terrible.

Weight was down at 223 by the time I got home - it was hardly what i'd call a killer workout and I wasn't completely sweat-out either...

[Pork Chop]

So Saturday my dog had a vet appointment.
Sunday there was no workout
and Monday I got my eyes dilated, so I couldn't see.
The good news, my eyes are officially 100%, she checked for the damage I incurred in 2005 and it has completely healed!!!!

Tuesday 3/24
My first big workout day in a while, probably since the week before the fight.

At Gold's
10 minutes of tough cardio - like 90% max
Assisted pullups - 10 plates (38lb assist) x 8, 8 plates (30lb assist) x 8, 8 plate x 8
Deadlifts (tried to do traditional) - 135lbs x 8, 225 x 8, 225 x 8

At the mma gym
lots of calisthenics for the first half
lots of partner/technique work for the second half

At muay thai
didn't get there too early so not a lot of extra time, but did manage to sneak in some hard core calisthenics with the weight vest before everyone else finished jumping rope.
shadow & technique work with a newbie
3 absolutely killer rounds on pad work - my rear/left kick didn't feel powerful at all, my switch actually seemed a lot harder
finished up with 2 rounds of pretty hard sparring with my 6'3 friend, got a bloody nose, was the first time i'd been popped good in the face in a while.

Overall, a hot day, so I was even cramping up by the muay thai gym.
I was in survival mode most of the sparring, made a few tactical errors, but overall I think it was a decent accounting of myself. It wasn't easy, I feel like I've got some stuff to work on so i feel like it's part of the improvement process.

[Pork Chop]

Wow this thing's out of date.

Wednesday 3/25
had an old man day just took it easy

thursday 3/26
4 workout day

30 min of cardio in the morning

at lunch went to golds:
10 min on the elliptical, warmed up for 2 minutes, then did 6 rounds of tabatas (20s on 10s off), 1 min active rest, then 6 more rounds and cooled down for a minute.
squats - 135 x 8, 185 x 8, 185 x 8 - 185 was pretty difficult and i was exhausted, 3rd set easier tho
overhead press - 95 x 8, 105 x 8, 105 x 8 again, 2nd set probably worst

went to mma gym to workout, good amount of calisthenics, stretching, & bag work for about an hour

went over to the muay thai gym, traffic was bad so i got there a little later than usual, still did extra stuff at the beginning with the weight vest. by the end of class, i was starting to fade REALLY bad (I blame part of it on the 13 y/o kid i was stuck working with, became frustrated & unmotivated). Stopped working out at 8:30.

Friday 3/27
Legs RIDICULOUSLY sore from the squats.
Mixing weights back in is really messing me up.
Heavybag came in but UPS made me pick it up, wasted from 7:30 to 9:30 going to get it.
No chance to work out.

Saturday 3/28
Still real sore.
Could barely even kick.
Went to muay thai gym for a workout - did weight vest & medicine ball stuff, but took it easy on my legs. Finished up with a bunch of rounds of boxing padwork.
Had trouble with following combo, (l = lead, r = rear):
jab - l hook - l upper - cross - l upper - r hook - l hook

Sunday 3/29
Rested - did housework, shopping, and went to the movies.
Walked my dog 3 times.

[Pork Chop]

Monday 3/30
went to the mma gym after work - did lots of calisthenics.

muay thai gym after that - more calisthenics.
spent the second half of class working with this new guy.
kind of a cr@ppy workout.
after class was over, this pro mma guy kept boxing sparring with folks.
he's kind of a bully, he hurt one of the guys i train with and when the guy was shelled up, he threw like a 20 hit combo, like he was trying to finish him.
something about it really bothered me.
i told him "i don't react well to people trying to run me over, so better josh than me. i end up getting angry, not in the sense of making mistakes, but in the sense of not being friendly no more".
I didn't mean it to be threatening, but in retrospect it probably was.
He responded with "I was going light on him", to which everyone there replied "no, you didn't".
Part of me does want to hurt the guy on general principle.
He's a nice guy usually but he's taking out his divorce issues on people in the ring.
Not a huge fan of hard sparring all the time - once in a while's okay; but i'm definitely not a fan of people that try to hurt their partners.
It's a real boxing attitude maintained by folks that hang their reps on their gym battles and doesn't really lend itself to having a long career.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Monday 3/30
went to the mma gym after work - did lots of calisthenics.

muay thai gym after that - more calisthenics.
spent the second half of class working with this new guy.
kind of a cr@ppy workout.
after class was over, this pro mma guy kept boxing sparring with folks.
he's kind of a bully, he hurt one of the guys i train with and when the guy was shelled up, he threw like a 20 hit combo, like he was trying to finish him.
something about it really bothered me.
i told him "i don't react well to people trying to run me over, so better josh than me. i end up getting angry, not in the sense of making mistakes, but in the sense of not being friendly no more".
I didn't mean it to be threatening, but in retrospect it probably was.
He responded with "I was going light on him", to which everyone there replied "no, you didn't".
Part of me does want to hurt the guy on general principle.
He's a nice guy usually but he's taking out his divorce issues on people in the ring.
Not a huge fan of hard sparring all the time - once in a while's okay; but i'm definitely not a fan of people that try to hurt their partners.
It's a real boxing attitude maintained by folks that hang their reps on their gym battles and doesn't really lend itself to having a long career.

