(B)logging

Training around other commitments can sometimes make it feel as though I'm lacking consistency, volume and the correct elements in what I'm doing. Perhaps it's easier to notice (and regret?) days off than consistency or progress. Of course, this is where logs come in and many people now keep training logs on websites and forums – T-Nation (mine's there), Rosstraining and many other sites have sections devoted to users' training logs.

I have always found that having a log on a forum or site is a great motivator for getting out and doing some training, you don't want others to see the big long gaps between sessions! My only problem with logs is that it can be difficult to see a broader picture of your training, across two weeks for example. So it was with this in mind, and because I haven't posted too much training-wise recently and I don't want people thinking that I'm not training, that I decided to copy my log from T-Nation, annotate it a bit, and post it up here. I've taken approximately two weeks from the last month, have a look and let me know what you think.....

Wednesday 10^th October:

Swissbar press 5/3/1 up to 8 x 56kg
Power Clean 5 x 5 up to 67kg
Deadlift 5/3/1 up to 12 x 108kg

Thursday 11^th October:

1 hr grappling, 1 hr boxing, 1 hr circuit/stretching/mobility.


This was training at LeicesterShootfighters, as I can only usually get there once a week I try to do three sessions while I'm there.

Sunday 14^th October:

5 hours jiu jitsu seminar
Part of the Leverage GrapplingSystem 'Fundamentals' series focusing on side control. Review to come.



Monday 15^th October:

5/3/1 Trapbar deadlift up to 8 x 122kg (fucked up here and miscounted the plates ending up doing 13 x 112kg before the 122kg)
5/3/1 swissbar bench up to 10 x 61kg.

Tuesday 16^th October:

2 x 10 station circuits as posted previously (felt easier)
Planks


Wednesday 17^th October:

Lifting tonight, short on time so Cleans were only done for three sets. Time was I would've skimped on the warm-up/mobility but it's self defeating and an invitation to injury.

5/3/1 Swissbar press up to 9 x 51kg
Power cleans 5 x 50kg, 60kg, 70kg
5/3/1 Deadlift up to 15 x 102kg

Good session considering I only had 35 mins.

Thursday 18^th October:

1 hour grappling + 1 hour muay thai.

Training at Leicester Shootfighters.

Sunday 21^st October:

Very sore hip/groin/lower back for no discernible reason so decided not to risk any Trapbar work.

Mega warm-up mobility work (stretching, rolling, resistance band).

5/3/1 Swissbar bench. Up to 12 x 58kg
Supersets 40kg DB row 28kg DB bench.

I've reduced the weight on the DB bench in order to get more reps in.

Monday 22^nd October:

Lots of mobility work.

10 x 3 min rounds muay thai on the heavy bag.

Core work – generally either ab wheel rollouts, planks, hanging leg raises or barbell twists.

NB: I was on holiday Tuesday to Friday this week.

Saturday 27^th October:

Mobility/warm-up

5/3/1 Trapbar up to 12 x 115kg
5/3/1 Swissbar press up to 8 x 54kg (Super-setted with Swissbar rows)
3 x 10 sandbag press

5 x 10 sec sprint/20 sec run.

Monday 29^th October

Conditioning circuit, 10 stations, 50 secs each, 10 secs change over.

Heavybag - 3 combinations followed by a sprawl after each three.
Bag hops - hands on heavy bag that's lying on the floor, hop feet over from side to side.
Resistance band snap down.
Heavybag - Combo followed by kick each time.
Ab wheel rollouts
Wall sits
Heavy bag - punch in to clinch and lift the bag
Barbell twists
Burpees
Heavybag combinations (minimum of 4 punches each combo)

Went through this twice.

Tuesday 30^th October

Full warm up & mobility + foam rolling.

Power cleans - sets of 5 up to 72kg
5/3/1 deadlift up to 15 x 110kg.

5 x 10 sec sprint/20 sec run

My mobility work always includes:

Resistance band scarecrows

Resistance band dislocates

Resistance band hurricanes

Resistance band face pulls

Hydrants

Groiners

Cat stretches

Quad/groin stretches

Hurdler stretch

4q2 Fightwear Fight Socks - A Review

When I made the decision at the beginning of the year to start training in earnest again, I knew that I'd have to get some sort of foot covering due to a problem with my left heel (long story).  I have wrestling boots but on checking with Rob at Leicester Shootfighters I was told that they're not permitted on the mats due to the damage they cause.  The hunt was on for something that would cover my foot and be allowed on the mat.

I often wear ankle supports for kicking bag/pad work but the problem with these is that they don't cover the heel.  I looked at the 'foot grips' that Hayabusa and Combat Sports International make but although they cover more of the foot than regular anklets they don't cover the heel.

