BJJ, Strength & Air Traffic Control

06March12

BJJ (no-gi)

Drilled a takedown from over/under clinch and an alternate hip toss of a defense of it. Drilled a LOT with a chick. Then we did a round and I worked a strong darce and a few guillotines. She was very aggressive though, very tough. Then we did king of the mat for takedowns only, so I didn't get much time out there lol though I did get one back take.

Then did a few rounds with a white belt and a blue belt. Felt VERY good tonight and got a variety of guillotines, marcelo-style and darces. I've been working the darce a lot lately and really trying to make it better, and by golly it's improving. Happy with the results, though it still has a ton ton tonnnn of work.

EDIT: Bodyweight after training was 165 and some change. VERY easy getting underweight for the powerlifting meet and I can only hope hope hope that my awful tapering (or lack of) plus eating under maintenance calories isn't going to sap my strength. I'll probably be fasting Friday until weigh-ins, and then feast.
 
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Nice. You focus on something and it gets better. Awesome how that works.

I'm not even kidding. I love how you relearn the same lessons over and over. Like how hard work pays off. That's the best lesson ever.
 
07March12

BJJ (no-gi)

Went over the knee-cut pass yet again! It's getting worked into muscle memory with all these reps, that's for sure. Went over a contingency off of the knee shield pass too if they try to go to turtle, to a back take. Lots of drilling.

Went with a white belt and a blue belt; against the white I got a beautiful double leg takedown, several darces and a toe hold. With the blue we had a very back-and-forth match with lots of guillotine attempts from both of us. I got him with a toe hold off of a knee bar attempt from open guard, then was sinking in a marcelo guillotine but the bell saved him. Tough!

Felt great.
 
ThunderhorseMMA said:
Nice. You focus on something and it gets better. Awesome how that works.

I'm not even kidding. I love how you relearn the same lessons over and over. Like how hard work pays off. That's the best lesson ever.
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Yup! I love just finding shit you're weak at, focusing on it and bringing it up to par with everything else.

modena1983 said:
Good luck at your meet.
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Thanks modena :)
 
Rest...

Going to a concert in Dallas tonight. Will wrap up the day's eating with around 2,300 calories and then fast until weigh-ins tomorrow afternoon at the gym. I was 167 this morning :( but I think I can pull this off. Laxatives and dandelion root!

Also did a caliper bodyfat test at 3-sites (belly, pec, thigh) and it shows me at 10.5%. This sounds very accurate, not like the 14% my scale had been saying. I would love to continue to get shredded and see more veins poppin but have more muscle and be stronger. 165 is just way too light for me to be at, so after this meet it's on like donkey kong
 
Oh so and in other news, I'm officially moving away from Texas to southern California. This makes me sad because I absolutely LOVE the gym I'm training at now and I make more money here. In California (San Bernardino) I'll be making less money due to state taxes, the crime is a lot worse and jiu-jitsu is farther away. It's still not too bad because I found one great MMA gym I want to train at, and several small BJJ schools too.

The choices seem to be, live in a nicer, safe areas close to Trader Joes, or live in a more ghetto, urban area that's closer to a great MMA gym. My job is in the nice area, too. Any thoughts?

Living in the urban area:
Pros - Close to MMA/BJJ
Cons - Longer drive to work
Cons - Safety/standard of living will be worse

Living in nicer area:
Pros - Close to work
Pros - Close to good shopping/grocery stores
Pros - Higher safety and standard of living
Cons - Further drive to MMA/BJJ

The drive to MMA would be about 30 minutes from the nicer area, which is what I was doing back in New Jersey anyway. I've just become so accustomed to the 10 minute drive to BJJ here in Texas, I love it :)

One solution would be to live in the middle; 15 minutes away from both work and BJJ. Might do that. The only problem is that even THAT is a shitty area by comparison.
 
An MMA fighter doesn't have to be afraid of a scary neighborhood. FACE THE PAIN!

But seriously, nice neighborhoods are the shit. I'd do the nice one, but only if I didn't care about how much gas I was blowing on the weekly commute. Why do you have to move when you'll get less money and shit?
 
That's a good point. I just got off the phone with a rental lady who basically bomblasted ALL of the areas between my job and the MMA gym as unlivable. So I'll probably be living in the nice area after all. 30 minute drive is not the end of the world.

