Randomness

Well, the most exciting news as of late is I got a rare perfect score from my teacher on my medical research paper!!

"I am grading your paper towards the end of the rest of the class, and at this point it is easily one of the best (if not at the top)! In every area this paper was very well done, great references, written very well, organized, etc. Thanks very much for the hard work. A pleasure to read. I don't often give perfect scores. Thanks for your hard work on this assignment as well as on the course as a whole. Have a great break! Tom West"

I am pretty ecstatic! As for other news, I am now back in the states. So it's been a bit since I've done any kind of working out or training. I'm thinking of going running here in a few mins, but it is soooo cold outside!! I don't really have anything else to do right now, just kind of chillin (quite literally actually). For the next 3 weeks, I'll probably not post very often being that it will mostly be cardio and lifting, nothing really to speak of.

Finally!!

My medical research paper is over!! I am so relieved! Now I can concentrate back on BJJ, Operation: 6, and keeping on top of posting here. It's been a while! I have been going to BJJ, though I havn't been posting about it. It's been good. A lot of stand-up stuff, as well as the normal ground guard work. I'm kinda blah that I'll be away from training at Prana for 6+ weeks (depending on if Kim goes to Germany for class), but I'm gonna make it work for the best. It will be GREAT to be home though! I really can't wait. So, starting tomorrow, I'll post more about my training.

Later!

The gauntlet

Monday was a good time at BJJ. It was all sparring and passing guard drills. It was pretty easy because we had a blue belt get promoted to purple. At the end of training, he had to go through and spar everyone, with 3 white belts, 3 blue belts, 2 purple belts, 1 brown belt, and then with our instructor, the black belt. I can't wait till I get blue, though that is a long time away, probably another year.

Well, Operation: 6 is off for now. I'm too busy with my 15 page medical research paper. It's coming along, but right now I don't have much time. Basically during the day, I have time when Ollie naps in the morning and some in the evening when she goes to bed. It's due on Dec 1st, but I'm hoping to finish it within the week...

I feel like there was something else I was going to write about but I can not remember... If I do, I'll post tomorrow..

Competition and College

It's been a while without posting. I've been very busy but have been training. I went to BJJ 3x last week and lifted 2x. I'm going to BJJ today as well. I'm definitely going to take part in the Stockholm BJJ Open in March. There's no reason not to. I'll have a good amount of time under my belt.

I'm currently a senior in the degree program: BS in Sport Management specializing in Fitness and Wellness. I'm enrolled in a class on Sport Medical Research and have a 15+ page medical review paper due December 1st. It has been taking much of my time. I'll post the final draft once it's finished. I'm pretty excited that come March, I'll have my degree.. But then, it's hard to say what will take up my time. There's a few more things I have on my mind I'd like to learn, but I'll prob take a small break before I jump in.

This is a little boring of an update. Hopefully I'll have more to say tomorrow about this evening's training!

Stockholm BJJ Open Prep

So here are a couple pics of where we train. It isn't anything special. It's not big. But it's perfectly adequate and really there isn't anything else that is necessary. I like it a lot. Basically there are 2 rooms. We do all of our training in the room in the 2nd pic because it's a bigger room. The first room is used to do kettlebell stuff and other kinds of training before class or used by those who are prepping for competition which would not benefit by the normal class, ie: free sparring or doing no-gi stuff.




So, the Stockholm BJJ Open(SBJJO) is in March. I've been asked by a couple people if I plan on taking part. I don't want to start competing too early. I want to know that when I step onto the mat, I can win. Whether or not I do win is another matter, but I don't want to go to a competition and look like I just started BJJ the week before. I also dont want to make my club look bad. So what I've decided to do is train as if I am going to compete in March. Having a goal that needs to be accomplished by a certain date is much better than having open ended goals. So I'm not saying that I will compete in the SBJJO, but I am going to train hard as if I was going to and then I'll evaluate my BJJ skills as the time draws near. The problem is that I'm going to be in the US anywhere from 6-12 weeks! That's a long time to be away from Kenta's training. However, I will be able to workout more and a friend of mine who owns a gym in Cincy has a BJJ black belt in a couple times a week who I can work with. So we'll see.

