2026 Training Log Part 4

On the stereo today- Everything and anything. I’m too tired to pick music. Moby is playing right now.

Monday

This week had almost no training, but I did do some sparring on Monday. 25 minutes positional followed by 5 minute rounds. Enjoyable as I played around a bit.

Wednesday

Started training and felt a bit out of breath. I thought I was just tired from working on the new gym, but then I felt really wheezy later on. Finished 8 rounds and then sat out for the extras. Turns out…

Thursday

… I am sick! Woke up coughing and sweating. Bad news because I’m working on the new gym pretty hard and was due to run the Emerald Cup on the weekend. I tried to take a bit more time at home to recover but needed to go to the gym to coach. I designed one of those sessions where I stood back and pointed at people rather than touching them, but my voice was gone so that wasn’t too successful either!

Saturday

Ran a big tournament with the help of paracetemol and coffee. Went home, ate a giant pizza, and fell into bed. Sunday I was up at 8am to let an electrician into the new gym to fit our new lights, and he didn’t arrive until 10.30.

Training Thoughts of the Week

Well, there was obviously little to no training. My whole house is down with this flu and there’s nothing I can do but get up out of bed and go to work on the new building anyway. I was there until 10pm last night painting and assembling some kit. Last weekend I built the subfloor. This weekend I’ll pad the walls and lay the mats and get the whole thing ready for Monday.

I’m excited, it’s just really hard to express it when you’re coughing and sneezing all day!

Non-Training Thoughts of the Week

This is a training thought, but it fits here better. I gave up on training in December and January a few years ago. I just stopped training in those months because I noticed an injury pattern. I spend a lot of time in the cold gym coaching, and then when I was getting on the mat, I could never warm up enough. My fingers, feet, knees, and low back were the main issues. I was just too damn cold all the time. I’m 48 this year. The juice wasn’t worth the squeeze, which is terrible because as you might be aware, I love Jiu Jitsu.

The new gym feels different. There’s a good sub floor which means you’ve got no contact with the bare ground. The ceiling is lower, the room feels closer. There’s heating with the aircon unit, but we were working in there when it was 5 degrees outside last week and with just our body heat, the room felt warm within about 45 minutes.

So I’m hopeful that I don’t have to take a winter break anymore!

See you on the mat,

Barry