Digging a bit deeper (well, surfing the web) I came across 'Grappling/MMA Socks'.  The easiest to find were/are the Badboy grappling socks.

Pretty much everyone at the gym who has asked me about my socks has mentioned these and has said that price put them off trying them - me too!  The problem is that grappling socks are still pretty uncommon (I'm the only one at Leicester MMA Academy with them as far as I know) and few people are likely to take a punt costing £25 - £30 on something that they haven't seen in action and is, after all, a bit of a luxury.  So, liking the idea of grappling socks the hunt was on for something cheaper.

Checking out Ebay (of course!) I came across the 4q2 (F**k You Too?) socks.  Even with shipping they came in at a much more reasonable £16-ish, so the money was Paypal'ed through and I awaited my new footwear.

 
Though they shipped from The States the socks came pretty quickly and were ready for me to start back on the mat.  I had contacted 4q2 prior to purchase with regard to sizing and opted for the XL (I'm UK size 11) which fit well.  I was suprised how roomy they were as I thought they'd be a little tighter but this is probably because the XL goes from 11 to 12.5.

The socks are made from a lycra-type material with a neoprene toe, sole and heel section that extends up the Achilles to a flat inch-wide lycra cuff around the ankle.  The sole of the socks feature 4q2's 'heel-to-toe power traction dot designed bottoms' a little like the soles of Hayabusa's foot grips.  I bought the socks in January this year and have worn them pretty much every week to train for between 1 and 3 hours on jigsaw style mats and grappling, boxing, conditioning, MMA have all been trained.

So what do I think?  Well, the socks do a pretty good job of protecting the feet, my dodgy heel has been fine and the grip is excellent.  The materials used in the sock wash and dry well, very quick to dry in fact, and hasn't seemed to affect the longevity of the construction - they've stayed together pretty well with no adverse effects on the stitching from either use or washing.  The socks are great for grappling, both stand-up and ground work, they're so light you don't really know they're on, much lighter even than wrestling boots.

What about striking training?  This is where the socks fall down a little bit.  They provide a lot of grip but unlike the soles of your feet you can't really control how much you 'stick' to the mat.  This becomes a problem when twisting for round kicks and even punches.  All the twisting in boxing and striking training soon pulled the grip off the soles of the socks leaving little black dots all over the mats.  It created quite a mystery for Rob at the gym who wondered what all the dots were when cleaning the mats after practice!  Boxing training has been particularly tough on the big toe of the left foot wearing a hole through the bottom layer of fabric.

Wear on the soles of 4q2's Fightsocks.

Losing the dots isn't such a big deal for me - it's bound to happen through virtue of them providing grip and having a 240lb man twisting them repeatedly for hours on end.  The neoprene sole provides plenty of grip in itself and makes twisting for kicks a little easier.  Though the fit of the socks is good, they can become twisted and out of place during drills or sparring that necessitate a lot of movement.  Also, talking to one of the fighters at the gym recently, he was saying that he'd tried Hayabusa foot grips and found that even at £35+ they lost their grip dots pretty quickly and he was pretty interested in the fightsocks at half the price.

Summing Up

I like 'em.  The fit is ok given that they need to fit 11 - 12.5 sized feet with one size sock.  They've so far lasted about 100 hours of training and still have plenty of life left in them.  I like the fact that I don't have to worry about how fresh or otherwise my feet are after a day at work(!) or become self-conscious about it when grappling with a training partner, the same goes for forgetting to cut toe nails(!!).  They protect my feet without a hard sole that could be uncomfortable for training partners or tear up softer mats, and they provide a benefit with regard to hygiene - who knows what lurgy lies in wait out there....

Rating

Construction         3.5/5 (But I don't know how this can be solved)
Fit                           4/5
Value                     4/5
Style/aesthetics   3.5/5 (It's really not important though..)


Buy Again?   Yes.

Get them HERE

Shootfighters - The Movie

For a little while now the trailers for the documentary "Shootfighters" have been available, a tantalising taster for what looked to be a thoughtful short film on the life of local show fighters.  Of course the clincher for me was that it's based around Leicester Shootfighters and FightUK, a Leicester based promotion.

The full film is now available on Vimeo and I write this post having just watched it.  Richard Butterworth's film is thirty minutes long and takes as its focus Aiden Hayes, a young fighter from Leicester Shootfighters.  We learn a lot about Aiden, primarily through pieces to camera by his Dad and his older brother.  We learn that he was expelled from school(s) and that boxing, and subsequently MMA, gave him a purpose/focus/discipline that set him on a more positive path.

