No_Game's blog

Woke up bright and early at 6:13am, wide awake and ready to go. I weighed myself one last time, 196lbs even (good, I can drink some water) so I was set. I contemplated trying to sweat my way to the event, but decided against it since I had already cut 11lbs (and this was my first time doing it).

Ok, I managed to wake up early enough to get a little cardio/sauna time before work today. I left for work at 200lbs. After cutting back my water today, and hitting cardio and sauna again tonight, I'm down to 196! This is my first time cutting any weight, so I'm trying to take it easy to see how I feel.

I made it to open gym tonight and did some light rolling. I felt a bit shaky at first, but after a minute or two I felt pretty strong and rolled decently against our best blue belt.

I received a GREAT surprise tonight...I was one of the winners of Grappling Radio's contest to compete for free at the next three GQ events!!

The crazy thing is, I was training and planning to compete at the 2010 US National Chmps, but due to bills and such I couldn't afford it. Then I won! So now I need to hurry and lose some serious weight...I was just maintaining 205 the last few weeks.

Wednesday: Pretty sore, so I took the night off of lifting and started the long process of working on my cardio. 10 minutes on elliptical, 10 minutes of sprint intervals on treadmill. As boring as it sounds haha!

Thursday: As the title says, I worked on Pulling strength tonight:

DB Deadlifts: Got up to 100lbs, the weight felt good but my sissy left hand was letting me down...
Leg Curls: Ok on these, I have weak hamstrings so its an uphill climb!
Lateral Raises: Need more weight for these, they're hard. but not THAT hard

This blog will follow my training for competitions this summer. I am hoping to compete as much as possible over the summer, and use my time wisely.

My next scheduled comp is June 19th, at US Grappling's Diamond State Games in Bear, DE.

I am using this month to work on strength, next month power endurance and the weeks in June to hit my cardio hardest and watch my weight. I want to compete under 189lbs and will be setting my target weight for 185. This is most likely an ideal weight for me as I am naturally heavy even though not very muscular or fat.

Well the weekend finally came. I went in at 199lbs, which is my own damn fault for not hitting my diet/cardio harder. Fortunately cardio was not an issue, I felt pretty strong in my second and third matches (which is weird I got stronger as I kept going!) and wasn't an issue in the first match LOL (See below).

Tonight was a good class, drilling mount escapes to back and also working the RNC. I feel more confident in it, as always I miss so many details that make it work as intended. Unfortunately I was drilling with a brand new student (which normally is fine) but this guy was going way too fast and I got my throat crushed kinda bad. It hurts to swallow now! I told him nicely to slow down, so hopefully next time he will do better. I think he was just excited and nervous, but damn my throat is killing me now...

Had a good class working on mount to back and recovering mount. It was great to really focus on the details. I get to the back pretty decently on my own, or so I thought, until we reviewed it all again. I realized how many little components I was missing! I got to put them to use almost right away, and was happy to flow from one to the next not once but twice!

I got caught in an armbar but quickly sucked my elbow in. Then, for some unknown reason I allowed my arm to get grabbed again and I got tapped. I'm still trying to figure out what the hell I was doing....

I went to York MMA Academy in York, PA tonight and worked with Coach George McGinnis and his team. It was a great class, we worked on standing guillotine defenses. Its good to know, since it seems you end up in that after failed takedowns. Since my wrestling=fail, I'm glad to add this stuff to my arsenal!

I did some rolling with two much larger opponents tonight. I felt pretty good, strong and my cardio was good. It was refreshing because after some wacky medication problems I've been having since Christmas, I finally feel back to my old self. Turns out BJJ is the best drug to take, LOL!

Had some good matches in free rolling the last few classes, pulling off good cross collar chokes, and even my new favorite after a failed back take.