Competition weekend

This past Saturday was the Scandinavian BJJ Open here in Stockholm. I did not compete, too soon, but I went to watch some of my team compete. They did good with a decent number of gold medals (and some silver/bronze too). It was cool to see and it just makes me wanna work harder so I can do good in competitions.

Sunday I took a break. Monday I lifted at the gym. My gym time has been kinda boring really. I mean I get good workouts but nothing to speak of. Since I only hit the weights 2x a week right now, I usually do about 45 mins of a full body workout with heavy weights, usually super setting or drop setting. My gym has 3 owners and one of them fights MMA here in Sweden. I don't talk to him much; he's not there too often and when he is, he is personal training. I usually talk to his brother, who is also part owner, and Saturdays we are going to try to get the three of us together and do some sparring. Will be good practice to go against someone who is actively taking part in real fights.

Operation: 6 is coming along, but I must admit, I havn't been doing the full 500 everyday, mostly due to time constraints. It really depends on what me and Ollie do during the day. And I havn't been doing any after Kim gets off work, so maybe I need to start so I can get my full 500 reps in. Also, I've decided to do only one type of ab exercise per day instead of doing combinations. It was too easy to just switch exercises when I got tired.

Tuesday (yesterday), I went to Bjj but Kenta wasn't feelling too good, so he ended up not staying. Not a problem really, we had a purple belt there who ended up leading. Well, there were 7 of us, so we decided to do free sparring, 5 min rounds, different person sits out each match and we round robin so we fight everyone. Free sparring is definitly a good workout with little rest. Of course the purple belt had no problems with us..lol. But it was still good.

I'll probably take today off (Im pretty sore) and hit Bjj again tomorrow.

Operation: 6

Well it's Tuesday. I think I took Friday and Saturday off. Sunday I went to BJJ. Nothing really to speak of. We did warmups and drills, then did rotation sparring. My partner for drills had only been to BJJ like once before. He seemed like he enjoyed it but he was not in good shape at all and after training, he asked what I thought about BJJ here. He said it was quite hard, and I'm sure it was for him. He also asked if it was worth it. I told him that it really depends on his reason for taking BJJ, but in my opinion, no matter the reason, that it was worth it. It definitly helps you get into shape. It helps you gain confidence. And it trains you how to defend yourself if something ever does happen. Then there is the thrill of competition if you decide to go that route. It is hard. Training does take up a good amount of time. But I asked, if he wasn't here, what else would he be doing? He seemed like he wanted to do it more for the fitness aspect, which is great, and 2-2.5 hours of this BJJ training would do him much better than jogging for 30-45 mins on a treadmill (which he said he does).

Yesterday, I went and lifted at the gym. Again, nothing to worthy to write about. I did a couple exercises each for chest, shoulders, and bis. Heavy weights, 3-6 reps, 3-4 sets. My left shoulder has been bothering me a little lifting. I havn't noticeably injured it. It just feels like it needs to 'pop' or something sometimes when I'm lifting. And my right elbow isn't 100% yet from when it tweaked on an armbar a few weeks ago. It's a lot better, and doesn't bother me during training or lifting, but sleeping on it and extending it fully is a little painful. Not bad though.

I don't know how long this will last, but today I'm starting "operation: 6". *smile* I'm shooting for 500 reps of situp variations a day. By that I mean, 1 crunch = 1, 1 full oblique twist = 1, 10 full leg lifts = 1 (1 lift is too easy to = 1 point), 30s planks = 1, etc; until I hit 500 reps in a day. Basically any variation of exercise for my abs, be it upper abs, lower abs, obliques, etc will count towards the 500. I don't know if 500 is too many or too few or if doing it everyday is too much or not, so I may fine tune it a little after a few days of seeing how I feel.

Again, I'll try to take some photos at BJJ today. I just usually don't have much time because I get there right on time, then I have to leave right away to catch the bus and train home. We'll see.

Have a good day!
Chris

Determination

It's 10pm and I just got back from BJJ. Pretty tough! Little warm-up, about half hour of techniques; all standing takedowns. Then 1.5 hours of straight sparring, no stopping. I have a love/hate relationship for these days. I'm so competitive that I love them, but I have zero anything left inside me afterward. I can barely walk home from the train my body aches so much. I'm usually shivering cuz it's cold (the train stop is very close to the house though). And I usually have a headache and multiple bruises all over (I never knew I bruised so easily!) But it's all good.

