Week Summary for Jan 5th to 12th

Eventually I want to work out the fastest time to load my heart rate monitor data on here because it's a little more informative - especially for comparing one week to the next but for now typing it in will have to do.

Morning Conditioning Workouts:

Mon - Walk/run to uni. I think it took about 1 hr 20 mins. A decent 20 min warm up then until I reached uni I did intervals of a 2 min run, immediately followed by a 1 min faster run (to work on my kick) and then 1 min walk. Was up hill all the way.

Tuesday - An easy workout similar to Monday's, covering the same distance. 2 min run intervals, 30 second walk intervals between.

Wednesday - off to sleep in

Thursday - Walk warm up, 40 min tempo run (hard), walk cool down.

Friday - walk warm up, 20 min run, 20 min walk, 20 min run, walk cool down. I've designed this workout since seeing MD's post about how 2 shorter aerobic intervals with a 20 min break between them burns more fat than one long one. It might not work because I'm still walking but we'll see.

Night Boxing workouts:

Boxing every night Mon through to Friday and Saturday morning. Not sure when Judo starts again. Whether or not I go back to judo will probably depend on how likely it is I can get paired up with someone my weight just to be on the safe side for my back.

Plyometrics to warm up for 20 mins Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. It's a hard 20 minutes and keeps my heart rate up very high but it feels good to do something like this because i haven't been able to for so long!

Monday - Partnerwork with Kristine. Footwork has gone to shit after having a few weeks off. Did a lot of simple partner work drills to work lateral movement. Starts feeling slightly better by the end.

Tuesday - Partnerwork and sparring with Kristine and coach Paul. Coach Paul is 6 foot 6 and while he doesn't use all his weight he does this thing where he leans on you to push you away and then takes a huge step back out of range so short shits like me have no hope. I might be sussing a few ways to handle this but still need to develop them a bit. If anyone has any ideas you can PM me - that'd be great!

Distancing also needs some work since I've had a break but it's gradually coming back to me.

Wednesday - trained alone doing shadow and bag work and footwork. Sore so it was a light session.

Thursday - It was 41 o C and since the gym doesn't have airconditioning it was very quiet. Total of 5 people trained. Two women who are good friends and just train in the gym for fitness and bring their teenage sons along, me, Kristine and Theo. So apart from Theo all the dudes in the gym are officially sissies when it comes to training in the heat!

Kristine and I worked on drills for footwork and distancing and finished with body shots holding a round pad for each other. I'm not sure I like that pad. I don't think it allows you to visualize where on a human body a body shot should be aimed. What do other people use? Suggestions anyone?

Friday - Paul gave me and Kristine a lesson on holding pads for each other. This is good. We hold the pads in front of our own faces so we catch the punch or get hit so really the way we do it makes us improve our boxing skills even as pad holders. I'm hoping we can get good enough at this to really kill each other

It occurs to me that catching a punch feels easier than holding a guard and you don't have to move your hands much to do it. I wonder why we don't train this much in our gym since the focus has always been guard number one, parries with movement number two and we're only barely made aware of the idea of catching a punch.

Saturday - Session with coach Paul and Kristine in the morning. Emphasis on footwork and guard. I have to say i think this is the first time I've been taught the guard in a way which makes it work without having to raise my hands too high.

Part of the success goes to the way Paul got Kristine to use the pad to train it as an exercise where the tensing and relaxing can become automatic rather than a flinching type thing. It also worked because I was reading some old technical notes the night before from my time training in Japan. I read something about putting your horns foreward and thought of that when practicing the guard. It seemed to reduce the whiplash I usually feel.

Also remembering Scraps idea of the heel being the brake I let my rear heel ground itself to help me brace. I'm trying to remember this in my footwork when I want to change direction quickly along with Paul's idea of making sure you move your head in the direction you want to move to allow you to more faster. Those things all helped a lot and made my guard comfortable!

It's freaky how differently the Japanese gym did things but in a way there's only a little which contradicts what I'm taught now. I think the emphasis was on power then and it's defence now. Now I have gained the habit of attempting to move to avoid being hit whereas before in Japan we really did have a kamakazi style - all attack - a ruthless attack but not enough self preservation. Now I need to fine tune my defence and get the power i used to have back. part of that will involve my back therapy of course but I'll be so happy when I have consistant power again!

As far as weight training goes i kinda dropped the ball a bit. I think i need to do that in the morning as again i thought I'd do it at the gym at night but we keep running out of time. I've been through this before - why didn't I remember that it just doesn't happen! I did get in one Abs and Gluts workout on Wednesday and noticed my right side is weaker in many ways than my left. I think it's time I looked seriously at my uneven weaknesses and uneven flexibility. Realistically i can't expect my back to be the best it can be without first evening things up a bit!