It’s been a very quick month and a lot has been covered. My strength training is coming on well and so is my MMA technique. Because of the work I have been doing towards my strength and MMA, my conditioning has improved massively, my cardiovascular system is now 100% better than the day I started my journey.
I’ve been working really hard on my strength training for the simple reason it has been my weakest area. Coach has been alternating my training between strength/speed and speed/strength but the emphasis has been mainly on the strength.
My bench press has come on in leaps and bounds and the improvement has been very quick. Most of that has come from knowing the move and what’s required to get the movement right. It’s not as simple as lying on your back on the bench and taking the weight of the bar on both hands and pushing it up and down. Your whole body is involved and must be linked together, any leaks and you want get the lift you are after. I always thought it was up to me where I put my feet and they weren’t involved in the lift. Your feet are very important and should be flat on the floor, pulled back with a wide stance. Your glutes should be tensed, so tense you couldn’t get a credit card between your cheeks. As coach said to me “if you can fart during a lift your glutes are not tight enough”. You need to fill your stomach with air, this will lock all your abs and give you a solid core. The next thing is to pull back and down on your shoulders to activate your Lats and keep shoulder integrity. This is very important and I have found it hard to do. Gripping the bar is just as important, on the Olympic bar are a number of scribe marks, I use these to get the right grip every time. The final piece of preparation is to lie under the bar with the bar above your eyes. All this and I’ve not done a lift yet. It’s a good job we’re not counting. I put the same amount of preparation into the lift, thinking about my breathing, taking the shortest route down (to the nipples), keeping my wrists straight and not bouncing the bar off my chest. Visualisation is the last thing I do, I do the whole lift in my head from start to finish. This has been a new concept for me and it makes a world of difference.
As you can see there is a lot that goes into the bench press and the more I do them the quicker I will become and I hope a lot stronger. It also ensures I don’t hurt myself and injure the muscles I’m trying to improve. I’ve also learnt to spot. I spot for coach when he is lifting, that’s great in theory. I’m supposed to lift the bar of the rack and take the bar from him at the end of the lift or step in should the occasion arise. There’s just one minor problem, the weights coach presses are much heavier than I can lift. I’ve got away with it up to now, fingers crossed.
The same amount of instruction and encouragement goes into all the exercises that I do in the gym. Because of this all my exercises are improving all the time. Basic strength has been my weakness and this has been glaringly obvious in the bench press, incline bench press, squats, dips and pull ups. The gains I have made over the last few weeks have been massive, when I say massive, I mean massive for me. (I wonder if I could match coaches daughter, just a thought?) J
The MMA training has been fantastic, there’s no other way I can describe it. Coach has been throwing me around the gym like a rag doll and I’ve not laughed so much for years. I had a right good go at learning the Arm Triangle Choke, the Guillotine Choke and the Rear naked Choke. I just think coach wanted to see how many colours he could get out of my face. The next move we learnt was the Arm Bar from the Guard and from the Mount. I was determined not to Tap Out, that lasted all of .2 of a second. What I have learnt is that Arm Bars are bloody painful. I don’t think there’s an exercise on this planet that could train you to cope with the pain from a well delivered Arm Bar.
These last couple of days we have been trying out a number of kicks. The first time coach kicked me, my God. Both my feet left the floor and an earth shattering thump ripped through my body. I thought my hip was broken but I wasn’t going to show it. Only 4 more to go, each one got worse and I could see a smile coming on coach’s face. That was his weak leg, now it was the other side, I’m not sure if I could take any more of this. My blood was boiling and I knew the next kick was going to hurt. I should mention at this stage that I had a pad against my hip, not that it was helping.
The last time I was kicked like that I was working at a stables, I flew out the door and landed on my arse. The difference this time, I couldn’t put my hands on my hips or kneel. I had to grit my teeth and get on with it. I lined myself up and belted the pad as hard as I could. I wanted coach to feel the same as I did. “You can kick it if you like” I couldn’t believe it. I should have known better.
As always at the end of every training session we shook hands and left the gym giggling like school girls about our training and my attempts at certain moves. It’s been a really fantastic month, I’ve enjoyed every moment of it, I’ve learnt more about myself in these last few weeks than I have in the last few years. The best thing of all, there’s still loads more to do, loads more to learn and improvements to be made in all areas.
All in all, fantastic !!
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