Today, for most of the time, I was up against a blue belt (only 1 belt above me, but over a year and half more experience). And he was killing me! I didn't submit him once. I only sweeped him like 2x, but he ended up coming back and submitting me shortly after I'd sweep him. Part of BJJ is using your weight to your advantage and this guy was pretty good at it. I mean, 180lbs is a lot of weight to have pressing down on you constantly and that's part of the point: wear your opponent down by controlling him and forcing him to carry your weight. Even a 130lbs guy, if good enough, can wear a 180lbs guy out by keeping all of his weight centered into little areas of his opponent, making it hard for the guy to breath, etc until the 180lbs guy is so worn out that the 130lbs guy now has the advantage and can submit the 180lbs guy with relative ease. This is where I need to work. It's my own fault I'm so exhausted after training (well, not ALL my fault) but I go full force all the time and I need to learn when is the right time to apply my strength, and when is the right time to just go with the flow. I need to remember to keep my weight on the other guy as much as possible. I do have good days when I can tell I'm doing it right when my opponent is breathing hard, and I do a move and put weight on his diaphram and he grunts from the weight and is having to force breaths. I love that. :) Then I just sit there for a little bit and rest while he is having it hard.

Then for about the last 15-20 mins of the training, I switched partners to another white belt who was also rollin with a blue belt. It was a better match. And I'm glad we switched, but I'm glad I rolled so much with the blue belt too because that's how you learn, by competing with someone better than you.


This really made me laugh...

sore! owwww. darkness.

Yesterday at BJJ was a good time, but I am sore! I worked with one of the blue belts and it was good for both of us. He was more experienced so I could learn from what he knew and I was heavier and stronger and he could work on lifting/sweeping a bigger person.. Most of the techniques we practiced were sweeps and sweeps to submissions. So we were flipping on the ground a lot. That's probably why I'm so sore! We also did some triangle drills. Basically, the triangle is a move which stops blood to the brain by constricting the carotid arteries using your legs and your opponent's trapped arm. It's quite effective. So, we decided that once in the triangle, we would not tap until the very last moment of passing out so we could get used to the feeling so we would not panic if we get caught in it later. So, on a number of occasions, I know we each came very close to not tapping.. haha! Couple times after I had tapped, I felt very light headed and the room was....not so bright for a few seconds. ;)

For our sparring, we lined up 3 guys in the center of the mat. The rest were lined up against the wall. Then we went down the line on each of the 3 in the center passing guard/submitting. If you passed their guard, then you stayed in the center and then everyone came to you. If the 2 got to a sticking point where they stopped activly working, they were tapped and a new person would take over. It was fun.

My camera is out of juice and I can't find the charger. Hopefully I'll find it today and I'll get some photos up after tomorrow's BJJ.

Relative Strength

Well, it's been hard getting into the gym and to BJJ this week. We've been very busy.Yesterday, I hit the gym and did a full body routine. Nothing too serious, just something to get all my muscles involved. Today, I did a little cardio lifting. Started with an 800 meter row, then did 4 sets of each: Tabata Thrusters/Jump Rope 2 mins, KB Swings/Planks, Jump-ups/21s, and Situp/Pushup/Obliques 20/20/20 reps. It felt decent, but a little weak.

I wanted to talk a little about relative strength because it's something that is, or should be, pretty important to a lot of people . Relative strength is your strength to weight ratio and absolute strength is your strength no matter how big you are. There are a lot of people out there who are quite strong but quite big. A lot of people, including myself a few years ago, would argue that being big isn't a "but", however it really depends on why you are in the gym in the first place and what you do. Bigger muscle is fine if you just want to look good at the beach, however it can be excess baggage to someone like a police officer, a fireman, a combat military member, and most sports, especially those fighting sports which require the athlete to meet a weight requirement. Imagine a member of S.W.A.T. or a military member on a combat team who weighs 225lbs and is quite strong. It's great that he can carry his load plus more, but what happens if he gets injured and the rest of the team needs to carry him or move him quickly out of danger? The point is, you do not have to be big to be strong and sometimes that extra body weight can be a burden.

