Andrew's workout blog

[AndrewS]

Todays workout,

Two training partners by. About 3 1/2 hr practice.

Stance drills to no-hands takedown defense rounds
Isolated leg to leg lat sao, rounds
lat sao prog 1, reps then live, no legs
dynamic footwork practice (explosive 45s/15s for 8? rounds)
More footwork
chi sao
forms

Later. . .

Fight gone worse- breathing is better, shoulders and hips don't have the usual pop.

23/20/12/17/68
18/18/15/16/64

Did jerks in sets of 5- lost a couple to changing hands
Figured out how to use more driveway without turning for the sled-drags

Brutal 10 minutes.

Andrew

[AndrewS]

Today-

home from another bad night. Out dealing with midnight disasters.

15 minute elliptical tabata protocol, 1.8 miles, 200 kcal

Training partner- 1 hr work. Broke out some old school stuff to clean and bring out some concepts- punch and pull drills. Once again, a piece of basics looks like magic to someone.

Max effort day

Powerlifting back squat to parallel, Hope acting as judge. Watched the EFS exercise index intro to get ready and get a sense of parallel for both of us.
135x3
165x3
185x3
205x3
225x3
245x3
275x1
295x1
325x X
325x 1
Very groove dependant. Broke forward on first attempt at 325. Second attempt came up easy. This is completely a groove thing. Felt like I had another 20-30lbs in me, maybe more with the right groove. Aiming for 400 by my 3rd round on this ME cycle. Position was d*mn low, way legal.

Unilateral split jerks with 36lb k-bell
3x6 RL
Cool lift. This may be a magic bullet for punching, replicates my hitting mechanics nigh perfectly. Came up with it the other night.

alternated with

Single leg, single arm deadlifts (crossbody) 55lb k-bell
3x5 RL

Good to be doing these again.

In general, the addition of unilateral work feels good. Think I'm on the right track.


Y-sits 36 lb k-bell behind neck
3x8

Maybe some bag work later, maybe just hit the hot tub.

Andrew

[AndrewS]

Last night,

less than a year until leave this job, less than a year, less than a year. . .

Lifting a wash for today, only reasonable option was to come home, have a massive cheat meal of chicago pizza, and curl up in a ball.

Training partner (A) made it by later, did a 1 1/2 hr practice.

Spending some good time on basics.

Stance/balance drills in motion.
-step from IRAS
-turns
-linear forward and back stepping

into a little application from a shove
-taking push to fall back balanced
-taking push to fall back balanced off-line with balance checks
-using arms to diffuse push with above (double tie sao, double fook)
-build above into using weight drop back to power strike going backwards
-into strike going backwards to stepping in with next tight hit
- above with focus mits

Useful- got him moving some, thinking about hitting, power, balance, finding how to use the mechanics to get power from tight hip use. Got to remember to do more of this- ultimately it allowed us to do a bunch of reps, and he enjoyed it a lot, while cleaning up his motion some.

Following footwork, shin to shin
-to close
-to close to cover all low kicks (add stop kicks, yup, bong later)
-sweeps
-sweeps+ shin controls + kicks

Gotta hammer this with everyone. This basic stuff is what builds good and useful footwork. Nice, non-threatening live drill.

Finished 3rd set SNT to cool off.

Good potential here. Need to give him some home stuff to work on in a way that will build his conditioning.

Andrew

[Kevin Bell]

Hey Andrew,

Hows your diet at the moment? Any particular supplements your favouring shakes/bars etc??

Got crap DL ME form old back injury from car accident (blown disc) seems to just remind me with a twinge here and there any advice?

Decided for now to belt up, and use a weight somewhere between my ME and DE for DL's. My buddy recommended a trap bar any experience as to good or bad??

Cheers
Kev

[AndrewS]

Hey Kev,

I've lost a couple of pounds by the scale, and a good bit more to the eye, and by my pants. Nothing dramatic but some steady progress.

