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BJJ, Strength & Air Traffic Control

Some thoughts before I start my school work. This is more just for me to remember than to jive about since I know this isn't bodybuilding dot fucking com

-Put on too much fat with current nutrition. With a much-increased training frequency, if I'm eating at a surplus every training day it is not going to work. So to mesh things back to more of a recomp like when I got cut on LeanGains, we'll change the macros/cycling up a bit.

One of the downsides to LG was that Sat/Sun were off days and thus regularly were low-carb, low-cal. This hinders social gatherings where I know I can't exceed 2200 cal, so drinking/eating good foods was always tough. To combat this, Sat/Sun will always be a +20% surplus days, *unless* I don't train that day.

-Any rest day will be a -20% deficit. All other training days will be moderate carb at maintenance cals (~2700). So a typical schedule may look like,

Sun: Push, +/-0% eating
Mon: Legs, +/- 0% eating
Tues: Pull, +/- 0% eating
Wed: Off, -20% eating
Thurs: Push, +/0% eating
Fri: Legs, +20% eating
Sat: Pull, +20% eating
Sun: Off, -20% eating

etc

It's getting a little insane now with all the planning and thinking. Leangains was fucking simple compared to this, but this would be great for a very slow bulk at only a 500 calorie surplus per week.

-Doing a tournament in New Jersey in mid-September, so I'll cut back down to LW for that and collect another gold medal. Will be sure to do my daily affirmations like for the last one.

-Possible job offer in Annapolis, Maryland for the short-term while waiting for the FAA. It's a flight service job, not ATC but basically giving weather/flight information to pilots en route I think. Pay is weak but it may be something to do in the interim. The closest gym is 10 minutes away and it's run by a black belt under Pedro Sauer.

-Pulled something in my glute/lower back when doing SLDLs the other day and skipped BJJ last night. It's feeling better today, just never felt it before despite all my heavy squatting/deadlifting for years. Gotta be conscious of form with training everything twice per week.
 
07Aug12

LISS 20 minutes

BJJ (no-gi)

Too tired to log

BJJ (gi)

same
 
08Aug12

Bench
165x10
165x10
155x10
155x10

DB Flies
35'sx10
30'sx10
30'sx10
30'sx10

DB Nosebreakers
30'sx10
30'sx10
30'sx10
25'sx10

DB Side Delts
30'sx10
30'sx10
30'sx10
30'sx10

Tri Rope Pushdowns
50x10
40x10
40x10
40x10

Notes

-None, good workout

BJJ (gi)

Opponent stands in your guard, get a sleeve grip and a climbing omoplata, by pushing into their armpit/pulling on the sleeve, other foot climbs on their shoulder to propel you off of it and hit the with your thigh for the omo. Then scissor sweep stuff.

Rolled from closed guard with a few white belts, a few blue belts; mixed results, a good 4-stripe blue got me with a smooth pendulum arm bar. Got some good arm drags on huge guys and a loop choke turned into a sweep on a blue, arm drag to the back on a heavyweight blue and got swept from standing in like 2 seconds by our featherweight brown belt.
 
09Aug12

Squat
235x8
235x8
235x8

DB Lunges
30'sx10
30'sx10
25'sx10

Leg Extensions
100x10
100x10
100x10

Lying Leg Curls
50x10
70x10
70x10
70x10

Hanging Leg Raises
10
10
10
10

Notes

-None

BJJ (no-gi)

Working from side control, wrapping up arms in full nelson sitting to rear mount, finish with an RNC after stuffing one of their arms, or if they come to their knees rotating out you trap them in your half guard and GUILLOTINE!

Rolled with a white belt, got a few guillotines/darces and a toe hold. Walked through the basics basics with a brand-new day 1 white belt and went with a blue, getting a straight arm bar from half guard and a smooth butterfly guard sweep.

Last day of training in California :(
 
Last edited:
Yeah wtf. I need some diet inspiration and new recipes to try (except the chocolate eggs with Greek yogurt, shit was disgusting lol)
 
Ok update time.

-Moved from Cali back to NE Philly. The drive sucked and I'm glad to be here. Went from Oklahoma City to Philly in one stretch--stopped at a hotel, tried to sleep and couldn't so left and drove on nothing but candy and 5-hour energies. I rarely endorse products but seriously I never would have made it without sipping a 5 hour energy. Grape ftw

-Started training at a Lloyd Irvin affiliate here and am liking it a lot so far. Only been to two classes, and all of the guys are very hardcore and the coach pushes us REALLY hard. It is the toughest gym I have ever been to and they take training and competition very seriously.

-I felt really good the other night rolling there though; tapped a couple blue belts and felt really good, then went with a 250lb purple belt and tapped him twice from my closed guard with an arm bar, failed to triangle, rolled to mount and finished there. Felt so good about that, just ecstatic. Also tapped another purple with my baseball bat choke. Get beat consistently by the purples, of which there are many. The one class the other night had like half a dozen purples, same number of blues, a few whites, a few browns and one black belt plus the BB instructor. Awesome!

