Circuitry

Last week I arranged things so that I could get to a grappling session followed by striking training (Good training economy) at Leicester Shootfighters. True to form I got stuck in traffic on my way from work to the gym with no chance of arriving in time for the grappling session. I really wanted to get to the grappling class as I'd been re-reading Marshall D Carper's excellent 'Cauliflower Chronicles' and realised that the violent allure of MMA often distracts me from my Jits. Rather than let my frustration get the better of me and become anger (see last post for details!) I decided to just get to the gym and make the most of the session that I could get to.

Following a good session on kicking, Mark, a training partner asked me if I was staying on for the fitness/conditioning session. To be honest, I told him, I didn't think that I'd last the course....however I watched part of the warm up and decided to go for it.

We spent some time moving down the mat in various ways, chosen ourselves – cartwheels, bearcrawls, boxing footwork, lunges, etc. Then moved on to the meat of the session, circuits. The circuit consists of six stations each with two exercises. Each exercise is done for one minute, rest thirty seconds, then perform the second exercise for one minute before moving on to the next station. This week's circuits consisted of:
Bagwork + pressups with one hand on a floor bag.
Medball slams + bobbing and weaving along a length of elastic at head height.
Partner crunch medball passes + plank.
Burpees + Mountain-climbers (This hurt)
Dumbell shadow boxing + sit-through/hip heist drill.
Powerbag squats + calf raises.

When I look at this now it seems fairly benign but when I was in it, it was painful. I found that it was a lot more difficult than the circuits I've set for myself and maybe this is due to a few things – familiarity of exercises and order of exercises, going for a minute as opposed to 30 – 45 seconds and being in a group/partner environment in which I'm bound to push myself harder than if I'm training on my own. We finished with a nice stretching & relaxation session led by JD Hylton. As it stands I think I'll be going back to the fitness sessions, apparently the circuits can get much, much harder.....