Pork Chop's latest workout blog

[Pork Chop]

Background
Been a while since doing one of these things.
I think I did try another workout blog in the last year or two but it never took off.

For the last 2 years I've been very busy with school, family, and work.
I have been able to hit fitness gyms with some consistency but martial arts have been another story: I would start training again regularly during breaks between semesters and as soon as class projects started getting busy, I would just stop going.

The times I did try to train martial arts, it was mostly solo training at one of two gyms.
The first gym was partly owned by a friend of mine, who was eventually bought out.
Eventhough, I'd been going there for years before i started school, I still hate the vibe there.

The second gym was right across the street from work and is free, but the aerobics room with the heavybag is constantly locked for other things like military PT sessions, dance classes, and people watching P90x dvds. I could never train there consistently because I never knew if the room was available. Instead, I would just lift weights and do cardio. I didn't record any of those fitness workouts (or the 120 trips to Gold's in 2009) in a blog because I was already tracking them in a notebook.

I am about to start the last semester of my master's and should be finished in December.
My kid's 2 now and is a lot more self-sufficient.
I changed jobs last November and am doing a lot better financially & job satisfaction.
I'm finally finding a little more time to myself these days.
I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

As for my diet, I did well the first half of last year, dropping down into the 220s with weight watchers. Eventually, they cancelled my Friday morning meetings, school really started getting in the way, work was making me a basket case, and I just gave up. I started drinking pretty heavily and packed all the weight that I'd lost back on.

It's not all bad though. I got a new, better job, I've been able to cut back on the drinking, and I did actually see some significant strength gains from my weight workouts. Still, my weight is unacceptably high.

Suntzu came to visit about a month ago and helped me realize that I need to get back on track. I'd like to shoot for one more attempt at gaining some in-ring experience.
At the very least, I know that there's a huge gap in my life when I'm not training for something (whether real or imaginary) and that I really need to make some serious changes. Having a family shouldn't mean giving up my passions. My health may depend on establishing a good training habit that I maintain for as long as I'm able.

Instead of waiting until I'm done with school in January to start committing to working out consistently again; I want to start making the baby steps now, so that I can hit the ground running in January.

My Goals
I want to weigh under 200
I want my endurance back
I want my technique back
I want to get in the ring once more
I'd like to bench over 200
I'd like to squat over 300
I'd like to be able to do 10 chinups un-assisted

Lessons Learned

1. Crazy diets don't work. When I try to force myself to eat food that I don't want to eat, I get nauseous. The only thing that's kind of worked the last few years is portion control with weight watchers. I'll be starting that again tomorrow morning. I tried protein shakes, fruit & veggie juicing, and harsh diet restrictions; all of them made me sick in the end. Vitamins and nutrients are important; so is food that doesn't make me vomit.

2. Running is overrated. I always hated running before, but had this secret thought that it was necessary for uber-endurance & weight loss. From June til August, I ran 3 times a week on average and worked up to 3 miles a shot. When I stopped, I didn't have that much trouble making it the 3 miles; but my back, my hips, my knees, and my feet hurt constantly. Cardio-vascular-wise there was almost no impact. I would barely be breathing hard. I ran as fast and far as my joints would let me. In the end, it just wasn't worth it: I didn't lose any weight, it really didn't do much for my cardio or endurance, and it hurt all the time. I've gotten much better results from the elliptical crosstrainer - which upped my endurance, my cardio, and was more likely to help me drop weight.

3. Weight lifting may be counter-productive. I know some of my goals are strength-related; but a body building routine is not going to cut it for getting back in shape.

4. I miss martial arts. I miss having a coach. I miss the camaraderie of a good gym. I miss aspiring to fight. I miss honing techniques.

5. Easy does it. This should be #1, but I've learned this lesson so many times, it's not really new. I have to work on consistency and slowly building up to my goals. Jumping in full bore might work for teenagers, but by the time you're in your mid 30s and in as bad of shape as I'm in, it's a recipe for disaster. If I'm feeling like cr@p some day, it's time to take the day off. Don't need to schedule 5 days a week till my body can handle 5 days a week. Slow and steady will win this race. Even though I want to fight again, I need to establish good, sustainable habits. This about good life habits, not an 8 week bootcamp.

6. Sleep is important. Trying to get less than 8 hours when I'm hitting the gym is not going to cut it.

7. Balance. I can be more than casual, but I have enough responsibilities right now that I can't completely become a monk for this stuff any more. Not only that, but I like other things besides fighting (always have, really). I'm going to need days where I study Japanese or computer stuff. I'm going to need the occasional weekend at the river.

8. Remember my motivations. Gotta remember my goals and what I'm shooting for. That's why I like putting my goals at the start of these blogs.

9. Take advice with a grain of salt. Some people just give bad advice. There's a big part of me that wants to earn peoples' respect, so I'll abandon my plan in order to do what they're convinced is right. Need to have that faith in myself to trust that maybe I'm doing what I'm doing for a reason. It's okay to hear someone's advice & consider it, but I don't need to run out and change all my stuff up because they think things should be done a certain way.

10. Just keep getting back up. Fall 7 times, get up 8. Setbacks are going to happen. Failure is when you throw in the towel and give up when faced with hardship.

THE METHOD
1. Diet Going back to weight watchers to get some education in proper portion control. Food is probably going to follow the new food pyramid with fruits & veggies at the bottom (ie the largest & most basic portion of my diet).

2. Technique Until I'm done with school, I'm going to be training muay thai somewhat casually on Fridays. The main reason for this is because I find that the muay thai gym is best for technique, but maybe not the best for the conditioning I'm looking for right now.

3. Conditioning I joined the local Krav Maga gym. (http://krav-maga-san-antonio.com/) I went to check it out because Suntzu may be working there; but the biggest reason I joined is that this gym has some really good fitness classes. They have a cross fit-like class (cross fitness), they have a kettlebell class, they have a heavybag class in a room full of like 100 heavybags (I almost needed a change of pants when I saw it), they have heated yoga, and the Krav Maga classes themselves are pretty cool (they eventually get to shoot stuff). The classes tend to get your heart rate up very high and keep it there for about an hour. Nowhere near as monotonous as the elliptical crosstrainer, and probably even burns more calories.

SCHEDULE
Note: this is my goal schedule for the fall. I don't know how long it will take me to build up. I may also insert extra weightlifting sessions at Gold's that I haven't accounted for yet. I'll be attempting to hit 6pm classes, as I get out of work before 5:30 usually, and the gym is about 20min away. If I am running late, I have a list of back up classes that start around 7.

Monday [6pm to 7pm] - Heated Yoga
Tuesday [6pm to 7pm] - Cardio Bag
Wednesday [6:15pm to 7:15pm] - Cross Fitness Plus
Thursday [6:30pm to 7:30pm] - Krav Maga level 1
Friday [6pm-ish to 8pm-ish] - Muay thai gym
Saturday [8am or 10am] - weight watchers meeting

-starting weight: 255

[Pork Chop]

Friday 8/19/2011
I was sick for the last month; so today was my first workout in like 3 weeks.
Earlier this week I went to the doctor because I was having asthma-like symptoms.
Thankfully, I didn't have pneumonia. He chalked it up to inflammation from clearing out the earlier infection and put me on prednisone, which has been helping a lot.

The last 2 days i've had more energy than I've had in a while.
I wasn't planning on working out again before next week, but i was feeling so good I decided to go to the muay thai gym today.

Went back to the muay thai gym today to sign up for the first time since like 2009.
Realized I can hit the bag kinda pretty, but my ability at counter techniques is absolutely horrible. Going to need a lot of two-person work.
They're filling the bags with corn (or corn meal) these days, so they're almost hard as sand. My shins definitely felt it.

I was surprised that I didn't get very tired from the workout.
Gym is kind of cramped these days and it's a bit hard to train at the intensity that I'm accustomed to. I think the krav maga gym for conditioning will turn out to be a really good idea; but I will need more time at muay thai for sparring & other work when I get closer to actually doing something.

-tonight's weight 253

[zhugeliang]

This is awesome! Great to see this again.

[JamesC]

Pork Chop, have you had any experience with a paleo diet?

I don't know if it is for you or not, but I thought i'd at least put the idea on your radar. Have fun!

[bawang]

do u have a training montage video

[Pork Chop]

Pork Chop, have you had any experience with a paleo diet?

I don't know if it is for you or not, but I thought i'd at least put the idea on your radar. Have fun!

I've heard of it.
I've never tried to follow it.
It does make sense to me.
I'm just going with the ww, because it's based off of small tweaks to what I enjoy to eat - like slightly different, healthier versions, and smaller portion sizes.
I may try something else some day, but last year showed me this can work.
Last year there were a lot of factors that were involved with my decision to quit it; none of which had much to do with the food itself; I can't say that with any other diets.

Saturday 8/20/2011
Went to the ww meeting today.
they changed the system, i'm going to have to figure it out.
afterwards, i picked up a "last breakfast" from mickey d's.
turns out my wife & kid had already eaten.
can't believe i ate the whole thing.
feel so sick from it that I'm definitely ready to eat differently.

[Pork Chop]

do u have a training montage video

not yet... maybe after i lose weight...
usually, i don't like taking pictures or video...
mostly because the way I look doesn't reconcile with my own self image (hate the way I look)
partly because i think film can steal your soul

[zhugeliang]

feel so sick from it that I'm definitely ready to eat differently.


McD's, blah! Maybe next time pick up something from Subways they have breakfasts and kids meals too that would fit better into your ww program.

Where are you doing muay thai?

[bawang]

not yet... maybe after i lose weight...
usually, i don't like taking pictures or video...
mostly because the way I look doesn't reconcile with my own self image (hate the way I look)
partly because i think film can steal your soul

do u grunt during workout

[Pork Chop]

McD's, blah! Maybe next time pick up something from Subways they have breakfasts and kids meals too that would fit better into your ww program.

Where are you doing muay thai?

Like I said, it was a "last meal" kind of thing before getting back into the ww program.
They changed the program up a lot though, so I may not be able to start for real until tonight or tomorrow.

Doing muay thai at my old place - Shadow Fist at Bab**** and Hillcrest.
There was some drama going on before, but it was basically a druggie ex-student trying to bring down the gym and selling his story to a gullible local news channel.
Everything worked itself out.
It's my favorite place to work out in town.

[Pork Chop]

do u grunt during workout

when I'm hitting stuff? occasionally
when I'm lifting stuff? almost never

[Oso]

experimenting with paleo was worth it to me as it taught me a couple of things. i would never bother trying to be strictly paleo but do try to greatly reduce wheat and dairy based items. i think i'm about 10-20% of what I used to eat as far as those two categories go and the #1 affect on me is clearer lungs.

too bad we don't live in the same town, I think we suck at the same motivational issues and could be of help to each other. :)

[Pork Chop]

oso- yeah, sorry we never got to hang when i was on the east coast. my buddy lives in HI though, so maybe I'll be stopping by.

Monday 8/22/2011
Went to yoga today.
Not too bad, reminds me a bit of a mix of taiji/kung fu and the muay thai ram muay.
The warm up had me sweating, the rest of it just felt like body medicine.
Did pretty good on my diet today.

[zhugeliang]

So this is heated yoga? I'm sure Texas climate can provide the heat for that.

[Pork Chop]

So this is heated yoga? I'm sure Texas climate can provide the heat for that.

They have a heated room for yoga, but for some reason they didn't have it in there.
I know they have at least one other class in the heated room and I'll try to go to that one eventually.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 8/22/2011
Went to Cardio bag class tonight.
I'm probably not doing this class right.
I notice some folks go apesh!t on the bag
others just bounce & kinda sorta punch with the music
i sacrifice a bit of the speed on the number of repetitions of a combo, in order to try for proper form when i can.
dude next to me was one of the ones going apesh!t
nonstop, with almost nothing in the way of proper mechanics.
i wish i had his endurance and his speed
good workout though.
pretty fried after an hour.
felt a little easier than last time, probably because I knew what i was in for and because we didn't have to kick.

Sticking to the diet and doing okay on that front.
but my wife is already creating a lot of friction when i try to make the simple request of measuring ingredients; or asking for a recipe with a portion size & calorie count.
May end up having to do all my own cooking.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday 8/24/2011
Today was Cross Fitness; not to be confused with crossfit.
This workout fits in more with traditional crosstraining than that program.
First 20 min was weights (pretty much continuous), next 20 min was ab exercises (continuous partner work), last 20 min was continuous bag work.
The weights section was a high-rep circuit with low weight dbells & bodyweight exercises.
The abs section was ab exercises with partners for time (ie 30 seconds leg lift 2 sets ea).
The bag section was pretty standard for the bagwork at the gym, with some bodyweight stuff mixed in (like dropping for burpees when they call it).
The bag work at this gym is not like my usual bag work. We're not doing 3 min on, 1 off.
It's continuous, it's fast paced, it's not freestyle - I like it for fitness as long as my form does not deteriorate.
Super tired after that workout.
They really burn you in an hour.

Still sticking to the diet well.
It's small tweaks to what I normally eat.
Next week I'll probably be doing the cooking, so my opinion may change.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 8/25/2011
Went to krav maga level 1 class tonight.
For some reason I thought it would be one of my easier days...
I think I was wrong...
The warm up was all kinds of nasty.
I was sore, so pushups and burpees hurt real bad.
The partner pad work was deceptively taxing.
Almost puked at one point.
The end was fun - multiple attacker drill, knees on one guy holding pads, periodically the other guy comes up behind and attacks, you gotta respond, then first guy bumps you with the pad so you start throwing knees at him again. Rinse, repeat.
Tired when I got home.

Diet's still going well... not eating enough actually.
Tomorrow's muay thai, saturday is my first ww weigh in.

[Pork Chop]

Friday 8/26/2011
Went to muay thai tonight
5 rounds of jump rope (10 x pushups, crunches, bicycle crunch, leg lifts after each round)
5 rounds of shadow
5 rounds of heavybag
Kru Vong was back from vegas tonight (he took over Master Toddy's gym there)
I kinda wussed out.
They're used to me working marathon workouts.
After my 15 rounds were up, I called it a day and sat down to watch everyone else.
I may have bowed out much sooner, but my intensity was higher when i was working out.
The bad thing was that I missed out on correction from Kru Vong & Kru Phet; I got to salvage some of that by watching how other people were being corrected and keeping a close eye on the little details.
Don't get me wrong though, I was friggin burnt after that workout.
Heck, I'm still burnt.
It's 97 now, but an hour ago it was over 100, with no AC.
I might've been able to do more, but after this week, I wanted to make sure I didn't kill myself.

First week of working out went well.
Bit sore and tired, but as long as i don't overdo it on any single workout, I should get stronger.

[JamesC]

Friday 8/26/2011
Went to muay thai tonight
5 rounds of jump rope (10 x pushups, crunches, bicycle crunch, leg lifts after each round)
5 rounds of shadow
5 rounds of heavybag
Kru Vong was back from vegas tonight (he took over Master Toddy's gym there)
I kinda wussed out.
They're used to me working marathon workouts.
After my 15 rounds were up, I called it a day and sat down to watch everyone else.
I may have bowed out much sooner, but my intensity was higher when i was working out.
The bad thing was that I missed out on correction from Kru Vong & Kru Phet; I got to salvage some of that by watching how other people were being corrected and keeping a close eye on the little details.
Don't get me wrong though, I was friggin burnt after that workout.
Heck, I'm still burnt.
It's 97 now, but an hour ago it was over 100, with no AC.
I might've been able to do more, but after this week, I wanted to make sure I didn't kill myself.

First week of working out went well.
Bit sore and tired, but as long as i don't overdo it on any single workout, I should get stronger.

Good work Pork Chop!

Just keep getting the work in and you'll start shedding the weight off. Most important thing is to make sure you get the work in every week, though. Consistency!

We'll hold you accountable here so don't let us down and make sure you log your workouts. ;)

[Pork Chop]

Good work Pork Chop!

Just keep getting the work in and you'll start shedding the weight off. Most important thing is to make sure you get the work in every week, though. Consistency!

We'll hold you accountable here so don't let us down and make sure you log your workouts. ;)

hehe thanks :)
I got my nickname because i would show up at the gym everyday, work hard, and still be a lard azz
So the diet's very important to me.

Went to weight watchers this morning.
Weight at end of week 1: 245.4lb
Change: -6.8lb from first weight watchers weigh in. Almost -10lb from first unofficial.

I don't want this to be a short-term thing. I'm in this for the long run. I need to eat in a way that I can continue for the rest of my life, and I have to keep aware of that fact. Trying to establish good habits here, not just bootcamp it for a few weeks. As a result, I've got 2 issues with dieting:
1. Is not getting bored with the food.
2. Is not getting overwhelmed with the preparation of the food.

For the first issue, I know if I don't eat stuff I like, I won't last but a day or so.
So I've got a few methods to approach this:
1. Eat what I like and just adjust portion sizes - this works for a lot of things, but not everything.
2. Find recipes of stuff that I like that's healthy from the get go - the only worry about this goes back to issue 2.
3. Eat what I want from time to time, points be d@mned - this is kind of playing with fire.

I have some other friends that do the weight watchers thing. Every one of them suggests ignoring the diet at least once a week. A couple take a full day off each week. One made it sound like she takes off whenever she gets a serious craving (usually about once a week).

I'm thinking for me, one meal each week of whatever I feel like eating wouldn't be a bad thing. I'm thinking of splurging on Saturday dinner - so I have a full week of dieting before the next weekend weigh in. As long as I keep it one meal, once a week, I should avoid the trap of ruining a week's worth of work in 1 day.

Today, I don't really even feel like the cheat day, but my hope is that if I strike preemptively, I won't wait until it gets too late and it will still be manageable.

For the second issue, right now I'm trying to scan in a bunch of recipes that I like from various cookbooks. The next step is to calculate points for each recipe and then generate a grocery list of ingredients. Going to buy a week's worth of groceries tonight. This week is going to be tough because I'm tasked with the cooking. So execution is everything.

[Pork Chop]

Monday 8/29/2011
Yoga night.
Made me feel pretty light headed afterwards.
Not so much like I had low blood sugar or was dizzy; but like fuzzy.
I think it's helping me to get my flexibility back though, so it's all good.

Cooking for myself this week.
Made Vegetarian Enchiladas; didn't eat till like 9:30.
Definitely had low blood sugar while trying to chop veggies.
Not too fun, but at least I have leftovers for lunch - got tired of subway all the time.

[Brule]

you've probably already heard this before, but in case not. What helps with me when i cook for myself as i don't like having cold cuts for lunch at work everyday is make a bit extra for dinner, then you can have the rest for dinner the next day. ie: if you're making chicken, then bbq an extra chicken breast, then use that in a quesadilla the next day. Or make a T-bone steak one night and eat just half, save the other half for tomorrow. Make a decent size lasagna on the weekend and freeze portions that you can just pull out of the freezer when you need to. Make a pot of soup on sunday and freeze portions also.

Just some things i've done that work for me.

[Pork Chop]

Brule
That's one of my favorite techniques to use when I cook.
I made almost a double serving of enchiladas last night, so I've got leftovers for days.
My wife; on the other hand, only makes enough food to eat for one meal.
I've even caught her halving the amounts listed in recipes so as to not have "too much".
I'm not sure why she hates leftovers so much; but it's really pretty inconvenient.
This week I'm hoping to show her that even if she doesn't like leftovers, I do.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 8/30/2011
Cardio Bag class tonight.
They changed up the teachers for this month, so it was a bit different than last time.
Did a ton of burpees.
At some point I hit a nasty wall, and at certain points I was in "survival mode", where I could barely move and just kinda flailed around.
Brutal class.
I noticed that a lot of it is like tabata intervals.
For certain exercises we go ballz out for 20 to 30 seconds and do 10 seconds of active rest.
Cooking tonight was an adventure.
Made spinach turkey lasagna.
Almost fell out a bunch of times.
Food was delicious though (and low calorie).
Don't know what I'm cooking tomorrow yet tho.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday 8/31/2011
Workout today was the crossfitness.
first 20 was a circuit:
lunges for time, flex tube curls for time, 25lb kbell swings for time, pushups for time
second 20 was ab death, with planks, more pushups, and enough leg lifts to kill someone
last 20 was basically tabatas on the bag

I survived a bit better today, but I did have a few bad moments.
kinda wussed on some of the pushups and the ab work.
Afterwards, I was tired, but not quite as shaky as I have been.
Hope it's a sign that I'm getting better.

Diet the last two days has been solid.
Heck, I've actually had a hard time eating enough.
Tonight was yellow fin sashimi and roasted veggies.
I'm full and still have a lot of points left.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 9/1/2011
Krav maga class tonight.
I was kind of ambivalent about doing it beforehand.
As a martial art, while I respect the realistic scenario-based self defense stuff, it's not what I'm interested in.
Plus, I was still very tired from my other workouts earlier in the week.
Luckily, the class was more of a first-timers' class and very easy.
I even had some fun - my partner was a nice guy.

Diet wise, today I had a bunch of leftovers.
Pretty sure I came in well under points again, but not at all hungry.

[Pork Chop]

Fruday 9/2/2011
Muay thai tonight
Barely even got a warmup
spent most of the time doing defense/counter drills with a partner.
it was fun and it's one of the things i really need to work on to get my stuff back.

showed a lot of self control at dinner.
ate a chirashi bowl that wasn't very big.

[Pork Chop]

Saturday 9/3/2011
Little disappointing today at the weigh in.
Got about 243, for less than 2lbs lost this week, and 8lbs overall.
Trying to take it in stride, my average is still 4lbs a week, and my goal is time and not weight, so this doesn't mean anything.
This next week is probably going to be a bad workout week because of school and the vacation.

[Pork Chop]

Monday 9/5/2011
Didn't make it to the gym on labor day.
School and family kind of got in the way.
This week is going to be tough - Wednesday evening I have a meeting for a professional group, Thursday night I have class in Houston, not sure I'll be able to make it back by Friday.
Looking like Tuesday will be my only workout day.
Thinking I'll hit up muay thai and put in a nice long workout.
Knee started bugging me last week, so I'm hoping I don't tweak it further.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 9/6/2011
Put in a real muay thai day tonight.
5 rounds jump rope with calisthenics during the rest
stretching routine
more calisthenics (burpees, lunges, calf raises, squat jumps, high knees)
3 rounds of shadow
a bunch of partner work (attack/counter drills)
kicks on the heavybags (35 low round each leg, 35 mid round ea, 35 high round ea, 100 push kicks ea, 10 low round ea on the harder bag, 10 mid round ea hard bag)
some ballistic stretching to finish
took over 2 hours altogether and i still didn't really hit everything i wanted to hit
the bags are hard as sh!t these days so my legs got torn up

diet-wise, i've been doing good except for my cheat day.
I think i way over did it on the sushi on saturday.
my weight jumped up 6+ pounds on saturday and even today (tues) i'm still 3lbs over what I was saturday morning.
Calorie-wise, the idea of 18000+ calories in 1 day (let alone one meal) makes absolutely no sense; but the weight fluctuation is kinda crazy...

I have a feeling that this saturday's weigh-in is going to go bad...
The idea behind saturdays was a meal where I could eat what I wanted without worrying about points; not an excuse to pig out until I get sick - so I'm going to have to do a better job on saturdays.

[viper]

18000+ calories in 1 day who told you to intake this much energy?

[Pork Chop]

18000+ calories in 1 day who told you to intake this much energy?

sorry if that was confusing.
apparently i gained 6 pounds in 1 day.
there are 3000 calories in 1 pound of fat.
that would require a calorie intake of 18000+ calories in that one day to gain 6lbs of fat.
as bad as I pigged out, I don't think i pigged out THAT much.
then again, muscle is supposed to be something like 600 to 800 calories per pound; so there is that possibility.

[viper]

Did you take into account your hydration status which can affect the weight a bit more then you think.

[Pork Chop]

Did you take into account your hydration status which can affect the weight a bit more then you think.

good point
last weigh in was on tuesday
i think it was in the morning
i was still 3lbs over
hoping to be okay by saturday, but no guarantees given the fact that i won't be able to work out.

[viper]

Why do you have cheat days is your diet bodybuilder strict?

[Pork Chop]

Why do you have cheat days is your diet bodybuilder strict?

My definition of "bodybuilder strict", is eating the same bland food over and over.
My diet is not this type of diet.
There are, however, foods that I can not eat while on this diet.
Some of these foods are some of my favorite things to eat.
These foods are typically foods that have extremely high calories or fat; or foods that I have no applicable nutrition info for - even with online assistance like Livestrong with nutrition info for over 75,000 different foods.

My point of having the cheat meal is so that I can have one meal a week without stressing over counting points (calories) or worrying about getting the healthier option.
If I want chicken strips from popeyes, buffalo wings from wingstop, pizza, fried sushi rolls, a double cheeseburger, etc; Saturday night is my night to get that in. I just need to remember to just eat what I want, not just eat till i get get sick.

Didn't have time to eat last night between the round trip to houston and my masters course.
Weighed myself this morning and I was 4 pounds under my weight from last saturday (7 pounds lower than tuesday). Going to do muay thai tonight and stay the course. If the weight stays somewhat consistent for tomorrow's weigh in, then it's some nice progress. 49 more weeks and I'll be at my goal.

