Competing at UFC Fan Expo Boston 2010
Today I went and weighed in Boston! Feels great to not have to weigh in with the gi on, i can eat all I want!
Tomorrow I will be competing at tye UFC Fan expo in boston! I definitely had to get in on something going on in New England! We never get anything in Boston! It will be great to get back out in the competition scene after my lesson in Chicago last weekend. Will update this with results and some photos perhaps =)
Competition fitness question answered..
So I received an email from friend who checks out my blog from time to time, and this person had a question regarding fitness. Here’s what he said/asked exactly.
So I joined [a tournament] last weekend and
I got my ass kicked. I figured I have to improve on my strength and
fitness. The guys i fight are usually bigger than me and I need to
match them on that aspect.
What do you suggest I start doing? I will be enrolling to a gym. I
agree with what you said about building fitness continously. I want to
do that as well because I want myself to be ready to compete all the
time. I know you are pretty knowledgeable on this field thats why I
sent you this email.
Thanks bro!
This was my reply, and i replied from my phone. Had no idea it was this much info:
**Disclaimer** I am by no means a master at this stuff. I have just been around, have competed. Have felt like complete crap, out of shape competing. Things have changed. I am now doing much better fitness wise. And i am improving daily. I am more then willing to share my experience and what has worked for me thus far.
Hey bro, all is great over here.
So guys your size are strong or bigger..hmm.
Personally what I always try to strive to improve are cardiovascular fitness coupled with strength movements, just like you feel in bjj… When your passing your being pushed away while trying to drive in around and such..then you might be playin guard and now your back stand up fighting. The othet thing try to improve is grip strength and endurance.
How do I improve these things. A good sprinting routine is a must to improve cardio the most (and it’s free). You can max your cardio w/ this.
Also you’ll want to add olympic lifts bro. Snatches, cleans, presses, deadlifts…this is where you make your money in fighting those bigs.
But you wanna go further and combine cardio with strength movements essentially mimicking a fight…so for example I looooove to do stuff like this for , I’ll do 5-8 exercises… 2-3 of them will be olympic lifts..those are your strength movements..and I’ll do those for 5 reps (weights will vary, keep it light but challenging, you should be able to do 7 reps if you wanted to..you always want to leave 1 or 2 in the tank when training strength in my opinion, and is something called ‘greasing the groove’ by one of me fitness heroes Pavel Tsatsouline)..the other exercises will be hard intense bodyweight exercises. Like sprawls, burpees (180 burpees are great), pullups, explosive pushups, sitthrus, or if you have a partner you can do some sort of bjj related drill or w.e you can do wheel barrels, buddy carrries..it should be exhausting!! Then you will do the strength movement at the end…3-infinitie rounds is what I do..i rest 1-2minutes between sets…if your in shape keep 45secs to 60secs please…it shouldn’t feel good..
All the while when your doing the lifts your indirectly working your grips…
To attack the grips I’m doing rope pullups, taking 2 10 or 20lbs..putting the plates together and squez em between thumb and four fingers..do it for time…another exercise I do is I take a bar (45lbs) and I hold it in one hand, and let it seasaw in my hand..u will feel it in your forearms… And of course the bar complexes are good..but that’s another email…
The olympic lifts will work work everything! Your arms, your shoulders, your back, legs, core…
Another thing I have ignored too much is core work…gotta get a good core routine.
Also something I do is long runs..nomore then 3 miles…and to make it more fun..i do some pushups pullups and some core stuff…
Stay tuned on my blog bro I’m going to be putting up fitness videos as well as how I prepare for competition to a certain extent.
Also this was a fantastic question, hope you don’t mind if I share it with the world on my blog bro.
Training..GQ up next..
Its been a while since my major step forward at NAGA in the Purple belt division. I remember my first time competing at blue, it was a big deal for me and i think i treated to much like it was a big deal. With the purple division I didnt feel anything, just competing and sort of felt that as ‘coming of age’ sort of thing. Im learning internally that jiujitsu is jiujitsu everywhere you go. Your either proficient at jitsu or its something else. I think my fight versus Top Black Belt Abmar Barbosa, really prepared me for all things coming my way. I learned so much from that match its amazing!! Im looking forward to more competitions against high level opposition.
Breaking training records: This phrase comes from an interview Marcelo Garcia, where before every competition he tries to break his last training time from the previous tournameent. So with that recently I started teaching a class at my academy at 1pm and it runs until a while. So its an been a lot of extra good training going down in that class. With school this class was a must for me to run so that i could still train the kind of hours I want to before the Mundials and Pan-Ams . These classes are rough <3 I love doing it. Its a drilling class, with a sparring from situational positions, and on Mondays i through in exercises to make sure we are wiped out before the sparring. Right now i have only about 5 to 6 total people in there but I think it will pick up even more.
Other then training, school in general has been a drag. I mean its been interesting stuff but i dont know something about my training isn’t satisfying me at the moment. I feel I bit even lazy, I dont think I have been hitting cardio the way I should be. This week should be a different story as I am going to be getting the help I need in the help i need to feel more at ease about everything. I just think im slipping a bit, being almost to casual about things. Don’t get me wrong, training has been wonderful as of late, but something is off.
In any case, Grappler’s Quest is up next, and I will definitely be jumping into that before the Pan-Ams, no doubt.
Other then training, school in general has been a drag. I mean its been interesting stuff but i dont know something about my training isn’t satisfying me at the moment. I feel I bit even lazy, I dont think I have been hitting cardio the way I should be. This week should be a different story as I am going to be getting the help I need in the help i need to feel more at ease about everything. I just think im slipping a bit, being almost to casual about things. Don’t get me wrong, training has been wonderful as of late, but something is off.
In any case, Grappler’s Quest is up next, and I will definitely be jumping into that before the Pan-Ams, no doubt.
School thanks for making my journey that much more interesting. I truly
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