-Put on a lot of fat in my quest to bulk up. I'm not loving it but who cares. Strength is increasing in the bench nice and slowly with progressive overload, training everything twice a week for hypertrophy. Fat should come off once I get back into my consistent BJJ schedule.

-Possible job in North Africa doing air traffic control. That would change everything so we'll see. Also related to my log title is I should hear something from the FAA after Labor Day concerning my class date and where I'll be going in NY. Positive thoughts for the NY metro area.
 
#1: 5 Hour Energy is the kitty's titties.

#2: How does the FAA thing work with North Africa? Do you have to choose one or the other?

#3: Please don't get AIDS.

#4: I think we all need to see how "fat" you got. You down from an 8-pack all the way to a measly 6?
 
24Aug12

Weights
(since I'm doing this high frequency bodybuilding shit and it's really boring to post about, I won't really be logging those sessions anymore. But my schedule is Push, Legs, Pull, Off.)

BJJ

Open mat; rolled with a white belt and got a few things, had a real good time flowing from one thing to the next and felt very good.

Next went with an older purple belt maybe 40lbs heavier than me. From the feet I baited him with my left wrist which he grabbed so I arm dragged, when he resisted I sat to my butt and scrambled to his back. He turned to his back so I settled into his half guard and smashed my way through slowly to full mount. Got really high and isolated an arm, figure four but couldn't finish the key lock. Went back and forth from mount, to knee on belly, side control, working different things and feeling in total control but no subs. Eventually I got back to his half guard, re-applied the key lock and correctly pulled his elbow down to his ribs and got the tap. That's what I wasn't doing before.

Went with a lightweight purple belt, from his guard was careful and slow and grinding. Finally got swept to my back, slowly he worked to mount and I got to half guard, got my baseball bat grips in and he slowly passed to side control. Since his pass was slow I didn't spin right away. From a standstill, I decided to try the choke anyway without his momentum. It was riskier but I felt like giving it a shot, and it worked. Got the tap and he said he almost went out cold. We went again from my guard, I got an open guard sweep when he stood and came to side control. At this point he was very gassed, so I came up to knee on belly and got him with a baseball bat choke easily.

He helped me afterwards with some counters to deep half guard since I mentioned I always get stuck there. Also showed me the berimbolo (sp?), something I know is huge in BJJ now but I have never been taught.

Felt great tonight. Very pleased with my performance lately especially against purple belts. Maybe I'm closer to that level than I thought. Didn't get tapped by anyone.
 
#1: 5 Hour Energy is the kitty's titties.

#2: How does the FAA thing work with North Africa? Do you have to choose one or the other?

#3: Please don't get AIDS.

#4: I think we all need to see how "fat" you got. You down from an 8-pack all the way to a measly 6?

1) Totally agree. Going to get these in bulk from Costco from now on.

2) They'd be unrelated, bc Africa is run by a private company. I'm just waiting for the FAA to get me to the training academy right now, which could be at any moment. I would up and quit whatever I was doing for the FAA because they are my pimp until retirement.

3) How would I get AIDS? I always wrap it up.

4) Basically bigger gut, no abs at all, lowered vascularity. Whatevs :icon_neut
 
25Aug12

BJJ

Worked two half guard moves; control his right arm/wrist, and dive your left arm through the hole as your head follows and grab his belt with your left hand, using your elbow to keep his posture broken over his head. Grab his left pants with your right hand, move hips out to insert left hoot. Move him forward, then switch hips to take the back. Alternating off of this, your grab his right wrist with your right hand, dive under and grab the belt the same way but you keep his wrist grip as you bend his elbow 90 degrees. Hip out, switch legs figure four to his left leg and bend backwards for the shoulder lock/wrist lock. Really felt like both of these will work well for me.

Rolled with a white belt, 3 blue belts and a purple belt. The white belt gave me a ton of trouble, he was really solid. With the blues I did really well against one, maintaining dominant positions, with the other he had a slight edge and against the last he had a wide margin ahead of me. By the time I had the purple I was so gassed, he tapped me several times and got several good hook sweeps. Felt like I couldn't do much.

Overall a way different feeling than last night or the other day. While I did really well against those purples, today the blues and even a white was giving me a hell of a time. The skill levels are all over the place and don't seem to correlate to belt ranking much at all. The one blue belt who gave me a hard time today, specifically with judo throws from the feet, even tapped a black belt today with a wrist lock and the black belt was groaning in pain from it. So I don't know, shit is cray. Left everything on the mat and my left shoulder is giving me some pain, from something.

Goal of getting to 500 hours before my 3-year training mark (October 19th) is pretty much in the bag.
 
Fuck fuck fuck!