[Pork Chop]

Friday 9/9/2011
Muay thai tonight.
hit it from about 5:45 to 7:30.
jump rope
calisthenics
stretching
then a ton of technique work with a partner

no bag or shadow, but i didn't have much choice, and there's a limit on how much time i can spend down there.

Dinner was a nice salad of chicken & veggies with olive oil over spinach. Tasty. :)

We'll see what tomorrow brings

[Pork Chop]

Monday 9/12/2011
Yoga tonight
think i'm getting better, some of it still hard.
left shoulder bugging me a bit in the back (left rear delt).

pepper encrusted tuna steak for dinner.
diet's going pretty well.
was 240.6 for my last weigh-in, 11.6lbs overall.

think i'm going to switch up the schedule.
not a huge fan of the krav maga class.
their fitness classes are cool, but the martial art itself is kinda "meh" - just not my mentality.
I'm going to try to switch out thursday's KM level 1 class with All-in-all-out.
Depends on whether or not All-in-all-out has the KM 1 prereq like the Fit-to-fight class; which requires you to pass the km1 test before you can take it.
new schedule would look like this:
monday - yoga
tuesday - muay thai
wednesday - cross fitness (cross training)
thursday - all-in-all-out (more crosstraining) [or the cardio bag class]
friday - muay thai

[IronFist]

Peeing and taking a big dump can cause you to lose a few pounds, too.

I agree with viper; some of it was likely water weight.

You didn't eat 18,000 calories in one day unless you like drank butter all day or something.

[Pork Chop]

Peeing and taking a big dump can cause you to lose a few pounds, too.

I agree with viper; some of it was likely water weight.

You didn't eat 18,000 calories in one day unless you like drank butter all day or something.

yah, I still lost 3.2lbs over the previous week come saturday morning, so it looks like I was stressing over nothing.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 9/12/2011
Muay thai on Tuesday night.
As soon as I finished my 5 rounds of jump rope with calisthenics during the breaks I had to rush off to spend the rest of the night training noobs.
First hour was my friend from work, it was his first day, we went over footwork & the 4 punches.
Second hour was defense drills with this kid who first came to the school over a decade ago and who really should know better by now.
Not to sound like a whiny b****, but I don't really like having to spend that much time training classmates. I mean, I wasn't even allowed to finish my warm up; haven't been able to get in any serious bag time, and I'm really not getting any workout to speak of from the defense drills.
I'm glad my technique is coming back.
Friday, I'm going to make a serious push to start using thai pads for these guys' defense drills.
It'll be the same techniques, but at least we can put some power into the counters.

Diet's still going okay.
Have to go to Houston again this weekend, so no weight watchers meeting or weigh in.
That means my weigh in a week from saturday should hopefully be that much more impressive.
Next Tuesday will be the end of my first month on the program, only 11 more to go to hit my goal.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday 9/14/2011
Just got out of Cross Fitness class at the krav maga gym.
Rocked the weightlifting portion; which was 20 minutes of a barbell circuit.
I burned out my abs in the first couple exercises in the 20 minute core workout; plus we had to do more pushups, which we'd just burned out during the barbell circuit - failed that miserably. Managed to recover enough to finish out the core portion strong.
The 20 minute bag session was kind of confusing. They started while half the class was in the room for the core workout, so when I walked in, I thought it was a separate workout class. Probably missed about 5 minutes of it, but did my best to catch up and work hard.

May have to stop putting jalepenos on my lunch - have the worst esophageal burn tonight.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 9/15/2011
Tonight was my first time doing the All-in-all-out class.
odeargawd
i puked
it was an hour and a half of punishment
battle ropes.... rings... ground & pound dummies... calisthenics... crab walk... sprinting
it was one of the hardest workouts I've ever done
i'm fried - mentally and physically.
don't know how i'm still awake.

[Pork Chop]

Friday 9/16/2011
Muay thai tonight.
Not quite as bad as tuesday.
First partner couldn't kick above his knees.
Basically tried to tire him out.
Second partner was my friend from work.
Only his second class, but a bit of a surprise.
Did a lot better than I thought he would.
We were able to drill a lot more realistically than I have been.
Final drill he went a little bit "too" realistic; but I think it was more due to my terrible head movement.
Haven't trained pure boxing in a long time.
Caught me a lot more than i think he should have.
Afterwards, I was able to get some kicks in on the bag.
Finished up with some taiji.
Not my best workout, but not a bad one either.
Now I know I need to work on head movement.

[Pork Chop]

Monday 9/19/2011
Yoga tonight
it was easier than it has been.
Either an easy work out or i'm getting better.

Diet's been kind of dicey last 3 days.
I think I was probably within my points, but I definitely didn't go about it the way I'd like.
Cheat meal was pretty bad.

Just gotta try harder the rest of the week.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 9/20/2011
Tomorrow my wife's going to a concert so I went to bag class tonight at krav maga gym.
class was tough, but i made it through.
Might be getting easier.... was doing better at their jumping stuff till my knees started bugging me.
in order for not being able to work out tomorrow, I got my 100 kicks on the bags in the weight & bag room.

ran into my first 2 nongs at this gym.
they walked in during my 2nd set of 35 kicks (i do 3 each leg).
first thing they did was throw my gear so they could get at a weight bar.
I apologized and went to move my bag, then went back to my kicks.
During my 3rd set, the guy that threw my stuff stared at me, then ran at the bag, and went apesh!t for about half a minute before he gassed.
Technique looked like he's been there a while; but he didn't seem to know how to pace himself.
Between each set of weights he'd run and go apesh!t on the bag till he gassed, it got shorter and shorter.
Meanwhile, I just kept throwing round kicks in sets of 35, with short rest between sets.
Then, right before my last set, his buddy walks over and throws my sh!t again.
Again, I move it apologetically.
While I'm doing that, the first guy jumps on my bag and starts kicking it, trying to show off or something.
I stare at him for a sec, he throws some kicks and walks off.
I line up in front of it and he runs in and kicks again.
At that point, I walked over to the other bag he'd been working on earlier.
As soon as I'm about to start on the other bag, he says "you can work over here", so I walk over to my older bag and he throws one more kick as I'm about to start.
I say "you can use the bag if you want, just say the word."
Of course his headphones are in so he doesn't hear me and doesn't respond.
Whole thing made me mad, though I know it probably shouldn't have.
Gotta wonder if the posturing is due to a lack of sparring at this gym.
Tried to imagine that going down at the muay thai gym and can't.
Up till now, everyone's been really cool.
Gonna do my best to forget it happened; can't go around smashing every rude person out there or let it get to me.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 9/22/2011
All-in-all-out class tonight.
I was expecting more hiit; but it turned out to be kind of a strength day.
did a bunch of body weight stuff on the rings.
felt like jello afterwards.
worked out though, because tuesday was all high intensity intervals in the bag class and I had to miss crosstraining on wednesday.

not sure how much diet damage i did last weekend.
saturday's weigh in will be my first in 2 weeks.
the rest of this week I've done very well.
can tell that I've made progress, but still have a long, long way to go.

[Pork Chop]

Friday 9/23/2011
Muay thai tonight.
Got in my 5 rounds of jump rope and a round of heavybag before coach called me over.
I was able to score a small victory.
Convinced my coach to let me work thai pads.
Mentioned it earlier, but he's just been having me do defense drills with everyone and I haven't been getting much out of it; it's not taxing enough to get me a workout, their technique is not realistic enough yet to help me improve.
So today, doing thai pads for 5 rounds a piece was awesome.
Mixed in the defense drills when it was my turn to hold, so my partner could work his defense. Wore shin guards and everything. Worked out very well, because he almost fell out after the first round of just doing offense, so mixing in defense helped him go the full 5. Burned him in the end of course. :D
When it was my turn, he's still a pad noob, so there are still a lot of growing pains there.
It did help me work my conditioning, my distancing, and my balance - coz I didn't know what he was going to call.
I'm really going to push to work thai pads every friday.
After my 5 rounds on thai pads, I finished up with another 3 or 4 rounds on heavybag.
Good workout, had a nice sweat going.

Had bad news today - found out that I dropped one of my new gloves out of my bag at some point. Looks like I'm going to need another pair. :(

[zhugeliang]

felt like jello afterwards.

Reading this workout log makes me feel like jello

Good job though!

[Pork Chop]

Reading this workout log makes me feel like jello

Good job though!

Thanks man. :)


9/24/2011
Weight watchers meeting this morning.
Weighed in.
Took a sneak peak last night after dinner and it was discouraging because I was only down 2.5lbs for the last 2 weeks.
This morning's weigh in was much nicer:
Current weight: 234.2lbs
Change from last weigh in (2 weeks ago): -6lbs
Total change since start of weight watchers: -18lbs

12 more pounds till my short-term goal (the weight I hit last year on weight watchers).
35 more pounds till my mid-term goal.
60 more pounds till my long-term goal.
Finished my first month, 11 more to go for my overall goal.
Still a long way to go.

[Pork Chop]

Monday 9/26/2011
Yoga tonight.
It was hard, but I didn't feel all spacey afterwards like I usually do.
In fact, I felt really good, albeit drenched in sweat.
So I grabbed my gloves, snuck into the bag & weight room, and worked power punches for reps (forgot my timer).
Did 100 power uppercuts each hand on the wrecking ball.
Did 100 power crosses & lead hooks on the regular banana bag.
Tried to throw each shot as powerfully as I could.
I imagine it probably took at least 5 to 10 minutes.
Pretty exhausting, but fun.

Found out what likely happened to my boxing glove.
Seems I'm missing my yoga mat out of the trunk as well.
I think on wednesday when I went to the pet store to get dog food and other stuff for my dog that had been skunked the night before; I probably took the mat and the glove out of the trunk to make space for the dog food and forgot to put them back in.
If it was thieves, it makes no sense that they'd only grab 1 glove and a 15 dollar yoga mat, leaving a $60 tool box, a stroller, and a bunch of other stuff.
Luckily i got a new yoga mat from target in time for class.

Diet wise, Saturday could've been a lot better. Sunday did a bit of a fruit & veggie fast.
Today I ate really clean. Any damage I did on Saturday should probably already be made up for, and definitely be made up for by the end of the week.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 9/27/2011
Soy sauce with the sashimi must've been enough sodium to cause me some serious water retention issues. Weighed myself just for the heck of it this morning; it was another 6 pound jump. That had dropped 3 pounds by tonight before dinner. Another day or so and I should be back to normal. [EDIT: that 3lbs stayed consistent over night. Not quite sure what's going on with my weight, but I'm going to just stay on track and work hard. I'll be cutting back on my free saturdays]

Muay thai tonight.
Did my 5 rounds of jump rope with calisthenics between rounds.
Got to get in a lot of pad work.
Held for 9 or 10 rounds, got to work for 4 or 5.
Got in 100 round kicks on my left leg on the hard bag.
Holding pads was a lot of fun and helps me out almost as much as the guy I'm working with.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday 9/28/2011
Crosstraining tonight.
Was kinda scared of it all day.
Didn't eat enough and was a bit tired by the end of work.
I think the nerves helped.
By the time we started the class, I was blowing through all the exercises.
Weight circuit went well.
Core went better than in the past.
We started off the core workout with a minute of leg lifts holding a swiss ball with our legs and then another 30s to 1min of 6inch hold, still with the swiss ball - didn't do so well on this part. Once we moved on to crunches and my hip flexors got a little rest, I was fine for the leg lifts we did later.
Bag workout felt like nothing.

Skimped out on the 100 kicks on my right leg yesterday at muay thai.
Thought about making them up on the softer bags at krav maga, but just felt like going home so I left.

When I got home, I jumped on the scale out of curiosity and I was back down to Saturday's weigh in weight.

Two more workout days this week.

Got my stuff from Title boxing in the mail today. I went to them for my Boon 14oz gloves. Big mistake. Title's selling knock off Boon's. It's like they got someone to try to make a copy using Title's cruddy padding and rubbery synthetic leather. Horrible. Not to mention, way huge. They're basically a 16oz glove with less padding - huge pocket, bulky. 14oz gloves usually have the same thickness of padding as 16s (or at least similar), but a smaller profile and a tighter pocket. Disappointing. But my legit gloves are already on their way and I'll be returning the Title garbage on Saturday.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 9/29/2011
All in all out class today.
1.5 hours of kettlebells, jogging, calisthenics, battle ropes, plyometrics, more calisthenics, and even some pad work.
I was dead by the 1 hour mark, but managed to hobble my way to the end.
I'm ready for bed.

Weight was down 4lbs from this morning after that workout.
My weight's all over the place this week though.
I may even be above last week's weight by saturday's weigh in.
Oh well.
I've got faith in my plan and I'm following it as perfectly as I can.
As long as I stick with it, results will come.
Still going to cut back on how much I eat on the cheat day and see if I can go a few weeks without one.
I know when I would lose weight in the past, I would lose a bunch of weight, then wobble up and down for a week or two, then lose a bunch more weight, then wobble up and down there.
It was never like a constant rate.
That may have been a sign of losing too much weight too quick, and it might also explain my current situation.
Don't mind though.
My plan is to stick with this a long time so I'm not so worried about yo-yoing.
Not doing anything I can't stick with for a while.

[Pork Chop]

This weekend sukked.
Friday I blew out 2 tires and spent the day at the repair shop.
Saturday was a friend's wedding, which meant way too much food & wine.
Sunday was my wife's birthday, which again meant food and alcohol.
Saturday's weigh in showed no change from the previous week.
Think I just got discouraged this weekend.
School's starting to stress me out because I haven't really gotten anything done.
Need to get back on it this week.

[Pork Chop]

Monday 10/3/2011
So far, the week's not looking good.
Was exhausted all day, almost passing out at my desk many times.
Got stuck in traffic for almost an hour coming out of work, so I had to miss yoga.
Came home and fell asleep for 2 hours.
The last few days I've realized that I'm going to have to work harder at school.
I hate to do this, because it sets a bad precedent, but no working out until I finish my Integration Paper.
It's my last class, my last solo paper, and it's keeping me from contributing on my group project - so I've really gotta knock it out asap.
If this thing's not looming over my head, I think I'll be able to concentrate better.
Already spent the last hour writing.

[Pork Chop]

last night at 11, teacher sent out new grading rubric for the paper, less than a week before it's due.
had to scrap all of my content and start from scratch, if i work until late every night I *might* be able to finish.
man i hate school.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 10/11/2011
After over a week off from the gym and a 4 day bender, I finally got back on the saddle tonight. Wrapped up my project at 10pm last night, but didnt' get to bed till late.
I stuck with the plan today and went to muay thai, even though i was a bit sleepy.
I'm glad I went, I got more energy when I was there.
Thankfully, it was a slow day, so I could work on my own stuff.

jump rope 5 rounds, 3 min each, pushups & abs during each 1 min rest
shadow 3 rounds, 3 min each
heavybag 5 rounds, 3 min each, 10 squat-kicks each leg during each 1 min rest
skip knees 1 round on heavybag
shadow 3 rounds, 3 min each, (5 jumping jacks - 1 burpee) x 5 during each 1 min rest
24 taiji for one set
shin conditioning on hard bag - somewhere between 50 and 100 kicks, wasn't really counting
stretching static & ballistic

got back on the diet horse today as well; ate very clean.

[Pork Chop]

Wed 10/12/2011
kinda freaking out tonight

there are 2 deliverables for my final (capstone) class:
1. Exit portfolio - 5 old papers in modified APA format, 1 new paper that sums up our whole experience in the program
2. Group project - my team is 5 people who work in medical field and me. they decided to go for making an assisted living facility. i couldn't care less.

I finished the Exit portfolio monday night at 10pm
I've been putting off work on the group project till i finished the exit portfolio.
Last night I finally got around to the 70+ emails my group has sent out on the group project.
I think I'm realizing exactly how far behind I am.
Freaking out about it a bit.
My group's expecting deliverables from me on the project this saturday and I haven't even really started.

I have no interest in the project and don't feel like I have anything of value to contribute- it's just not my field of expertise.

I'm running into the same old situation I've had since I started this degree: focusing on anything more than school at the same time is very difficult.

The reality of the situation sunk in today at work around 3pm and I'm feeling overwhelmed.
Before last week, I basically just worked out; making exercise & diet my priorities, and getting around to school work on the weekends.
It doesn't look like I'm going to be able to do that anymore.

Tonight, I skipped the gym.
I know it's because I wussed out.
I just can't afford to be too tired when I come home to work on the project.
It's an excuse, not a valid reason, but for some reason I can't bring myself to care.
After spending over an hour stuck in traffic tonight on my way home, I don't care much about my diet either.

I'm going to have to take baby steps to get back on track.
I may not even get back on track until 2 months from now when the class is over.
Bottom line, I know I'm falling off tonight and I'm writing about it as a method of keeping accountability for myself - so I can look at this later and not let it happen again.

I need to find a way to do something as far as diet and working out now that school is really taking over.
Need to get back on track with the diet and keep the working out to 2 or 3 times a week.
Will have to scale things back a bit.
More importantly, I need to find my motivation and learn how to balance everything.

[Pork Chop]

Little summary of the last 3 months:

October
Lots of school & trips to Houston
Lots of booze
few sporadic gym trips
Quit weight watchers

November
School got even crazier.
Drinking came to a head at the start of the month. Quit around the first week.
Probably hit the gym even less than October.
My usual stomach flu over thanksgiving.
Weight jumped to over 250

December
Wrapped up school December 3rd.
Got drunk as soon as I got home from my last class; through the following evening.
Quit booze again.
Slowly working my way back to the gym.
Got sick around the 10th; finally got better around the 20th.


This week I've already hit the gym twice.
My weight's down to the low 240s, just from quitting drinking (even with holiday food).

The new workout plan is:
Monday - yoga & muay thai
Tuesday - cardio bag class
Wednesday - muay thai
Thursday - cardio bag class
Friday - muay thai

Still working up to the new workout plan; haven't done it yet.
This week, I'm hoping to complete Tuesday through Friday from the plan.
Haven't done a Monday yet.
Holday-permitting, next week will be better.
Once I've adjusted to that schedule, I'll probably step it up for All-in-all-out on Thursdays and maybe Cross-Fitness on Wednesdays, with muay thai on Tu, Wed, Fri.
But there's no rush on upping the schedule, until my body's ready.

Diet-wise, aside from cutting out alcohol & smokes; I've also been limiting going out to eat to once a week (not counting the occasional subway run).
Cooking a lot more.
About to cut out carbonated beverages altogether.

[Brule]

Hey man,

Sort of skimmed through your blog and noticed there's been lots of ups and downs, starting and stopping. Looks like you're having weight issues and that sort of thing. I give you credit for putting it all on here for people you know jack about to read, so take this with a grain of salt. Stick to something reasonable and do it. Don't put all these goals in your head because you'll eventually feel like nothings going right and end up giving up. Pick one thin you really need to change, ie: weight. and work on getting that in control. Don't get me wrong, i do the same thing with changing my workouts or not followiing through with a plan i've set up, but i find for me, if i just have one goal then i'm better at focusing on it and getting a good result. Don't look for quick fixes because they never work.

Anyway, you seem like a decent guy and i'm not trying to rag on ya, so take it for what it's worth.

Good luck.

[Pork Chop]

Thanks for the encouragement and the feedback brule.
I appreciate you being gentle. :)
Don't really have a valid reason for my behavior the last couple years.
My excuse is that school was overwhelming.

The times you see me start up are the times when I would have a break from school or a lull in the workload.
The times I fell off coincided with when school picked up (aside from sickness and/or injury).
I didn't do a good job of juggling the two.
In retrospect it was probably a mistake to do a masters program 3.5 hours away in Houston.
All that driving, combined with the stress, the long hours, and the sheer amount of work, really took a lot out of me.

Now that I'm finally done with school, I'm trying to create some decent habits & build a routine.
Yes, my overall goal is to lose weight, but it's a marathon, not a sprint.
I totally agree with you that consistency is the key.
I am trying my best to create a lifestyle I can be consistent with for the long run.
I'm comfortable not doing the perfect diet or the perfect routine if what I am doing is an improvement and something I can continue for months on end.
I can always tweak as time goes on.

Right now I'm focusing on 3 things: stay away from drinking & smoking, don't go out to eat more than once a week, and get back into a consistent gym schedule.

I'm not ready to jump into a strict diet; just going to make some minor tweaks and just try to be consistent. Cutting out booze & not ordering anymore delivery are pretty much the extent of my willpower for food these days.

Working out five days a week is something I've been slowly working up to.
I'm not ready to go full-out 5 days a week yet and won't be for a while.
Currently, my only high-intensity days are Tuesday & Thursday.
The workouts at the muay thai gym haven't been very demanding.
At the muay thai gym, it's up to me how hard I want to push it.
Working out is usually very fun for me and if i dread going to the gym, then I know that something's wrong with my routine and/or I need some rest.
Going to see how my body reacts to the routine I listed.
If it's too much, I'll throw in a mid-week rest day.
If I end up adapting to it & feeling hungry for more, I'll step up the workouts.

I had a lot of success in 2009, when I stopped worrying about the weight so much and I just tried to get in the best shape I could. This time around, I'll probably spend less time at the gym each day, but my goal is to keep it going a lot longer than 5 or 6 months.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 12/29/2011
Cardio bag class at the krav maga gym.
Brutal workout.
I see the people that have been there a while going for more than one class a night.
Can't tell yet if they're really that in shape, or if they've learned how to pace themselves.
I'd prefer not to pace myself.
If this class becomes too easy, I'll probably just go for the harder classes.
I don't like being at the gym more than an hour, hour and a half; as I need at least some time for my family.
Can't see myself staying at the gym that long anymore.

[Pork Chop]

Friday 12/30/2011
Earlier today i mentioned that muay thai class wasn't too strenuous.
I wonder if my coach is reading this blog.
He smoked me today.
Didn't help that I'd had some spicy food for a late lunch an hour before class.
2 hour workout from he||.
puked twice.
Lots of reps of just about every calisthenic I know and a lot I didn't know.
5 minutes of skip knees.
punches on the bag for reps.
bob & weave under the rope - we're doing a lot more boxing these days.
shadow boxing a number of specific defenses and counters for the last 20 min or so.
ouch.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 1/3/2012
Went to muay thai.
Tried to do as much of the brutality workout as I could remember, with a few tweaks.
Left out the 5min round of skip knees; but got in 2 rounds of pad work.
solid workout, sore today (wed).

monthly meeting wednesday night so i'll be back in the gym on thursday.

[EDIT: Thought I should put a blurb in here about being one month sober as of Tuesday, 1/3/2012]

[Pork Chop]

Friday 1/6/2012
Had a real late night on Wednesday, ruined me for Thursday.
Got back in the gym on Friday.
Lots of calisthenics.
Got up to 20 continuous burpee jacks (5 jumping jacks + 1 burpee).
5 min of skip knees is still tough.
Did a lot of boxing pad work, with defense.
Worked a lot on footwork.
Coach has definitely started incorporating a lot more boxing, so my style is kind of going back to what it was in Baltimore.

[Pork Chop]

Monday 1/9/2012
Yoga night.
Sweat a bit, but wasn't a killer.
Nice to have a day where I don't kill myself.
Felt really good afterwards.

Suntzu's coming to town tonight.
Going to bag class before he gets here.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 1/10/2012
Cardio bag class.
Was a little off-putting - instructor ran up to me in the middle of class and called me out for having "wrong side forward".
A little background - I am southpaw, most of the cardio bag instructors claim to drill both sides evenly, but few actually do. So I usually go southpaw when everyone else is orthodox and switch orthodox when everyone else goes southpaw.
It caught me off guard a bit; kinda made me mad.
Switched and kinda half-azzed it till we finished up that side, waiting to see if she'd follow through with drilling the other side.
Luckily she did, and everything was gravy.
Class itself was pretty easy.
Lots of new folks, so I wonder if she toned it down.
Maybe the break I gave myself was enough to recover; but it really wasn't that much.
Okay workout, but I finished wondering if I should stay for another class.
Wasn't due to pick up Suntzu from the airport for another hour and a half.
Ended up going home & changing clothes, which ended up working out well.
We got some Thai food and watched 13 Assassins; interesting flick.
He was watching Strikeforce when i went to bed a little after midnight.

Woke up earlier than normal today.
Had to get up early to get my kid his passport, but I woke up even earlier than that.
Feel pretty good.
Probably just excited to work out with my friend again.
Going to figure out which gym to go to tonight

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday 1/11/2012
Muay Thai tonight.
Suntzu came too.
3 rounds of jump rope with calisthenics on the rests.
Calisthenics circuit from hades - burpee jacks not too bad, still not able to do the ab exercises without letting my shoulders/legs touch the floor, upper body stuff still killing me, but it seems to be going faster though.
5 minutes of skip knees (survived much better this time).
stretch kicks.
Held pads for about 7 rounds.
Hit pads for 3 rounds.
3 rounds of bag.
Feel pretty good.
Slowly making progress - but it will be a long time till i'm back to proper form.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Good on you dude.
I myself have just recently started to get back to working out from a 10 week hiatus.
Sucks to start at the bottom but such is life !
Last week I worked out all 5 days to get used to working out- less intense but progressing.
This week I am doing 3X a week but with more intensity but only next week will I add MA training ( doing ST for this week and last).
A long layoff really takes it out of you.
Right now I am doing only BW exercises - Chins, dips, handstand push-ups, one handed pushups, horizontal pull ups, squats.
The numbers suck, but they are on their way up, slowly but surely.

