Archive for the ‘Fitness’ Category
My son Jacob demonstrating how to “walk the clock”…
Transition drill 1
harker heights bjj
hhbjj.com
A quick welcome to our newest athletes… Please welcome:
LaSondra Jones – Boot Camp
Danielle Busque – Kickboxing and Boot Camp
It’s SNOWING!!! Since I have the morning off, I was going through all the blogs that I follow on Fitness, Self Defense and such and found a great article on back pain and spinal alignment. Something I harp on during every workout.
So, here is the first paragraph, but you’ll have to read the full article here. Posture – Why Your Back Hurts.
From Craig Weller at Elevating Fitness.com
We’re all born with near-perfect postural alignment. Watch a toddler walk, stand, reach overhead and squat and you’ll see tremendous mobility and safe strong joints.
It’s pretty much downhill from there.
North American culture has us spending an inordinate amount of time in the sitting position. A great deal of time and effort goes into preventing us from expending, well, time and effort when it comes to moving around in our daily lives. Items on shelves are always within arms reach, if we have to move very far we hop on an escalator, an elevator or get in our cars; and a job that involves spending much time on one’s feet or lifting something heavier than twenty pounds is considered “strenuous.”
I would like to introduce Rosa Alfaro to our Boot Camp family. When you see her, introduce yourself and make her feel welcome!
Sweet Potato, Bacon and Egg Salad
Ingredients
2/3 cup diced sweet potato
2 eggs
2 rashes of bacon, diced using meat only
1tbs oil
4tbs dill, finely chopped
2tbs mayonnaise
2tbs lemon juice
Instructions
Boil eggs in water for 4-6minutes. Peel and dice eggs.
Boil sweet potato for 4-5minutes or until cooked through.
Place a frying pan on medium-high heat, add olive oil and bacon and fry until browned and slightly crunchy.
In a small bowl, combine dill, mayonnaise and lemon juice.
Place eggs, sweet potato, bacon and mayonnaise sauce into a medium size serving bowl. Combine well.
Serve.
In this segment, I will teach you how to drill the fighting frame and the combat application that I taught last post. I will also post this as a pod cast that will be up on the site later today.
There are two basic drills that you can easily use to functionalize this particular skill set. They are:
Give and Take. To describe this easier, I’ll give each partner a name. Trainer and Trainee. To start the drill, stand in front of your partner and get what we call the “fighting measure”. This means to reach out with your arms and touch their shoulder. If you can’t, you are too far away. Once you have the fighting measure, assume a fighting stance. Here we go.
- Trainer slowly steps forward and delivers a right jab to the trainee’s head and freezes. The trainee steps towards the trainer and assumes the fighting frame posture, striking the trainer with the frame. Once contact has been made, the trainee steps back and assume a new fighting stance. Okay. Now, the trainee becomes the trainer and the trainer becomes the trainee. Get it?
- To continue the drill, the trainer slowly steps forward and delivers a right jab to the trainee’s head and freezes. The trainee steps towards the trainer and assumes the fighting frame posture, striking the trainer with the frame. Once contact has been made, the trainee steps back and assume a new fighting stance. Now, the trainee becomes the trainer and the trainer becomes the trainee.
- Repeat this action until both partners are comfortable with the motions. Once you are good to go, you may slowly speed up the action until you are at combat speed!
Block and Strike. This drill is an adaptation of the Filipino combat arts training methodology “Abecedario”. It is a progressive skill development tool that is very effective and has endless possibilities. The set up is just like before. Trainer and Trainee. To start the drill, stand in front of your partner and get what we call the “fighting measure”. This means to reach out with your arms and touch their shoulder. If you can’t, you are too far away. Once you have the fighting measure, assume a fighting stance. Here we go.
- The trainer steps forward and punches to the trainee’s head. The trainee steps forward and executes the fighting frame. Once contact has been made with the trainer, the trainee will follow up the frame with a counter strike.
- For the purposes of this segment. I will prescribe a specific response for ease of use. The trainee unclasps his/her left hand from the right wrist and wraps it over the trainers attacking limb. With the right hand, (already on the head/neck) open your fist and grab the back of the trainer’s head. Next, the trainee will pull down sharply on the trainer’s neck while at the same time delivering a right knee spike to the trainer’s stomach. Lastly, the trainee will push the trainer backwards; step back and assume the fighting stance. Okay. Now, the trainee becomes the trainer and the trainer becomes the trainee. Get it?
