Training Journal 4.21.08

This week’s goals are pretty simple: since I’ve got a tournament coming up in about 2 weeks, I just have to make sure I do my conditioning hard enough to bust my ass every day, and don’t miss BJJ class. So far, things are going fine on both counts.

My morning workout was inspired by the “Fifteen Minutes of Hell” workouts that Diego C. made us do to prepare for the Pan Ams last year. Since I don’t have a mat or weights in my apartment, though, I had to improvise:

1 minute high knees dumbbell water bottle press

1 minute dumbbell duffel bag swings

1 minute burpees

1 minute funky compound lift (I don’t know what to call this. Usually you hold two dumbbells, squat, shrug, curl, overhead press, and extend them out in front and lower them down to do it all over again. I did this holding on to the fully-loaded duffel bag handles, which made for a very different – and painful – stress.)

1 minute shadow boxing

x3. Bleah.

It got me feeling real good come evening practice, though. Even though it was pretty hot today, and still pretty hot in the gym (my glasses fogged when I entered), I managed to get a bunch of really good sparring sessions in. I can honestly say that I don’t think I’ve ever felt stronger or more confident in my ground game. Which is good, because my standup takedowns still suck phenomenally. I’m probably going to be jumping to guard with a quickness this time.

pat m.