[Pork Chop]

Thanks :)
I'm noticing that lower intensity with more frequent workouts is more rewarding to me.
Since we're just getting back into it, the need to push ourselves very hard to get any results really isn't there - anything we do at this point will pretty much help.
I'll push cardio intensity at various points in the week, but anything that makes me so sore that i require time to recuperate is pretty much off the table right now.
The intensity will come naturally as I feel better.

Like you, I'm also not lifting heavy.
Doing a ton of bodyweight stuff.
Still need to figure out how to insert pullups in there (requires a trip to a different gym).
Not sure if/when I'll go back to doing squats & deadlifts with heavy weight.

This is the first week I'll be adding a saturday class in years; planning to hit 6 workouts this week for the first time in years as well.
Goal is to not push it too much on Saturday & just have fun with it.

I want to stay consistent with what I'm doing for the next 8 months or so, reevaluate, and maybe shoot for an amateur bout in 10 months. Will make small tweaks to my diet, but not go "on a diet" until that time. Want to see how sticking with working out & small tweaks consistently affects me.
Cautious of burning out on the exercise & diet front, so I want to keep it fun & relaxed.

[sanjuro_ronin]

I think that when one is training with a goal and for competition that "moderate and consistent" is the way to go.
You can always rev it up 6 weeks prior to get the "intensity level" higher.
You seem to have a good blend of short term and long term goals, good on you.
As for the more intense ST:
Do it when you get to the point that you feel you HAVE to, ie: you are maxing out with your BW exercises at a level of endurance instead of strength.
Even then there are many tricks you can do to make the BW exercises more challenging.
Of course you will never get the pure raw strength and power like doing Squats, DL, Bench and overheads, but I you may not need it at this point and there is nothing wrong ( and many things right) about building a solid core/base with BW exercises.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 1/12/2012
Suntzu wanted to go to the Fit to Fight class at 7:30, so I jumped into Crossfitness Plus class.
They've switched up Crossfitness class.
Used to be: a brutal 20 min high rep weight circuit, a nasty 20 min core work out, and finish up with 20 min on the bag. We had to move to a different room for each section.
These days, everything's in the bag room. It's now 20 min of core, 20 min of rubber bands, and 20 min on the bag.
I would say that the bag section is better these days, but the other 2 sections are lacking the sheer suffering of the original. In all, it felt more like a slight variation on the cardio bag classes than the old crossfitness class.
Still a good workout though.
Sweat through my shirt.
Muay thai tonight and tomorrow.
Tonight's going to be hard work, but planning to take it easy tomorrow & just have fun.

[Pork Chop]

Saturday 1/14/2012
Took Friday night off because I was sore and feeling run down.
It's easier to talk myself into working out when I'm tired when I can hit the gym on the way home, instead of driving all the way home to pick my friend up and then turn around to go back out.

Worked out Saturday.
Did a reasonable 2 hour workout and then sparred with Suntzu.
Team mate showed up when we were sparring and jumped in round robin.
First time working with the team mate, and it went well for the most part.
He's been looking to prove himself to the older generation of guys at my gym for a while, so he kind of took it seriously even though we tried to make it fun.
He is a bigger guy and is actually really good; but I think I'm going to have to spend more time keeping the mood light. He called "cheap shot" a few times when we were going light and used it as an excuse to "get revenge". He almost broke my nose with one really nice punch. He ended up quitting after accusing Suntzu of "thumbing" him in the eye.

I want to work with the guy more, because he's good and he can make me better.
I just gotta figure out how to keep it fun.

[Pork Chop]

Monday 1/16/2012
Went to Gold's for yoga class.
Thought class was at 6, but it was actually at 5:30; strolled into the room around 5:55.
Class was okay, I like the krav yoga teacher much better.
Afterwards, I did some lat & rear delt work to offset imbalances in my training. t-bar row - 90lbs x 10 reps x 4 sets hammer strength close grip bilateral (separate weight for each arm) pull down - 60lbs each side x 10 reps x 5 sets wide cable pull down (separate cable for each arm) - together: 80lbs x 10 reps, 90lbs x 10 reps, 100lbs x 10 reps; alternating: 100lbs x 10 reps.
Not a killer workout, but enough to break a sweat.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 1/17/2012
Visited the gym my work friends go to; where one of my buddies used to teach.
The boxing coach there is a great guy and I've wanted to train under him for a while.
I was surprised, the vibe at the gym was awesome.
Most of the guys that work out there come from the mma gym I used to work out at sometimes.
I really didn't like the vibe of the other mma gym; everyone used to try to stare you down whenever you walked in.
This gym was the exact opposite, everyone was friendly.
The workout itself was short but sweet.
I'm a fan of the boxing coach's technique and he gave me some useful correction for head movement.
Plus they have some really nice bags.
Probably go back again, though I'm not sure if I can make it a regular thing.

EDIT:
We got there an hour early, so we stretched, did some pad work, & lifted some weights while we waited.
Did a 5x5 clean & press with 95lbs.
Workout itself was 1 hour long.
Broke a nice sweat, but didn't kill myself.
Sore today though, mostly from the weights on monday.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday I learned that fighting 6 o'clock traffic to drive all the way home kills my motivation to do anything else.
Was sore & a bit tired because I haven't been sleeping enough.
Feeling better today, so going to shoot for 2 workouts to make up for it.
I think if I plan on driving home before working out again, I'm going to have to leave work early.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 1/19/2012
Suntzu and I hit up cardio bag class at the krav gym tonight.
Great workout, but rather tough on our shoulders.
We were both burnt afterwards.
Lots of burpees.

Tonight I gotta make up for wednesday.

[Pork Chop]

Friday 1/20/2012
Muay thai class.
Showed up early, stayed at least 2 hours.
Lots & lots of defense drills today.
Worked with Suntzu and a mma guy; featherweight like 135.
Found out later the mma guy is close with my friend (Ray Ray) and is an accomplished fighter out of another gym (Rodrigo Pinheiro + Pete Spratt + Aaron Rosa).
This guy had come to my gym the week before and worked with the guy I sparred Saturday the 14th; Rich, the guy who almost busted my nose.
Rich almost killed the guy.
Tonight I learned why.

We did a lot of training and defense drills - over an hour's worth.
He didn't want to or didn't know how to slow it down.
I didn't mind it most of the time, because he's half my weight and really couldn't do much damage.
At one point I guess I embarrassed him, because he threw a full speed jumping round kick out of frustration. I called him on it, saying "do we really want to be blasting each other?" - I'm double his weight & his head is the height that I usually throw round kicks to the ribs; not exactly someone I'd feel good about "green-lighting."
Coach jumped in.
Apologies were made.
Got back to business & finished out the class.
Otherwise; he actually wasn't a bad workout partner.

I did switch up my style starting friday though.
I'm going back to parrying.
Since I've come back to the muay thai gym, the style has changed a bit- focusing more on boxing. The reason behind this is because our traditional style of muay thai is more geared towards elbows; which aren't usually legal in the US, so coach is trying to make it more "dutch" in order to better fit the local rules.
The newer style incorporates a lot of head movement in place of parries.
As a fighter; I don't have very fast feet or head movement, but I have pretty fast hands.
As a southpaw, using head movement is very awkward; I often find myself in very bad position - both off-balance & exposed to my opponent.
Parrying works out very well for me, because my balance isn't all over the place.
I stay centered and ready to deliver my offense.
Even when I have to shell up, it works out better, because I'm usually in better position to see what's coming and to fire back immediately.
I felt like the change was instantly better, but we'll give it time to see how it plays out in sparring.

[Pork Chop]

Saturday 1/21/2012
We were late to muay thai class Saturday morning, yet we were the first ones there.
I haven't been doing the calisthenics routine lately at the muay thai gym.
Friday's warm up was just 3 rounds of my jump rope + calisthenics routine.
Saturday's warm up was 5 rounds of jump rope + calisthenics, plus stretching, and a good amount of shadow.

I held pads for about 4 or 5 rounds; alternating between 2 of the newer guys.
One guy wanted to try the pad routine that I used to put Suntzu through.
He started strong, but didn't make it - blaming cigarettes.

Suntzu and I spent the last few rounds doing clinch sparring.
Rich showed up right before we started clinch (15~20 min before the end of class).
I was supposed to do clinch with him (because we're both bigger) but he was taking forever to get ready.
Meanwhile, suntzu & I were ready to go.
Rich ended up working with another guy.
When we finished up, the other 2 guys looked busy so I didn't feel like butting in.

Pretty good workout, but I would've liked to have gotten in some rounds of pad work for myself.

After class we headed over to the grand opening of the new krav maga spot on the north side of town and picked up some Mediterranean food on the way. There were seminars going on, we got there a little late for the 2:30 seminar. I finished off my food by 2:45 and jumped into the intro to bag seminar. It was only 30 min. It was high enough intensity to make me break a good sweat. The pace was such that any time I started getting nauseous from the food, we'd start doing something else - it was perfect.

I think the bag class more than made up for not getting in any pad or bag work.
All-in-all it was a great day.

[Pork Chop]

Monday 1/23/2012
Went to Gold's for some lifting & stretching.
Warmed up with about 17 min of cardio (total) on a couple different machines.
Seated Calf Raise, 90lbs x 10 reps x 4 sets
Hyper-extension chair, 25lbs x 20 reps, 25lbs x 15 reps, 25lbs x 15 reps, 25lbs x 15 reps
Face pulls, 40lbs x 10 reps, 60lbs x 10 reps, 90lbs x 10 reps, 90lbs x 10 reps, 90lbs x 10 reps
Cable version of Hammer Strength pulldown, 90lbs x 10 reps, 110lbs x 10 reps
Hammer Strength Pulldown- was all over the place on this one. Started off low weight with high reps, moved to higher & higher weight with low reps, finished with medium weight for high reps. Total about 6 to 8 sets.
Cuban presses with 10 or 15lb kettlebell (wasn't marked), 3 x 10 reps each shoulder
Finished up with a battery of static stretches for upper & lower body.

Enough of a workout to make me sweat, not really so much to kill me.
Not terribly sore today, but it might hit later.
Didn't sleep well last night (5 to 6 hours maybe).

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday 1/25/2012
My fears of getting sore later in the evening on Tuesday were well-founded.
By the time I got to the house to pick up Suntzu Tuesday night, I was completely burnt.
We debated for a while whether or not to go, but ultimately decided to listen to our bodies and get some rest.
Ended up sleeping 10 or 11 hours Tuesday night.

Wednesday, still sore, I left work early to pick up Suntzu and head to the muay thai gym.
My hamstrings were/are very sore and my lower back just plain hurt(s).
I realized that I really over-did it on Monday with the hyper-extensions.
I actually reached failure a couple of times on that exercise and did not pay it enough attention.
Paying for it now.

Wednesday's workout was pretty light.
5 rounds of jump rope with calisthenics on the rest rounds.
Shadowbox for maybe a round or 2.
The rest of the class was spent learning clinching techniques.
Reviewed some nice clinch escapes/counters and even learned a really nice toss or two.

Got home last night and saw the ICMAC thread here on the General Forum.
Houston's Feb 18th seems really early to be fighting; but there's also an event in Dallas in April.
Reviewed a bunch of the ICMAC and Legends of Kung Fu sanshou/sanda clips on youtube.

Gotta say, ICMAC looks pretty nice:
headgear and 12 oz gloves provided,
no chest guards required,
sanda rules (knees + ring/no pushing out of bounds),
and a light heavyweight class for folks 206-225lbs.

There are various divisions broken up by experience: A , B, and C.
A = 5 or more amateur fights (no pro); 3, 3-minute rounds with 1 min rest.
B = 4 or fewer fights, no more than 2 wins; 3, 2-minute rounds with 1 min rest.
C = no fights, or no wins + 1 loss; 3, 1-minute rounds with 1 min rest.
My record is 0 wins, 1 loss; so I qualify for C group.

Not sure about insurance (but it seems likely) or cost. Also wasn't quite able to get a complete grasp of the level of competition at the Texas tourneys from the vids that are available.

I would love it if Houston was in April, Dallas was in May or June, and Legends of Kung Fu was in July - then I would think about making a run at all 3.

Going to discuss it with my coach on Friday & show him the vids I was able to find.
We'll see what he says.
If not this time around, I think Dallas in April is a serious possibility.

[Pork Chop]

Friday 1/27/2012
Thursday was a bit of a waste - I probably should've brought my gym clothes to work in anticipation of it.
Friday, I did bring my gym clothes to work.

Friday was a really rough day, personally.
Had some trouble on the road that I hope doesn't come back to haunt me.
Situation didn't feel safe, instinct took over, my actions may have some ramifications, but at least I'm alive.

In other news, my brother was in the hospital for some stroke-like symptoms.
He should have his test results Monday.
He's only 22, so it's pretty scary.

Workout-wise; I hit up the muay thai gym.
Workout was kind of short, with some interruptions.
5 rounds of jump rope with calisthenics.
3 rounds of shadow.
5 or 6 rounds of bag - focused on my shins for 2 rounds each leg & did combo work the other rounds.
Shins look like hamburger.

[Pork Chop]

Saturday 1/28/2012
Muay thai gym.
Jump rope 3 rounds.
3 rounds of heavy bag.
5 rounds of sparring (3 of which with new guy who shows a lot of promise at 6'2, 210, lean & muscular).
held pads for 2 rounds.
finished up with another couple rounds on the bag (hands)
Mind was telling me I could do more, body - not so much.
Feel like it was almost an ideal workout.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 1/31/2012

Monday was a waste.
Sunday night my kid had nightmares & was up til almost 2.
I didn't fall back to sleep until 4.
Didn't go to work Monday, slept almost the whole day.

Tuesday I hit the Krav gym for cardio bag.
Solid workout.

Tonight (wednesday) I have a work meeting, as I do every 1st wednesday of the month; so I'm going to try to hit "all in all out" on thursday to kinda make up for it. I hope I survive.

[Brule]

way to keep on keepin on chop. At least you're getting out to the gyms and getting fit. I've been on a regular schedule the last 4 weeks with doing weights, hopefully i can keep it up. Maybe i'll update my blog in a couple of weeks if i continue to stay on the path.

Not to take the thread off track but, i've heard others mention that their kids having nightmares and keeping them up during the night and i have to admit it that none of my kids have experienced that, which always made me wonder. I guess they just haven't had one as intense as others and i can't complain about their sleep habits, knock on wood.

[Pork Chop]

way to keep on keepin on chop.

Thanks! :D


Not to take the thread off track but, i've heard others mention that their kids having nightmares and keeping them up during the night and i have to admit it that none of my kids have experienced that, which always made me wonder. I guess they just haven't had one as intense as others and i can't complain about their sleep habits, knock on wood.

It doesn't happen to my kid that often.
Maybe every month or so.
He only sleeps in his own bed, but he likes it when my wife sleeps next to him.
That night she put him down at 7:30; which is hours earlier than normal - we shoot for 8:30, but rarely get him down by 9:30.
She laid down with him at the beginning and took off around the time he would've normally gone to bed.
The end result was that he ended up taking a nap and woke up disoriented when mommy wasn't there.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 2/2/2012
Since wednesday was a bust, I kinda tried to make up for it tonight.
I did All-In-All-Out.
Oh God, why? What have I done?
Holy sh!t ballz that workout is hard.

90 minutes.
The workout was all over the place, and it was all hard.
One section of the workout, he said we were doing a bodyweight-only version of one of the crossfit days.
Another section was straight up tabatas: 8 sets 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off; doing stuff like burpees, thrusters with 2 25lb kettlebells, jumping pullups on the rings, and knees to chest.
Like I said, all over the place: agility drills, battle ropes, sprints carrying a heavybag.

Lots of fun, but really, really hard.
People were disappearing throughout.
Could never do this every day, but as a once-a-week thing, it's awesome.

[Pork Chop]

hurting really bad after thursday.
was a zombie at work all day friday.
after work, i missed the exit for the gym and missed my exit for home.
started taking a nap, but my wife didn't seem to understand me when i said "i don't care about dinner, i need to crash" and woke me up anyway.
right now, i'm hurting, it's late, and i can't fall back to sleep.
I don't know that i'll even be able to make it saturday.
i'm not quite ready for that all-in-all-out class yet.

[Pork Chop]

Monday 2/6/2012
Back to the gym after a long weekend off.
After last week's fiasco, i figured it was time to go back to the drawing board for some tweaks.

My schedule has been Yoga monday, cardio bag tues/thurs, muay thai wed/sat (sometimes fri).
Hitting the bag class twice a week with muay thai has put a lot of strain on my shoulders.
I was hoping that I could eventually transition into all-in-all-out on thursdays instead of the bag class. Last week showed me that all-in-all-out is a no-go. My body just can't handle it (maybe later).

I've decided to add some weights after yoga and do my yoga day twice a week (Tues & Thurs).
The official program is:
Mon- Yoga & Weights
Tues- Cardio Bag
Wed- Muay Thai
Thur- Yoga & Weights
Fri- Rest (optional Muay Thai)
Sat- Muay Thai (sparring day)
Sun- Rest
Doubling up on yoga and weights just feels like a good idea for injury prevention and a little bit of strength.

For weights, I'm following something similar to Starting Strength beginner's program - 3x5 for 3 bigger lifts. I'm going to keep the weight medium-low for now, until I feel ready to do more.

Did 1hr yoga class.
Followed up with weights.

Yoga class was a bit more strenuous than I remember - I sweat a lot.

Weights:
Deadlift - 135lbs x 5reps x 3sets
Squat - 135lbs x 5reps x 3sets
Assisted chinup (neutral grip) - 52lb assist x 5reps x 2sets; 70lb assist x 5reps x 1set - 70lbs felt like where i really should be.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 2/7/2012
Cardio bag Tuesday night.
Same guy taught it that taught All-in-all-out on Thursday.
It may not be the A-I-A-O class that killed me so much as this guy.
This was one of the most brutal bag classes I've experienced.
Unless I somehow got out of shape by having 1 week of only 2 (hard) workouts; this class was unusually hard - was like a mini A-I-A-O with no breaks or even time for setting up different exercises.
The guy's a big fan of Tabatas and says as much in class.
Thing is, we don't stop at 10 rounds (5 min?) of Tabata intervals; it's an hour long workout.
Went through all the stages of a tough workout yesterday:
out of breath, pukey, hot, unable to catch my breath, "powering down", dizzy, faint...
Afterwards I was pretty much a vegetable for a good hour or two.
Good workout.

Today I feel okay so far.
I've just been really grumpy all morning.
A lot of times after a hard workout, I feel okay most of the day and around 4 I start getting achy, cramping, and sleepy. Shooting for muay thai tonight, so I hope that doesn't happen.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday 2/8/2012
Went to muay thai tonight.
Worked real hard.
Noticed myself getting tired at weird times again, but gutted it out.
Got my work in at least.

My coach says i'll fight this summer.
Told him my weight hasn't budged in the last month and that I might have to fight heavyweight.
He didn't seem too positive about it.
At the very least he wants me to hit up my teammate, the personal trainer for some serious strength training (probably just get him to sign off on my 3x5 stuff).
We'll see what happens by the summer time - either my metabolism will kick in, or at least I'll be stronger.

My wife's locked me into this routine of eating a big dinner with her.
She doesn't eat all day, so she's usually starving and she demands I eat with her.
In the past, I wouldn't bring enough food to work for lunch and I'd be starving too.
Lately, I've been feeling less and less hungry in the evenings; it might have something to do with me taking over the chore of giving my kid his night time bath.
Today it came to a head and we had a little bit of an argument over it.
I'm going to try to just make myself something light for dinner from now on.
It might help with the weight loss.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 2/9/2012
Yoga & weights last night.

Yoga class was actually pilates + yoga for an hour.
A lot of that stuff is all bodyweight oriented, so it's pretty tough if you're big.
Sweat like crazy.
Given that I don't really have any dedicated cardio workouts, I'm hoping this and the cardio I do in my other workouts will suffice.
My biggest limitation is time; so if I can actually improve something & get some cardio in there instead of mindlessly grinding away on a cardio machine, then that's preferable.

Weights:
Squat: 135lbs x 5reps x 3sets - was a little tired and clipped the rack on the way down. Holding the bar pretty low on my shoulders so I don't hurt my neck again, so it can get a little awkward. Don't think the weight is all that tough though. Will give 135 at least one more week before moving up to 185.

Deadlift: 185lbs x 5reps x 3sets - bumped up weight and didn't really notice much of a difference. I can usually jump back into 225lbs x 10 within my first month of working out, so I'm playing it very conservative. Will try to give 185 at least 1 more week before moving up to 225.

Assisted chin up: 70lb assist x 5reps x 3sets - felt really strong on this one. One more time and I should think about reducing the assist; maybe I'll give it another week.

I'm still on the fence as to whether or not I should add some pushing (probably overhead press).
There's also the idea of having 2 different upper body portions: 1 with assisted chin + dip, the other with t-bar row + overhead press. Thing is, the yoga classes have so much supporting of the upper body with the hands, I do tons of pushups throughout the week between my other classes, and hitting the bag is very taxing on the shoulders. I think I'm going to wait until my body adapts to my schedule and things gets easier.

I got in touch with my personal trainer classmate at the request of my coach. He hasn't contacted me back yet, but I emailed him a pretty lengthy email only last night.

I was down another pound as of this morning (just under 238). Light dinner is helping, and I don't feel hungry. So maybe I just plateaued there for a bit & am starting to have movement again. I'm usually low 230s, upper 220s when I'm working out without any crazy dieting though; so that's why I'm not very confident about my weight. If I can get under 220 by June with a schedule I can easily maintain, I could probably get strict for a month and get under 200~205 by July.
Wish I could make 185 without killing myself.
Just gotta keep grinding away and thinking long term.

[Pork Chop]

Saturday 2/11/2012
Friday was my rest day, which was nice.
Saturday was sparring day.
Got in about 3 or 4 rounds of hands at the end.
Overall, the workout was close to 2.5 hours
Good workout.
Enjoyed working with the guy on hands.
Think I'm doing well about taking my ego out of the equation and learning to just enjoy it.
The guy I worked with was a good partner and that always helps.

[Pork Chop]

Monday 2/13/2012
Yoga tonight, then weights.

Yoga class was partner yoga.
Started off with a dude.
He didn't like the exercises (they were a bit... awkward) and took off after like the third one.
Teacher tried to get him to stay, he said "not a snowball's chance in he||"

My next partner was a cute girl, so it worked out.
Had to modify some of the exercises so I wouldn't crush her, but she put up with me and we got a good workout.

Afterwards, went to lift weights.

Squat 135lbs x 5reps x 3sets - held the bar real low on my shoulders and went ATG (or at least as much as my joints will allow). Was a little out of breath between sets, but otherwise it felt pretty good. Some awkward moments balance wise, but most of that is because of the bar position I think. Next week I'll bump it up to 185 and see how it goes. Thursday will be my last time at 135.

Deadlift 185lbs x 5reps x 3sets - really focused on strict form. It felt pretty easy. Like with the squat, I wasn't exactly throwing around the weight, and I did get a bit winded, but it wasn't much of a struggle. Next week I'll bump it up to 225, Thursday will be my last time at 185.

Usually do a 135lb power clean after my last set of legs and even that is starting to feel light.

Assisted Chin Up 70lb assist x 5reps x 3sets - I feel like I'm doing these with perfect form. I feel like I could step it up. Will use the 70lb assist one more time on Thursday and then drop down a plate (55lb assist?).

Went home and before dinner jumped on the scale - just under 238, basically another half pound or so. Just gotta keep it up and see how far I can go.

Feel pretty good tonight, just sleepy.

[Pork Chop]

Power blew at work so we got out at around 10:30am.
I'm in full couch potato mode.
Took a 2.5 hr nap and played some video games.
Gym tonight is not looking probable; would have to leave in an hour and feel more inclined to go back to bed.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday 2/15/2012
Fun night.
Felt compelled to "make up" for being a couch potato Tuesday.
Muay thai class.
5 rounds jump rope with calisthenics on the rests.
3 sets of 10 kbell swings
1 round of 5 jumping jacks + 1 burpee, continuous
held focus mitts for 3 rounds
held thai pads for 3 rounds
hit focus mitts for 3 rounds
hit thai pads for 3 rounds
finished up with 4 rounds of conditioning kicks: 1 kick, 1 leg, continuous for each round, so 2 rounds each leg, low round kicks & medium round kicks. Tried to break the bag.

[Pork Chop]

i just got majorly hosed tonight.
less than 5 minutes from the gym, was called away on an "emergency".
so angry right now that i'm nauseous.

[Pork Chop]

Friday 2/17/2012
Was able to kinda make up one of the days I missed.

12 min on treadmill, warm up, walking on an incline at 60% max heartrate.

Squat 135lbs x 5reps x 3sets - mixed it up, held it low on the back first set, then used the sting ray plastic "holder", final set started as front squats but finished out with zercher squat when i couldn't get it to sit right (and my arms were hurting).

Deadlift 185lbs x 5reps x 3sets - nothing special. Pretty easy.

135 power clean was automatic - it just went straight up.

Overhead press 95lbs x 5reps x 1set; 115lbs x 5reps x 2 sets. 115 was nice and heavy, but didn't feel like too much. I'll stick with it for the next month. If I can build up to 135, I may just end up doing power clean & press.

Assisted chinup 70lb assist x 5reps x 3sets. Maintained perfect form, but I was tired, and it was a bit of a struggle. I think I can up the weight next week, but I'm going to have to get adjusted to the new workload.