Sometimes people "confuse" sparring with "fighting".
Sometimes people confuse "hard" contact with "full" contact.
Sometimes some people are just asses.
When I was younger I used to like those people, they made a nice sound when you left hooked their liver...
As I got older I realized that I don't care much for people that take aways the fun of training from other people.
I tend to make things for easy on anyone I Spar, I do it for fun, if someone wants to go hard I just tell them to think wither they wanna go hard or not, if they answer with the "its how I roll", I Knock them out or I get knocked out, either way, it will cost them cause, even when I lose, I take a piece of you with me, that I promise.

[Pork Chop]

I tend to make things for easy on anyone I Spar, I do it for fun, if someone wants to go hard I just tell them to think wither they wanna go hard or not, if they answer with the "its how I roll", I Knock them out or I get knocked out, either way, it will cost them cause, even when I lose, I take a piece of you with me, that I promise.

That's kinda my mentality as well.
I wanted my buddy to just dig in and fire back - coz at least if he went down, he'd go down swinging, instead of just being beat on, nonstop when he was shelled up.

One of the unfortunate side effects of the conversation we were having afterward is that i think at least one of my normal partners has it in his head that he needs to turn up the heat on me now; which means I'll probably have to "earn my stripes" again....
Argh...
by the 5th time you go through this type of stuff it just gets old.
I don't want to be like one of those fighters from Kronk gym that goes to war every week and sounds like mushmouth before he's 45.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Yo...Adrian...

[Pork Chop]

holy cr@p
i just found out the dude was wearing fight gloves:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000L81GK4/ref=asc_df_B000L81GK4757598?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&tag=shopzilla_rev_30-20&linkCode=asn

[sanjuro_ronin]

What did the coach/head instructor have to say about this?

Playing devils advocate though, you go into a gym that trains fighters and you step into the "ring" with one, well...they always tend to have "heavy hands"...

[Pork Chop]

What did the coach/head instructor have to say about this?

Playing devils advocate though, you go into a gym that trains fighters and you step into the "ring" with one, well...they always tend to have "heavy hands"...

They waited till after the coach was gone to start sparring (never a good idea in my experience).

Yes, sh!t happens when you spar. But the key is what do people do when it happens. If one guy shells up and is obviously not a threat, is the other guy justified in wailing away at him - in my opinion no, unless he'd done something egregious to begin with.

[Pork Chop]

Tues 3/31
went to gold's at lunch for 30 min of cardio

night time went to the muay thai gym an hour early and worked hard straight through.
afterwards i was down at 221, a new record.
had japanese steak and salad afterwards.

talked that issue with that sparring session over with my coach - said i wasn't trying to rat anyone out, but that the whole thing just didn't make any sense to me, and was my understanding of training for a fight wrong. I didn't understand one guy putting his body through that with very little to gain, i didn't understand the other guy teeing off on someone that wasn't even a challenge. The Thai mentality is not big on hard sparring sessions - if they're gonna get hurt doing something they're going to get paid for it (or at the very least add to their amateur record). That fits a lot more with my personality. Hard sparring once in a while is okay as long as it's competitive (and supervised). so it kinda eased my mind a bit.

[sanjuro_ronin]

talked that issue with that sparring session over with my coach - said i wasn't trying to rat anyone out, but that the whole thing just didn't make any sense to me, and was my understanding of training for a fight wrong. I didn't understand one guy putting his body through that with very little to gain, i didn't understand the other guy teeing off on someone that wasn't even a challenge. The Thai mentality is not big on hard sparring sessions - if they're gonna get hurt doing something they're going to get paid for it (or at the very least add to their amateur record). That fits a lot more with my personality. Hard sparring once in a while is okay as long as it's competitive (and supervised). so it kinda eased my mind a bit.

Yeah, most striking contact sports try not to spar too hard ( though it still is hard), no use in getting hurt in training.
Nevertheless, some guys just spar hard ( in relative terms) all the time, it was a common stay in my and most Kyokushin dojos I went too.
Granted I was never that big a fan of it either, especially since it tended to be bare knuckle and to me 2x a week or even once a week of hard sparring was enough.
I think that for some people, hard and hard enough is not easy to grasp.
In sparring you must hit hard enough to keep it TRUE, but not so hard that anyone gets hurt.
A fine line.
Then again, some guys are just *******s.

[WinterPalm]

I prefer mediumish sparring for the most part. Hard hits to the body and legs and light-medium to the head.
I think it's the mentality that changes things. When I spar, unless it's training for a fight, then I'm always working on new things and modifying others...just generally trying to get better at my weaknesses.
I never see the need to whallop guys who are beginners. Sparring is a back and forth kind of thing where you aren't trying to kill the guy. You're trying to learn and let him work as well.

Training for a fight usually means you spar hard and with people who understand this and are going to give you some serious work...otherwise you're a d ick in my opinion.

I like maybe once a month, if there's no competition coming up, to spar hard...otherwise keep it technical and less intense.