- To continue the drill, the trainer slowly steps forward and delivers a right jab to the trainee’s head and freezes. The trainer steps forward and punches to the trainee’s head. The trainee steps forward and executes the fighting frame. Once contact has been made with the trainer, the trainee will follow up the frame with a counter strike.
- The trainee unclasps his/her left hand from the right wrist and wraps it over the trainers attacking limb. With the right hand, (already on the head/neck) open your fist and grab the back of the trainer’s head. Next, the trainee will pull down sharply on the trainer’s neck while at the same time delivering a right knee spike to the trainer’s stomach. Lastly, the trainee will push the trainer backwards; step back and assume the fighting stance.
Repeat this action until both partners are comfortable with the motions. Once you are good to go, you may slowly speed up the action until you are at combat speed!
One more thing. Ensure that both partners take all safety precautions. Wear the proper protective equipment especially eye protection. Because we all know its fun and games until you put an eye out!
These two drills should get you started on the road to functional defense. If you have comments or suggestions, please email me or comment in the form below.
Until next time, let’s get training!
Hey! I want to welcome another Boot Camp athlete to our family. Please welcome Molly White to our athletic family. When you see her next week, say Hello and introduce yourself.
Everybody should invest in a notebook and write in it everyday. There are many, many reasons to keep a journal. It is a great tool in the organization of thoughts and ideas. It is an invaluable tool in charting your progress in life. For the athlete, a journal is a necessity and should be in your gym bag along with your shoes, towel and other workout gear. I have long neglected the religious journaling of my training, my workouts and other important details of my life and now kick my self for it.
I have forgotten so much of what I have learned over the years in my Martial Arts and Fitness travels. Furthermore, I have many achievements and accomplishments that have gone unjournaled and have thus faded into distant memories. It is unfortunate, but it is not too late.
I encourage you to keep track of your workouts or fit test results, but that simply isn’t enough. You need to keep a copy with you. You should record what you did during your whole workout: warmup, workout, cool down, scores, times and weights. You should record your impressions of your workout. If you felt good or bad or injured or energized. You should record strategies that worked and did not work.
Thoughts and ideas on how to improve your performance between workouts or to improve on your performance on a specific workout. If you learned some great detail that improved your form or time, you should write that down so you do not forget.
There is no limit to what you can write about in your journal. The important thing is that you write in it consistently and refer back to it to see your progress. If you are working on a goal (and you all should have a goal) like weight loss for example, then you should state your goal in your journal. Outline your plan and then record the steps you are taking to fulfill your goal.
Perhaps you read a good article on improving your eating habits and are trying to follow the program. You can cut it out and tape it into your journal or write down the details in your journal and then see if day by day, week by week, you are following the program. Not all programs are one-size-fits-all and so if you are not finding success you can analyze where it might be going wrong and thus make some adjustments.
Remember it is your journal and you should feel free to write in it, personalize it, make it as interesting and enjoyable and user friendly as possible. Many people tape inspiring pictures in their journals of six-pack abs that they want to have or inspiring athletes that they idolize. Here is one tip that I find works really well. Use two pages that face each other and track your workouts in columns going across so that you can fit several weeks of workouts on those two pages.
Having several weeks worth of work staring you in the face makes it easy to look at your recent progress. This is especially true if you are working a progressive goal like those pullups. You can see from left to right how many pullups and other assistance exercises you did for those weeks and quickly see if you are progressing.
If you are doing a fitness and body composition test every Friday, then you might have 4 weeks of tests on those pages staring at you and thus you can see if the program was working that month.
There are no limits. I haven’t even touched on food journaling. If you are following the Paleo plan and zoning, it is a must that your write down everything you eat. Charting your fuel and performance will allow you to really see how everything works together. Getting really personal is also good because you can see how your emotions effect your diet and exercise. If you are a good journaler, you might notice patterns that help or hinder your performance.
You might notice that every time your boss gives you a new assignment, you eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and you don’t workout for 3 or 4 days. You might notice that every time burpees are posted on the WOD board, you come down with a cold, a sore back or some other reason not to give it your all.
Hmmm…interesting.
I am happy to introduce Missy Pecero to our boot camp family. If you see her tomorrow, introduce yourself and say hello!
I am happy to introduce Jennifer Bray to our boot camp family. If you see her tomorrow, introduce yourself and say hello!
Check out this picture of the aftermath of a mini “Fight Gone Bad”!
They hated/loved every minute of the workout!
