The Final Round

Day 4

Sunday's are a rest day, no training at all.  This day is used to take advantage of as many recovery techniques as possible which will hopefully send you into the next week of training feeling as good as possible.  Today's was Jay's birthday which involved some food which wasn't exactly on the approved list but it also involved us renting out a pool/sauna at a local gym which was both fun and good recovery.  This place had a sick sauna with wood stove that was working overtime.  There was also a pool, hot tub, and a cold mineral bath dip.  One cool thing about this place was that they don't use chlorine, they use mineral salts instead which was great seeing as I'm not that into dipping myself in chemicals.  The cold mineral bath dip was this little square right next to the hot tub, it was literally big enough for only one person to get in at a time.  I did multiple rotations between the cold bath and the hot sauna.  This is such a great recovery method.  Usually I only have access to a shower which is better than nothing but it doesn't compare to being able to fully submerge yourself.  If you're interested in what this whole hot/cold thing is about you can check out this link or just google contrast shower.

So now for the details of the event.  I'll be fighting Ginelle Marquez on December 8 in the Philippines as part of the Ring of Fire World Team Championships put on my Platinum Fighting Productions.  I will be fighting as part of Gokor's team.  I actually fought Ginelle a few years ago in Denver.  Ginelle is a real tough fighter, this should be  a good battle.  Here are a couple of photos from our first fight:

 

Day 3

I thought I'd feel wrecked today from jumping into training at such high intensity but I didn't actually feel to bad outside of some muscular fatigue. First order of the day was a shake with almond milk, ground flax seeds, organic banana, organic frozen strawberries and blueberries, brown rice protein powder, ground cacao beans, and water. I drank this around 10:00am figuring I'd train around 1:00 which would be perfect. I'm not one of those people that can eat even remotely close to training or I'll feel sick. For the longest time I was really stressed about the fact that I wasn't one of those people that could eat a bunch of food on the day of a fight. I went out to Utah awhile back to help my friend Jen Howe get ready for a fight. On the way to the fight we pulled into a drive thru where Jen got some kind of bacon hamburger thing, fries, and I think a soda. She ate this whole thing backstage during the rules meeting. I sat there the whole time with my mouth hanging open in disbelief that she was able to do this. I used to think it was some kind of bad sign that I couldn't really eat but during the last couple of years I've come to realize that everyone is just different. For me, my body can handle breakfast but after that it is pretty much purely liquid calories like endurox, accelrade, packets of GU and maybe some energy bars. Now that my mind isn't tripped out by it I've realized that eating schedule makes my body feel ready and fully fueled. Anyway, back to today's training. I didn't end up training till around 2:00pm and was starting to feel a bit hungry. Saturday is a one training session day and that session is a fight simulation. So for me that means 3 five minute rounds. This training is similar to the Tu/Th rounds except that in addition to all the random switches there are two exercises added in. Today I picked clusters and the plate complex. Saturday's are rough, the exercises just kind of push the whole thing over the top. After the first time Jay called for clusters my legs pretty much ceased working. These rounds are so crazy, you get so tired that your brain actually feels like it is not functioning correctly. Jay called for clusters and I pretty much ran in place saying clusters out loud to myself until my brain could catch up and point me in the directions of the dumbbells. You always run to the next spot and you're not supposed to completely stop what you're doing to ask what the trainer has called so that makes for some interesting dances while fighters try and process where they're going next. The only thing I can say in my defense is that these rounds are not something you can comprehend by hearing the description or even watching video, you really have to do them to understand them.

Food for the rest of the day was four pieces of veggie sushi, a mojo bar, berry greens (a liquid green drink), a handful of almonds, a sprouted grain wrap with veganaise, mustard, veggie cheese, veggie sandwich slices, pickles, and tomatos and a bunch of water. My weight yesterday morning was 144.2 and this morning was 143.3.

Tomorrow is a rest day so I'll use that time to give all the details of the upcoming event.

Day 2

Paying for my lack of strength training this morning. There's nothing that reminds you that your butt is actually a muscle quite like doing one legged box squats. In an ideal world I do today's conditioning in the morning and do my skill work in the afternoon after a good stretch of recovery time. When it comes to training and fighting I would consider myself a fairly tough and disciplined person but there is one thing that conquers me every time: the cold. I could not bring myself to head out into the cold garage and do my workout. When I stuck my head out in the garage to see just how cold it was (very!) it seemed like a much better idea to do the skill work in the afternoon at the gym, rest for a bit and then do my workout. The afternoons training ended up being six 5 minute rounds of sparring with Jay using shin guards, the large mma gloves and elbow pads. The elbow pads are great but do make some things less realistic like the ground work. It didn't help that mine don't really fit so every other exchange I would crack Jay in the head with my elbow at least once before realizing my pad had slipped down. Fortunately for me he's a great sport. After resting a bit and drinking some endurox I did the following workout:

75 meter versaclimber 21 clusters (db cleans followed by a thruster) 21 wall ball with 7kg ball 75 meter versaclimber 15 clusters 15 wall ball 75 meters versaclimber 9 clusters 9 wall ball

All conditioning workouts are done at 100%, as hard and fast as you can. All I can say is that the Versaclimber is the single most horrifying piece of equipment I have ever used. Used on it's own it's bad enough but adding it to these mixed type of workouts is a level of hell that should not exist.

And we’re off

I always preach to our fighters that you have to stay in good enough shape that you can take a short notice opportunity. Now we'll get to see if I've been practicing what I preach. I'll post the details of the fight in the next few days, once they are completely finalized. If everything works out, and it looks like I will I'll be fighting on December 8. I'll be doing a day by day journal of my fight preparation for anyone that wants to follow along. Having just received the phone call today I guess this makes this........

Day 1

Right after we got the phone call we had just enough time to get to the gym and get some training in before the night classes started. I figured the best way to let my body know that it's now fight training time is to jump right into what we call "Rounds". I do these on Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday. They consist of a varied number of rounds (usually between three and five) of varied times. The trainer running these rounds will call random switches. You can end up doing mitts, negative positions, ground bag, bag slams, knee bag (with the dummy up against the wall you work the clinch), clinch work with a partner, working off the wall, shot carries, multiple takedowns on the crash pad, sparring. On Saturdays we do this same thing but there is an exercise or two thrown in to the switches, like bodyweight deadlifts, versaclimber, etc. These rounds are pretty much done at 100% and are miserable. So day one consisted of 4 three minute rounds with Paul and Jay helping me. The first couple of rounds felt horrible but I almost felt like it was more from being nervous about jumping into the training than it was my actual conditioning. The last couple I felt tired but good. Overall I was pretty happy with it. After driving home I headed out into the frozen tundra that is my garage to do my strength training. This is the one part of my training that I am not good at keeping up in my downtime. I know I will pay for that in the next couple of days. Strength training consisted of Power Cleans, ring rows, physioball one arm db presses, one-legged box squats, curl to press, one-legged rdl, and diagonal db swings.