So, for the last two weeks I haven't trained at all. I somehow was infected with the flu, and ended up with a wicked cold sore, so that made grappling impossible (yes I came to class two weeks straight, ill, but I was not contiguous at that time). It's 6:30am, just about, and in 2 hours I'm supposed to be taking part in a seminar with a world ranked martial arts champion, a woman who is considered the greatest in the world. Sadly, due to my fucked up sleep schedule, I won't be able to make it (and even if I had, the cold sore stops me from being able to roll). Normally I wouldn't worry about being sick, but I have not eaten at all for the last two weeks which actually is pretty scary. I have over trained myself to the degree that my muscles just tear apart, and die on me, so the lack of stable nutrition is bad.
Honestly I'm pretty pissed at myself for being sick. Not many people joined this seminar, and I wanted to make an appearance and let people know I respected the martial art we are all apart of, but sadly I can't. It's frustrating, essentially since the first seminar I ever attended, back in 2008, changed my life. On that day I decided to devout myself to learning the skills that are the form the basis for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and I also experienced first hand how the knowledge alone can be twisted, and a simple mistake and lead to darkness. I was hoping that this seminar, merged with my current choice of using only technique when I train, would lead to a breakthrough. Now I will have to wait, and possibly never have this chance again (though I can always facilitate it myself, since I plan on going to Brazil after graduation for a vacation anyways).
Since starting back up with training in October I have hit over 15 classes, which I feel is pretty successful. I am not losing weight but I am gaining muscle, which is nice. Aside from coming down with this flu, and suffering from a simple dislocation of my left elbow, I'm doing pretty good. I can't wait for Monday.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Update 10/30 - Getting owned all week, the one good day of training
So I've been training again for a little over two weeks, and I have to say my body is not fairing so well. During a hard training session on Tuesday I ended up with whiplash. The pain running down my neck to my back is a bitch to deal with. Right now I have two injured arms, my left knee is screwed, my right shoulder is dead to me, toss in the whiplash and shit just got real, so to speak. Ironically enough, even with everything going to hell I had the best day of grappling I could hope for. There were no warm ups today, we did a little technique and went right into sparring...and I pretty much owned. Generally after running half a mile and doing other shit I'm pretty worn out, and I'm unable to compete to the best of my abilities...but today I was fresh when I hit the mat, and it showed.
First off, today was a special day at the gym. This kid, who's name I can't remember, turned 15. What happens on such occasions is fairly interesting, we sit in a circle, with the person in the middle, and roll with him one at a time. Since this was his 15th birthday, he got to roll with 14 people in a row. Every time he tapped, or time ran out, we switched. Sadly, in what can only be described as bad luck, I was placed second to last in line. Essentially, this poor kid had to roll with 12 other people before facing me, and it was bad times for him. I took him down fairly quickly, established side control, and pressured him down. He tried a few times to escape, but it was in vein. Side control happens to be one the position that I excel at, so things went better then expected. I hit north south, where you essentially drag your gut across their stomach, and isolated one of his arms. After heading back to the side I took his only loose arm and snapped on a kimura, he tapped fairly quickly. After that I wished him a happy birthday, and when we got paired up to roll again I helped him work on his triangle choke. The only negative to the whole experience is that I fucked up his ribs, which has happened countless times before when I trained, but he seemed to be alright.
All week I got tooled, I was too exhausted to do anything, so Friday turned out to be a nice change of pace. That night only one person was remotely my size, and he was ranked higher then me, so when we sparred I was unsure what to expect. Suffice it to say I did alright. I was able to work some escapes and finally gain side control, but sadly he was able to slip to the side, during a scramble, and pull me back to guard. The dude was a beast, and rolled with his eyes closed...I felt underestimated to say the least. I was trying to determine if he was blind, and I had not noticed, or if he was attempting to sense the changes in pressure when I moved. Either way it was a cool experience.
Finally, as a weird occurrence, I had to roll (as in wrestle/grapple) with a 10 y/o girl (honestly she was the only person without a partner, and she choked out the adults she trained with). Now, this was an odd occurrence for myself but I had rolled with women in the past (when I trained MMA) so I was fairly confident in my abilities to NOT crush her. I have never trained with little kids, so I tried to be as careful as possible to ensure I didn't break her. Honestly the first roll she tried to beat the hell out of me, she threw on about nine chokes (all of which I escaped) and finished the round with an armbar I decided to tap too. I was taking it easy, playing around, which seemed to piss her off more then it should...seeing how she weighs 60 lbs and I weigh over 300. During the second round I put in a little more effort, which seemed to placate her, and I didn't get my ass kicked.
Overall I got owned all week, but I was able to see what I could do when I'm not completely exhausted, and that made up for all the injuries and such that I've suffered. I feel pretty good right now, at almost 2 am, so hopefully Monday will be awesome.
