A Warrior's Thougts on the Martial Arts

Our 5x5 training is making progress. Today, after working the pads for 10 rounds each, Chris and I pushed some heavy metal around. Here's todays stats: Overhead Squat: 40kg, 45kg, 50kg, 55kg, 60kg Clean & Press: 45kg, 47.5kg, 50kg, 52.5kg, 55kg (Quit after 3 reps to avoid failure. Those buggers are heavy) Bench Press: 70kg, 72.5kg, 75kg, 77.5kg, 80kg Those are my stats, I can't really remember Chris' weights. Also, since the camera's memory was pretty full, we couldn't film the last set on the bench. Therefore, I've used a lighter set for the video. That's 2 passed exercises out of 3. Not bad. Since we've implemented an A-B-A, B-A-B organisation, we'll pull on thursday and push again on friday. I'll post new stats next week. So long, take care

Today, Chris and I did our first "Push" session in our reloaded 5x5 program. All those little tweaks probably make the program even more awesome than it was before. As usual, after warming up, we worked the pads for 5 rounds each. Today, we didn't freestyle a lot but rather worked on specific drills, some of which are inspired by Anderson Silva's instructional videos. (I've compressed the video to just a few seconds per drill so as not to bore you.) Then, we hit the gym and lifted some heavy stuff. Well, ok, nothing all too heavy today, but then it was only our first session. Basically, there's been two changes (improvements?) over the original program: Front squats became Overhead squats At the end of the session, we'd do 25 bottom-up presses on each arm , following Chad Waterbury's recommendations in his article, the 25 Method . Hence, the new "push" session is structured as follows: (Snatch to) Overhead squat, 5x5 Clean & Press, 5x5 ...

So today after some padwork for warmup and specific training, Chris and I jumped into some more structured, more serious strength & conditioning program again. After some hard thinking, we concluded that after all the instructor courses, seminars and workshops we attended, we still don't know a better system than the 5x5 program I've written so much about on this site. Hence, we'll do it again. Anyhow, although they say you should "never change a running system", we've decided to tweak some parameters to even further increase the program's effectiveness. Let me recap the original program again Monday, Thursday: "Pull"-type movements (horizontal pull, vertical pull) and hip-centered "Stand-Up"-type movements Tuesday, Friday: "Push"-type movements(horizontal push, vertical push) and knee-centered "Stand-Up"-type movements Sets/Reps: 5x5, with progressive load (e.g. 130 in the first set, 132.5 in the second, 140 in ...

So here's the results from the 5x5 program Chris and I have been following over the last 6 weeks prior to my trip to Linz. Here's the improvements on each exercise. 'begin' is obviously the weights we started out with. 'end' shows the heaviest weight we used to do a full set. Any set with a heavier weight that wasn't done for 5 reps is not listed here. 'c' and 'l' are used to mark 'c'hris and 'l'ukas respectively begin(c): end(c): begin(l): end(l): dl: 80.0-100.0kg 97.5-117.5kg 100.0-120.0kg 120.0-140.0kg pu: 0.0-10.0kg 5.0- 15.0kg 0.0- 10.0kg 7.5- 17.5kg r: 50.0-60.0kg 80.0- 90.0kg 50.0- 60.0kg 80.0- 90.0kg cp: 40.0-50.0kg 50.0-60.0kg 40.0-50.0kg 50.0- 60.0kg fs: 40.0-50.0kg 47.5-67.5kg 50.0-60.0kg 80.0-100.0kg bp: 60.0-75.0kg 70.0-90.0kg 60.0-75.0kg 67.5- 85.0kg dl... deadlift / pu... pull-up / r... rows / cp... clean & pres...

This is thurdays pull-session. Both Chris and I pretty much failed at the deadlift and had to skip some reps. Also, we didn't quite manage to finish the pullups. On a positive note, we rowed with 90kg, so that's not too bad. Since fatigue was making itself felt in a very evident way, we postponed our last push-session up until today. I'll comment on our progress tonight (or in the next days), so I didn't include captions in the video this time. Enjoy.

Yesterdays strength session. Both Chris and I passed one exercise each and failed on two. Enjoy.

I'll comment at the end of the week. Until then, it'll be video footage only. Enjoy.

Chris and I have been following our four day program almost religiously over the last 5 weeks. Today, for the first time, we had to skip our gym session due to general exhaustion. You see, yesterday, beginning at 8am, we were teaching at a local secondary school. For me, it was five hours there, Chris did 7. But the day wasn't done for me, either, as I held another 3 lessons at my dojo. Now, working for 8 hours a day doesn't sound that hard, after all, that's what everyone's doing. Anyhow, teaching martial arts is not your ordinary 9 to 5 job. First off, it's physical work. Doesn't have to be hard physical work, but it definately is physical work. Besides that teaching means understanding one's students. Every problem of theirs is a problem of yours for the duration of the class. A teacher needs to be pretty empathic in regards to every student's personal goals, possibilities and limitations. People tend to carry a lot of ballast onto the mat - everythin...

Back to business. I'll be taking this semesters last exam at university on Tuesday 6th. After that, I'll get back to work, training-wise. As always, I'll spend some time in Poland in july and august - do some kettlebell work, train some MMA/BJJ/... Now, going abroad doesn't make it easier to follow a strict training program. At least for me it ain't. That's why I've decided to shoot for a simple yet effective, easy to implement training protocol that can be done at every gym. Being absolutely convinced of my last protocolls effectiveness, I'll basically do the same thing again - just completely different. That's a fundamental principle with training, by the way - do the same things, but differently. I'll be shooting for 4 strength training sessions a week, alternating between two workouts: Workout A: Clean & Press Bench press Front squat (ass to the grass) Workout B: Deadlift Pullup Bent over rowing with supinated grip As you can see, I'...