Supplement-wise I take 4-6 grams fish oil/day, aspirin 81mg 4-6x wk, zinc, magnesium, calcium, a multivitamin, glucosamine, chondroitin, creatine, some fiber, and protein (whey and casein). There are no magic bullets in there, just basics.

The trap bar- I like it, but then, I can move a lot of weight with it, so of course I like it. It's definitely more gentle on your low back than regular deads. I don't have anything bad to say about it, but it's hard for me to say whether it's an adequate substitute for the squat or deadlift. As my numbers are closer to my DL numbers with it than my squat numbers, I'd assume it's closer to a deadlift. Feels great, I'll give it that.

Andrew

[Kevin Bell]

Cheers Buddy,

I've enjoyed this thread. Keep up the goodwork, no doubt you'll be getting some posts on here or emails for more advice at some point

[AndrewS]

Today,

Power cleans
5x3
183lb

Overhead squats
10x3 3min ri
145lb

Trap bar shrugs
3x10 1min ri
193

later

1 hr WT
Chum Kiu
Biu Tze

Rounds on dummy- 2 minutes, wallbag work in between

Explosive footwork 45s-1 min 15s active 15-20 s rest x 9 rounds

Biu Tze

SNT

On call again tomorrow.

Brutal.

Andrew

[Neo]

Tried fight gone worse for first time yesterday. One round - that was it. Like it though, despite its demand. Something to work towards as well. Did it after 10x2 rounds on bag though. Possibly its something to do on its own!

As for Alliance, need to try and do a bit more this year, but so far not much luck. Not really got enough students to make it worth anyone's while to come over, and two events so far I was thinking about are while I'll be on holiday in Portugal, so down out of those . C'est la vie.

[AndrewS]

Alasdair,

fwiw- the original 'fight gone bad' is up on <crossfit.com>. 'Fight gone worse' is my pet name for my own evil hybrid based on the equipment I have at hand. And yes, it truly s*cks.

Andrew

[Neo]

yeah, that's what I got. got a rower at home so it was only the bench that was a bit short off the 20" mark.

[AndrewS]

Got home from work Friday morning, took a nap, woke up with trouble walking. Lateral head of gastrocnemius strained- better by this morning.

Today,

1 hr 45 minutes w/ partner
Stance into takedown defense off the head into lat sao to dan chi to chi sao.

Weights
10x2 low bar box squats to parallel (15" box) w/ 195

Push-press in front of the neck
45x6
95x6
133x6
148x6
158x6
158x8 rough getting that last one up

Lunges
3x6 w/ 125lbs

Tabata protocol on elliptical
1.8 mi, 202 kcal

Back in the groove,

Andrew

[AndrewS]

Today's workouts,

#1
Snatch drops
10x3 2.5 min ri
110lbs
missed 4th set

Straight-legged deadlifts
3x8 1min ri
295

windmills
3x5
72lb k-bell

#2
CK
BT
10 rounds
20 MB slams from punching footwork

Sled dragging around the ankles +20kg plate
various angles

2 minutes on heavy bag

SNT

Andrew

[fa_jing]

Andrew, do you think practicing SNT helps your competition fighting? Do you do it to become better at Wing Chun or better at fighting or both? Just curious on your take on the issue.

[AndrewS]

fa_jing,

I view the forms as sounding boards for ideas. Trying to decypher their mechanics lets me find new coordinations and technical details, and can reveal new applications, or useful details for things I'm trying to optimize.

I view them kinda like I do Sonnon's Bodyflow- pieces of linkable kinetic chains (focusing on power expression). The 'cleaner' I make the motion, the more I refine it, the more I have that to draw on as I use it under progressively less stable conditions.

Does that make sense?

Andrew

[fa_jing]

Definitely. I just found that after 3 years of practicing SNT, I was gaining less and less from the study, martially. However, it always served well as "qi gong." I liked doing it on 1 leg too, never really perfected that.