First off, today was a special day at the gym. This kid, who's name I can't remember, turned 15. What happens on such occasions is fairly interesting, we sit in a circle, with the person in the middle, and roll with him one at a time. Since this was his 15th birthday, he got to roll with 14 people in a row. Every time he tapped, or time ran out, we switched. Sadly, in what can only be described as bad luck, I was placed second to last in line. Essentially, this poor kid had to roll with 12 other people before facing me, and it was bad times for him. I took him down fairly quickly, established side control, and pressured him down. He tried a few times to escape, but it was in vein. Side control happens to be one the position that I excel at, so things went better then expected. I hit north south, where you essentially drag your gut across their stomach, and isolated one of his arms. After heading back to the side I took his only loose arm and snapped on a kimura, he tapped fairly quickly. After that I wished him a happy birthday, and when we got paired up to roll again I helped him work on his triangle choke. The only negative to the whole experience is that I fucked up his ribs, which has happened countless times before when I trained, but he seemed to be alright.
All week I got tooled, I was too exhausted to do anything, so Friday turned out to be a nice change of pace. That night only one person was remotely my size, and he was ranked higher then me, so when we sparred I was unsure what to expect. Suffice it to say I did alright. I was able to work some escapes and finally gain side control, but sadly he was able to slip to the side, during a scramble, and pull me back to guard. The dude was a beast, and rolled with his eyes closed...I felt underestimated to say the least. I was trying to determine if he was blind, and I had not noticed, or if he was attempting to sense the changes in pressure when I moved. Either way it was a cool experience.
Finally, as a weird occurrence, I had to roll (as in wrestle/grapple) with a 10 y/o girl (honestly she was the only person without a partner, and she choked out the adults she trained with). Now, this was an odd occurrence for myself but I had rolled with women in the past (when I trained MMA) so I was fairly confident in my abilities to NOT crush her. I have never trained with little kids, so I tried to be as careful as possible to ensure I didn't break her. Honestly the first roll she tried to beat the hell out of me, she threw on about nine chokes (all of which I escaped) and finished the round with an armbar I decided to tap too. I was taking it easy, playing around, which seemed to piss her off more then it should...seeing how she weighs 60 lbs and I weigh over 300. During the second round I put in a little more effort, which seemed to placate her, and I didn't get my ass kicked.
Overall I got owned all week, but I was able to see what I could do when I'm not completely exhausted, and that made up for all the injuries and such that I've suffered. I feel pretty good right now, at almost 2 am, so hopefully Monday will be awesome.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Injuries
Sadly, I'm getting to this later than I had hoped I would. I had originally planned to update the blog this morning, at least it is getting done today.
As some of you may know I battle injuries quite a bit, mainly because I push myself farther then I should. My most recent taste of pain came from torn muscles in my thigh, more specifically the satorious and the quadriceps in my right leg. I had been getting out of bed, and all of a sudden I could feel the muscles tear apart. Now, I wasn't weight lifting, I wasn't improperly carrying a couch, I was getting out of bed. Even though I am a large man, over 300lbs, I am young. The posibility of my leg being destroyed seemed unlikely, but it had to do with my diet. On average I consume around 500 calories, far below what I should be taking in just to be active. Essentially my body ate away at my muscles to the degree that by standing up they came apart like fresh made bread. The pain was excruciating, I screamed like a little girl, and had to take 2 months off from any type of exercise (aside from going to class, which is minimal walking). Now the two months is over, and ready to move past this stage of life.
Prior to getting injured I had trained consistently for a few weeks (a step in the right direction), and I had been committed to my weight loss. Even with the setback I was able to make a dent, losing 11lbs just by changing my eating habits.
Today was the first day I could get back to training, and I decided to wait a bit before getting back to the mats. I wanted to see where my body was at, so I went with something I had done quite regularly, yoga. Normally I would glide through the basic warm ups and movements, but in my current state my legs were killing me. After only 35 minutes of working out I was through. I had trouble walking, and was forced to rest myself before moving on to my next workout.
After 2 hours had passed I hit up p90x (something I hadn't used in a while). I went with the basic program, opting to work on my upper body. Things went well, I had problems doing push ups but I was able to lift what I wanted and complete the entire workout. While my shoulders were slightly sore, it was the core workout that killed me. My stomach, being so huge, was impending the bending. I was able to get through the entire thing but my abdomen was killing me.
The most important element of my weight loss happens to be the diet. I can force myself to eat all I want, but it's almost impossible for me to eat more then 1200 calories. I hit 1280 today, burning more then 5 times that amount, but it's barely enough to maintain my current muscle mass. I went through 110 grams of protein, and 130 grams of carbs. It was painful to ingest that much, which emphasizes my prior problems. If I can't hit 2000 calories it'll be impossible to obtain additional muscle, which will be an obstacle I'll have troufor ble overcoming.