[Pork Chop]

Saturday 2/18/2012
Muay thai.
Showed up on time but coach was in the middle of something, so I didn't get to workout till about 11:20. Still got in over 3 hours worth of work - was at the gym for a total of 4 hours.

5 rounds jump rope + calisthenics
Held pads for maybe 7 rounds (can't really remember).
Hit the bag for a round.
Learned the gym's ram muay.
Hit pads for 5 or 6 rounds, kind of lost track of time - it was brutal and I cramped up at the end.
Held pads for another 3 rounds.
Kicked the bag for 4 more rounds.
Worked on footwork and shadow for a good 30 minutes; focusing on basic stepping.

Second guy I held pads for (200 pounder) sparred the guy I sparred last week (maybe 145lbs). Small guy's a bit of a noob. They had a bit of a misunderstanding. Noob went a little crazy in the ring. Big guy checked him. Noob lost it. Drama.
Coach tried to explain things to the noob; he didn't get it. Left the gym in a huff.

Was actually kind of surprised the big guy sparred - he only went 3 rounds on pads because he was having trouble breathing. He's had "temper" issues in the past. He's good, he's strong, and he's fast but he takes things personally- so it can be a dangerous combination.

I can see both sides of the story and yet I kinda blame both of them.
At the same time, I really think sparring needs to be friendly, focused, purposeful, closely supervised, with lots of communication - even with advanced students in there.

I've got some strong ideas on how I would do things if I were running the show, but I'll keep those ideas in my back pocket if I ever open up my own place.

[Pork Chop]

Monday 2/20/2012
Yoga class tonight.
Got there more than 20 min early so got in some extra stretching.
Class went pretty well, but I noticed my ability to hold a deep bow stance (warrior pose) isn't what it used to be - kept cramping up.
I also had issues with the pike position (standing position, bent at waist, head by knees, legs straight, hands on floor); actually the variation where one of your legs is supposed to be sticking straight up behind you - could barely go past horizontal.
Broke a good sweat though and felt good.

Afterwards I lifted weights.
I upped the weight today.
Interestingly enough, I felt really strong.

Squat 185lbs x 5reps x 3sets - was holding the bar a little higher. I had problems long ago because I was holding it in the notch at the base of the neck & screwing up my neck. Lately, I've been holding it low, pretty much across my shoulder blades. Tonight, I held it across my traps, along the top edge of my shoulder blades, a few inches below the notch at the base of the neck. Felt much better this time - much more balanced. Didn't really notice the increase in weight. Still went as low as I could go.

Deadlift 225lbs x 5reps x 3sets - Again, I didn't really notice the increase in weight. Kept good form with my back straight. Got a bit tired between sets, but nothing like friday.

Powerclean with 135lbs was ridiculously easy. Was tempted to try to press it.

Overhead Press 115lbs x 5reps x 3sets - Easier than last week. Feels nice and heavy, but not uncontrollable. No breakdown in form. Kept good control the whole time. Held it at the top for a few seconds after my last rep.

Assisted Chinup 60lb assist x 5reps x 3sets - Much easier than 70lb assist was on Friday. Kept good form even through the last rep.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 2/21/2012
Cardio bag last night.
Owner taught, which usually means an absolute killer class.
Honestly, I'm not sure he was any worse than when Rube taught (the guy that killed me first at all-in-all-out and then again a week later at cardio bag).
These guys like to double up on the lead a lot on their combos, which is almost impossible to do correctly on the pace that they do it - no time to reset or even throw properly.
They also demand left foot forward on a lot of drills and then forget to do right foot forward.
Both of those things kind of drive me nuts.

Finished up with 3, 1-minute punchout rounds at the end.
The last punchout was particularly effective; he did a nice visualization exercise and got a lot more out of me - hit a wall about 30seconds in but managed to keep it going till the end.

Afterwards, I went to go see my old team mate (Marcel) and my old coach (kru Vong).
Kru Vong's in town to prepare Marcel for a fight in Vegas.
I didn't realize how far away the gym is.
Left for the gym a little after 7, got there at almost 8, chatted til 8:30 and didn't get home until after 9.
By that point, I was starving, tired, and not thinking straight so I picked up some food.
My wife was ticked.
Didn't eat well - ate unhealthy food, but at least it wasn't a total pig out.
Drank caffeine with dinner and it kept me up late.
Working off of less than 5 hours of sleep; but I wasn't groggy when I woke up.
While I was up late, I managed to accomplish a lot of stuff that had been building up for a while.
Feeling a bit relieved today, like a weight had been lifted.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday 2/22/2012
Coach wasn't there, so it was a free day.

4 rounds of jump rope, with calisthenics on the breaks - one round was a little interrupted.

1 round: kettlebell swings x 10, slam ball slams x 10, seated slam ball twists x 10 => repeat for the whole round (3 min)

1 round: same as above, but wearing 25lb weight vest.

1 round: 4 jumping jacks + 1 burpee => repeat for the whole round (3 min), wearing weight vest.

3 rounds of shadow wearing the weight vest: first round everything, second round just kicks, third round boxing with footwork.

2 rounds of shadow no vest

7 rounds heavybag: first round everything on softer bag, second round low rear roundkicks (with combo), third round low lead roundkick (with combo), fourth round mid/high rear roundkick (with combo), fifth round mid/high lead roundkick (with combo), sixth round fight finisher crosses (pure power on the cross the whole round), seventh round fight finisher hooks (pure power on the hook the whole round).

I was hurting through most of the bag work; the weight vest took a lot out of me.
was down another couple pounds after the workout (235.0).

[Pork Chop]

Friday 2/26/2012
Overdid it on Wednesday with the weight vest.
I was sore all day and my back was killing me on Thursday.
Got stuck in bad traffic leaving work on Thursday, so I was running 20 min late for a 1 hour yoga class.
In the end I decided to rest.

Friday, I had a good weight workout.
Deadlift 225lbs x 5reps x 3sets - Might have been because the "tread" on this olympic bar was still new and sharp, but it felt heavier. Didn't have any problems on the deadlift, it was still pretty easy, just not quite as easy.

Where the difference showed up was in the power clean with 135lbs. In retrospect, I think I took too much of the legs out of the movement & ended up doing a reverse grip bicep curl with 135. Kinda failed at the top and looked real awkward sneaking under the bar. If I had done a true power clean I doubt I would've had any problems.

Squat 185lbs x 5reps x 3sets - Used the manta ray. Was really pretty easy. Form stayed perfect - better than the last time even.

Overhead press 115lbs x 5reps x 3sets - this actually felt pretty easy. I don't think I struggled even as bad as last time.

Assisted Chin up 60lb assist x 5reps x 3sets - again, pretty easy. Form was the best I've done yet.


I'm writing this Saturday morning and I'm almost dreading going to work out. Saturday's supposed to be "sparring day" for the fighters; but as I may have said earlier - I don't have any partners that I enjoy sparring with currently. What I dread is having to make excuses for not jumping in there, or getting pressured to jump in there and either being target practice for little guys to tee-off or risk it becoming a brawl any time I try to fire back. My goals for Saturdays is really to help out the guys who are going to fight. I'd rather do clinch work, hold & hit pads, or just get in a good solo workout. If none of these guys are more than beginners, are ready to fight, or appreciate what I bring to the table, then there's not a whole lot of point. Not even sure if the coach is going to be there, because he hadn't been there all week by Wednesday. Maybe I need to find a new gym.

[Pork Chop]

Saturday 2/25/2012
As usual on Saturdays, after it was over, I'm glad I went today.

Coach was there, the personal life drama that's plagued him the last decade is going to come to a head on Monday. There was some really good news this past week and he's feeling positive that Monday's going to go his way.

Also, my old workout partner was there - one of my all time favorite guys to work with. Funny that my 2 favorite workout partners are also the 2 guys who have broken my ribs, but those 3 incidents don't mean much against a long history of great workouts.

We did freestyle pad work - lots of back and forth, with offense and defense.
It kinda ends up like sparring, but the one hitting can go harder without either partner worrying too much about getting hurt. In other words, it's probably my favorite thing to do. I burnt him after 3 rounds. I went 6 with no rest round between the last 2. I guess he was taking it easy on me, some of it was hard. It's weird, when I have to worry about getting hit, I don't get as tired - it's interesting, so my brain stays engaged & time just flies by.

Finished up with a good 5 rounds on the heavybag.

Afterwards, we had a nice long round table on sparring - me, my partner, and the noob who had the incident last week. The topic of the incident last week came up and I expressed some concerns about the other guy involved that my workout partner kind of confirmed. Overall, we agreed on 3 points:
1. Sparring needs to be constructive - there needs to be a progression, you don't just throw people to the wolves, and you don't spar to brawl. You do it to reinforce the application of your technique.
2. You can't learn to fight with techniques without hard sparring - you can learn technique & train on bags all day, but in the end, in order to learn fighting you have to do it (as safely as possible).
3. There's no place for ego or bad blood in the gym. You save that stuff for people outside your gym. You shouldn't lose your temper while you fight, but you really shouldn't abuse your teammates. You both need to be working towards the common goal of making both partners better.

Was the talk revolutionary? No, not really. But I can look at each team mate on an individual basis. If there's nobody good for me to work with, then I'll have to accept that. There are a few people that could be good to work with, but I'll have to either build up a better partner relationship with them or build up their skills first.

I hate having anxiety on Saturday mornings before going to work out. I want it to be fun. I'm trying to make it fun. It's a lot of fun when I've got people I enjoy working with. When I don't think any of my preferred partners are going to be there, it's a bit like going to the dentist. I'm trying to change that.

[Pork Chop]

Monday 2/27/2012
Yoga + weights today

Yoga was relaxing.
Sweat a little at one point; but in general it was just a good stretch - not as rigorous as it has been in weeks past.
Worked on opening the 5 chakras (yeah that sounds new agey): the root, the perenium, the heart, the 3rd eye, and the top of the skull - with a couple stretches for each.

Strength training:
Deadlift 225lbs x 5reps x 3sets. Pretty easy.

power clean with 135 was easy too

Squat 185lbs x 5reps x 3sets. ATG. Pretty easy. Did a couple extra reps on the last set.

Overhead press 115lbs x 5reps x 3sets. Got tired in between sets on this one. Last set was pretty hard - was using a slightly wider grip. Was sweating good by the end.

Assisted chinups 60lb assist x 5reps x 3sets. This didn't feel like anything. Knocked it out pretty quick.

I might want to move up weights again the week after next.
If Friday goes real easy, I may even increase next week.

Called my workout buddy after I finished.
Initial word is that coach was able to resolve all his personal stuff today.
Supposed to have some kind of get together tomorrow.
Will try to stop by for 30 min.

First day on the diet (https://zedrics.com/content/victory-march) went well. Haven't really talked about it before, because I wanted to see how it went first. There have been other diets that I've tried (meal replacement shakes, juicing, etc) that I wasn't even able to last one day.

This really doesn't feel like a diet. I order 1 week's worth of food that I pick up in 2 separate shipments. The food is prepared the day I pick it up and lasts in the fridge for a few days until I eat it all.

The owner is a trained chef and they have a dietitian on staff. The food is all organic, and a lot of the dishes are compatible with different diet plans like paleo, low carb, vegetarian, and gluten free. (https://zedrics.com/sites/default/files/weekly-menus/Menu.pdf)

All I know is that it tastes real good and I don't feel like I'm starving. I got a bit hungry around 3 or 4. If it happens tomorrow, I may snack on fruit and/or a fiber bar in that case, because the total calorie count is still pretty low.

I'm excited. :D

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 2/28/2012
Cardio bag day at the Krav gym.
I didn't think the class was all that hard until I got to a particular section about halfway through:
30 seconds punching squats
30 seconds jump punching squats
30 seconds punching burpees
After that, everything was a struggle.
The burnout round was 3 minutes straight, so I paced myself a bit more than when we do 3 x 1 minute rounds. Was nauseous afterwards.
I guess it was a good workout; but in the back of my mind I wondered if I was gassing quick because of the diet.
Sweat through all my clothes, so at least I know I got it in.

Afterwards, I went to the muay thai gym to congratulate the coach on clearing up his issue. I was on the phone with illusionfist out front of the gym for a while; but eventually made it in. Saw some guys I hadn't seen in a LONG time. Gym should start picking back up soon.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday 2/29/2012
Kinda playing hooky tonight.
Was supposed to go help my friend get ready for his fight in Vegas.
I drove all the way to his gym (45 min) and got there over an hour before their classes start (which I guess is when the gym opens).
I waited around for around 15~20 minutes, nobody showed up to open the gym early.

Eventually I was more bored, sleepy, and hungry than I was motivated to work out, so I gave up and drove home.
Feel a little bad, but he wasn't really expecting me - I'd already cancelled over the weekend, but my plans had changed last minute so I tried to make it anyway.

I don't think I ate enough today.
I was spacey and a little dizzy driving over to my friend's gym.

I've been refreshing & relearning the Hung Gar form Gung Ji Fuk Fu for about the last week. I'm going to work on that a bit tonight. I've been thinking that I'll do that instead of taiji for internal/breathing work. Maybe I'll do them both, I don't know.

Going to sneak in a lifting session before picking my kid up from daycare tomorrow.
Friday I'll try to make up the muay thai workout.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 3/1/2012
Jetted out of work about 20 min early to sneak in a workout before I had to pick up my kid from daycare.

2 guys in a row were using the squat rack for bicep curls and I didn't want to interrupt them, so I did my workout in reverse.

assisted chinup: 60lb assist x 5reps x 3sets - last set was kind of hard. I was in a bit of a rush and not really resting between sets.

standing overhead press: 55lb dumbells x 5reps x 3sets - This was pretty hard. Tried 60lbers first for a rep and didn't feel in control of it - didn't quite get the left one to the top, but didn't really buckle down on it either. 55lbers was still very tough. My shoulders & neck feel all weird - like they're going to hurt tomorrow. I think I prefer the stability of the barbell. Seems kind of easy to get injured.

deadlift: 225lbs x 5reps x 3sets - This wasn't bad. I think it may have been too easy because I wasn't paying attention to form as well as I should. Yes, I know that sounds backwards, but it wasn't much of a strain.

squat: 185lbs x 5reps x 3sets - Started to get a little winded at the end, but this wasn't too difficult either.

picked up my second batch of food to see me through the week. can't wait to weigh in on sunday to see how this week went.

gonna try to do some forms tonight.
trying to schedule a workout sometime this weekend with Water Dragon and some other kung fu folks.

[Pork Chop]

Without warning, they dropped my meals from 500~600 calories (kcals) per meal to 400~480. Today it hit me HARD. Was hurting at work, had less than 900 by the end of the day. Heart was racing just walking up the stairs. Drive home was a fight to stay conscious. Passed out for a couple hours when i got home. Dinner was supposed to be 440, but added a couple Grands biscuits (170 calories each) to beef it up a bit and I still don't feel quite right.

I'm going to have to beef up the calories somehow. Hate having to spend extra money, but I'm going to need to add fruits & veggies to snack on - plus maybe a FiberOne bar. Too much lower than 1800 calories a day is rough on me right now.

[Pork Chop]

Saturday 3/3/2012
I'm going to be conservative and say I worked out for 3 hours today, but I started working out at 11:30 and didn't leave the parking lot til at least 3:30.

Muay thai was brutal.
the worst part was:
1 round pad work, clinch sparring on the 1 minute "rest" rounds, then a full 3 min of rest, while the other guy hit pads, before jumping back to clinch with the guy who just finished. rinse, repeat for five rounds apiece. coach was trying to kill us, so it was bad.

worked with water dragon from about 2:30 or 2:45 on.
not super high intensity, but by that point I could barely move.

cheated and snuck a peak at the scale after my workout: 230.
that's 5 pounds lower than my last "dry" weigh in, and 9 pounds lower than my last actual weigh in a week ago. pretty good for one week.
Just gotta stay consistent. Whether I break under 220 in April, May, or June -it's going to happen. Pretty confident that I'll break under 200 this year.

[Pork Chop]

Monday 3/5/2012
Yoga & weights.

Yoga class was great. The workout focused on flexibility (as opposed to breathing or static poses). Got a really good stretch.

Weights.
My teammate & personal trainer friend Ray came up to me after my first set to tweak my workout. I'd asked him to a week ago via email and he's been working on it. Small tweak made a huge difference. He wanted me to do 10 reps of a speed/explosive motion after every heavy set.

Squat - Jumping Squat 185lbs x 5reps x 3sets; 10 bodyweight jumping squats after each set. Got a freebie first set in there so it was really 4 sets of weighted squats. Was doing "knees-to-chest" type jumps, will probably just do normal squat jumps next time. Exhausting.

Overhead Press - Jumping pushups 115lbs x 5reps x 3sets; 10 jumping pushups after each set. Jumping pushups = clapping pushups without the clap. By the second set I couldn't do any more jumping pushups normally, so I went to my knees. The third set I just did 10 pushups for speed. I may do the 10 pushups for speed until they become easy. Again, very tiring.

Deadlift - 2 handed swing 225lbs x 5reps x 3sets; 10 kbell-type swings with 25lb plate. Might use an actual kettlebell next time.

135lb powerclean went well.

Assisted chinups 60lb assist x 5reps x 3sets; dropped the weight and cranked out 10 reps as fast as possible (160lb assist, 120lb assist, 100lb assist). Final speed set was maybe too little of an assist.

I was soaked by the end of the workout and felt ready to fall out on the way home.
Slept pretty well last night. Don't feel sore today....yet.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Monday 3/5/2012
Yoga & weights.

Yoga class was great. The workout focused on flexibility (as opposed to breathing or static poses). Got a really good stretch.

Weights.
My teammate & personal trainer friend Ray came up to me after my first set to tweak my workout. I'd asked him to a week ago via email and he's been working on it. Small tweak made a huge difference. He wanted me to do 10 reps of a speed/explosive motion after every heavy set.

Squat - Jumping Squat 185lbs x 5reps x 3sets; 10 bodyweight jumping squats after each set. Got a freebie first set in there so it was really 4 sets of weighted squats. Was doing "knees-to-chest" type jumps, will probably just do normal squat jumps next time. Exhausting.

Overhead Press - Jumping pushups 115lbs x 5reps x 3sets; 10 jumping pushups after each set. Jumping pushups = clapping pushups without the clap. By the second set I couldn't do any more jumping pushups normally, so I went to my knees. The third set I just did 10 pushups for speed. I may do the 10 pushups for speed until they become easy. Again, very tiring.

Deadlift - 2 handed swing 225lbs x 5reps x 3sets; 10 kbell-type swings with 25lb plate. Might use an actual kettlebell next time.

135lb powerclean went well.

Assisted chinups 60lb assist x 5reps x 3sets; dropped the weight and cranked out 10 reps as fast as possible (160lb assist, 120lb assist, 100lb assist). Final speed set was maybe too little of an assist.

I was soaked by the end of the workout and felt ready to fall out on the way home.
Slept pretty well last night. Don't feel sore today....yet.

Looking at the numbers, your overhead press seems a bit high compared to the other stuff, or the other stuff a bit low...
Good routine !

[Pork Chop]

Looking at the numbers, your overhead press seems a bit high compared to the other stuff, or the other stuff a bit low...
Good routine !

Thanks :)
Yeah, I should probably be deadlifthing 275~315 and squatting at least 225.
I progress slowly with squat because I've had balance issues in the past.
I don't really have an excuse for the deadlift other than not wanting to hurt my dainty hands.
Mostly I've been trying to avoid DOMS & not being able to walk for days.
With chin ups, I just plain suck.

Still though, as a portion of bodyweight, overhead press is the lowest percentage.
230lbs/2 = 115lbs = 50% bodyweight for overhead press.
Even with the 60lb assist, I'm still doing a 170lb chin up.

Going to do 1 more workout at current weights and bump up 3 of the 4 next week.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Thanks :)
Yeah, I should probably be deadlifthing 275~315 and squatting at least 225.
I progress slowly with squat because I've had balance issues in the past.
I don't really have an excuse for the deadlift other than not wanting to hurt my dainty hands.
Mostly I've been trying to avoid DOMS & not being able to walk for days.
With chin ups, I just plain suck.

Still though, as a portion of bodyweight, overhead press is the lowest percentage.
230lbs/2 = 115lbs = 50% bodyweight for overhead press.
Even with the 60lb assist, I'm still doing a 170lb chin up.

Going to do 1 more workout at current weights and bump up 3 of the 4 next week.

Pansy.
Don't worry about going to "low" on the weights of the OH press, your shoulders are far more fragile than your knees (squats) and lower back ( DL).
I probably am far more cautious about shoulder exercises than any other bodypart.

[Pork Chop]

Pansy.
Don't worry about going to "low" on the weights of the OH press, your shoulders are far more fragile than your knees (squats) and lower back ( DL).
I probably am far more cautious about shoulder exercises than any other bodypart.

I hear you. Overhead press with dumbbells last week scared the cr@p out of me - felt like my shoulder slid out of socket at one point. 115 feels good and I'll probably stay there until it gets easy.
Of course, it would be nice to do hanging clean & press with 135 some day, but no rush.

Hurt my neck last summer doing squats because of poor bar placement.
Also a little worried about bending over coming out of the bottom of the squat.
I've been experimenting with different bar placement, but I should probably buy my own manta ray to help.
I've been working a lot on form this time around, but it's still not quite "automatic" yet.
That being said, I'm pretty confident that 225 will not be a problem and 275 is probably even doable.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 3/6/2012
Cardio bag.
Tonight was proof that even a cr@ppy class can be a good workout.

My biggest beef with the cardio bag class is that some of the instructors call for BS combos, or a speed that causes a complete and total breakdown of proper form.
Tonight was a textbook example of that, for almost the entire class.
For example, one of the combos was jab - step out with a cross to the body - double cross up top. Of course she didn't give time to reset for any of the crosses, so it just became slop for most folks.
I did my best to keep it somewhat realistic.

I think she deliberately burned out the legs to make up for the lackluster class.
For about 5 minutes we alternated between:
bodweight squat, horse stance, (lower) half squat, squat knees
must've done well over 100 bodyweight squats.
Finished up with core work instead of the crazy burnout rounds.
Still managed to sweat completely through my shirt.

I've been concerned that 1 day is not enough skill work; and with no wednesday muay thai this week and last week, I wanted to sneak in a second muay thai workout. I was thinking tonight I'd shoot over to the gym for about 5 to 7 rounds on the bag after class, to work on my kicks.
Unfortunately, I just didn't have anything left after class.
Didn't help that I was stiff going into the class.
Top of my left shoulder's sore.
I'm just going to have to be patient and do what I can handle.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 3/8/2012
Wednesday's function ran really long, I didn't get home til 1:30 in the morning.
Working on less than 5 hours of sleep and having tweaked shoulders, I decided to just head home after work.
Traffic was absolutely horrible and I realized that I'm in a town largely populated by sociopaths -willing to drive off the road just to cut ahead in traffic.
"Seeing red" is putting it mildly. It kind of shook me up.
I was also feeling pretty burned out on the diet - menu's not changing up as much as I thought.

I ended up doing an hour or 2 of gung ji fuk fu, slowly re-learning it.
Funny enough, it made everything better.
Broke a pretty good sweat too.
Wasn't my weight routine, but at least it was something.

[Pork Chop]

Friday 3/9/2012
Almost didn't go workout tonight, the weather was terrible.
My hate for the traffic was enough to get me to go.
Pretty good workout.
I'm able to work hard these days, just not for a very long time.
An hour, maybe an hour and a half, and I'm done.

5 rounds of jump rope + calisthenics
8 straight minutes of: 1 min kettlebell swings, 1 min slamball slams
1 round regular shadowbox
1 min of burpees (no rest before or after)
8 straight minutes of weight vest shadowbox.
1 more round regular shadowbox (no weight vest)
1 round mixed heavybag
4 rounds of heavybag, focusing on round kicks (1 round each leg low, 1 round each high)
1 round mixed heavybag
1 round boxing heavybag
1 round pushkick on heavybag
1 round mixed heavybag w/last minute skip knees

Last few rounds I had to sit down on rest rounds.
My favorite heavybag (the hard one) finally broke in the last week, so they hung an old, red, title bag and I don't really like it.
Felt like I was finishing early - I stopped earlier than most of the others, but I was probably doing a much more intense workout.

[Pork Chop]

Saturday 3/10/2012
honestly thought i entered this workout blog on saturday.
goes to show you that i was hurting quite a bit.
muay thai from 11 until after 2.
started off with 5 rounds of jump rope + calisthenics
coach killed me with 3 rounds on the pads - I puked my entire breakfast at the end of the 3rd.
few rounds on heavybag and then spent the rest of the time working defense counters with 5 other students.
the last part doesn't sound like much, but with the calorie deficit I was pushing at that point, it was like a marathon.

was 227 after that workout, 228 sunday morning, and 229 this morning - I'm assuming fluctuations for water weight. had a bowl of ice cream saturday night (after puking up my biggest meal of the day, I felt entitled) and a glass of skim milk sunday night; but otherwise, I've been staying on diet.

[Pork Chop]

Monday 3/12/2012
Yoga + weights tonight.

Yoga was pretty intense, was dripping sweat even by half way through.
Afterwards I really didn't feel like lifting.

