[DrBdan]

Thursday Sept 25, 2008

Muay Thai

I usually do a minute or two of skipping while I wait for class to start, followed by dynamic stretching for my hips/legs so they are already warmed up before class.

warm-up: 5 minutes skipping, running, shadow boxing, sprawls, crunches, leg raises. wishbone stretch. that's all.

warm-up rounds on the thai pads. some basic combos: jab/jab/right kick, cross/cross/left kick. push kick/left kick/leg kick.

next Gui introduced some elbow combos. first was left elbow/left back elbow/right elbow. Second was jab/spinning back elbow. Also practiced throwing an elbow and switching stance. Pretty much jumping in place while turning 180 degrees and throwing an elbow. Then we added this in after the spinning elbow to switch back to normal stance. Practiced this slowly for a bit and then we mixed this into some more face-paced rounds. Did a few rounds of elbows and then rounds mixing the elbow combos with the basic combos.

Next up he showed us a superman elbow. Same idea as a superman punch except an elbow instead. With a little encouragement from me and Gui (the instructor) we convinced my partner (who is my boss and is about 250 lb) to put more of his weight into the elbows and they were pretty vicious.

Finally did a few rounds with everything mixed together. We finished the class with some defense drills.

I felt alright for most of the class. Elbows felt pretty good for not having done them much in a few weeks but overall everything just felt alright. My only problem was that after focusing on the elbows for a good portion of the class my legs had cooled off and my kicks were shit until my hips warmed up again. Next time I'll try to stretch them and keep them warmed up when we're not focusing on kicks. Stupid inflexible hips... After class ended I did some more hip and hamstring stretches. One day I will be flexible!!

[DrBdan]

Friday Sept 26, 2008

5 minutes on the treadmill + dynamic stretching.

- SOHP
45 lb 2x6
65 2x3
90x5
90x5 (push pressed the last rep)
90x4 (push pressed the last rep)

Blah. I sometimes wonder if my shoulders are tired from Muay Thai on Thursday nights because the first set felt pretty good but I quickly ran out of steam.

- Squats
more dynamic stretching
bw x8
45x6
95x4
135x3
155x2
185x1
200x5
200x5
200x5

Last rep was hard (and ugly) but I managed to git 'er done.

- Deadlifts
135x5
175x3
225x2
275x1
285x1
295x1
300x0

Tested my max for the deadlift comp. I got 300 a couple inches off the ground but it wasn't going up. I considered resting and trying again but I was pretty tired by that point and figured 295 was pretty good. I think there's a good chance that I will hit my goal of pulling 350 by the end of the year.

- Chins: 6/6/4

Little bit of stretching to cool down.

[DrBdan]

Starting this week I'm only going to do weights on Mondays. Fridays I will be doing cardio on the stairclimber in preparation for the CN Tower climb on Oct 23. This means next Monday I will be doing my squat/OHP/deads/chins workout. I probably won't be increasing weight unless something feels too easy.

Monday Sept 29, 2008

5 minutes on the treadmill + dynamic stretching

- Squats
bw x8
45x6
95x4
135x3
155x2
185x1
205x5
205x5
205x5

Damn that actually felt kinda easy. Hurray for Mondays after a relaxing weekend.

- Bench
45x5
65x5
115x4
135x2
145x4
140x5
140x3

blah. I will be deloading bench on my next workout. Probably down to 125.

- Power Cleans
45x5
65x5
75x5
85x5
95x5
95x5
95x5

I'm planning on switching between rows and power cleans. I enjoy the power cleans but my shoulders and wrists aren't flexible enough to catch the weight correctly so I probably won't go too much heavier until I fix that.

- Dips: 8/8/6

Again, my bench sucks but my dips are getting better. My goals is to get to doing three sets of 10 dips and then start adding weight. I'll probably start adding weight to my dips before I hit a bodyweight bench.

Finished with some leg and wrist stretching.

[DrBdan]

Tuesday Sept 30, 2008

Muay Thai

Typical short warm-up. Skipping, running, crunches, leg raises, sprawls, sprints. wishbone stretch.

Class worked lots of short combos, emphasis was on performing them quickly to build co-ordination and speed instead of power. I find when I try to go faster I pull my punches and don't fully twist my shoulders/hips, gotta get out of that habit. Left kicks felt pretty good, they are slowly getting better.