I should mention that we've decided to document my journey to my goal weight, which is 240lbs. I hope to reach it by March, but we'll see how it goes.
Sorry for taking so long to update my blog, I was depressed and really just couldn't do anything. I'm happy I got to it today, they'll be another post next week. Have a good one all!
As some of you may know I battle injuries quite a bit, mainly because I push myself farther then I should. My most recent taste of pain came from torn muscles in my thigh, more specifically the satorious and the quadriceps in my right leg. I had been getting out of bed, and all of a sudden I could feel the muscles tear apart. Now, I wasn't weight lifting, I wasn't improperly carrying a couch, I was getting out of bed. Even though I am a large man, over 300lbs, I am young. The posibility of my leg being destroyed seemed unlikely, but it had to do with my diet. On average I consume around 500 calories, far below what I should be taking in just to be active. Essentially my body ate away at my muscles to the degree that by standing up they came apart like fresh made bread. The pain was excruciating, I screamed like a little girl, and had to take 2 months off from any type of exercise (aside from going to class, which is minimal walking). Now the two months is over, and ready to move past this stage of life.
Prior to getting injured I had trained consistently for a few weeks (a step in the right direction), and I had been committed to my weight loss. Even with the setback I was able to make a dent, losing 11lbs just by changing my eating habits.
Today was the first day I could get back to training, and I decided to wait a bit before getting back to the mats. I wanted to see where my body was at, so I went with something I had done quite regularly, yoga. Normally I would glide through the basic warm ups and movements, but in my current state my legs were killing me. After only 35 minutes of working out I was through. I had trouble walking, and was forced to rest myself before moving on to my next workout.
After 2 hours had passed I hit up p90x (something I hadn't used in a while). I went with the basic program, opting to work on my upper body. Things went well, I had problems doing push ups but I was able to lift what I wanted and complete the entire workout. While my shoulders were slightly sore, it was the core workout that killed me. My stomach, being so huge, was impending the bending. I was able to get through the entire thing but my abdomen was killing me.
The most important element of my weight loss happens to be the diet. I can force myself to eat all I want, but it's almost impossible for me to eat more then 1200 calories. I hit 1280 today, burning more then 5 times that amount, but it's barely enough to maintain my current muscle mass. I went through 110 grams of protein, and 130 grams of carbs. It was painful to ingest that much, which emphasizes my prior problems. If I can't hit 2000 calories it'll be impossible to obtain additional muscle, which will be an obstacle I'll have troufor ble overcoming.
I should mention that we've decided to document my journey to my goal weight, which is 240lbs. I hope to reach it by March, but we'll see how it goes.
Sorry for taking so long to update my blog, I was depressed and really just couldn't do anything. I'm happy I got to it today, they'll be another post next week. Have a good one all!
Monday, February 8, 2010
Updates
Well, for the last 3 weeks I've been out of commission. It was pretty interesting, mainly because I hardly ever get sick. I'm known for being strong of body, meaning tough, and if I do catch something it only effects me for a couple of days. In this instance, I've been sick for almost a month. Thankfully it isn't swine flu, but seemingly it was the next best (or worst) strain of the flu possible. I'm slowly recovering, and sadly I haven't been able to train.
In my last post I brought up my lack of motivation to train, and I'm happy to report that is gone. BJJ, well fighting in general, is on my mind at all times. I think of it when I eat, go to class, or sleep. The only problem is that I've essentially gone a month without eating or drinking, working out hasn't been an option, my stamina has drained away. Though, oddly enough, I can fight longer than Rolles Gracie...In an effort to test myself I went 1 on 1 with the heavy bag, and a friend, and determined I can fight for about 5 minutes straight. It's a start, but I'm gassed and need an extended break when sparring.
In the next coming weeks I'll be posting more regularly, since I'll be building myself back up it'll be fairly interesting. Look forward to more posts, and thanks for stopping by!
In my last post I brought up my lack of motivation to train, and I'm happy to report that is gone. BJJ, well fighting in general, is on my mind at all times. I think of it when I eat, go to class, or sleep. The only problem is that I've essentially gone a month without eating or drinking, working out hasn't been an option, my stamina has drained away. Though, oddly enough, I can fight longer than Rolles Gracie...In an effort to test myself I went 1 on 1 with the heavy bag, and a friend, and determined I can fight for about 5 minutes straight. It's a start, but I'm gassed and need an extended break when sparring.
In the next coming weeks I'll be posting more regularly, since I'll be building myself back up it'll be fairly interesting. Look forward to more posts, and thanks for stopping by!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)