Weights
Deadlift 275lbs x 5reps x 3sets. 25lb 2-handed swings 10reps between each set. This was nice and heavy. Don't know if I'm liking the swings.

135lb hanging clean felt... well.... clean

Squat 225lbs x 5reps x 3sets. Squat jumps 10 reps between each set. I don't know what happened here. The weight is not that heavy. At the bottom of the movement my butt kept shooting out as I was coming up. It wasn't hard to correct once I was out of the bottom, I'm just not sure why I kept doing it at the bottom. My back's pretty sore, so I may pay for this tomorrow.

I had the same problem about 8 years ago. Back then I actually got correspondence from Dan John. His response: "front squats, and overhead squats". Thing is, I don't experience this breakdown in form until a certain weight and I can't even get close to it with front squats or overhead squats; which tend to do almost nothing for my legs, but really tax my upper body. Maybe I just need to do a set of overhead squats with just the bar to find my balance before I start the back squat with weight. I dunno. I'll try to figure something out Thurs or Fri if I'm not injured.

Just wish I knew why. Am I too narrow? Am I too wide? Is my upper back not activated (shoulder blades pulled back)? Is my grip off? Am I going too deep? Back not arched enough?

Could be too heavy, it only happens when the weight is even a little bit of a strain. Otherwise, squats are really freakin easy. I don't even feel like I'm getting much of a workout with 185. Today's the first time it's happened in recent memory.

Honestly, I think it might be exhaustion. The high rep speed stuff right after heavy stuff is really taxing. I'd rather work on explosive/speed stuff a different day.

Overhead press 115lbs x 5reps x 3sets. Explosive pushups 10reps between each set. Until the last set the overhead press was pretty easy. Last set, last rep or two was a bit of a grind. The pushups were pathetic. Failed the second set for speed, had to do them on my knees at the end. The last set of pushups I tried jumping pushups - think i made 5 before i had to do them on my knees. The speed stuff really isn't working for me; it's just too taxing.

Assisted Chinup 60lb assist x 5reps x 1set; 50lb assist x 5reps x 2sets. Assisted chinups for speed 110lb assist x 10reps in between each set. First set was way too easy. Overall, didn't feel bad.

If my back isn't screwed up, Thursday or Friday I'm going to take a serious look at what I'm doing in the weight room. One of my big concerns is not doing too much volume, because I don't want weights to interfere with my other training. If the explosive/speed stuff is putting me at risk for injury, then it needs to go.

I'm not looking to kill myself in the weight room; just enough to stimulate, maintain, and keep my joints healthy. A little added strength would be nice.
I'm thinking I'll probably drop the speed/explosive stuff, I can work that stuff at the muay thai gym (ie squat jumps, clapping pushups, burpees, etc).

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 3/13/2012
Monday night was bad - my back basically seized up.
Luckily, my wife gave me a massage and I still had some heating pad type things that I could drop into my back brace.
The pain had lessened by Tuesday morning and by lunch time it was basically gone.
By then, the rest of my body started getting sore from Monday's weights.
My legs are more sore Wednesday (2 days later) than they have been in a while.

Did cardio bag class Tuesday night.
Like I said, sore starting out, but after the warm up I felt pretty good.
Workout was pretty hard.
Finished up with 2, 2-minute burnouts; which I found a little weird.
For me, they ended up being like a hard bag round, and probably not a true burnout.
I guess I pace myself too much.
Most everyone else started out with the 30 second burnout pace, and slowed it down significantly by the end.
My pace was pretty consistent, but active, and hitting hard.
I was spent by the end and that's all that counts.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday 3/15/2012
Muay thai.
5 rounds jump rope with calisthenics
held pads for 3 rounds
hit pads for 6 rounds
held pads another 2 rounds
5 rounds of sparring
4 rounds of heavybag (kicks).

[Pork Chop]

Friday 3/16/2012
Thursday I ran through gung gee a couple times, but otherwise, it was my rest day.

Friday was muay thai.
Tried to make up for the fact that Saturday won't be any class - coach is going out of town.

Pretty hard workout, about 2.5 hours.

[Pork Chop]

Saturday 3/17/2012
Gym was closed Saturday, coach was out of town.
Borrowed a key and could've opened myself, but didn't really feel comfortable taking that kind of responsibility. Won't lie, a day off sounded terrific as well.

Ended up playing the Kinect dancing game for 3 or 4 hours with my wife.
Completely sweat through everything I was wearing, which was surprising.
It's a lot more fun than jogging.
Going to try to sneak some game time in when I can.

[Pork Chop]

Monday 3/19/2012
Yoga + weights tonight.

Yoga was fun.
Broke a good sweat and got a nice stretch.

Weights went much better this week.
Decided to do some box jumps (30~36 inches? not sure) at the end instead of explosive stuff in between each set.

Squats 205lbs x 5reps x 3sets - dropped the weight down about 20 pounds and it went much better. Had a couple "iffy" reps; but nothing as egregious as last week. Narrowed my stance & tried to focus on getting my elbows under the bar. The narrow stance kept things kind of in check and the elbows helped me to get my focus on the ascent.

Deadlifts 275lbs x 5reps x 3sets - heavy, but good. Form felt okay, but it's heavy enough that it's hard to know for sure.

Didn't like my hanging clean so I did a second one with 135. The second one was perfect.

Assisted chinup 50lb assist x 5reps x 3sets - this actually felt really easy.

Assisted dip 50lb assist x 5reps x 3sets - this was actually harder than the chinup, i was surprised. Felt good though.

Box jumps 3rd smallest box (about 30 inches?) x 10reps x 3sets - really exhausting, but felt pretty cool.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday 3/21/2012
Had the day off from work to go to various doctors around town.
Worked on Gung Gee for over an hour and got pretty far into it.

Left my house to go to the muay thai gym a little after 4pm.
I left the muay thai gym after my workout a little after 8pm.
The almost 4 hours in between was pretty much a marathon.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 3/22/2012
Picked up my new gloves, my food for the next 3 days, and went to a later Crossfitness Plus class at 7:30.
The workout was hard, very hard:
20 min abs, 20 min calisthenics with med ball, 20 minutes bag work.
Abs - hip flexors kind of gave out when it came time for scissor kicks (after a TON of leg lifts).
Calisthenics - one part was 30 seconds pushups - 30 seconds plank - repeat for 5 minutes, no breaks. Pretty quickly it was like "okay, so I can't do anymore pushups, and even the ones on my knees are looking bad." Not sure how much good I got out of the whole 5 min, seems like the first minute or two would've sufficed.
Bag - Short & sweet. The new gloves performed admirably. 12oz took a little getting used to and they're not quite broken in yet, so my knuckles were pretty sore on my left hand. 2 minute burnout round, I stuck with power punches.

Not sure if it was the smaller gloves, drinking more water as soon as the workout was finished, under-performing on those pushups, or taking a few minutes to cool down before jumping in the car; but my recovery tonight was much quicker than I'm used to. Normally, I'm crashed out on the couch or in front of the computer for at least an hour or 2 before I can do anything. Tonight, I immediately jumped in there and helped out with my kid.

[Pork Chop]

Friday 3/23/2012
Muay thai, 2.5 hours.
Killer workout.
Sparred the guy that broke my ribs, he didn't really take it easy on me.
After 1, 5-minute round, i opted out so I didn't get injured again.

[Pork Chop]

Saturday 3/24/2012
Muay thai, just under 2 hours.
Was still kind of hurting from Friday.
Hit it pretty hard today, but didn't feel like I was performing my best.
3 rounds of intense pad work pretty much killed me.

[Pork Chop]

Monday 3/26/2012
Just did yoga today for an hour.
Thinking I'll sneak in the weights on Thursday before i go pick up my food.

Didn't get much sleep last night - kid woke up at 2:30 in the morning screaming.
My joints were really achy all day and my allergies have been horrible.
I was pretty wiped all day Sunday.

Not sure if it's burnout or what.
Diet's been very hard.
The weekend was a huge struggle.
Today wasn't much better.
I feel drained.
Muscles aren't sore, it's mainly my joints and a general feeling of weakness.
I'm not sleepy all the time either, in fact sleep hasn't been easy.
I am pretty grumpy all the time.
Not too amped to work out, but I'm not really dreading it like I sometimes do.
Allergies are hitting me pretty hard too.
Symptoms I'm experiencing aren't what I'm familiar with as far as "overdoing it."

Think I'll spread it out a little bit this week & possibly take off the weekend.
Might go visit my folks in Houston on Saturday.

Going to weigh in on April 1st to check my progress.
If I'm under 220, I'm thinking about adding a cheat meal on Saturdays; and taking weekends off altogether once I either hit 200 or reach my birthday in June.
If I'm over 220, I was thinking of 1 cheat meal and then no more until June, at which point I'd do the 1 meal a week thing, followed by weekends off once I reach 200.

I'd like to wait til Easter to take that first cheat - to coincide with lent.

The reason I'm thinking about cheating all of a sudden is because I'm getting pretty burned out on some of the food. A lot of it tastes great, but certain dishes are getting very repetitive. I've had almond dijon crusted chicken every 3 days for the last 5 weeks. I can't even eat the pureed parsnip & cauliflower replacement for mashed potatoes anymore - it makes me nauseous. Saturday night my friends were talking about ordering a pizza at midnight and I had to exit the conversation - the cravings were coming on too strong. Ended up dreaming about pizza.

The end result of all this is that it's a little more hard core than I really want to be right now. I love the idea of eating healthy stuff most of the week and losing weight, but the calorie deficit is pretty severe most days, I often feel weak, and I don't want to have crazy cravings. Overall, I don't think my current routine will last much longer than this summer - it's just taking up too much of my life and not leaving me time or energy for other things I want to do.

I'm all about making this a lifestyle change, which is why I have to figure out a system that keeps the majority of my meals healthy, but lets me eat what I want from time to time as well. I know my wife misses going out to eat and spending that time together.

At some point, I'll probably cut back a bit on the working out - probably drop Saturdays, and make 8 o'clock my new curfew. I think in June, I'll know how likely it will be for me to compete and/or reach my weight goals. May have to dial back some of the focus on rushing towards my goals and remind myself that it's a marathon not a sprint - that I need a maintainable lifestyle to get where I want to get. That lifestyle's going to have to include my other interests outside of the gym.

Yikes, that's a bit more of a rant than I really wanted to do. Oh well. But at the very least, this is what's going through my head right now, so I can look back on it if I ever question any of the decisions I made/make.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 3/27/2012
Cardio bag class - 1 hour.

Tried the grant 16oz gloves this class and I may have to retire them.
They're just not good for anything - too slow for classes where I have to take gloves on & off, velcro pops open any time I spar, too much space inside the glove for my liking with regular wraps and hitting the bag. Should've bought the super bag gloves instead.

Class went okay.
At first it didn't feel like I was making much contact, once I did start making contact, I broke the fastener holding the chain for the heavybag up on the rafter. Chain hit my shoulder on the way down, kinda hurt.
Moved to a bag that was much more solid.
Don't like taking class with tonight's instructor; she's one of the ones that I don't feel has the fundamentals down as far as proper power generation.
She calls out combos and has a tempo that encourages arm punching.

Starting to think it's time to mix up this part of the schedule too.
May swap Wed muay thai for Tuesday and do Crossfitness Plus on Wednesday.
Crossfitness Plus is a lot like the bag class, but follows the 20-20-20 (core-strength-bag), so a little less focused on the bag work, more focus on fitness.
If I'm doing muay thai 3 times a week, I would prefer to dial it back on bag work, especially if it's encouraging bad technique.
That would make my schedule:
Mon: Yoga, Tu: muay thai, Wed: Cardio Bag, Thur: weights, Fri: muay thai, Sat: muay thai

I'd really prefer to be doing All-In-All-Out (on Thursdays) instead; but I don't think I can handle it.
Maybe if I just did it the first 60 min instead of the full 90?
I'll talk to one of the instructors.
If I did switch it up to include All-In-All-Out, my schedule would become:
Mon: Yoga, Tu: Muay thai, Wed: Weights, Thur: All-In-All-Out, Fri: Muay Thai, Sat: Muay Thai. Friday would be very light, mostly technique & bag work. Having something like weights on wednesday is good because it's short & easily movable, so I don't have to worry about it so much on the evenings I have my meetings.

Hrm... lot to think about...

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday 3/28/2012
Muay thai tonight.
Went every bit of 2 hours.
Rounds were 5 minutes (and 10 seconds) with 1 minute rest.
Jump rope x 3 + calisthenics on the rest
10 kbell swings + 10 rope ball slams - repeat for 2 rounds
1 round of tire jumps & using tire as a box for box jumps
held pads 2 rounds
hit pads 3 rounds
4 rounds of leg conditioning on heavy bags.

I'm burnt.

btw- all in all out is form 6 to 7:30 on thursdays, and they don't like people who modify, quit, or duck out early, so it looks like that's not in the cards for me right now.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 3/29/2012
Weights first, then held pads.

Squat 205 x 5, 205 x 5, 185 x 5 - The first 2 sets weren't that heavy; I just didn't like my form on them. So for the heck of it, I dropped off a 10 from each side and viola, my form was perfect. I'm going to experiment next week by starting at 185 and increasing only 5 on each side. Hopefully I can figure out a way to keep my form with heavier weight.

Deadlift 275 x 5reps x 3sets - Hurt my hands. It was heavy, but for the first time, it felt like I had perfect form.

Assisted Chinup 40lb assist x 5reps x 3sets - Decided to drop the assist for the heck of it and was surprised that it was almost just as easy as I remember the 50lb assist being. Thinking it might be a combination of weight loss and not losing as much strength in this area from the calorie restriction.

Assisted Dip 40lb assist x 5reps x 3sets - This was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. In fact, I think it was easier than 50lb assist last week.

I forgot to do box jumps - I was kind of tight for time today. Can't decide if I want to sneak in 3 sets of 10 squat jumps tonight or just mix it in with my calisthenics tomorrow.

My friend has a pro mma fight April 20th and asked me to rock sanshou style padwork. I put him through 5 rounds of he|| and even managed to break a sweat myself.

Between clashing with the bar on deadlifts & feeding my friend kicks on padwork I managed to bang up my right shin pretty good today.

[Pork Chop]

Friday 3/30/2012
2 hours of muay thai
went back to 3 min rounds
focused mostly on boxing
got through 300 skip knees (each leg) - was averaging about 100 a round
got in my explosive calisthenics and some tire work as well.

Saturday 3/31/2012
Mowed the lawn, packed up the family, drove to Houson, and played in the pool for a couple hours once I got there.
219 when I woke up, I was down to 217 after mowing the lawn.

Sunday 4/1/2012
Played in the pool a couple more hours before packing up and driving home.
Made it home in pretty much record time.
Realized that I've associated that drive home with alcohol.
Had the worst cravings to fall off that I ever had.
Was hurting for pizza so bad I started getting a lump in my throat like I was going to cry.
I was hungry again as soon as I finished my dinner.
I ended up falling off and ordering from domino's.
First full on cheat meal in 5 weeks at least and I didn't drink.
I knew I was going to cheat eventually, just was hoping to wait until easter weekend.
Time to let it go and move on.

[Raipizo]

Sounds like you have yourself a pretty good workout over the weekend. Playing in the pool is actually pretty strenuous sometimes. Keep up the good work.

[Pork Chop]

Sounds like you have yourself a pretty good workout over the weekend. Playing in the pool is actually pretty strenuous sometimes. Keep up the good work.

Thanks. :)
My kid kept asking me to do cannonballs and make big splashes.
The hot tub felt good too.
Forgot how much I love the water.

Monday 4/2/2012
Yoga class.
I did some ram muay/wai kru to warm up before class and I guess the teacher saw me because we did a similar yoga sequence during class.
Warrior pose for over a minute really killed my left leg; especially when it was immediately followed by the twisting warrior prayer pose on the same leg.
Think my calorie count for the day was under 1200; didn't feel hungry because I was still working on the food from the day before.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 4/3/2012
1 hour cardio bag class at krav maga gym.
Wasn't too bad.
Shoulders are pretty achy, but otherwise I wasn't too burnt afterwards.

[Raipizo]

So are you working out to lose weight? Or just because?

[Pork Chop]

So are you working out to lose weight? Or just because?

My main goals are (in order):
-weight loss
-one more run at competition
-cardio vascular health
-add/maintain strength

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 4/5/2012
Weights first, then held pads

did a quick hanging clean - it was kind of cr@p.

Front Squat 135lbs x 5reps - beautiful form. It was the perfect warm up to kick off squats.

Back Squat 185lbs x 5reps x 2sets; 195lbs x 5reps - First 2 sets felt good, so I wanted to try adding a little. My form still stayed fixed. I still have to put some effort into keeping my hips under me and keeping them from sliding back at the bottom of the movement; but I felt like it was under control. I'll just need a bit slower of a progression. Next time I'll start with 195 & do that for a few weeks before shooting for 205.

Deadlift 275lbs x 5reps x 3sets - Hurt my hand on the first set. Hand gave out after the 4th rep on second set - the 5th rep on that set was garbage. Third set went okay. Not sure what's happened to my grip strength. Probably the diet.

Did a second hanging clean with 135, this time it was easy.

Chinup 40lb assist x 5reps x 3sets - 40lbs doesn't feel like much of an assist, but it's not super difficult either. Feels pretty good I guess, though I could probably drop the assist in the next week or 2.

Dip 40lb assist x 5reps x 3sets - same as the chins.

Held pads for 5 rounds total. First 2 rounds were 3 min, last 3 rounds were 5 min. On the rest rounds I did my explosive movements: squat jumps, jumping lunges, and at the end I did clapping pushups.

Think I damaged the muscle at the base of my shin in the front. Think it's 1 injury that's lingered for the last few weeks, not a new injury each time out.

[Raipizo]

You still have lots of time for competition, maybe not as intense but if you treat your body well you have years to go.

[Pork Chop]

You still have lots of time for competition, maybe not as intense but if you treat your body well you have years to go.

Found out tonight I might be on a card in Oklahoma in August.

Friday 4/6/2012
muay thai tonight
beast mode

3 min round 1 min rest:
5 rounds: jump rope, calisthenics on the rest
1 round: burpees (made about 35)
1 round: 20 jump squats + 10 clap pushups + 10 jumping lunges each leg + 10 more clap pushups + 20 twisting jump squats
1 round: 10 2-handed medball slams + 10 2-handed kbell swings * (repeat)
1 round: 10 kbell swings each arm (both sides) + 10 medball slams each hand (both sides) * (repeat)
2 rounds: tire jumps, twisting med ball crunches on rest
2 rounds: shadowboxing with weight vest, footwork drills on rest
1 round: shadowboxing no weight vest

3 min round 30 sec rest:
2 rounds: heavy bag, everything
1 round: heavybag, low round
1 round: heavybag, teep
1 round: heavybag, mid level round
1 round: heavybag, teep
2 rounds: heavybag, boxing
2 rounds: heavybag, everything

finished out with 300 skip knees (continuous)

[Pork Chop]

Saturday 4/7/2012
Sparred half the people in the gym during a 3 hour marathon workout centered around technique.

[Raipizo]

How do you manage sparring for 3 hours? Jeez.

[Pork Chop]

How do you manage sparring for 3 hours? Jeez.

Wasn't sparring the full 3 hours.

Actual rounds worked out to something like:
3 min rounds, 1 min rest: 5 rounds jump rope with calisthenics on rest.
about 15 or 20 min of shadow
3 min rounds, 1 min rest: sparring 4 rounds straight
defense drills & 1-step sparring for the next hour and a half
5 min rounds 1 min rest: sparring for 2 rounds straight (might've been 3, can't remember)

A lot of the defense drills were hands, so we try to throw that stuff at realistic speeds.

[Pork Chop]

Monday 4/9/2012
Yoga class for 1 hour at the krav maga gym.

Trying to do the "regular" sized meals from the place where I get my food, instead of the "large" meals. "Large" meals run from 400 to 600 calories per meal, for a daily total of somewhere between 1400 and 1800 calories. "Regular" meals run from 270 to 400, for a total around 1200 (often less). Owner of the shop told me the plan is built around having a snack outside the 3 meals that runs around 200 to 300 calories.

Even with the snack, it's still a bit of a shock to the body. Back to feeling weak and tired again. I'm going to see if I can stick the "regular" meals out for a month. I don't know if I see myself going that low for much longer than that. My BMR is still over 2000 calories, so having almost a 1000 calorie deficit even before working out is pretty severe.

[Raipizo]

Yeah I figured it wasn't for 3 full hours but still that's a lot :eek: I would gradually lower your caloric intake, I couldn't get it you are doing that or not. I need to start working out too again.

[Pork Chop]

Yeah I figured it wasn't for 3 full hours but still that's a lot :eek: I would gradually lower your caloric intake, I couldn't get it you are doing that or not. I need to start working out too again.

I wasn't that clear in my post, but the meal plan I've been on (since the last week of February) has been between 1500 and 1800 (k)calories per day; 400 to 600 (k)calories per meal. This week I switched it up to a plan with 250 to 450 (k)calories per meal, for a total that's often less than 1200 (k)calories.

I'm supposed to be supplementing with snacks to get that number back up. I've been trying to plan late-afternoon "mini meals" of either yogurt & fruit, or a meal-replacement protein shake (350 (k)calories and 42g of protein). I'm not that big of a snacker and I really don't like the idea of leaning on protein shakes. I grew up being HUGE on supplementation and aside from fish oil gels and a multivitamin, I'm not big on the idea of supplements anymore.

Today has been crazy, not really sure if I'm going to be able to make it to the gym, I've been putting out fires most of the afternoon. It's got me thinking that maybe I should ease up on the gym while I get used to reduced calories. Unfortunately, I have 2 big seminars this month, so I'm not sure that's really an option.

[Pork Chop]

UPDATE:
Tuesday was horrible, one of the worst days I've had in a long time.
Had a lot of trouble with work, Home Depot, and H&R Block.
The trouble caused me to miss training and that pushed me over the edge as far as dealing with the diet.
Between the frustrations with those companies, missing my workout, and the sheer lack of calories, I think it kicked off a minor depression - I took a nap after doing some work from home and still went to bed real early.
In between the two bouts of sleep, I managed to pig out on freezer food.
Woke up this morning still a bit down, my temper's off the charts.
This stuff better get resolved tonight.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 4/12/2012
Finally got back on track tonight.
Tues and wednesday were horrible, best to just put it behind me.
I think I'm finally adjusting to the food.
Lunch was just under 500 (k)calories; so that might've had something to do with it.
I can survive on a light breakfast, but lunch has to be 400+.

Tonight I went to krav maga gym for 1 hour cardio bag class.
Wore the 12s and wrecked that class.

Afterwards, I dropped off my food at home and headed to the BTT gym to work with my pro fighter friend.
I warmed up about 3 rounds on the double end bag and 3 rounds of heavybag.
Then we did 5, 4-minute rounds with 30 seconds rest legit padwork (sanda style).
By the end of the padwork, even I was pretty tired.

New handwraps came in tonight.
In all, over the last month or so, I've averaged less than $2.20 a pair for 20 pairs - 10 Top Contender, 10 Ringside.

So far, I'd rank Everlast wraps #1, Ringside #2, and Top Contender #3. All of my wraps are 180inch Mexican style wraps.

The Top Contenders aren't bad per se, but every pair seems to have slightly different elasticity. In general, they're much less elastic than my Everlast wraps. The Top Contenders seem to be the longest and possibly the thickest of the three. They kinda feel more like traditional wraps than Mexican style wraps. They're my least favorite, but I don't hate them. They might be the best for loose fitting gloves with questionable wrist support.

At first I thought the Ringsides would just be a yellow version of the Top Contenders, with a wider velcro strap. The elasticity was somewhat similar to the Top Contenders and less than the Everlasts. The Ringsides are thinner; possibly the thinnest, which is nice, because they shape around the fist more like gauze. The more I wore them the more I liked them. They kinda mold to your fist over time.

[Raipizo]

Well it's good to see you're better. It is better not to rely on supplements like you said and to get it through foods. Good luck on training, I'm headed to a tournament this weekend, as a spectator that is.

[Pork Chop]

Friday 4/13/2012
Absolutely wiped tonight.
Might be getting sick.
Hit muay thai up for about 2.5 hours.
The guys for the seminar came early.
More than a little intimidating to be working out in front of a 7-time Raja****ern stadium champion and a big time trainer of champions.
What I did shouldn't have been a hard workout at all, yet I'm hurting.
Spent the whole class working with newer students, barely had any time for my own stuff.
Throat's a little sore so I hope I'm not getting sick.
Hope tomorrow goes better.

[Pork Chop]

Saturday 4/14/2012
Showed up at the gym at 11.
Seminar ran from 3 to 6.
Not quite sure how, but I survived a 7.5 hour workout - heck, I challenged my buddy to 300 skip knees after the seminar was over & even did extra.
Paid for it later that night, had a nasty leg cramp when I was laying in bed - thought I was going to die.


Sunday 4/15/2012
Demonstration for Songkran festival.
Did wai kru/rammuay and some demo sparring.
Took a pretty nasty leg kick from one of the guys - played it off like nothing happened when he apologized, wasn't going to give him that satisfaction. :p


Back on "large" sized meals. My calorie count on Sunday; last day of "regular" meals, was just over 1000 after my 3rd meal. Ended up eating a 4th meal to finish it off, putting me at around 1400 for the day. Don't regret jumping back up. I'll restrict cheat days to once or twice a month. If I can't lose weight at 1500 calories a day, then "oh well".