[Pork Chop]

I think it's a boxing thing.
In a lot of boxing gyms the sparring's looked at like a competition.
Everyone's trying to be the baddest mother in the gym.
This isn't every boxing gym, good boxing gyms have coach supervision, and what I consider "constructive" sparring (which is the type of sparring you guys describe).
I notice a lot of mma guys have this mentality as well - i think because they can roll 100% in class with limited worry of injury.

When these type of guys show up at the gym in decent numbers, it's easy to forget what I already know and get caught up in the whole "I'd rather get knocked out in training than get knocked out in the ring, coz I can't know how I'll do in the ring if someone doesn't try to knock me out in sparring" mentality. They also tend to imply you're not training hard enough if you don't buy into it.

I've said it a bunch of times, there are certain guys I can go hard with at my gym. We're friends & we can put a little somethin-somethin on it without worrying about it getting out of hand, because as far as ability goes, we're in the same ball park. They push me to work harder, I push them to work harder. But at the end of the day, we don't keep tabs on who "won", it's all about our own performance and what we need to work on. I feel lucky to have found these guys and I think one reason I was so ticked at that pro was because he was beating up on one of my buddies.

[Pork Chop]

Wed April 1
gold's at lunch
10 min warm up on elliptical crosstrainer
squat - 135 x 8, 155 x 8, 155 x 8
deadlift - 155 x 8, 185 x 8, 225 x 8
overhead press - 95 lbs x 8 reps x 3 sets
assisted pullup - 8 plates (30lb assist) x 8 reps x 3 sets

night time hit up the muay thai gym
no weight vest workout today
hit the heavybag for about 20 min when i first got there.
spent the evening working on clinch, after going with all 4 guys and 1 dude twice, i felt that i tweaked something in my neck
skipped the light sparring for some slow shadow boxing
finished up with chin ups to failure (like 10 sets or something)

[Pork Chop]

Sat 4/4
More of a mental day than a physical day
just did a few rounds on the heavybag
my buddy from the gym's a trainer and sat down with me and fixed each meal of my diet
In the evening, had a play sparring match at a muay thai demo for songkran (thai new year).

Mon 4/6
Golds in the afternoon for 30 min of cardio
MMA gym after work for tons of calisthenics
Muay thai gym in the evening for a lot of weight vest calisthenics and partner work.
Tried out the new diet today - don't think I drank enough water, wasn't sweating much, had kinda hot flash feelings, constantly thirsty. Energy levels were weird, more energy, but able to burn out quicker because I could maintain a higher intensity, recovery much better.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 4/7
Solid day.
Gold's for 30 min of cardio at lunch.
Got to the muay thai gym an hour early and did a lot of weight vest stuff - remembered chinups today.
spent the last hour going over attack-counter techniques with a new guy, finished up at the end with some one step sparring.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday 4/8
Rough day.
freakin exhausted.
weights went okay but the evening workout made me feel like an arthritic old man.

gold's at lunch:
10 min of high intensity cardio on the elliptical crosstrainer
squats - 155 x 8, 175 x 8, 185 x 8
deadlift - 185 x 8, 225 x 8, 225 x 8
overhead press - 105 x 8, 105 x 8, 95 x 8
assisted pullup 8 plates (40lbs) x 8, 7 plates (34lbs) x 8, 6 plates (28lbs) x 8

My feet are all bruised up as a couple of the guys I've been working with lately aren't my normal partners and both have had the cute idea of cutting out my feet and ankles when we're doing shin checking stuff. The effect is very similar to a sprained ankle. Coupled with my sore Achilles tendon on my left, jumping rope was unpleasant to say the least.

Pulled something in my neck again during the afternoon workout too.

Good thing today's my rest day.

[Pork Chop]

Friday 4/10
Killer bag workout for like 2 hours
was dead after, asleep on my feet

Saturday 4/11
Taught a mma guy at the muay thai gym
worked clinch with him for half an hour - he was like a monkey swinging off my neck.
did around 5 vicious rounds of pad work.
didn't do my vest & slam ball stuff today; so that kinda stunk.
found out i'm not sparring my normal training partner tomorrow - i guess in an attempt to be more exciting? the way the coach put it, it was like he didn't think i could hang with my training partner, to which i can only shrug and say "whatever".

[Pork Chop]

Okay so the training partner the coach thought I couldn't hang with broke my rib, but i finished the bout and had a solid accounting of myself.

Been resting up the rib the past couple weeks.
Hit the gym last monday (the 21st) but mostly just held pads.

Mon Apr 27
Was my return to Gold's gym
30 min of cardio at a fast clip, but low resistance setting.
Was suffering 15 minutes into it, but gutted it out.
The plan right now is to hit Gold's every day and build up as I can.
I refuse to lose all the gains I've made this year.
No impact cardio for now - i can't handle jumping or hitting a heavybag.
I may start slowly incorporating lifting, starting off light.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 4/28
another day at gold's
50 min of cardio; everything but the last 5 minutes was high heartrate/high intensity, spent a lot of time at 189 bpm
finished up with calf raises working up to 235lbs
came home, still under 225lbs; few weeks of this cardio and I should be in a good place.