Basically my last week of training

I forgot to update a whole load of stuff in the last week so I’ll do a fill in post on my own training while I have a few minutes. It has been going great, pretty much injury free, lots of good quality work and a totally different approach to before. I was having a chat with Karl last night about the approach and I think just putting conditioning in Will’s hands has been a great decision for a couple of reasons. Firstly even though I might perhaps have done something similar to what Will is doing for me conditioning wise (with a bit less quality), I’m still a bit neurotic about training and I always think I should be doing more. So what has happened in the past is that I end up overtraining, picking up injuries and being underprepared come fight time. Where I might occasionally emphasise quality over quantity with my own athletes, I always want more quantity from myself.

Secondly, the strength work has just been great. I had been drifting and basically just lifting some stuff, thinking I shouldn’t do other stuff because of my back and generally just reinforcing old injuries for months. I strength tested last week for the first time since November. Here’s some results from November and last week:
Bench Press: Nov- 80kgs fail, March 85kgs (Target 80kgs)
Inverted rows: Nov- 6, March 30 (Target 30)
Push Ups: Nov- 33, March 39 (target45+)
Pull Ups: Nov- 6, March 8 (target 12+)
Trap Bar Deadlift- Nov-160kgs, March 170kgs (target 160kgs)

So not bad. I have to say I wasn’t in the testing zone walking in. I had a swollen flexor from sparring the night before that so Will scrapped the original session and we tested instead. I could have pulled more, I think maybe another 20kgs, on the trap bar but with my leg sore I decided not to. Didn’t care too much about it anyway it would have just been number chasing as I’m well within my target for it. The dissappointing bits first. Push up score was low, but I had done a lot of technical volume work on the bench before that which I think skewed it a bit but I think maybe only by a rep or two. Secondly the pull ups were far from great, I wanted more and even though I put 2 onto my previous score it would seem that I’ve some work to do. But there are positives there which far outweigh the negatives. Firstly the bench is pretty good. 85kgs and I stood on the scales that morning at 80kgs. Not just that but the 85 was easy and I was miffed to miss the 87.5 we did next. I haven’tactually done a full bench press session since I started with Will. I’ve done some partial pressing, sone benching as part of conditioning but not once have we gone for 5×5 on a bench. The real strength gains haven’t been there they’ve been in my back and shoulders, which you can clearly see from the Inverted rows. 6 to 30 is unbelievable and to be honest while I knew I was going to get much better at these, I didn’t think I’d make the target. But I’ve been dilligent about the rehab and prehab work. If any of you reading train with me you’ll know me and that band have been inseperable before training.

Will basically turns the model on it’s head. Instead of starting with that cardio base, we start with strength and work on how to make that last for as long as possible. Does it work? Well I haven’t tested it under battle conditions yet but I can tell you that sparring is much easier. My recovery rate is really high so doing something like a hard take down is still hard but doesn’t take as much out of me and I recover better so that I can get to work straight away.

This is my last full week, but I’ll still train maybe 80% next week until Wednesday. I won’t do anything new or unusual though I’ll just spar and roll for the most part, hit some pads and probably do one more conditioning session after today’s one.