The film follows Aiden from an amateur MMA fight - against a much heavier opponent - through the training for his next fight.  There is lots of training footage; we see Aiden running, wrestling, doing pad work, Jits and conditioning, and talking about the sacrifices fighters make in order to do what they do, even at an amateur level.  It's an indictment of those proponents of the view that MMA is just legitimised thuggery, especially when you see the sheer amount of training that even local show fighters undertake to compete.

Leicester Shoot Head Coach Nathan Leverton also features and provides his usual insightful and incisive commentary on the evolution and present state of MMA, as well as an interesting comparison of winning an MMA bout as opposed to a grappling tournament.

The film feels well put together and follows an interesting narrative using Aiden's journey to illustrate what MMA is all about.  Colour and insight is added by the pieces from the FightUK guys and Nathan as well as Aiden's family.  I don't want to give the ending, such as it is, away, but I would urge you to give it a look.  It won't be a wasted half-an-hour, and if you fight, train or even just attend local shows you might recognise something in what you see.

Enson Inoue - ヤマト魂

People who know me will attest to the fact that I'm a bit of a Nipponophile, Japanese culture fascinates me on many levels, especially the aesthetic.  Manga, Anime, Bonsai, woodblock prints, Japanese cinema, Japanese gardens, Zen...... I love it all.  Of course there's plenty about Japanese culture that I'm not at all in to and I acknowledge that - I'm no Nipp-Otaku.  When I was first getting in to MMA I was far more a fan of PrideFC than I was the UFC, part of which was because it was so Japanese, and, just like K-1, the Japanese audience watch in silence which is awesome.  Many MMA fighters have commented on the way that they're treated by the Japanese public - as warriors, inheritors of the samurai way.

Throughout the reign of PrideFC there was one fighter who summed up the Samurai Spirit more than anyone, Enson Inoue.  Enson was renowned for his refusal to quit even when being beaten to literally within an inch of his life (Vs. Igor Vovchanchyn, PrideFC 10) or in danger of having his arm ripped off (Vs. Heath Herring, PrideFC 12):


Yeah he asked me to give up or he is going to break my arm and I replied, "If you can break it then go ahead and break it."  It was cracking and popping so I was wondering if he could actually break it.  Then the referee came running over and asked me if I wanted to give up so I answered him by hitting Heath on the back of the head with my free hand.  That was a funny situation

As a Hawaiian Japanese, Enson embraced the culture of his familial homeland, living, training and fighting there.  Being tough and decorated with tattoos Enson was often associated with the Yakuza (Japanese organised crime) and he has gone on record as saying that he had links with Yakuza adopting one of their expressions:

Live as a Man,
Die as a Man,
Become a Man.   

Enson last fought in April 2010 but he's still a popular figure in the world of MMA.  He has maintained a presence on the MMA.tv Underground forum, answering fans questions and most recently (and the reason for this post) been the subject of a fascinating two part interview on the Open Mat Radio.  Amongst other things Enson discusses his time in prison, disaster relief, tattoos and Japanese MMA.

Often a divisive character but always interesting, these two interviews are definitely worth a listen....
Listen here

slideyfoot.com - Leverage Submission Grappling review

 Just wanted to post up a link to this review which is an incredibly detailed and comprehensive review of a recent Leverage Grappling Fundamentals seminar delivered by Nathan Leverton at Leicester Shootfighters.

To give you an idea of just how comprehensive this review is, it consists of over 3,500 words!  The level of detail is such that it seems it would make a pretty good notebook-instructional to accompany the seminar.  There's a lot of good stuff in here, the level of detail that Nathan is known for is presented well in a clearly written, engaging style.  I have to admit that the author (Can Sönmez?  Apologies if I've got that wrong) got me at at the fourth paragraph:


The reason it intrigued me back in January was mainly down to Leverton's reputation. I expected that if he was creating a system, it would be technical, cerebral and for want of a better word, 'grown-up'. That's as opposed to something like 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu: though much of Eddie Bravo's nogi system is viable if you are an experienced grappler with the requisite flexibility, I'm put off by the marketing approach and constant drug advocacy. Leverage Submission Grappling also has the advantage that it was advertised as fundamentals, which always perks my interest. 

I feel pretty similar about 10th Planet and the Leicester Shootfighters/MMA Academy environment - which is at very least in part due to Nathan's attitude/style - is 'grown up' without losing the fun element that should be what training, at least for hobbyists, is all about.

As it goes, and entirely coincidentally, I'll be attending the next seminar on side control and I'll try to post up a review here.....don't expect anything like Slideyfoot's though, I dont have the time or the talent!

slideyfoot.com | bjj resources: 30/09/2012 - Leverage Submission Grappling Fundamentals 04 (Closed Guard)