my Arte Suave

Training: ADCC Pro gi trials around the corner..

It’s been good times these past few weeks..Theres always room for better training but I feel fine with the ways things are progressing.

First, this past month (October) I spent all of it hammering out details of my guard, guard games, and retention. There has been much drilling going on, I’ve been tidying up my dumb sides..You know the side where its weaker for you to get sweeps off of. Well I have been making my weak side strong, and I am feeling more comfortable with the ways things are going.  I will continue to do my guard project up until 2 weeks before the ADCC event which by then I will start doing competition prep.

Strength and Conditioning. Again there is always so much room for improvement here. I mean Dan Gable, man. That guy was a tremendous force with conditioning, I am trying to get just 2% of what his conditioning is all about. I am getting stronger, my resting heart rate and max heart rates are getting lower and lower. Cain Valasquez max heart rate is 167 BPMS! That is insane! Mine right now is at 187-190 bpms. That is great for me considering I was at the mid 90s. So obviously my conditioning is improving. As far as strength goes, I have been hitting up a lot of compound movements i.g. Dead Lifts, presses, benches, squats…I am actually dead lifting in the 400s easy, before this was a task and a mission! I have also been doing a lot of olympic lifting, more specifically the clean. It used to be that it was hard for me to do 145lbs even, now I am maxing it out at 205 no form lol! It feels good to see the numbers grow. As far as these numbers translating into jiu jitsu, some training partners have been telling me I feel stronger, especially my grips, which is another facet I have been training and improving!

Right now the ADCC pro gi trials are on December 4th. This is one of the ones I want to win for that ticket to Dubai! Time to make my dreams a reality! 

I will try and update all the way up to the event.

WOD: strength…then conditioning

warmup

Planks 90 seconds then for 60

weird squats where i have plates underneath my feet and i grab my toes and squat up and down while holding my toes on the plates elevate my feet at my heels. for 10 reps

Plyos/Hurdles to warm up 5 rounds of:

5 hurdle jumps (20 inches)

single leg hurdler jumps ( 8 inches)

5 Rounds of:

Cleans X 3 

planks with arm raises X 5 each way

We did 145 LBS cleans

i am getting stronger! This used to be a bit of a challenge starting out.

3 rounds of:

Split leg squat X 10 each leg

Over head presses X 20

2 rounds of:

glute ham drops x 10

pistol squats X 5 each leg

shoulder band extentions x 10

band press (core) x 10 each side

After all that…SPRINTS!

I rested 3 minutes after I was done with the last circuit before I went into sprints.

400 yards

300 yards

200 yards

100 yards

50 yards x 4 with 15 seconds rest in-between

i feel fantastic. Could hardly open my eyes after the sprints.

I WILL BE A WORLD CHAMPION!

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 =)

Chicago Open results

I want to do a vlog of my experience in Chicago but this will have to do for now.

In my first match i lost 5pts 1advantage to 5pts 2advantages for the other guy. we each got a guard pass and a sweep. i got a near pass for an advantage, he got a near pass and a near knee on belly for his 2nd advantage. this is only the 1st tournament in a series of tournaments designed to help prepare…

Training for Chicago Open

Recently I have been writing a lot of my feelings towards the bjj scene at large and really haven’t touched on how my training has been going in regards to getting ready for ibjjf Chicago open. The last 5 or so weeks I have been training is hard as I think I could have. The focus is of course been on the gi. I’ll be honest and say that everything hasn’t gone 100% the way I have wanted it to while training. I have had injuries really limit me. It is like they come and go and it keeps going that way. Injuries are nothing new though, I cant ever remember being %100 when a competition nears, and I have come to the realization that I probably never will be. And this is common place in bjj and competition bjj, so I can’t complain with awesome examples like michael langhi at the worlds competing with a major injury and examples like stephen hall who seems to always be under the knife. So with that I will be going full steam next weekend no doubt.

In other news, I’ve been just been drilling as usual, locking down my strategy, and training to absolute exhaustion at least 2 times per week.I have been going to Next Level Fitness in Johnston, RI and being tortured by mike campbell and my boy Justin. It’s such a great facility! My whole strength and conditioning has changed. It’s been one strength session, dedicated to nothing but building strength and power. And the other session is dedicated to nothing but conditioning, circuits,circuits, crazy reps.

So it’s been going great, but conditioning and grips are in tremendous shape. Chicago is a week away and I’m feeling great. I am training hard all the way until Thursday!

Skills pays the bills.