In the middle of class we did some light sparring drills. Basically throw punches trying to hit your partners chest/shoulders (i.e. not face) and try to avoid your partner's punches. I suck at this, I need to start sparring.

Towards the end of class he added in a bit of defense and a clinch combo. I like the clinch stuff and wish more classes would focus on it. Gui's classes are fairly fast-paced and incorporate lots of different strikes, which is good but I wouldn't mind some slower-paced classes focusing more on learning techniques, especially the clinch.

Did some stretching to cool down. My hips are getting better, hurray!

Wednesday Oct 1, 2008

Light day at the gym. Since Gui's MT warm-ups don't include many push-ups (sometimes zero push-ups) I've decided to add dips to my light day.

4 minutes on the treadmill + upperbody dynamic stretching

- Dips: 8/8/6
- Chins: 8/5/4 (last two sets did a few negatives at the end)

- Static dumbbell holds (75 lb per hand): 30, 30, 30, 25 seconds
- Shoulder Dislocations: 4x10

- Front squats (for technique)
bw x8 + lowerbody dynamic stretching
45x6
45x6
95x5
95x5

Did some wrist stretching, crunches, leg raises and neck exercises and called it a day.

[DrBdan]

Thursday Oct 2, 2008

Muay Thai

Usual warm-up, no need to describe it.

Class was a slower paced class, focusing on proper technique and power rather than speed and co-ordination. I was happy about that as Gui's classes are usually fast-paced and I was worried that would mean sacrificing technique for speed.

Warmed up with a basic 2 leg kicks/2 body kicks combo and a push-kick combo. Did a few slow rounds then a few faster rounds.

Next up was some basic boxing combos jab/cross/jab/step jab/step cross then hook/uppercut/hook/uppercut. Finally practiced a spinng back elbow and switching stance via elbows. Few slow rounds, few fast rounds.

Finally added in a clinch combo, basically knees then throw or knees then trip.

My partner had a weird way of holding the thai pads so I think my strikes felt more awkward than they should have. Specifically he didn't always have the pads straight for push-kicks so sometimes my feet would hit at an awkward angle.

Elbows felt solid. My hips felt tired and sore going into class so I just tried to throw kicks with good technique but not a lot of power. Gui pointed out that on my left kicks I'm keeping my legs too straight so I think that's why my left kick feels awkward still. Need to concentrate on relaxing more and keeping my legs bent. Gotta keep the hips relaxed and loose.

Class finished with a few fast-paced rounds and then I did some stretching. Pretty good class.

[DrBdan]

Friday Oct 3, 2008

Cardio day in preparation for the CN Tower climb. It's in 3 weeks yesterday.

- 5 minutes jogging on the treadmill
- 5 minutes of intervals (60/30 seconds run/walk) on the treadmill
- 15 minutes of intervals on the stairclimber (1 minute on, 1 minute off)

Took a short break then did three sets of 10 burpees & 30 crunches.

Good thing is that my cardio feels good, I was never out of breath and my heart-rate was good. Bad thing is that the entire time I was on the stairclimber my legs were burning. Hopefully a few more stints on the stairclimber will make that better.

Finished with some stretching.

[DrBdan]

Monday Oct 6, 2008

5 minutes on the treadmill + dynamic stretching

- Squats
bw x8
45x6
95x4
135x3
155x2
185x1
205x5
205x5
205x5

Dang that felt heavy. Last rep was ugly.

- SOHP
45x6
65x3
75x5
80x5
85x5

Deloaded since I keep failing 90 lb.

- Deadlift
135x5
165x3
205x2
245x1
275x5

Had to reset my grip after the 3rd and 4th reps at 275.

- Chins: 8/5/3 + 3 negatives

Also did some dead hangs on the chin-up bar. Probably about 15 seconds each, my hands were fried.

[DrBdan]

Tuesday Oct 7, 2008

Muay Thai

I was a bit late getting to the gym so I didn't have time to do all my usual pre-class stretches. The warm-up was the usual.