[Raipizo]

You should easily be able to lose weight with that caloric intake, it might take awhile because I believe 1 lb of fat is 2000 calories, Maybe I'm wrong but lowering your daily intake along with the workout to burn those extra fat calories away you should notice it. Keep workin hard :)

[Pork Chop]

You should easily be able to lose weight with that caloric intake, it might take awhile because I believe 1 lb of fat is 2000 calories, Maybe I'm wrong but lowering your daily intake along with the workout to burn those extra fat calories away you should notice it. Keep workin hard :)

Yeah, I think it's 3500 (k)calories for one pound (of fat). My daily requirement; being almost 35 years old, around 5'10", and over 210lbs, is over 2000 (k)calories before you factor in any sort of exercise - that's what my body burns just being alive. So even just staying at 1500 (k)calories a day and no exercise, I should lose about a pound a week. Given my workload, it should be significantly higher than that.

Going much lower than 1500 leaves me sick - either weak, lethargic, sleepy, light-headed, or just plain flat. At 175~185 lbs, my basic metabolic rate would still be 1800 (k)calories a day, so it's good that I'm comfortable at 1500.

My ultimate goal is to reset my body's concept of "natural weight". Which means dieting down to where I want to be, and doing whatever I can to maintain that weight for at least 1 year. Hopefully, at that point, my body will try to maintain that new weight; as opposed to trying to pack on any pounds to maintain my old weight. Homeostasis is a powerful enemy, I'd like it to be a powerful ally.

Monday 4/16/2012
Yoga class - 1 hour.
Didn't do much core.
Stuck with flexibility mainly, with a killer warrior pose sequence (think 2 minutes of bow & arrow stance each leg), and some balance work.
Dropped by the muay thai gym after to drop off a belly pad that we used at the Thai festival.

Tuesday 4/17/2012
Kid was sick monday night with a fever and one of the neighbors thought it was cool to crank up the bass until well after 1am; so I didn't go to work. Never did find out who has the subwoofers.
Got to catch up on my sleep a little bit. I've had a nagging sore throat the last week and it went away on Tuesday, of course it's back on Wednesday after not getting enough sleep (maaaaybe 6 hours).

Cardio bag class - 1 hour.
Best combos yet.
This instructor actually knows what he's doing as far as putting punches together.
He even asked me if I fought. Made my day. :)

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday 4/18/2012
Muay Thai for about 2 hours.
First 30 min ~ 1 hour was really high intensity; second not as much.
Gym schedule's going to change up come May 1; it'll be tricky because no more friday class.
Fighter training will start later in the evening and later on saturdays.
This might be a good thing, because if I show up early, I should be able to work conditioning on my own with fewer interruptions.
I'm hoping he mixes in more pad work along with the counter techniques.

EDIT: woke up this morning and was 212 :D

[wenshu]

Hey Chops,

Good work battling the caloric restriction with the work load. I don't envy you that struggle.

I'm curious though, you seem pretty detailed when logging your MT sessions but I haven't read of any dedicated clinch fighting. Is it just something you don't explicitly record cause it goes without saying in sparring or maybe just reading comprehension fail on my part?

[Pork Chop]

Well clinch is largely lumped in there with the whole "counter techniques" thing.
Yesterday, one of the techniques we learned was how to initiate a clinch once your leg was caught; also how the other guy could get out of it.
On the other hand, I don't do anywhere near the amount of clinch sparring that I'd like to.
I'm lucky if I can sneak in a round or two on a Saturday class and it doesn't happen often.
Most of the guys I train with don't really even like doing dedicated clinch sparring.
In regular sparring, they usually don't have a choice.

Since we're re-formatting the class schedule, I want to ask if we can re-format the structure of the classes. We need 5 rounds of pad work and 3 rounds of clinch sparring every day. If I trusted more of my training partners to approach sparring without injuring each other, I'd say 3 rounds of sparring every day too.

Learning techniques is good, but not much of a workout and it's of limited use if you're not using it.

[sanjuro_ronin]

I've been hearing good things about raspberry ketones for fat loss.
I haven't read the studies though but some people are having good results.

[Pork Chop]

Friday 4/20/2012
Muay thai class
Haven't been feeling well this week - sore throat and cough.
Not super serious, but just enough to kill performance.
Took Thursday off to sleep.

As a side note, I'm finding it hard to fit in weightlifting sessions. I missed my lifting workouts the last two weeks. This is partly due to time constraints, partly due to worries that fatigue will cause my form to break down leading to injury, and partly due the feeling that it's so different from my other workouts, possibly counter-productive for weight loss. The last 2 weeks I haven't been feeling great, which is really the main reason. This week was illness, the week before from not eating enough. Hopefully when I feel normal, I'll be more consistent with lifting.

Friday night's class was exhausting...
I worked very hard, especially the first 30 min - 1hour.
By the time I got to the bag I was dragging & moving slow.
Did one round on pads with this new combo and it was pretty abysmal.

Saturday 4/21/2012
Saturday I felt even worse than friday.
I was initially just going to show up, drop off the key and go home.
I decided to stick out muay thai class anyway.
Glad I did.

After jump rope, i did some shadow and actually got in a lot of pad work with my coach.
I think it was 3 rounds hands and either 2 or 3 rounds of kicks.
Last 2 rounds I had to take a 5 second breather half way through.
Couldn't breathe through my nose because of the cold and it was coating my lungs.
It was pretty frustrating, but at least better than Friday's performance.
New combo's coming along a little better.

Coach said his grand vision for the fighters is pretty much what I mentioned before:
5 rounds mitts, 5 rounds thai pads, clinch sparring, and regular sparring.
He said when we work up to that we can fight anybody.

After class I had a bunch of green tea with ginger and honey.
At dinner I went for vietnamese pho soup & got jasmine tea.
Cold's starting to feel a lot better.

I may have cheated a little saturday night (pho with desert after); but in general, I feel like I'm doing okay. Normally when I get sick, I completely throw any diet out the window. This time, except for a little splurging on Saturday(s), I've done a lot better.

I was 210 on friday morning.

[Pork Chop]

Monday 4/23/2012
Yoga class - 1 hour
worked on some new poses
pretty strenuous
good stretch

went to the muay thai gym for about an hour
worked on flexibility, stretch kicks, shadow, and med ball slams.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 4/24/2012
cardio bag class at the krav maga gym.
wore my title weighted bag gloves.
old fashioned oven mitt style bag gloves with weights in the wrist.
2.5lbs each glove.
was pretty burnt afterwards.
had some nice crunch on the bag.

coulda sworn the spazz next to me was trying to compete.
we'd start off and his punches would get louder, until he blew his wad and would take a break in the middle of the drill (often quitting the drill outright) - this continued for the whole hour.
he did have some nice push kicks on the burnout rounds.

i still have a problem intentionally overdoing it on the burnout rounds - i keep up a good strong pace, and I finish the round strong. I'm usually hurting on the rests; but i can't help but think i should be going harder.

i also still have a problem with missing the bags. the sweat makes the bag real slick and the bags will bounce off the ground on the back swing, making the bag take off in weird, unexpected directions. Sometimes I'll catch the surface, the bag will take a weird swing, and my strike will slip off from the sweat. Other times I'll miss outright because the bag will bounce off the ground on the back swing and suddenly veer to the left.
Both scenarios mostly happen with hooks & elbows. Occasionally on the back swing, when the bottom hits the ground, the top will bounce backwards and I'll hyper extend a jab, but not as often.
I guess it's good to get practice recovering from misses & glancing blows...

I've been kicking around the idea of adding extra mini sessions to make up for Saturday's cheat.
This is kind of dangerous because I feel like I'm already on the verge of over-training (or already well over-trained). I had thought to do an extra cardio session after bag class, but I really didn't have anything left afterwards.

In the evening I ran through a kung fu form, did some yoga with my wife, and we did 50 body weight squats together. I also cleaned out my car (for my trip to Plano on Friday). It wasn't much, but at least it was something.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday 4/25/2012
Muay thai, 2 hours
killed it in anticipation of the seminar over the weekend.
lots of conditioning stuff like tire flips, tire jumps, etc.

Took Thursday off so I could be fresh for the seminar.

Friday 4/27/2012
Muay thai seminar in Plano.
Left town around 9 friday morning.
Got up to the seminar around 1:30 and jumped right in (was a bit late for the 1-3 session).
Afterwards, I got to participate in a semi-private that Nop was giving at Chris Brennan's gym.
Spent the evening driving all over DFW before ending up at a Laos New Year's festival.
I brought my food for the trip, but it spoiled from sitting in the car all day.
Due to a snafu with rides home, I ended up driving a lot of the Thai fighters to Saekson's house, including Samart who was riding shotgun - which was effing pretty cool.

Saturday 4/28/2012
Had trouble concentrating this whole weekend and Saturday it was the worst.
Friday night I only got 3 or 4 hours of sleep after all that driving & working out.
Hadn't heard from my wife, she didn't respond to her texts, so I was a bit distracted thinking about that.
Most of the seminar was clinch and it didn't seem I could do anything right.
My partner was convinced that I didn't know what I was doing.
One particular technique: over-under clinch into a shoulder lock, I couldn't seem to get even with Neungsiam (http://www.mymuaythai.com/neungsiam-samphusri/) helping us.
Had a smoker at the end of the event: 1min body boxing, 1 min kicks only, 1 min clinch only.

Body boxing, I should've won easy, dominated the first few exchanges, but I got hit, realized the guy was wearing cleto reyes fight gloves instead of sparring gloves, I got mad, and fought stup!d. I fell in love with the rear upper cut, because I saw it doing damage; so I'd wade in through his combos to land the big one. He tagged me as I was stepping back at one point and I stumbled, which looked bad. At one point I did go back to sticking & moving and tagging him at will; but it wasn't enough. They scored it draw.

Kicks... I gave the guy the first kick because he said I low-blowed at the end of the body boxing. I went for a leg kick in response & made the mistake of spinning through it lazily. He scooted back, making me miss and immediately fired a headkick. I finished my spin to see a head kick in the air. It connected, but didn't hurt at all. I was disappointed, because headkicks are usually a KO. Funny thing is, it finally helped me find my groove. After that, any time he kicked, I swept him. I had a hard time initiating offense with kicks without my hands; but I'm not sure that's a bad thing. They gave me the kicking round from all the throws.

Clinch... he immediately got double neck tie right off the bat. Rules were if they drag your head down, they get a point, 3 times in a round and you lose. I immediately countered and escaped. After that, I didn't want to get adventurous, I secured over-under clinch and tried to stay busy with side knees. I tried to throw him a bunch of times but couldn't pull it off - he had good base, and I was kind of forcing it. He did manage to throw me once, but i held on and reversed, sending him flying over me as i went down (might've been a faux pas for thai rules, but that's def a judo thing). They scored the clinch round a draw.

I felt horrible about my performance. I felt like I lost and maybe I should have, I don't know. In the end, I've never won anything on points before, so at least there's a small victory in that. I know I got a lot to work on. It's time to start sparring hard again.

After the gym we went back to the Laotian New Year festival for a few hours and then drove home. Finally got in touch with my wife on the ride home and started cheering up a bit after that. Fell off the wagon Saturday night to let off some steam (and besides, a "w" is a "w").
Sunday, I ate way too much barbecue and my body rejected it (puked a lot).

Time to get back on the wagon and step it up.
According to the Thais, running is the most important part of training.
Apparently, I need to start jogging again; but I really don't know when I have the time.
I stopped breathing on the body boxing round when it started becoming rock-em-sock-em robots and my coach thought I looked gassed before the kicking round. Crazy thing is i didn't feel gassed at all... oh well... I know a big part of it is just relaxing and doing what needs to be done - losing my temper and taking 2 to give 1 is not going to cut it.

Crazy weekend.
I really learned a lot.
Gotta figure out how to step it up even more (not sure how at the moment).

[Pork Chop]

Monday 4/30/2012
1 hour yoga class
then headed over to muay thai gym
muay thai workout ran for over 2 hours
lots of clinch work
coach really took notes at the seminar; at the same time I prefer coach's style of clinch techniques - not as complicated, more usable & versatile.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 5/1/2012
Krav maga cardio bag class for an hour.
Dude next to me hit me in the shoulder and didn't even bother to apologize.
Was tempted to start sh!t; but don't want to get kicked out.
Class was pretty good otherwise.

Went to btt to hold pads for my friend, but he couldn't.
Hung out for a bit and went home.

Could've gone to bed earlier last night, but it wasn't bad.
I'm really drained this week.
Feel weak and lethargic.
Tonight I have a work-related meeting, so no training.
Still going to run late, so I don't know that it'll help me recover any.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday 5/3/2012
Took of Wednesday for my meeting. Luckily I was able to get to bed early, so Thursday was the best I've felt all week.

Hit the gym first:
Squats: 135 x 5, 185 x 5, 185 x 5, 185 x 5 - form held solid until the last set; which wasn't bad, just not perfect.
Deadlifts: 225 x 5, 275 x 5, 225 x 5 - My hands can't handle the heavier weight. On the second set, had to set the weight down after the 4th rep before I could crank out 5. 225's alright, but 275 feels like it's ripping my hands open.

135lb hanging clean was okay, not good, not bad.

Chinups: 40lb assist x 5, 10lb assist x 5, no assist x 4, 25lb assist x 4 - kept failing on rep 4 (last 2 sets)
Dips: 40lb assist x 5, 25lb assist x 5, 10lb assist x 5, no assist x 5 - pretty easy.
Chinups: no assist x 5 - number 3 was ugly, number 4 was a fail, and number 5 was a 10-second negative.

Afterwards, I went for a jog. Decided to try running on my toes like the barefoot crowd suggest. I was surprised at how easy it was. Jogged for over 30 min and it was EASY! Not hurting today, so I think the experiment was a success. I'll still probably only jog once or twice a week, but at least it's something.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Thursday 5/3/2012
Took of Wednesday for my meeting. Luckily I was able to get to bed early, so Thursday was the best I've felt all week.

Hit the gym first:
Squats: 135 x 5, 185 x 5, 185 x 5, 185 x 5 - form held solid until the last set; which wasn't bad, just not perfect.
Deadlifts: 225 x 5, 275 x 5, 225 x 5 - My hands can't handle the heavier weight. On the second set, had to set the weight down after the 4th rep before I could crank out 5. 225's alright, but 275 feels like it's ripping my hands open.




How are you doing the DL's?
Aren't you setting it down after every rep and starting from the weight on the ground?

[Pork Chop]

How are you doing the DL's?
Aren't you setting it down after every rep and starting from the weight on the ground?

I barely tap the ground between reps, if even that much.
I'm always at least within an inch of the ground.
I rarely set the weight all the way back down.
I could do that, i really don't see there being that much of a difference, it might save my hands some.
I just don't like the idea of being able to rest between reps.

[Brule]

As others here have pointed out to me, DL aren't meant to be done that way. Each rep should be started from the ground where the weight is dead.

[Pork Chop]

As others here have pointed out to me, DL aren't meant to be done that way. Each rep should be started from the ground where the weight is dead.

Fine, I'll do that.
I just really don't like making noise between every rep, and I'm going to be really tempted to rest.

[sanjuro_ronin]

I barely tap the ground between reps, if even that much.
I'm always at least within an inch of the ground.
I rarely set the weight all the way back down.
I could do that, i really don't see there being that much of a difference, it might save my hands some.
I just don't like the idea of being able to rest between reps.

This is how people hurt their backs...
Fine for light weight to warm up but not beyond that.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Fine, I'll do that.
I just really don't like making noise between every rep, and I'm going to be really tempted to rest.

The rest is not a bad thing, especially in the low rep/high weight training.
You rest the weight, set yourself again for correct form and do the rep, stop at top, lower the weight slowly and do not drop it, rest it and start again.

[Pork Chop]

This is how people hurt their backs...
Fine for light weight to warm up but not beyond that.

Really? I've only ever hurt my back doing squats.


The rest is not a bad thing, especially in the low rep/high weight training.
You rest the weight, set yourself again for correct form and do the rep, stop at top, lower the weight slowly and do not drop it, rest it and start again.

Doesn't sound so bad when you put it like that.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Really? I've only ever hurt my back doing squats.



Doesn't sound so bad when you put it like that.

Back issues in squats tend to be because of bar palcement and leaning too forward but back issues in the DL come in two forms ( more actually but for the purpose of this discussion):
Too heavy a weight and hips too high on the pull/start of the move.
Back fatigue due to not resting the bar.
Its called a DEADlift for a reason ;)
You can also DEAD Squat which is a real PAIN !

[Pork Chop]

Friday 4/4/2012
Muay thai.
Starting to get real sore from the weight session.
hit it pretty hard for 1.5 to 2 hours.
everything was focused on conditioning: kbells, tire, calisthenics, med ball slams.
pretty intense workout.
finished with 2 rounds of low kick conditioning on the heavybag.
found out my right leg is ready to go again.
was so tired by the end that i could barely move.

we'll see how i do today, my thighs are still real sore.

[Pork Chop]

Saturday 5/5/2012
muay thai
hard workout
finished out with 4 rounds of hard sparring
was working with 2 newer (less than 1 year) guys and coach wanted me to hit them hard to teach them.
not sure how i really feel about it, as they aren't on my level.
both seemed to appreciate the help, even though they took some really hard shots.
at least i was wearing 16s and they knew it was coming, so it was a bit more humane than other seniors teeing off on them with no notice, wearing 12oz gloves.
It was a good workout; I was pretty spent by the end.
I did actually get to learn a couple things I need improve as well.

204 after the workout.

[Pork Chop]

Monday 5/7/2012
yoga class 1hr
Good class
Was having kind of a bad day, I've been feeling pretty burnt lately.
Was supposed to hit up muay thai afterwards, but I decided to just leave it at yoga.

At the moment, i have 1 actual rest day scheduled (sunday) - i usually end up taking off at least one more day whether i want to or not, but only one day scheduled.
i think i need monday to be relaxed in order to keep my schedule strong elsewhere.
In fact, I like my schedule the way it is and am not thrilled about having to add to it.
Coach is keeping the gym open late mon-thurs for fighter training and I should be there.
Thing is, that training goes till 9:30pm, which is WAY late for me.
I'm going to try to swing by tonight after cardio bag class.
I just want to work on technique tonight - maybe fix my footwork for combos.
When they see how exhausted i am after cardio bag, i think they'll take it easy on me.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 5/8/2012

cardio bag at krav maga gym 1hr
was actually a little flat for this class.
didn't feel like i was really killing it.
only did one burnout round and i found myself doing the same combo over and over about half way through.
sweat real good at least.

went to muay thai gym after for 1.5 hrs.
worked mostly technique.
did a 5 min pad round.
focus has been on stepping into my punches to blast through the target.
think i'm getting better

[Brule]

Dude, where do you find to time? Especially with a wife and kid. I could barely spend 45 min working out at home in the evening. :(

[Pork Chop]

Dude, where do you find to time? Especially with a wife and kid. I could barely spend 45 min working out at home in the evening. :(

Yeah, that's kind of my dilemma.
I'm supposed to be doing all this extra stuff: cardio every day, staying for fighter class every Mon, Tues, Wed until 9:30pm, more s&c, etc.
There just isn't any extra time.
Luckily, I have a very understanding wife who works late, works weekends, and also likes to do yoga.
She gives me a lot of leeway on working out because I have to give her so much leeway on weekends she works.
I drop off the kid at daycare in the morning and she picks him up.
If I drove straight home after work, I'd still be stuck in an extra 30 min to an hour's worth of traffic; so stopping at the gym isn't so bad.
If my wife does yoga, she won't get home until like 7:30pm.
Getting home between 7:30 and 8:30 isn't so bad, but getting home after 9pm really isn't working for me.
Last night, I got home just in time to read my kid a bedtime story, took a shower, ordered my mom a mother's day present, heated up dinner and ate in bed.

I'll probably have to wrap up my workouts before 9.
If I stay as long as coach wants, I won't get home until 10.
Honestly, I'd prefer to just hit it hard for an hour or two after work and leave it at that.
I don't think the marathon workouts are all that necessary.

I could never work out at home; I can barely get 30 minutes to myself at home.

[Brule]

As long as it works out for you and yours. Probably makes the time you spend with your kid and wife all the more gratifying. I couldn't do that.

[sanjuro_ronin]

It's a juggle that's for sure.
My wife works at home 2 days out of the week, but she WORKS at home, 7:30 she is already in meetings !
I drop the kids off on the way to work and pick them up.
Then I make sure they do their home work and help where it's needed.
sometimes I have a window of 1 hour between 5-6 and sometimes it is only 30-40 min.
I adjust accordingly.
I leave my IP and qigong till after the kids are in bed ( and every so often I get the, "that's too loud dad" from the eldest- but she's gotten better).
I used to wake up at 5:30 am to workout but I would be dead tired by the end of the week.
I have learned to take the time when it's there and have a fully stocked bar, er I mean gym in the basement !
:D

[Pork Chop]

I have learned to take the time when it's there and have a fully stocked bar, er I mean gym in the basement !
:D

LMFAO!


Sometimes it gets tough, but we do try to find the time.
My wife does a lot of work at home like charting and calling patients to schedule visits for the next day (she's a home healthcare nurse who travels around town all day), so it's not like she's just sitting around waiting for me.
My kid usually just watches cartoons or takes a nap in the evenings when she does this.
Every night I make sure to read him a bed time story.
On the weekends that my wife works, I spend a lot of time alone with my kid.
Last weekend he and I went to see the Avengers together.
My wife and I try to have date night (usually on weekends she's not working) and we have a nightly ritual of watching netflix together after the kid goes to bed.

Maybe it's not ideal, but it seems to be working.
Lately, I've been feeling a little burned out and I think I'd like to slow it down for a week or two.
My coach is going to become a monk for the next week or two, so that might be my excuse.

[Brule]

Like i said, if it works for you, great. Such is life, meeting the repsonsibilities of a family life and also having you're own time to keep the sanity.

[Pork Chop]

Like i said, if it works for you, great. Such is life, meeting the repsonsibilities of a family life and also having you're own time to keep the sanity.

Oh i lost my sanity long ago. :p

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday 5/9/2012
Muay thai 2.5 hrs
first hour was brutal conditioning
second hour was clinch work
last 30 min was holding & hitting thai pads

[Pork Chop]

Friday 5/11/2012
Weights first:
Assisted chin up 40lb assist x 5, 25lb assist x 5, 10lb assist x 5, no assist x 3 + 1 no assist 10 second negative.
Dip 40lb assist x 5, 25lb assist x 5, 10lb assist x 5, no assist x 5
Squat 185lb x 3reps x 2sets; 155lbs x 5 reps x 2sets; first 2 sets were sloppy and off balance, so i dropped the weight. I guess I'm losing strength. Cause is probably 50/50 between diet and burnout.
Deadlift 225lb x 5reps x 3sets; dropped weight here because I have a cut on my right hand at the base of the ring finger, above the callous. Weight wasn't bad, except for the pain in my hand.
Did a full clean at 135. It was easier than trying to work out the coordination for a hanging clean.

Next was jogging
I jogged the trail with a cool down lap in 30 min.

After that was muay thai
5 rounds jump rope with calisthenics
3 rounds shadow with weight vest
2 rounds shadow no vest
4 rounds on pads
lots of clinch work
little bit of heavy bag

Saturday 5/13/2012
Muay thai 1 to 3
5 rounds jump rope
3 rounds shadow with vest
2 rounds shadow no vest
9 rounds on heavybag
held pads for 6 rounds
only hit pads for 1 5-minute burnout round

I've been really hungry this whole weekend.
This next week's schedule is going to be weird - my coach will be in the temple for the next week or two.
Monday will probably be my only late night, after that i'm probably going to keep my workouts short so i can catch a breather.

[Pork Chop]

so i've taken most of this week off from working out, but I have been in the gym.

Monday 5/14/2012
Taught and held pads for 4+ hours.
This was surprisingly exhausting, I don't how my coach does it.
Led the kids in a group workout of jump rope and calisthenics.
Held pads for an hour, helping my friend fix his rear round kick.
Spent an hour teaching some new guys how to throw basic punches, held mitts.
Finished up the last hour~hour and a half holding thai pads for this guy with good boxing but no kicks.

Tuesday I was completely burnt.

Wednesday 5/16/2012
Was still kind of hurting wednesday.
Helped out at the gym from 6 to 8.
Did a bunch of bag conditioning (shins & push kicks) at a pretty relaxed pace.
Helped another friend work on countering the cross to the body for the last part.

Thursday I started to feel a little better for the first time in a while.
Motivation started coming back a little.

So far today (Friday), I feel the best that I've felt, but I still feel like I've got a ways to go until I'm recovered from burnout. Going to coach tonight and maybe do a bit of heavybag (to break in some gloves). Nothing crazy. I need less sleep when I'm not working out, so even though I haven't changed my sleep schedule too much; I feel WAY less sleep-deprived. Body just decided to wake up an hour early this morning, forced myself to go back to bed.

I expect to be back on point next week.
Haven't decided if I'm going to work out Saturday or not.
I want a nice, relaxing weekend to get totally recharged.