My company's moving me out there unfortunately. The only reason it'll be less money is because of the state taxes; here in Texas, there are none!! :O

Don't you live in a nice area though? I love places like Trader Joes, Chipotle, Target etc. My bourgeois tendencies, though I have lived in bad neighborhoods too...I just have a lot more to lose nowadays.
 
I do. I'm tucked into a cozy little area between Boulder and Denver, conveniently close to both, and loaded with stores and conveniences. High quality of living at an acceptable price. Gotta move soon, though. Hoping I can find a similar setup to my current one. White collar 4 lyfe.
 
Weighed in at exactly 165. Sped off to Chipotle right after weigh-ins and devoured a chicken burrito, then took a chicken burrito bowl home with me and devoured it (~1700 calories total).
 
Sobchak said:
I do. I'm tucked into a cozy little area between Boulder and Denver, conveniently close to both, and loaded with stores and conveniences. High quality of living at an acceptable price. Gotta move soon, though. Hoping I can find a similar setup to my current one. White collar 4 lyfe.
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Why do you have to move soon? That sucks if it's such a good place that you like.

My company is paying a real estate agent in Cali to help me find places so the search may continue. Only about 5 weeks until I move :eek:
 
Unrelated but shit has been good and is back on with the girl back home it seems. Ah the ebb and flow of a relationship :) Looking forward to the next visit for some active recovery
 
This log is strong in the.real estate department.
 
TheJewBear said:
Oh so and in other news, I'm officially moving away from Texas to southern California. This makes me sad because I absolutely LOVE the gym I'm training at now and I make more money here. In California (San Bernardino) I'll be making less money due to state taxes, the crime is a lot worse and jiu-jitsu is farther away. It's still not too bad because I found one great MMA gym I want to train at, and several small BJJ schools too.

The choices seem to be, live in a nicer, safe areas close to Trader Joes, or live in a more ghetto, urban area that's closer to a great MMA gym. My job is in the nice area, too. Any thoughts?

Living in the urban area:
Pros - Close to MMA/BJJ
Cons - Longer drive to work
Cons - Safety/standard of living will be worse

Living in nicer area:
Pros - Close to work
Pros - Close to good shopping/grocery stores
Pros - Higher safety and standard of living
Cons - Further drive to MMA/BJJ

The drive to MMA would be about 30 minutes from the nicer area, which is what I was doing back in New Jersey anyway. I've just become so accustomed to the 10 minute drive to BJJ here in Texas, I love it :)

One solution would be to live in the middle; 15 minutes away from both work and BJJ. Might do that. The only problem is that even THAT is a shitty area by comparison.
Click to expand...

The bad parts of San Bernardino can be pretty bad... so heads up there. What school will you be training at?
 
10March12

Barbarian Powerlifting Meet

Bodyweight: 165

Squat
315
330
360 (+5lb PR)

Bench
245
255 - miss
255 - miss

Deadlift
385
405
420 (+5lb PR)



Overall I'm satisfied with today. I'm 60lbs lighter than my first meet and beat all of my PRs but the bench. Bench performance was horrendous, and I'm not sure why. What I mean is, I don't know why bench training has sucked so bad over the past 6 months. I've been running Westside for it but it seems to be going nowhere.

Couple things I want to tweak now...

1) Lean mass gain. Watching my videos, I look ridiculously skinny and small compared to the other guys at the meet. There were some behemoths of course and I don't want to be fat again, but just much more muscular. So I reworked my numbers and am increasing calorie cycling to 2500 on rest days while training day calories will be still around 3,300. One thing I will be extremely strict on is carb and fat nutrients. I hadn't been paying attention much to it at all but I feel if I can tweak that, it'll make a big difference.

2) Hypertrophy-focused weight training. Will take the next week off for meet recovery then begin with a 3x/week split. I'm actually going to keep doing 5/3/1 until it stops working, but scrap westside and do something else.
 
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ThinkGreen said:
The bad parts of San Bernardino can be pretty bad... so heads up there. What school will you be training at?
Click to expand...

That's what I'm hearing. The school is Millennia MMA. Do you know anything about it?
 
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