2024 Training Log- Part 7

On the stereo this morning: Mercury Rev- Deserter’s Songs. An album that reminds me of a mate who used to knock into my house with a burned CD for me and say “You’ve got to listen to this man…”

Last week was truncated. I was running the IBJJF Dublin International so I knew I’d only have Monday Tuesday and Wednesday to train. I crammed in as many rounds as possible Monday and Wednesday and made training high intensity for me.

Ah, that’s the key- intensity. Adaptation. Energy. Focus. 5 good rounds a week is better than 20 average ones. 85% of my rounds last week were with Brown and Black belts.

Monday

I had a stomach thing on Sunday (self inflicted over-indulgence) and I felt awful on Monday morning still. But I dragged myself to the gym in the morning and put in some upper body strength work.

1) Dumbbell incline press- 5×5
2) Bench row- 3×12
3) Single arm press 3×8
4) Standing delt flyes 3×10
5) Seated power cleans 3×10
6) 45 back raise 3×15

Monday night training I still felt like crap, but knew I had to train. So I put down a marker for myself to treat every round like I needed to submit my opponent within 2 minutes. If I got a sub, the clock reset and I had to do it again. I got 7 rounds like that with some success, some failure, but the mindset change from feeling like not sparring at all to putting in high intensity was what I got out of it.

Still felt like crap afterwards, but it was a good session considering. 7.5/10 maybe.

Tuesday

Lower body work and I you know what, I don’t know when I’m repeating myself here but I’ll say it again- I don’t put any big numbers in on lower body day. It’s just too fatiguing and sore and effects my time on the mat. I usually do something that challenges mobility and improves function.

1A) Goblet Squat 5×8
1B) Kettlebell Cleans 5×10
2) Nordic Curls 5×8
3) Vertical Jumps 3×10
4) Quad raises 3x 15-12-10
5) Weighted incline sit ups 3 sets
6) Roll outs 3×10

But not last Tuesday apparently. The superset of Goblet Squats and Kettlebell cleans, followed up with some Nordic Curls… Did some assistance and then went home. I felt the first bit of tightness about 4 hours later, and then…

Wednesday

… I woke up with the worst DOMS I’d felt in ages. It has to have been the speed of the cleans followed by the Nordics. I am intentionally trying to avoid soreness, so this was annoying.

It did effect my early rounds on Wednesday night, which were 6 minuters. I warmed up as the session went on though, and enjoyed the rounds. I hit three of the things I was trying to do so I was fairly happy with that. I’m zoning in on an A game for the first time in a long time. Feels good.

Friday

I had work, and then event work, so I got an early morning bit of lifting in the gym. Some harder conditioning and muscular endurance work is in my Day 3 now, but on Friday I didn’t push the boat out too much as I knew I’d be on my feet for the weekend.

I did-
1A) Single Arm Incline Press 5×10
1B) Standing Single Arm Cable Pull- 5×10
2) Max out dumbbell bench 2 sets
3) Arnold Press 3×10
4) Ab machine 3 sets of I don’t remember

Ran out the door to do the school run but I may have done some more core work…

Training Thoughts of the Week

Intensity, as above. Think of the root word. Intensity. Intention. INTENT. Why am I here? What am I doing? A good word. I first started to understand it in relation to practice when I was following along with Yoga videos. “Take a moment to set your intention for this practice” your wan would say. I’d go, “Eh? what’s this hippy stuff?” But over time I’d say to myself “To open my hips” and it made sense. There’s an intention for everything. You’re not cruising (though it’s sometimes nice to cruise).

“Train smarter, not harder”- that’s what they say. But it only counts when you’ve already tried harder.

Non-Training Thoughts of the Week

Every week they tell you something different about 2 things- Coffee and Eggs. Week 1- Coffee may improve something something, Week 2- Coffee is terrible for you. Eggs the same. I’ll never stop drinking coffee and eating eggs, so stop telling me this stuff.

Smoking is back. Notice that? People smoking again. I have a theory about it-

When I was a kid, loads of people smoked. And loads of people looked and sounded like shit because of it. Yellowy fingers, coughing and hacking up all over the gaf. And you knew at least 5 people with cancer or who towed around a little oxygen tank. My grandmother died of lung cancer. My mate’s da had a little robot voice thing from a tracheotomy. It was terrifying!

Now all those people are dead ages, and for a long time smokers were more rare, so there’s not a whole heap of old people walking around coughing up globules of brown phlegm. There’s no walking reminders of nicotine death! So everyone thinks, “How bad can it be, really?”

And on that note…