[Pork Chop]

Friday 5/18/2012
Hour and a half of bag work (mostly boxing) with new gloves.
I got them so some of the guys would have 16s to spar with and I wouldn't have to hear BS about how they had to use 12oz gloves for sparring.
The gloves showed up really small and hard, so I spent time to break them in and see if they could be used for sparring - my initial thought was "no way in heck."
The gloves performed admirably; was really impressed.
They softened up a bit by the end, but I'm still not sure that they are sparring gloves.
Going to give it a few more weeks.

Saturday 5/19/2012
Woke up at 201lbs.
My training buddy started texting me, saying he was driving down from austin, and asked me to hold pads.
Figured "what the heck" and went.
Did over an hour of a killer workout to work up a good sweat.
Held pads for 6 rounds or so for my friend.
Held pads another 3 rounds for this beginner guy.
3 rounds of shadow with weight vest (footwork drills on rest rounds)
3 rounds of skip knees (got over 300)
swept up the gym for another 45 min to an hour.
went home, jumped on the scale before my shower and was 195.6
Granted, I was a bit dry, but given that it's my first time being under 200 since 2003, I'm a bit stoked.
Traded in lunch & dinner for a bowl of Japanese ramen (with freshly made noodles).
Doubt it was even 600cal, but it sure was tasty.

Monday 5/21/2012
yoga.
pretty good yoga class, but I cut up my hand pretty good on Sunday then again Monday morning getting out of the shower.
not sure how the rest of the week's workouts are going to go.
went to the muay thai gym to welcome the coach back from his religious retreat and drop off some gifts.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 5/22/2012
Went to cardio bag class with my busted up hand.
Did okay, but certain points I couldn't punch with my right.
Did a lot of ab work.
Noticed that straight punches hurt less than hooks - only lasted 1 or 2 hooks.

Afterwards I went to muay thai for about an hour.
Tried to hold pads.
One hard kick split my hand open, so I only used belly pad and left thai pad.

pretty frustrating overall.

Thursday 5/24/2012
Weights first
Squat 5reps x bar; 5reps x 95lbs; 5 reps x 135lbs; 5reps x 155lbs; 5reps x 185lbs (didn't like my form on this set going low); 5reps x 185lbs (narrow stance, shoot for parallel, not all the way); 5reps x 185lbs (wide stance); 15reps x bar (5 narrow, 5 regular, 5 wide).
Assisted chin 40lb assist x 5, 25lb assist x 5; 10lb assist x 5 (last one was iffy); no assist x 3 + 10sec flexed arm hang + 10sec slow negative.

After that, I went jogging.
Did 2 laps around the jogging trail, I'm guessing about 5 or 6 miles, took about an hour.
Amazing that jogging doesn't hurt now that I'm under 200lbs.

legs are pretty sore today (friday), but not really DOMS (that charlie horse feeling).

[IronFist]

Wednesday 5/9/2012
Muay thai 2.5 hrs
first hour was brutal conditioning
second hour was clinch work
last 30 min was holding & hitting thai pads

An hour of conditioning in class?

I don't know how I feel about that.

Although I understand that some people don't have time to do it on their own.

[Pork Chop]

An hour of conditioning in class?
I don't know how I feel about that.
Although I understand that some people don't have time to do it on their own.

Oh, I know the arguments "people should do conditioning on their own time".
I've seen these type of complaints a lot in BJJ schools especially.
I've seen it in some other martial arts schools as well, but not so much in fighting gyms.
The only comparable thing I see in fighting gyms are the guys that say that all they want to do is spar (see boxer James Toney as the penultimate example of this).

Lumped into that "1 hour of conditioning" is stuff like jump rope, "floor work" (push ups, situps, burpees, jump squats), tire jumps, box jumps, tire flips, kettle bell swings, med ball slams, shadowboxing with the weight vest, and skip knees. In other words, it's all stuff that has direct carry over to what I'm doing: footwork/agility drills, anaerobic endurance, and stuff to build explosive power.
Bag work can be conditioning as well, especially if it's rounds focused on shin conditioning.

In a boxing gym or open workout scenario, this routine is actually pretty common. You're mostly there for conditioning - whether it's these exercises or on the bags, with a sprinkling of skill work on the mitts thrown in. I would question any boxing gym that didn't promote "floor work".

I don't know that I've ever even seen a class type environment that was bereft of this type of conditioning either. Certainly with muay thai, the root (ie camps in thailand) most definitely have in-class conditioning. Camps will usually have a 5km run built into the beginning of the class, plus a lot of the exercises I listed.

I don't have time to be doing 3-a-days anymore. Maybe if I didn't work on the opposite end of town, with a 40+ min commute each way, I'd have time to add that stuff back in. I dunno. I get my workouts in when I can.

Skill-wise, i could get everything I could ever need in about 15 to 20 rounds (an hour or less):
5 rounds shadow (optional/part of conditioning), 5 rounds pads, 5 rounds clinch sparring, and 5 rounds real sparring or defense drills.
I consider myself lucky if I can have access to a coach/trainer and partners to perform all that in a single workout, it's not often available. Most of the time I make-do with less; so I have to do everything else that I can do in the time I have.

[Pork Chop]

Friday 5/25/2012
Muay thai for a couple hours.
Worked real hard on conditioning.
hit pads and survived with kru phet for a good 5 rounds or so.
did full speed defense drills with polish guy - kinda like sparring, but i was letting him get his work in.
he was wearing bag gloves and putting weight on his punches, it hurt.
when i actually tried to defend while he was doing his counter, he complained saying he wouldn't hit me hard - and then go right back to hitting me hard.
popped him in the face once to show him how open he was and remind him that I was letting him get his work in; didn't really work, he kept swinging and making comments if I got out of the way.
I made a comment about his bag gloves because i was tired of taking it; mostly just the fatigue talking, should've kept my mouth shut.
Held pads at the end - took a kick to the upper arm when partner didn't listen or even look.
felt burnt & sore after.

Saturday 5/26/2012
Muay thai for a couple hours.
Taught today, only 2 guys showed up.
Hard conditioning at the beginning.
Held pads at the end.
One guy has nice hands.
The other guy has a perfect build for fighting (135 and below), former mma/bjj guy, but no power on his kicks.

Monday 5/28/2012
Muay thai for a couple hours.
Wanted the day off.
Had to drop off key for coach because I had it for the weekend when he went out of town.
Didn't even bring my stuff, no gloves, nothing. Barely remembered my gym clothes.
Felt really lethargic & sore.
Barely made it through 3 rounds of jump rope.
Did lots of shadow and then light sparring/defense drills with another mma guy who I'd never met before.
Guy is good; will make a great partner.
I think coach wanted us to go free form; we were doing more like a drill.
I didn't quite trust him to go light with no gloves or shin guards and he seemed content to stick with more of a drill format.
Coach was showing us unorthodox ways to do inside leg kick and destroy the opponent's root for punching - my inner knee is still a dark color of purple.

After this workout I was officially burnt out.
I've decided to take some time off from working out and diet.
I just need a break.
I've got a bit of a chest cold and a bunch of nagging injuries.
I'll start back up next week.
I just need to recuperate and get my motivation back.
It's Friday now and I already feel the urge to go back; already starting back on the diet.
By Sunday I know I'm going to be ready to go.
Need to start sparring almost every workout from here on out.
Gonna hurt, but if I'm smart, I'll make it.

[sanjuro_ronin]

I think it tends to depend on WHAT conditioning we are talking about.
Most people have no problem with "MA specific" conditioning - sparring, bag work, pad work, etc, but they tend to not care to pay for 30 min of calisthenics and 30 min of actual MA.
I've always been of the view that class should be about 10 min of "warm ups" - calisthenics- and the bulk of class should be DOING the MA and that means doing it FOR conditioning.
Spending 30 min of drilling the HB full force gives you very good conditioning AND works your MA specific pathways and techniques.

[Pork Chop]

I think it tends to depend on WHAT conditioning we are talking about.
Most people have no problem with "MA specific" conditioning - sparring, bag work, pad work, etc, but they tend to not care to pay for 30 min of calisthenics and 30 min of actual MA.
I've always been of the view that class should be about 10 min of "warm ups" - calisthenics- and the bulk of class should be DOING the MA and that means doing it FOR conditioning.
Spending 30 min of drilling the HB full force gives you very good conditioning AND works your MA specific pathways and techniques.

Sure, I'll be more specific.
My hard routine is usually this:
3min rounds 1min rest
5 rounds: jump rope, 10 pushups, 10 crunches, 10 bicycle crunches, 10 leg lifts on rest
1 round: burpees (shoot for 45)
2 rounds: various calisthenics (jump squats, clap pushups, jump 180 twist squats, jump lunges, etc)
3 rounds: 20 kbell swings, 20 medball slams. Usually last 2 rounds, do a round each arm.
1 or 2 rounds: quick, low box jumps with tire (forward & sideways)
3 rounds: jumping on the tire
3 rounds: flipping the tire, last 2 rounds is 1 round each arm
3 rounds: skip knees, shoot for 300 total
3 rounds: shadow with weight vest, footwork drills on rest rounds
2 rounds: shadow no weight vest - work on speed
4 rounds: shin conditioning on heavybag, at least 2 rounds each leg
1 round: nothing but push kick

Sometimes, I can't get through it all in one workout, so I'll split it up to do throughout the week - like my weekly checklist of things I've gotta cover.
After that, I'll add stuff like pad work, defense drills, sparring, clinch, or free form heavybag, which I'll usually detail in my write ups.

Some of that, I could see people maybe not wanting to do.
Personally, I feel that any of the jumping stuff is really important and all contributes to footwork.
Other stuff is for full body connection, often with explosive movements (slams, etc) - which helps power.
As far as the rest, I do my best to re-create the fatigue of the fight; the burpees and calisthenics really get me to that exhaustion point quickly.

Heavybag's cool for conditioning & building power, but it does have its limitations.
I do 1 straight hour on the bag on Tuesdays (mostly power punching, with some calisthenics & abs); so my muay thai workouts are shaped to counterbalance those workouts.

I find pad work much more demanding than heavybag. Having to work on someone else's pace, with someone else's preferred techniques, & defending attacks at the same time is really exhausting. I find it even more exhausting than sparring (even hard sparring); because either I'm not throwing as hard on a person, or I'm more able to mix up my techniques to spread out the fatigue. Problem is, aside from the coach, there are only a few people that know how to hold. I'm doing my best to spread the knowledge, but a lot of people just don't want to learn it.

[sanjuro_ronin]

If you really want to put a "kick" into your HB routine:
DO a couple of rounds of 3 min with 1 min rest to warm up and then:
2 min rounds with 30 second rest at a moderate pace for 3 rounds.
1 min round with 20 second rest at full speed ( no stopping at all during the round) for 3 rounds
2 min rounds with 30 second rest at full force ( hit as hard as you can in combos but you can stop and move and so forth, but do not pace yourself)- 3 rounds.
2 rounds of a moderate pace to cool down.
One of the things that people do that really hinders their HB work is that they pace themselves, which is great when working on form but makes your conditoning suffer.

Did you see that MT pad clip I posted from youtube? with the pad holder "fighting" the pad striker?

[Pork Chop]

I'll check the youtube clip later, I don't think I've seen your post.
I posted one on my facebook page recently that sounds about the same.
http://youtu.be/4dihIfIgaf8

EDIT: LOL we both shared the same vid!!! Same day too... not sure who came first... good clip tho.. i'll post more as i find them.

I agree with you that pacing yourself on the heavy bag is it's biggest weakness.
Of course, with the swing of the bag, you can't always help it.

As far as the rotating intervals - in the muay thai gym, I don't have much choice; there's a clock with a broken second hand and a timer that everyone else uses. Even if I could modify the timer, it would take a LONG time to adjust.

In the bag class we do alternating intervals.
Some are 30 seconds, some are 1 min, some are 3 minutes.
"Rest" is never really rest; we're always doing side-to-sides, jumping jacks, or ab work.
"Rest" will be anywhere from 10 seconds to a minute.
Very hard to pace yourself in that class.

[Pork Chop]

Mon 6/4/2012
First workout back in a week.
Yoga first, for 1 hour. Worked out a good sweat. Had/have a lot of toxins to get out.
After that was Muay thai for 2 hours; focusing on shadow and defense/counter drills (dutch style), with a little heavybag mixed in.
Feel a lot more fresh now than before - feels like I can move 3 times faster.
Got back on the diet, which also feels much better.
Diet does have 1 tweak - i went back to large meals that they pick for me (large victory march); this is what I started with and had most of my success with. Calories may be slightly higher, but I don't mind.
Back is a bit tweaked and still have a little bit of a chest cold. My wife is going through the worst of the chest cold right now and I'm basically sleeping on the couch in order to get any sleep at all. Haven't slept much the last 2 nights, but don't feel too bad. Drinking hot green tea with local honey as a preventative.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 6/5/2012

Cardio bag class at krav maga gym first. 1 hour. lots of core work and focus on proper punching mechanics. Didn't really do straight up interval training till the end. First 30 minutes was pretty "meh", because it was more about teaching noobs how to rotate into their punches than actually getting a good workout. Second half hour was pretty brutal - lots of exercises I'd ever done before with rubber bands, lots of twisting and balance work; not interval training, but exhausting.

Muay Thai about an hour and a half to 2 hours. Started out with speed kick rounds on the heavybag. Then shadow for a little bit. Did 3 rounds of hard boxing sparring with pretty much the top guy at the gym. We're within 6lbs of each other. I'm taller with longer arms, he's shorter with really muscular upper body. Sparring wasn't 1-sided, but still feel like I got my a$$ beat. He spars a lot more often than I do, so he was a lot more comfortable in there. I got a lot to work on. We were both wearing the new gloves I bought (the ones I was actually afraid of sparring with), surprisingly the gloves worked out really well. Finished up holding 3 rounds of pads (feeding kicks & punches) for my sparring partner and 3 rounds for the girl fighter. Kinda blew that nobody held for me (ran out of time); but I was pretty tired.

Thinking with this new routine - i'll workout late monday & tuesday; have a long muay thai day on wednesday; sparring day on saturday; take off Sunday and either Thursday or Friday, then use the other day for weights & jogging. Trying to spar as much as possible. I'll be happy if I can get over 100 rounds by the end of August.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday 6/6/2012
Muay thai for 2.5 hours
Dude from Tuesday didn't show up.
Was really hot in the gym
Made it through as much of my conditioning workout as I could
had 3 killer 5-minute rounds on thai pads to start it off.


been sick since thursday, didn't go to work on friday.
not quite sure how to proceed.

[Pork Chop]

Saturday 6/9/2012
Been sick lately but ended up working out anyway
muay thai for 2 hours
highlight of the workout was:
3min round of thai pads, 1min round clinch, rest 3min while clinch partner did thai pads, 1min round clinch - rinse, repeat 6 times, for a total of 6 rounds on pads and 12min on clinch.

What I initially thought were pimples are turning out to be a bunch of bug bites; most likely spider bites. The phrase "throbbing pain" is coming to mind.

[Pork Chop]

Monday 6/11/2012
1 hour of yoga
Then off to the muay thai gym for an hour.
Bug bites got worse last night.
Looks like I"m going to be out until these things heal.
Pain so bad, I can barely focus.

[Pork Chop]

Turns out I've got a mrsa infection.
I was out of work Wed, Thurs, and Fri.
Left work early on Tues.
Pretty serious.
Very painful.

I don't think I will be going back to the muay thai gym after this incident.
Apparently nobody's been mopping the floors.
On top of that; after I announced my infections, one of my teammates let me know via text that he had mrsa at some point in the past and had never bothered to tell me.
It's common courtesy to let someone know you have/had a highly infectious, penicillin-resistant bacterial infection before you start clinching with them.

I have a feeling the August event is off the table.
Not sure when I can return to training, at least 2 to 3 more weeks, probably longer.
Not sure what gym I will work out at when I return.
I have a feeling it's going to cause a stink when I switch gyms.
At the same time, I don't feel guilty about it.
I feel like I'm doing it for the sake of my health and not any other reason.
I could go back to my old gym & mop the place up with heavy duty bleach, but in the back of my head I just keep thinking "it's not my friggin responsibility."
Pretty peeved about this whole experience.
I don't feel like I owe my old gym anything (I've done too much for them as it is) and I hate the idea that I'm going to have to deal with their reaction if/when it comes out that I'm going somewhere else.
Call me passive aggressive or whatever, but I don't even want to make that announcement.

My old training buddy's coming back from Afghanistan in September/October time frame.
He's going to ask the coach for permission to teach at this other gym that's not too far away and has a very nice setup.
We've talked about partnering up for a long time and I think this is the perfect opportunity.
I trust that he knows what he's doing and he's one of my favorite guys to work with.

[sanjuro_ronin]

You don't fool around with infections, period.

[Pork Chop]

So I've been healing up from the mrsa infection.
I got off the antibiotics about a week ago.
Just waiting for my wounds to close.
Not too much has changed otherwise.
My diet has been garbage, my head's all screwed up, the fight's off the table, I'm not going back to the muay thai gym, haven't told my coach, and still not looking forward to it.

Tuesday 6/26/2012
Managed to jog a mile at night with my wife.
Mowed the lawn after work in 100 degree weather too.
Felt good to get some exercise.

Really getting the itch to train again.
Even getting the itch to get back on the diet.
Monday's the day I start everything over again.
Still waiting on the finger to close to be able to punch stuff, but it doesn't appear to be draining anymore and looks like it's on the verge of closing.
This weekend I'm going to wipe down all my gear.
Defense soap sent me some free samples after they read about my situation on sherdog; looking forward to trying them out and maybe ordering some more.

This is eventually what I'm going to work towards for my schedule:
Monday - krav maga gym - yoga
Tuesday - krav maga gym - cardio bag at 6 or strength training at 5:45 (depending on wounds)
Wednesday - krav maga gym - cardio bag at 5:45 or cardio kickboxing at 6:15
Thursday - krav maga gym - mixfit punch at 5:45 or cardio bag at 6:15
Friday - gym at work - lift weights & jog

Once I'm able to do that consistently, or if I get bored of the routine, then I will add fight training back in. The gym my friend has been talking about starting a program at is here:
http://www.theclubko.com
If i do go to this gym, I imagine that I will be dropping all other gym memberships next year when contracts expire. It's probably going to be expensive.

Other gyms I'm considering:
Evolution mma (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Evolution-Combative-Sports/170590738075)'s boxing coach is a friend and it's cheap; it's not too far from my house but gotta go through some crazy traffic to get there. Drive home will be 5 min, drive straight from work is going to be over an hour, if I drive home first, total drive will be well over an hour. Couple of my muay thai friends are already working out there. One of the guys at the head of the muay thai program can be a little bit of a jerk, but in general the gym's got a great vibe. Equipment-wise, this one is a solid second place.

Jesse James Leija's Championfit gym (http://www.championfitgym.com/about-us.html) - expensive, great for boxing, located close to my house, again I have to go through heavy traffic to get there - but not quite as bad as evolution. Equipment-wise, this one is tied for #1 with Club KO.

Rodrigo Pinheiro's BJJ (http://rodrigopinheirobjj.com/) - Pete Spratt (UFC vet) is the muay thai coach; he was Saekson's prized student and recently hosted Saekson for a seminar. I liked the vibe of the gym, everyone seemed pretty friendly when they were sparring, only one or two mma guys upping the contact level and they got spanked. Expensive, right next door to the Jesse James Leija gym, so same issues with traffic. I imagine this one would cause the biggest beef with my old coach. There's been a lot of talk by guys from there that Pete's been more invested in his own training than bringing up students. I didn't see anything to support that when I was there. Equipment-wise, this one is the most lacking, with only a few heavybags and not much else.

[Pork Chop]

Had to cut this off before when I was writing:

The time off has given me time to reflect on what I was doing, what I feel the shortcomings were/are of my training, and to visualize what I want from training.
I'm realizing that the whole "step up the training camp for the fight, get injured, miss the fight" is becoming way too much of a habit/routine for me.
I gotta do something different, this bad luck has already gotten in my head.
That's one of the biggest drivers for me to change gyms.
I haven't given up, just changed my goals.

Hate to say it, as much as I like my coach, I have doubts about his ability to prepare me for a muay thai bout.
Sounds weird, but the time off made me realize that I didn't trust that I would be prepared for the fight with the program I was on under his tutelage.
Rather, I could be prepared for the fight as long as I sparred hard every day for those 12 weeks with a guy who was going to beat on me, because I wasn't able to put together my "style" very well at all otherwise.

I honestly felt that the coach wasn't really fixing my style.
Yes, he did try to help, he did scream at me every time I sparred, he did completely revamp my offense or defense every few months, but I really couldn't pull off what he was suggesting.
I felt like my style was not "gelling."
In fact, it felt like I was getting worse.
He was confusing me - too many options to choose from, too many things to remember, too many counters, no straight forward path, nothing I did was right, the only way forward was to bang it out with a guy I didn't really enjoy working with.

That's why even though I could heal up and probably get in good enough cardio shape to fight by the end of August; I pulled myself from the card because I didn't feel like my skill would be where it needed to be come fight time.

On top of that, I felt like the training was disorganized.
I had no guarantee that I would get any sort of pad work or clinch work in a given week; only a guarantee that I'd get my head caved in by my "partner" when he actually felt like sparring.

I know the fighter mentality is "if he hits you, hit him back 10x harder."
I used to do that, but it requires a lot of anger.
I'm not as angry as I used to be; especially after doing yoga, which has a calming effect.
Staying angry for 12 weeks straight was just not going to work.
Certain people I enjoy working with; even if it hurts, my "partner" just wasn't one of them.
It was the attitude that any time I landed, it was just a cheap shot that "didn't hurt" but still needed to be avenged. The attitude that anytime something landed on me I would hear "almost knocked you out there, you feeling okay? I better take it easy on you" (until the next time I landed anything).
By the time I got sick, I was sick of it (redundancy not intended).

The opportunity I'm looking at with the new gyms is having a coach who will tailor a program for me and legitimately help me get ready on a day-to-day basis - not just make empty promises and try to blow my ego up when I show up to class.
Should have a fresh batch of sparring partners and legitimate supervision.

I want it to be fun again.
I never stopped enjoying pushing myself, getting in shape, and working on my conditioning.
It was the actual fight training that was leaving a bad taste in my mouth.
This will give me a chance to see if it's something isolated to that gym or if I am really losing the taste for it.
At the very least, if I go 35-and-over amateur boxing, I reduce my risk of serious injury.
I have missed boxing for a while; so I'm looking forward to going back "home."

[Pork Chop]

Monday July 2, 2012
yoga last night for 1 hour
got back on the diet.
don't want to weigh myself for the next 4 weeks - i'll worry about the damage my time off did at that time.

[Pork Chop]

Didn't realize that I forgot to update this...

Tuesday July 3, 2012
Did "strength training" class at the krav maga gym.
Ended up being a 1 hour long full body circuit, med-high reps, med-low weight.
Cr@p ton of squats and lunges with low weight.
DOMS was so bad I was still having a hard time walking on Saturday, July 7.

Put my door-frame pullup bar back up recently and crank out reps when I can.
Can usually get 5 when I'm not too sore.

Tuesday July 10, 2012
Joined a new gym: http://www.theclubko.com/
Did the Camp K.O. and Boxing Technique classes; each was 1 hour, had a 1 hour break in between to recuperate.

Camp KO was pretty awesome - a total body circuit of a bunch of different exercises.
Lots of plyometrics & core training.

Boxing Technique was fun. Would've maybe liked some pad work, but with that many people in the class, I could see how it would be unfeasible.

I really like the people at this gym.
The volume on the fighter machismo has been turned WAY down.
So far, I don't get that vibe that the other people are looking at me like lunch meat.

Cancelled my Gold's membership on Monday; after touring the gym (skipped yoga coz I forgot my mat). My wife switched her Gold's membership to her own credit card a few weeks ago. That's $60+ back in my budget. The new gym's only $20 more than the muay thai gym so I think it's gonna work out well. Kinda wish I could opt out of the krav maga gym contract and just stick with the free, on-base gym and this new gym; but at least I get some really good yoga out of the deal.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday July 12, 2012
back at club ko (http://www.theclubko.com) tonight

did combo ko first: jump rope, then a huge circuit of full body exercises, plyos, bodyweight exercises, and core. Usually go around 3 times.

took an hour break to go pick up my food from zedrics

came back for boxing technique: LOTS of footwork drills. Met another coach tonight, he's really close with my friend who's coming back from Afghanistan soon. We talked for a long time.

I'm going to have to figure out how to get home earlier.
Getting in the door after 9:30 is not working out; I'm usually up all night preparing for the next day.
If it's only Tuesday and Thursday, it might not be so bad.
This week was particularly bad because Wednesday was my monthly gig where I come home real late.

Really enjoying this new gym. I feel pretty fired up. The people are awesome. They have all the equipment I want (except a squat rack), and yet the environment is one of serious, hard work.

EDIT: started drinking a protein shake with dinner after working out. I don't think the extra 350 calories will kill me, especially considering I can't always finish the thing. I have noticed improved recovery this week, even with limited sleep.

[Pork Chop]

EDIT: forgot Friday's workout
Friday 7/13/2012

BoxingKO class at Club KO - basically a 1 hour circuit class of boxing drills.

Sparring - sparring session was an hour, just kinda jumped in and out ad-hoc. I may have gone 4 rounds, might've been 6. Kinda lost track. Felt like a total beginner again. Focusing on a new stance and keeping my elbows tucked was really messing with me. Need more shadow.