So, the next question on most of your minds is probably, how do I get stronger without muscle hypertrophy (size). The easy answer is: improve your neural efficiency. The hard question is: how? Neural efficiency, in general, refers to how well your brain can control individual muscle fibers in a muscle. This actually happens over time to a certain point. Remember when you first started lifting how awkward it was and how you couldn't lift that much, but after the 3rd to 4th week, you had made a pretty good leap in weight lifted? That initial "great leap forward" was more due to your body learning how to effectively control the muscles in order to do your lift. But that only happens automatically in the very beginning. In order to continue or force this to happen may require you to do some experimenting on what works for you, but two methods you can try is to lift heavy weights at low reps and you can lift weights at a rapid pace. The reason is simple. If you lift heavy weights, your central nervous system needs to make use of as many muscle fibers as possible in order to lift such a heavy weight. It is the same when lifting weights at a high rate of speed; it requires the use of more muscle fibers than normally would be needed to lift the weight due to the rapid nature of the lift.

So in short, combine your workouts because you can not lift heavy all the time. Mix up your routines with heavy workouts, 1-6 reps, 3-4 sets one day, and lighter weights at a rapid pace the next. There is a point where you just can not increase any more strength without putting on more muscle mass/weight. But the point is to fill your body up with as much strength as possible before you do grow.

Recent History

As of late, my workouts have changed quite a bit. My workouts in the past consisted of mostly lifting, one body part per day, 4-5x a week with some cardio thrown in when I could make time. My latest workout scheme included a one week straight lifting routine followed by a one week "cardio lifting" routine, where exercises are done at high heart rates with short rest periods. I did this to try to get more of a cardio aspect into my workouts without having to be bored out of mind running on a treadmill.

Recently, I have gotten into Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) and I must say, I really enjoy it. It is because of BJJ that my workouts have changed. First, I have BJJ training usually 3x a week, each session is a little over two hours long. We start with warm-ups which include running, high-knees, butt-kickers, front and back rolls, and usually other exercises like fireman's carry, sprints, the escaping movement, pushups, situps, and box jumps. After this, we pair off into partners and our instructor, Kenta, goes over BJJ techniques which we practice one by one. The technique portion of the training isn't very strenuous so afterword, we have another short warmup before we start into our guard pass/free sparring. This is quite intense and usually leaves me feeling like I'm going to throw up as I walk/jog for the bus home. If you do not know what passing the guard is, then do a search on youtube. There are many ways to pass the guard which lead to many different positions, of which have many different ways to control and force a tapout from your opponent. This is fairly easily done when your opponent is letting you, as in technique practice; however in pass guard/free sparring, your opponent is not only resisting, but trying to subdue you and force you to tapout. This goes on usually for 40 mins with no rest. As soon as one person taps or is passed, we do it again. Every few mins or so, we change opponents, but that is the only rest we get, in between opponent changes, whichs takes seconds. The norm is to end with spars, however every so often, we end in conditioning which is even harder than straight sparring for 40+ mins. and usually afterword, we can do nothing but sit on the mats for some time. The conditioning exercises vary but are all body weight exercises, with a lot of emphasis on the core.

So, I have BJJ 3x a week. Usually at least 1x, sometimes 2x a week I go for a nice run. I actually have started to enjoy running, well not necessarily the running, but the place I'm running. Right across the street from where we live is a big wooded area with bike and running trails all through it with different main trails of different lengths and different hill/flat makeups. I don't know the distance, but it usually takes me around 35-45 mins at a decent pace. I then try to get into the gym and lift 2x a week. Because I'm only lifting 2x a week, my routine is usually a full body workout. I try to hit the major muscles and hit them hard.

I'm definitely slimming down and I'm happy that my strength isn't taking a hit, as far as I can tell. I'm definitely getting into better shape, though my body is constantly sore. My top knuckles are always sore from grabbing onto my opponents, my toes are sore from pushing off the mat and hooking my opponents. And I always come home with bruises somewhere, usually on my arms, shoulders, and legs. The bruises don't really hurt, more of a visual reminder of the fun I have resisting and forcing a tap. :)

I have BJJ tonight and will try to post again before bed, hopefully with some pics of where I train.
-Chris