Started the class working leg and body kick blocks and counters. Basically block low kick, sweep leg or block body kick, teep. Good stuff, the more defense the better as I feel like it's my weakest point. Not doing my usual warm-up was noticeable as I was slow getting my leg up to block the body kick and felt stiff.

Next moved on to boxing combos. Gui has little differences in his technique that I'm still picking up. For example, he wants us to throw hooks with the back of our hand facing up whereas the beginner instructor (back in the Winter) taught us to throw it with our thumb facing up (back of hand towards partner). I takes a bit of getting used to but I think it's better as it gives you a bit more reach. Anyway, my hands felt surprisingly good today.

Later we moved on to knees and kicks. Knees were fine. Again my legs were stiff and my kicks suffered because of it. Part of that is probably because I did squats/deads yesterday so my legs were tired. Usually Monday is only squats.

As usual he finished the class with sequences of all the combos from the class and some defense thrown in. I'm slowly getting better at reacting on defense but throwing a combo or two and then having to defend kicks really brings my attention to some sloppy footwork. It's good though, that's how I'll get better. The only slightly annoying thing is that when I concentrate on details like that I tend to slow down, so sometimes I fall behind in the sequences. All a part of learning I guess.

Finished with some stretching to cooldown and that was it. Came home and watched an episode of The Contender: Asia for inspiration

[DrBdan]

Wednesday Oct 8, 2008

Light day. Did everything in supersets.

- 4 minutes on the treadmill + upperbody dynamic stretching

- Pull-ups: 3/3/2, followed by 5 chins
- Push-ups: 15/15/10

- Static Dumbbell holds (80 lb): 25/25/30 seconds
- Crunches: 3x30

- Shoulder Dislocations: 4x10
- Planks: 60/50/60 seconds. I messed up the counting on the second set

That's all.

[DrBdan]

Thursday Oct 9, 2008

Muay Thai

Did my usual stretches before class started. Warm-up was actually a bit longer than usual, I wonder if this is part of the new "curriculum". One round of skipping, then jogging and sprinting. It appears that I'm one of the fastest guys in the class, heh. Must be my long legs. Anyway, after sprinting he had us pull ourselves across the mat on our stomachs using only our arms. Pulling in what can be best described as a pull-up motion. I left a nice sweaty trail behind myself. Did sit-ups, leg raises, planks and side-planks before doing a partner exercise where one partner lay on the ground their legs in the air with their feet on the other person's hips, holding the other person up. I think it was worse being the person on top as all your weight was on your hips/abs. Finished with wishbone stretch. I was feeling pretty awful by this point. Note to self: no large burritos before kickboxing from now on.

Class started with some push-kick drills and then a flying push-kick drill. Yeah flying push-kicks, talk about awkward. Right kick wasn't too bad but I wish I could have watched myself do the left, it felt really awkward. At this point I was still feeling like crap.

Next moved onto push-kness. Right knee, step into switch stance, left kick. left knee, switch back to normal stance, right kick. Also some clinch knees.

Next moved on to some boxing combos (Gui calls them boxing but really it's just hands since they include elbows, don't think an elbow would go over well in a real boxing class). jab, step in, right uppercut elbow, left hook, step out. "infini-combo": jab, hook, uppercut, cross, hook, uppercut. I call it the infini-combo because you should be able to throw it forever since it goes left/right/left/right...etc. and covers all the basic punches. Third combo was some basic jab/cross defense.

Did three 2 minute rounds and then switched pads. It was at this point that I realized the class was almost done and I actually felt great.

After that we switched from focus mitts to belly-pads & thai pads and did 3 rounds with everything thrown together (push-kicks, knees and boxing combos).

We spent the last 5 minutes of class doing some clinch work. Gui said that every week he will be picking one clinch drill to work on and doing it at the end of class for the entire week so we get repetition on the same thing. I'm glad because I enjoy working the clinch, I think it's the raw physicality of it. We worked a simple throw from a half-clinch (I don't know the correct term). Basically when each person has one hand on the inside, on the back of the head. Left hand on head, step in with the right and then twist to the left, pulling them by their head around so they get thrown over your left leg. Also showed us a variation where you knee the inside of their leg when you throw. After a couple minutes we got it down and we were chucking eachother all over. Good times.

Finished with some stretching and then went home and watched another episode of Contender: Asia. Brutal KO on this episode.