Sunday 7/15/2012
Went jogging in the evening to try out my new New Balance minimus shoes.
Got the trail running ones, black with the blue highlight.
So far so good, pretty easy jog - 2 miles (2 laps around my neighborhood).

[Pork Chop]

Monday 7/16/2012
Yoga class - 1 hour. feel like i haven't been doing it enough lately. It helped with some pain i've been feeling in my upper/middle back.

Boxing class - 1 hour. Pretty brutal class. A bit like the krav maga bag class. May trade off a tiny bit of intensity for proper form. At the same time, there's more freedom to up that intensity if I want to. We don't do combos to cadence, so i'm not rushing to keep up with people doing it improperly/lazily. At the same time, we do proper combos, so the stuff feels a lot more applicable.

Still feeling real noobish after the switch back to boxing. Weight back - but not all the way back (as in muay thai), crouched on back leg with heel raised. Keeping my elbows in, palms turned in instead of out, punches more of a quick rotation around the axis of the spine than a big wind up. Hook's gotta be higher, punches need to be longer - don't step so far in on the bag (exact opposite of what muay thai coach was having me do). A lot to remember. Tends to make me a bit slow and stiff. The more I do it properly, the better I'll be able to relax into it.

Feels real good knowing I have improvements to make and that what I'm being taught will translate well into competition; not just in-class sparring against people who do the same exact stuff. Motivates me to go to the gym. Not as hung up on how sore my body is (in fact, it's surprisingly NOT sore).

I like the one hour workouts (even for skill stuff). Keeps it intense and productive.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday 7/17/2012

Started off with ComboKO class - a full one hour of circuit exercises including full body lifts, plyos, agility drills, and core work. Very brutal.

Next was Boxing Technique class - an hour of bag work and boxing related drills, with some calisthenics & ab work thrown in to spice things up.

Was totally spent afterwards.
By the end, my form had gone to absolute sh!t.
Hurting today - mostly back & knees, protein shake helped with muscle recovery.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday July 18, 2012
Was really sore this day.
Raining after work, so went straight home.
By the time I got home, I was hungry as a horse.
Heated up a bunch of leftovers instead of what I was supposed to eat.
Went jogging that night to make up for my dietary indiscretion.
Jogged 6 times around my neighborhood (about 1 mile each lap), for about 1 hr 15 min.
Pretty fun actually...

Thursday July 19, 2012
Felt pretty good this day.
Jogging helped get rid of a lot of the soreness in the rest of my body, but my lower body's still pretty sore from wearing minimal shoes (New Balance Minimus).
ComboKO first for an hour. Wasn't as bad as Tuesday, but still challenging. Actually felt pretty good coming out of this.
Boxing Technique class for an hour. Lots of pad work. Again, not as bad as Tuesday and felt good after.

[Pork Chop]

Friday July 20, 2012
First was BoxingKO class - 1 hour of jump rope, punch outs on the bag, and calisthenics. Great workout.

Second hour was sparring. I sparred about 4 rounds total; we were swapping in and out every round. Felt like I was doing well until the very last round when I paired up with Atilla (yes, his real name) - the 6'2" 350lb (yes, that's a 3) former professional football player who's making a move to boxing. His first jab hit so hard that I really didn't think about firing anything back after that. I was basically running until they pulled me out about 1.5 to 2 minutes into the round. It was pretty bad, I've never worked with anybody that big and athletic before. Glad that I decided to get out of the heavyweight division. Luckily; aside from a slight bloody nose, the only injury I received was to my pride. I'll do better next time.

[Pork Chop]

Monday July 23, 2012
Yoga class - 1 hour. pretty good workout. my shirt was completely soaked through by the end.

Boxing class - 1 hour. great workout. got a lot of good tips on how to fix my style. the challenge will be implementing those tips. Still moving like a noob, but i'm trying...

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday July 24, 2012
CampKO - brutal 1 hour circuit of different exercises hitting core, full body movements, plyos, agility, and strength.
BoxingKO - didn't feel like waiting around for an hour for the Boxing Technique class, so I jumped into BoxingKO immediately after CampKO. Lots of bag work drills with leg work drills mixed in and abs at the end. Found that working on "speed" fixed a lot of what was broken about my technique. As long as I stay fast and balanced, it should keep me from over committing on my shots.


Wednesday July 25, 2012
Jogging - not quite sure on the distance, but it was around 1 hour in duration.
Pad work - held thai pads for about 5 rounds for one of the boxing coaches. Hit boxing mitts for 3 or 4 rounds.
Boxing Class - 1 hour of heavybag drills. Gassed HARD in this class. I think I was dehydrated. Didn't get much rest between any of the workouts either.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday July 26, 2012
CampKO One hour circuit of fitness training. I don't think I got up off the ground for like a minute after we finished out the class with abs. Tough class.
Boxing Technique One hour circuit of boxing drills. Great workout, had fun, and even made some more fixes. Realized that muay thai is largely "hips forward" so you're primed to pick up your legs at a moment's notice while boxing is decidedly "hips back" so you can drop level for head movement. Made a huge difference.

Got some other news lately that may be another huge change for me, but it's still early to put it out there.

[Pork Chop]

Friday July 27, 2012
Boxing class for the first hour. Nice little one-hour circuit of bag drills.
Sparring for the next hour. Got in 6 rounds (2min each, 30sec rest, 2 sets of 3 rounds), with one of the coaches. Felt I was moving better. Took some hard shots. Lots of fun. Learned a lot. Most fun I've had with fighting for a while. Realize that I LOVE sparring when I'm learning something; it's when it's a total pi$$ing contest that I hate it.

[Pork Chop]

Monday July 30, 2012
Went to the krav maga gym for the hour long yoga class. The room was so hot it was practically Bikram yoga. I was drenched afterwards.
Next, I went to clubko for Boxing class. This should probably be called BoxingKO. It's 1 hour of heavybag drills. Good workout.

They're changing the schedule at clubko. Boxing technique classes won't start until 8:30pm Tues & Thurs. Even with my family gone, I'm not sure that I'll be able to make this class. I don't like getting home from the gym around 10. Just not enough time to get prepared for the next day.

I'll experiment with 8:30p technique class this Thursday, but what I'm probably going to end up doing is leaving Thursday at 1 class so I can pick up my food around 7:30p. I'll hit up boxing class on Wednesdays after going for a jog; if I get there early I might be able to sneak in some pad work and/or some double-end bag. I'm also planning to add in Saturdays eventually (so far it's very hard to wake up) so that might give me some additional technique work.

Not looking forward to my wife & kid going to Japan as much as I thought I would. Kind of dreading it, feeling pretty sad in fact. Monday night I was pretty down all day and had a hard time sleeping.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday July 31, 2012

Got to the gym a bit early and warmed up a little before starting CampKO. 1 hour circuit of heck. Go through it about 3 times, 30 sec a station, lots of full body, core, balance, agility, plyos, and strength.

Afterwards, I had enough time to change some clothes real quick and wrap up for BoxingKO. 1 hour of heavybag drills with some calisthenics mixed in. Feeling like I'm starting to settle into my style a little bit more.

Felt bad that I couldn't stay for Boxing Technique class. Once a week (on Thursday) probably won't be too bad; but it's still going to be hard getting home at 10pm.

Weighed in this morning and am back to 199.4lbs.
I'm basically back to where I was before I got sick.
No cheat days in August, so hoping to actually make some progress.
I would like to drop another 25lbs.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday August 1, 2012
I'm lazy, so I'm going to try to cut & paste from fitocracy today...
Running:
0:35:00 || 3 mi (+252 pts)
Not sure how far it was, or even how long- certain it was at least 30 to 40 minutes. I run on an outdoor trail on base with lots of hills.
Boxing:
0:30:00 || practice (+127 pts)
1:00:00 || drills (+391 pts)
Did round robin with 2 guys on thai pads & focus mitts. 2 rounds apiece. I held Thai pads for around 4 rounds. I hit focus mitts for at least 3 rounds. After that, it was 1hr BoxingKO class with heavybag drills.

Thursday August 2, 2012
Boot Camp:
1:00:00 || The Gods Hate Me! (+576 pts)
1hr camp ko. absolutely brutal circuit.
Boxing:
1:00:00 || drills (+391 pts)
boxing technique class. lots of stance work and throwing picture perfect punches; ie 1 round of continuous jab, shooting for perfection. did that for jab, cross, hook, each side (orth & southpaw). finished up with an uppercut & plank drill that d@mn near killed me. fun times. :) sore today...

[Pork Chop]

Friday August 3, 2012
Boxing:
1:00:00 || drills (+391 pts)
1 hour of heavy bag drills. Started maybe 5 min late. Just wasn't feeling it tonight. Was super sore before the gym. Very sluggish & flat during the BoxingKO heavy bag drills. Skipped sparring class. Feel guilty. Pretty drained physically & emotionally; not feeling so hot.

Hope it's not a depression coming on.
Wife & kid left for vacation early Thursday morning.
They'll be in Japan the next 3 weeks.
Wish I was there.
House is way too quiet.

[Pork Chop]

Slept till 2:30pm on Saturday; which kind of sukked coz I had been planning to work out in the morning. Didn't really do anything the whole day.

Monday August 6, 2012
General Yoga:
1:00:00 (+180 pts)
Hour long class. Apparently, I'm the only one completely drenched in sweat. Not sure why. Going to try to cut back on coffee, but I doubt it'll make a huge difference.
Boxing:
1:00:00 || drills (+391 pts)
1hr Boxing KO class of heavybag drills. Today was one of those "2 steps back" kind of days. Felt like I was doing everything wrong. Slept late on Saturday & didn't do much this weekend; but that might not have been enough. Didn't eat enough for sure (total calories just over 1000 for the day).

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday August 7, 2012
Boot Camp:
1:00:00 || Intense! (+546 pts)
1hr CampKO with a ton of stations. felt like there was a lot of focus on legs today. killed me pretty good.
Boxing:
1:00:00 || drills (+391 pts)
1hr of heavybag drills in BoxingKO class. Didn't feel like I was hitting hard today at all. Did try to slow things down a bit to work on proper form. Swinging of the bag was giving me some issues. Wasn't doing a great job of dropping my stance on ducking.

A bit achy and tired today (Wednesday).

EDIT: oh, and fyi, my weight's down to 195. want to try to break under 190 by the time my wife & kid get back on the 24th of August.

[Pork Chop]

Took wednesday off because I wasn't feeling too hot.
Fell off on the diet a bit in the evening coz my 370cal dinner wasn't cutting it.

Thursday August 9, 2012
Boot Camp:
1:00:00 || Intense! (+546 pts)
CampKO wasn't so bad today. We did 3 people per station, 4 trips around - fewer stations than usual. That, combined with the rest on Wednesday left me feeling pretty good.
Boxing:
1:00:00 || practice (+293 pts)
Boxing Technique class. One of the guys may have a fight coming up so he stood post defending & jabbing while we all took turns. He was wearing a coaching-style body protector so he didn't take too much damage. Unfortunately we each only got about 5 min of work in. Props to the guy for surviving 18~19 rounds.

Feeling pretty good today, much better than last Friday, so the idea of sparring won't seem like such an uphill battle. Plus, I want to let the dude from yesterday get some payback after we all went to town on him yesterday.

[Pork Chop]

Friday August 10, 2012
Boxing:
1:00:00 || drills (+391 pts)
1:00:00 || scrimmage (+367 pts)
1 hour of high intensity heavybag drills at BoxingKO followed by 1 hour sparring class - went 4 rounds straight myself. took a nice body shot. apparently i'm improving. still have a looooong way to go.

Was kind of dreading sparring most of the day at work. I don't know why, it just gets in my head and I get anxiety before hand. Actually doing the sparring was pretty fun: I don't mind getting hit so much, I don't let myself get angry in there (much different than the old days), and I'm learning a LOT.

feeling sad tonight, miss my family.

[Pork Chop]

Wow, I haven't been doing a good job of maintaining this thing....

Saturday, August 11, 2012
BoxingKO:
1:00:00 || drills (+391 pts)
Finally woke up on time on Saturday for once. Did a 1 hr BoxingKO class. it was brutal. My body is definitely not used to working out before noon.
KajuKempo:
2:00:00 || practice (+1012 pts)
Stuck around for a 2 hr kajukempo class taught by one of the boxing coach's dad. It basically felt like going through kung fu basics without the forms. Will probably go back, it was fun.

Monday, August 13, 2012
General Yoga:
1:00:00 (+180 pts)
Didn't sweat as much, but was in the front of the room and the air circulation was a little better. Felt good tho.
BoxingKO:
1:00:00 || drills (+391 pts)
Did boxing stations in BoxingKO today. Kinda like CampKO meets Bag Drills. Busted out the agility ladder, the mini hurdles, and the jumbo tire added to a few different heavy bag drills to make a nice, exhausting circuit.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Boot Camp:
1:00:00 || The Gods Hate Me! (+576 pts)
Lots of legs in this CampKO circuit today. While it was hard, my legs didn't cramp up as if I did a megaset of heavy squats. I mean, they did hurt a bit, but it tired me out more than anything. Wasn't feeling well after. Came home, showered and crashed. Skipped BoxingKO - just couldn't do it.

Was up late on Monday night because of all the chores I have to do these days.
That's part of why I was feeling sick today (Tuesday).
My nap was only about 2 hours long - I kinda wish I just slept through the night.
Hoping it's not going to be too hard to get back to sleep.
On the bright side, I do feel a bit better.
Weight was down to 190 when I got home from the gym.

[Pork Chop]

Was sick the rest of last week....

Saturday, August 18, 2012
Running (treadmill):
0:12:00 || 1.3 mi (+107 pts)
Finished 1 mile under 10 min and the rest was cool down. Peaked at 7mph.

Pull-Up:
5 reps (+55 pts)
5 reps (+55 pts)
5 reps (+55 pts)
Failed on the 5th on a couple of the sets.

Machine Bench Press:
130 lb x 10 reps (+47 pts)
150 lb x 10 reps (+53 pts)
170 lb x 6 reps (+55 pts)
190 lb x 5 reps (+59 pts)
190 lb x 1 reps (+32 pts)
190 lb x 2 reps (+40 pts)
190 lb x 4 reps (+54 pts)
Was having issues with recovery on 190. Kept failing a lot.
This workout was in the gym of a hotel, so their free-weight selection was lacking.
It was either doing chest press on a machine, or doing bench on a smith machine....

Barbell Lunges:
100 lb x 10 reps (+107 pts)
100 lb x 10 reps (+107 pts)
100 lb x 10 reps (+107 pts)
These sets are 10 reps each leg.

Clean and Press:
100 lb x 1 reps (+57 pts)
100 lb x 1 reps (+57 pts)
100 lb x 1 reps (+57 pts)
Had to do a clean and press for each set of barbell lunges.

Still sore today (Monday) from the lunges.
Still kinda sick too - was coughing quite a bit Sunday evening & a few coughing fits already today. I would still like to work out today regardless and I'm definitely planning to hit yoga.

[Pork Chop]

Still sick this week.
Got tired of pigging out & being useless, so I decided to work out Wednesday:

Wednesday August 22, 2012
Running:
0:45:00 || 4 mi (+373 pts)
Not really sure on distance or time. Left work at 5:30, gym is just pretty much across the street, left the gym at 6:40. Jogged on a trail outside.
Boxing:
1:00:00 || drills (+391 pts)
1 hr boxingKO class. Wasn't going to go after running because I've been sick. But I decided I was tired of feeling guilty. Work out went okay. Only had a few coughing fits (covered my mouth in my shirt). Could reach a nice cruising speed, but wasn't able to really push the pedal to the medal on sprints; in fact, I noticed the same thing during jogging. Tried to sprint out the end of the jog and was only able to set a decent cruise speed.

This morning (Thursday), woke up with a sore throat & could feel my cough coming back worse.
Been drinking green tea + ginger + local honey most of the last 2 days, it seems to help.
Going back to the gym tonight.
I know this technically makes me *that guy*; the one that gets everyone sick, but tired of sitting at home. I had a medium pizza for dessert on Tuesday! I've come too far to lose it all now.
If it starts getting real serious, I know I'll have to take more significant time off; but i'd like to push through this. Hit 189 last week. So close to my goal. I've already ballooned up again from that mark, and if i take off too much more time, i'll be that much further away.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday August 23, 2012
Boot Camp:
1:00:00 || Intense! (+546 pts)
CampKO for an hour. Pretty brutal actually. not so many stations, but a long time on each one. Weren't that many people. Highlight was a burpee where you jump into a pull up at the top. Actually kept it interesting.
Boxing:
1:00:00 || drills (+391 pts) - BoxingKO
1:00:00 || practice (+293 pts) Boxing Technique
1st hour: BoxingKO. Heavy bag drills with lots of calisthenics. 2nd hour: Boxing Technique class, with a circuit of skills-related drills and more calisthenics.

Friday, August 24, 2012
Boxing:
1:00:00 || drills (+391 pts)
1:00:00 || scrimmage (+367 pts)
First hour: BoxingKO - 1 hr of heavybag drills. Second hour: Sparring class. Got at least 6 rounds.

Saturday, August 25, 2012
Boxing:
1:00:00 || drills (+391 pts)
BoxingKO class.
KajuKempo:
2:00:00 || practice (+1012 pts)
Kajukempo - 2 hr class. First 30~45 min was rough, could barely stand up after BoxingKO. Did a lot of apps. Last hour or so was form/kata work. Worked on some hung gar as well.

[SAAMAG]

**** chops...glad to see you're still at it. You train more than I do....and probably eat better too.

[Pork Chop]

**** chops...glad to see you're still at it. You train more than I do....and probably eat better too.

thank ya sir.
long time no see. :)
Hope you're doing well.

Not sure I'm doing things right tho.
Sick again this week.
I keep getting these double whammies of cold (usually chest) and skin infection (pimples that swell up real bad).
The skin infections don't seem to get as bad as full on staph - because they heal up in about a week; but they sure do hurt.
Not sure if there's some insect that's biting the cr@p out of me or if my immune system is just that compromised or what.
I take a lot of special precautions to be clean - 2 showers a day when i work out, constantly changing clothes, special soaps (use both antibacterial soap & Defense soap in the shower), special laundry detergent.
This stuff just doesn't go away... it gets a lot worse the more i work out.
I'm finding this especially true if i work out on saturdays.
It's really frustrating.... and painful - i can barely sit down right now.

Monday August 27, 2012
General Yoga:
1:00:00 (+180 pts)
Starting to feel run down again. Want to take it a little easier this week.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Boot Camp:
1:00:00 || The Gods Hate Me! (+576 pts)
Very hard CampKO, but i survived it pretty well.
Boxing:
1:00:00 || drills (+391 pts)
Went back to station drills in tonight's BoxingKO. Lots of footwork drills. Exhausting, but fun.

[Pork Chop]

I'm back bi+ches....

To recap:
In June started getting MRSA infections.
Took a few weeks off, but made it back into the gym in July.
Infections kept coming & going.
August, the famz went to Japan, while I stayed home, worked out, & started getting into Buddhism. Managed to get under 190 this summer.

September the infections really started picking back up again.
Fell off the diet for a few weeks in late September, early October.
Even went vegetarian for almost 2 weeks - somehow gained over 20lbs.

In October I found out that my car was infested with spiders.
The type of spider is "yellow sac", which is like a toned down version of a brown recluse, it's bite causes conditions exactly like I've been seeing.
Went to see the doc and got back on antibiotics.

Got back in the gym & mostly back on diet by late October, but mentally pretty screwed up.
Confidence completely shot, been doing vegetarian Sundays but always end up eating too much, weight's not back under 200 yet.

For the most part, I've been pretty healthy skin-wise since October.
Any skin stuff has usually coincided with spiders re-infesting my car (bug spray lasts maybe a week - even though I have ethical issues with using it).

Try to work out 5 days a week:
Mon = yoga
Tues = campKO + boxing bag class
Wed = muay thai (mostly hold pads these days, did get certified as a coach)
Thur = campKO + boxing bag class
Fri = boxing

Been doing a lot of meditation.
Only am now starting to feel like myself again (not sure that's a good thing :D ).

[Pork Chop]

Friday December 21, 2012
Well, the world didn't end today.... i guess the day's still not over...

Hit up boxing class today.
Stayed after for sparring, but just didn't feel up to it.
Was very tired from the class and a little nervous about getting in there.
Talked with the coach, we agreed that it's not the right time till it feels natural.

PS- got my muay thai coaching certification last weekend (picked up certificate on monday).

[Pork Chop]

got another infection on my shoulder friday night
had been seeing spiders in and on my car last week, so not too shocked.
this one is pretty bad though.
didn't have access to my normal stash of soaps & antibiotic ointments to take care of it over the weekend while i was in houston, so it got worse than it would've otherwise.

going to take at least another day or two to heal.
will still try to work out on thursday, keep it covered, and stay off the ground.

[Pork Chop]

Recovered from the last round of bites over the holidays.
Been getting back in the gym regularly, just haven't had time to update.
Will start logging again when I have time.

[Pork Chop]

Dusting this thread back off because I need to start up again.
This post may seem to be a rant more than anything of substance, personally, I find it useful to put my thoughts to words so I can re-read later if need be.

For almost the past year I've been doing a lot of class-type workouts, this makes it hard to track, because either I go to class or I don't and if I go to class, I'm not logging all the exercises.

About 3 or 4 weeks ago I had a really bad day in sparring.
Long story short, it caused me to reevaluate what's been going on.
I've had some issues with my training for a while, it's just that the sparring fiasco gave me an excuse to want to do something about it.

In a nutshell, my training for a while has been mostly conditioning.
I couldn't/can't make the boxing technique classes, which are only offered late at night.
For a while I thought the cardio bag & conditioning classes were good enough, because the coaches had told me so. It's only recently that I've finally been able to admit that cardio bag & conditioning classes are not a substitute for legit skills training.

This year's been a little rough and the sparring experience was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back. So many setbacks, seems like a new one every month or two. Spent the last few weeks in a free-fall, living way unhealthy, and trying to figure out how to pick the pieces. Spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to do & where I want to go from here.

Currently, I'm waiting for 2 gym contracts to expire - the krav maga gym & the boxing gym. They should both be up in the July~August time frame. Afterwards, I'll be a free agent again.

Leaning towards splitting my time between muay thai (being trained, not just as a trainer) and solo kung fu practice, while working out at the free onbase gym.
Muay thai - my main issues are sparring partners and the new hours (they may be a little too late for me). At the moment I don't quite have the budget for it until I drop the other 2 contracts.
Kung fu - my main issues are how to learn and how to practice. If I want to learn new stuff I'm going to have to find out how to train with people that can teach, which may be difficult. As far as practice, that becomes an easier issue once I know what I'll be doing.
On base gym - I may not be working on base for very much longer.

Going to hit the on base gym tonight.

[Vash]

Sorry for the setbacks PC, but kudos on having the spine to keep pushing through.

Keep it up.

[Pork Chop]

Thanks Vash. :)
Tough coming so close to my goal weight only to watch it all drift away and run out of money. I'll keep trying though.

Mon May 13, 2013
Went to the onbase gym and boy was it crowded!

Started out with an alternating walk-jog around the track:
1 lap walking, 1 lap jogging, 1 lap walking, 1 lap jogging, 1 lap walking

Went back inside & luckily it cleared out a little.
Assisted pullup - Assisted dip Superset: 55lb assist x 10reps/10reps, 9reps/10reps, 8reps/10reps
Ab wheel: 10 extensions/rolls
2-handed dbell swings: 50lbs x 3 sets x 10 reps

[Pork Chop]

Tues May 14, 2013
Elliptical crosstrainer: about 35min, 550cal, avg speed 5.5mph (50+rpm), total distance over 3mi. Was really sore from monday but still managed to break a good sweat.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday May 16, 2013
onbase gym

laps around the track: 1 lap walking, 4 laps jogging, 1 lap walking (total 1.5 mi)
-felt pretty good

Cleans: 115lbs x 5 reps, 135lbs x 5 reps, 135lbs x 5 reps, 135lbs x 5 reps.
-after first set, was putting weight back up on bench rack (didn't realize they had a decent power rack in one of the other rooms) and I pulled something in my lower back. Rest of the workout was a struggle.

Bench press: 135lbs x 12 reps, 155lbs x 10 reps, 175lbs x 5 reps, 175lbs x 2 reps, 175lbs x 2 reps, 175lbs x 1 rep
-think i was scared more than anything else on 175lbs; bench kinda freaks me out.

Swiss ball reverse crunch: 4sets x 10reps
-that's the only name i can think of for this exercise. it actually involves a bozu ball (where half the ball is flat) and the swiss ball. I put my feet on the swiss ball, hands on the bozu ball, and pull my knees in to my chest then extend them out.

Assisted chinup - neutral grip: 55lb assist x 10 reps, 50lb assist x 5 reps, 45lb assist x 5 reps, 40lb assist x 5 reps.

Friday 17 May 2013
Back was killing me & was sore so I just went home.
Hoping to be back to normal by Monday.

[Pork Chop]

having a hard time keeping this thing up because i can't post from work.
basically worked out 4 times last week, all muay thai, tons of calisthenic warm ups.
not just training other folks anymore. I still hold a bit but I'm much more likely to hit them now. Good amount of bag work, jump rope, shadow, and technique work. doing 5 min rounds usually.