Blandy's training log for weight loss ( BJJ and conditioning)

[blandy]

Wednesday 30th

BJJ Class

Straight back to training, next competition will be the Gracie Invertational at Seni April 26-27th.

Started with tabata’s squats, push ups and sit ups.

Covered escapes from bottom, from under side control, top person has head and arm control. Bridge into them and then shrimp away to create space to get the knee in. Top person has head and hip control, bridge into them and then roll away from them, being careful to avoid them taking your back. Similar to Saulo Ribeiro’s running escape. Next covered a couple of mount escapes, one I’ve seen Roy Harris demo before and also basic shrimping back to guard.

2x5 minute rounds of sparring at the end. One with a complete new guy so tried open guard with minimal/no use of hands and another with a newish older blue belt.

[blandy]

Thursday 31st January

Open mat

Rolled Gi with Dan for about two hours, tried to mix up being on top and bottom as much as possible. Caught some armbars, kimuras and chokes and wasn't submitted myself but mainly worked on trying to pass and control as Dan has a good guard and escapes.

[blandy]

Saturday 2nd February
open MAt

Rolled for about 45-60 minutes Gi with Gav and then about the same no gi with Lee, Started from the feet against Lee as he is planning on doing a no gi comp at the begining of march.

[blandy]

Sunday 3rd February

Weights

Decided to have one weight lifting session per week, just a couple of exercises for a few sets, nothing too flash just to try and maintain some strength. Started quite light this week and will slowly increase weight to try and minimize any negative effects on my training.

Intu Flow beginner – 5 reps each exercise

Push press
50kgx3x3

RDL
70kgx3x3

Dumbell Row
24kgx3+3x3

OACJ – 10 minutes of technique work at the end

[blandy]

Monday 4th February

BJJ Class

Started the class with guard passing.

First technique was taking the back from closed guard. Opponent has good posture, sit up with one hand behind you (like you were going for a kimura), under hook with other hand and grab their belt, shrug your arm up to lift their arm and spin round to the back. You need to be pretty quick and it looks pretty flashy but seemed to work.

From the back we went on attacking from the back, worked through trapping their arm as they defended the choke and switching to a reverse triangle with an armbar, switching to a normal triangle if they roll out and finally a mounted triangle if they start to try and roll out of that.

1x5 minute of sparring at the end. There were 3 separate rounds of sparring but the class is really too big of the mat size. This should hopefully be solved when we move to the new place. At very least my instructor is planning to charge a one off membership fee to pay for the mats at the new place and the materials need to build a 16 foot practice cage (one of our lads works as a metal worker and can build the cage during quiet times at work). This needs collecting by the end of the month so might put some of the more fair weather people off.

In the mean time regarding my own training I normally train 4 days a week so think I will go to open mat twice and two taught classes per week. I feel at the moment I need more sparring and positional drilling rather than new techniques and will be able maximise my time this way.

[blandy]

Tuesday 5th February.

Went to a yoga class with my girlfriend, the class lasted for an hour and a half. She used to go to a yoga class regularly when we first met, but hasn’t been since we moved across the country ~18 months ago. Apparently she had been looking for some one to go to a class with, which ended up being me after seeing BJ Penn using yoga poses as part of his training routine on Countdown to UFC80.

Can’t remember what the poses were called, for what its worth my girlfriend said the class was concentrated on back and shoulders. Also noticed my hamstrings and calves were pretty tight during some of the more leg based poses as I expected. Class was part of a six week course so will have at least 5 more classes then I’ll decide if I want to keep going to classes or work on yoga at home.

[blandy]

Thursday 7th February

Open mat

Rolled for about 45 minutes each with Neil and Dan, with Gi both times. Found I was probably allowing them too much time if they controlled my legs before breaking their grips. Was generally able to stop them at half guard but need to strip the grip quicker if I want to work open guard. Neil said it was hard to try and pin me even if he managed to pass, this is an area I have been really working on the last year or so, I used to give up far to early and just settle into to good/safe arm posture and allow myself to be pinned instead of scrambling, so this was pleasing.

[blandy]

Friday 8th February

MMA class

started the class with 10 minutes of 1 minute cals and 1 minute sprints/animal walks.

instructor decided to do a GNP session instead of just no gi grappling. Drilled GNP from guard, slowly addeding different strikes as with all the recent new starters there were loads of people that haven't done any before. Towards the end of the class we did more free sparring, again with gloves and GNP.

[blandy]

Saturday 9th February

1000 - Open mat

Rolled with Dan, Jimmy and Adam, all blue belts. pretty good roll, got caught a couple of times with GI chokes from the back by Adam. need to work on my escapes from the back more, Don't often get people on my back(probably part of the problem) but thave trouble escaping when I do.

1900 - Weights

Intu Flow beginner – 5 reps each exercise

Push press
52kgx3x3

RDL
72kgx3x3

Dumbell Row
25kgx3+3x3

OACJ – 10 minutes of technique work at the end

small increase on all three main lifts, still working on catching the cleans and the second dip so its a jerk rather than a push press

[blandy]

Sunday 10th February

OACJ – 10 minutes of technique work
burpees - 3 minutes @ 8rpm

decided to spend the beginning of the year working on my conditioning goals so just a small session that I can build on even when throwing hill sprints with my instructor into the mix at some point. Going to follow a similar progession to what Scott Sonnon suggested in his article about best kettlebell exercises for fighter for the burpees. Was a fairly slow pace, probably did faster than that last time I did 100 straight any way but wanted to start small and slowly build up. Will start a similar progression with my OACJ soon as I think further improvement in technique will come with longer sets, forcing me to use more effcient movement.

Finished by working through the yoga for martial arts dvd by Stephen Kestling, further emphasizing a lack of flexability in my back and