A Warrior's Thougts on the Martial Arts

In Vienna, while doing our 5x5 program, Chris and I usually incorporate the exercises Chad Waterbury presented in his article HERE . We usually start our sessions with an hour of padwork and/or sparring. Therefore, we're not doing the core exercises in a circle before the workout, as Chad suggests - that would prolong the whole thing too much. Also, the core's already pretty active due to all those kicks and punches. Hence, we stick to doing the pallof press and stir the pot in between our heavy sets. Personally I feel that it's those two exercise that offer the biggest benefit in terms of core stabilization. Now in the Gym in Dabki where I've been working out for the last two weeks, the cable station is pretty crappy (no adjustable heights, just the to and bottom position), so the pallof press was really inconvenient. Also, there were so balls whatsoever to stir the pot (insert your own bad joke here - I'm too tired to think of one). So, the core work I usually do...

I just returned from a two-week trip to Poland with my girl. It was awesome. Our trip took us from Vienna to Warsaw, then way up north to Dabki, which is a surfer's paradise at the baltic sea. After spending a week there, we went to Poznan for another two days. From Poznan it was back to Warsaw and eventually home. Although there's so much to say about Warsaw when it comes to the martial arts, I'll skip that for now and focus on Dabki and Poznan instead. You see, Dabki is situated in quite a unique spot: on the one side, there's the baltic sea while on the other one, there's the Bukowo-lake. Obviously, this location makes it pretty much perfect for water-sports enthusiasts. For me, too, the plan was to spend my days doing little but windsurfing and laying on the beach. Didn't turn out that way, though, as the weather had its own plans: most of the time it was rainy and cold, definately not beach-like. Wind-wise, it was either completely still or extremely windy,...

Ok, just returned from Greece. There's been positive and negative sides to that journey. The good On a positive note, following the warrior diet is easy in Greece, as people there apparentely seem to live by it anyways. We were told by our hotel manager that " we never eat breakfast ", and when we had our main meal at something like 10pm, the taverna was filled with locals. We quickly found ourselves a decent place to eat, called Nikos Souvlaki, which I can strongly recommend to anyone in the area of Plakias. Due to the heat and the nearby sea, I've decided to substitute swimming for my usual running. This proved to be a great idea. Swimming will definately play a part in phase 2 of my current program, which will begin in September. Not only is swimming easier on the joints than running, it's also a full-body activity as opposed to roadwork. In Greece, I'd do HIIT swimming with my Polar on, stopping time intervals. For one minute I'd crawl all-out, after t...

(image taken from en.wikipedia.org) Today I'm leaving for Crete, Greece, to spend a week of my holiday there. Basically, I'll try to keep the same training program up I follow here, only I'll exchange the power work for bodyweight exercise. It'll be fun trying out new exercises on the beach. For me, a trip to Greece is something of an educational journey, after all, most of our western civilization, values and knowledge originates there. Most important of all, however, is the fact that all the martial arts as practiced today probably have their roots in greek Pankratio. I tried looking up Pankratio schools in Iraklion and Plakias, to no avail. Maybe I'll find out about a club once I'm there. Now, I have to hurry to get to the gym the last time before my departure, as always I'll keep you up to date. So long, take care