I spoke way too soon about getting to 500 hours before October's end. Turns out I have a pretty bad injury. My left shoulder was feeling a little tender after class yesterday but I thought nothing of it. At no point during rolling did I feel anything happen, so I chalked it up to wear and tear. Then, as the day progressed into night I noticed I was having a lot of pain in my AC whenever I would outstretch my left arm. I also couldn't bring my arm across my chest completely without horrible pain. So it hit me---Sprained AC. I know this feeling well because I separated my right AC in 2010, resulting in a 3-month layoff and some of the most depressing days of my life. Even running was painful. Hell, even playing playstation 3 hurt sometimes.

This injury is no where near as bad as the previous one to my right shoulder. For that one, I couldn't even raise my arm up to shave my face or brush my teeth. Currently I can do full arm circles no problem but was in awful pain last night whenever I'd be on my left side. No way can I roll, shrimping on that side would be the worst and even drilling technique is out. I was really angry earlier thinking about it, and how great I was feeling lately with my rolling and performance and now it's taken away from me.

Since I know it's not nearly as bad as before, I'm estimating maybe 2-3 weeks off from BJJ. As far as BB goes, I can still do leg stuff, maybe some arm stuff too but idk about shoulders/chest/lats. Going to the gym in a bit for a push session and will attempt using the machines. This just sucks because I'm all about my new gym and am paying $200/month for it so timing is bad.
 
Shitty, bro. If it helps, I haven't done any pressing in 5 weeks. Baby arms ftw!
 
Did a push workout at LA Fitness and had no problems really. Used the hammerstrength iso-lateral bench machine and was fine, machine side raises and pec-dec chest machine, rope extensions...All the pussy shit we scoff at but I like it there now that I have to work around this injury. Recovery time shouldn't be too bad.
 
He helped me afterwards with some counters to deep half guard since I mentioned I always get stuck there. Also showed me the berimbolo (sp?), something I know is huge in BJJ now but I have never been taught.

Just had a sub-only tournament not too long ago, got second. Some dude berimbolo'd the fuck out of me repeatedly in the finals...I had no idea how to stop it.
 
Just had a sub-only tournament not too long ago, got second. Some dude berimbolo'd the fuck out of me repeatedly in the finals...I had no idea how to stop it.

I know, it's all the rage right now. Reminds me of all the discussions in the grappling forum about if today's black belt is better than black belts from 20 years ago, due to all the new technical stuff.
 
Did a leg workout today, mostly with leg press machine and other machines. Just wanted to avoid loading the shoulder yet, but it's healing VERY fast. I can sleep on my left side now, throw light hooks and bring my arm across my body completely with some discomfort. During sex last night the girl said my shoulder kept clicking. Maybe I'll ride it out a few more days and go back on the mat Saturday.
 
28Aug12

Pullups
12
+25x8
12
11

Face Pulls
70x10
70x10
70x10

Cable Rows
160x10
160x10
160x10
145x10

Shrugs
None, didn't want to load the shoulder with that much weight yet

Preacher Curlz
40x10
20x10
20x10
20x10
20x10

Notes

-Had some shoulder discomfort when adding weight to pull ups so backed off after the one set. Face pulls were a little odd too, nothing bad...Overall healing up nicely. Planning to return Friday for open mat, where I can train at my own pace and let my partners know about the injury.
 
Update

Still training w/ the BB split, haven't been logging shit. Shoulder was feeling better but had a tough open mat Friday then an extremely grueling practice Saturday morning. We did technique for about 20-30 minutes then 40-60 minutes of rolling with almost no rest between rounds. I kept looking at the clock and was like, Oh class is over in 5 minutes, this will be the last roll. But no, coach kept saying "Pair up!" after the end of each round. Eventually it was half an hour past the end of class time and I thought I was going to die. The class was huge, with several brown belts, a dozen purples, dozen blues and scattered whites.

By the end of class we looked like war-weary soldiers. It reminded me of Sheridan writing about Dan Gable having a practice where he kept saying, "one more round" to his guys and they were complaining and bitching him out, calling him a liar. So he started pelting them with apples from a box he was eating from. Throwing apples at them while they wrestled.

Anyway, shoulder was a little fucked up feeling after that practice. Fingers on both hands were fried for days and feeling strained, hamstrings are in massive DOMs from doing good mornings again. Bad sleep last night and schoolwork out the ass the next few days. Waiting on pins and needles for my facility assignment in New York which should come down any day now. Plan on going to BJJ 4x this week, Tues, Thurs, Fri, Sat and maybe Weds if I can swing it.

Bodyweight was 171.6 today, making a total weight gain for August of 3.8lbs. This is WAY too much, and half of it has to be fat. Gain for September will be limited to 2lbs maximum and 2lbs/month thereafter. Bodyfat measurements are showing me around 13% now. Probably will stop at 15% then get shredded again.
 
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