Maroon's training log - take two

[maroon]

Monday 12th October - Workout A:

Life is busy as hell. Determined not to "drop out" of my quest for strength. Made it to the gym today. Short and sweet workout with breaks much shorter than normal. Intensity was lower however.


Squats:
20kg 5x5
50kg 1x5
60kg 1x3
70kg 1x3
90kg 3x5

Was ok.

Bench Press:

20kg 1x10
50kg 1x10

70kg 5 x 5 x 6 x 5 x 6

Very short breaks. Went in between with a younger guy. Worked out nice. Since I'm working technique at the moment I threw in an extra rep in two of the sets. It's really nice with a spotter.

Inverted Rows:
8 x 6 x 5 - Feet elevated. Can't seem to progress on these buggers

Dips:
6 x 4 x 3

Starting to prepare some sort of eating-plan for when I hit bulking and start increasing my lifts again. Also I'm thinking of starting barbell rows, either that or I have to change approach on the Inverted Rows. Either grease the grove on IR or switch to BBR. Either will probably help.

[ArthurNijkamp]

Hey Maroon, good job on starting the eating plan! I think it will help you break your current lifts and come closer to your goals. I have the same problem on the inverted row (although my feet are not even elevated). Would you think barbell rows would help? To me it just seems that all the bodyweight exercises are progressing VERY slowly (and weight gain caused by GOMAD is not helping either )

Anyway... keep up the good work!
-Arthur

[maroon]

Tuesday 13th October - Muay Thai:

My kicks are improving a lot. My partner complimented me on the power in them. This means I'm improving.
Very nauseous at the end. These sessions are extremely tough on conditioning. I like it though, it means progress will be made.

[maroon]

Hey Maroon, good job on starting the eating plan! I think it will help you break your current lifts and come closer to your goals. I have the same problem on the inverted row (although my feet are not even elevated). Would you think barbell rows would help? To me it just seems that all the bodyweight exercises are progressing VERY slowly (and weight gain caused by GOMAD is not helping either )

Anyway... keep up the good work!
-Arthur

Hey Arthur! Thanks

I don't really feel qualified to advice you on the IR - but I'd recommend you elevate your feet if you seem to get "stuck" having the heels on the floor. It will give you a new type of challenge and initially you will progress on the elevated ones quite fast. Then you will probably be where I am; seemingly unable to improve your IRs with feet elevated.

Personally my current issue is food and sleep. I am having trouble getting my body to "shut down" at night. Especially on workout days. I rarely manage to sleep before 2.30am, and I have to get up for work at 7am.

I'll post my food plan when it's ready. I'm buying some whey again too!

[maroon]

I'm feeling stiff and sore. Especially in the chest from benching/dips yesterday and crazy stuff (pushups, pyramid pushups (don't know the name) and some game where we had to stay in top push-up position while trying to knock your partner's hands out of balance. Yes. I faceplanted twice at Muay Thai today.

Rest tomorrow will do me some good. Plan is Muay Thai on the thursday. Then gym again on the friday or saturday depending on how I feel on friday.

A few months of this and I'm convinced I'll improve in all areas related to fitness.

[joesterizer]

Damn maroon, I just caught up on your log. Your muay thai training sounds incredibly fun, and you're keeping up the lifting as well! Thats more than can be said for me, I ditched lifting when rugby got intense. But that's another story. Glad to see you're still making progress,

[Tintin]

Thanks for dropping by Maroon.

My IR numbers are exactly the same (I also have feet elevated on a bench). You seem to have a gruelling schedule at the moment. It sounds like you are in fitness boot camp. Sounds like that if you can get enough sleep then you can shorten your rest periods between gym and Muay Thai.

Good luck man!

[ArthurNijkamp]

Hi Maroon,
Thanks for the advice. I'll be doing/trying elevated rows in the gym next time.
Good job on buying the whey, sounds like you could use some

[FiveByFive]

Your MT class sounds pretty great. Mine we do almost all partner drills, light sparring, and other technique oriented stuff. Only conditioning once in a blue moon. It's a huge change from my old boxing gym where conditioning was priority 1 and most of our time was spent on the heavy bag and various conditioning exercises w/ sparring at the end and very little technique. I wish I could find something in between and it seems like that's exactly what you've got!

[nburge]

Hey Maroon - good effort on the weights - have you considered Powercleans for your MMA stuff? They would certainly develop more power for the kicks I'd think.

Inverted rows were one of the few exercises I improved on really rapidly. My number shot up to 15 in the first set, but recently I've tried them again and the numbers aren't any better.

[maroon]

Hey Maroon - good effort on the weights - have you considered Powercleans for your MMA stuff? They would certainly develop more power for the kicks I'd think.

Inverted rows were one of the few exercises I improved on really rapidly. My number shot up to 15 in the first set, but recently I've tried them again and the numbers aren't any better.

Hey Neil
Good thinking. Yes I have thought about it; and I look forward to learning them. They will probably be excellent. However I've decided to focus on getting my other lifts higher first. Particularly the squat and deadlift.

Your MT class sounds pretty great. Mine we do almost all partner drills, light sparring, and other technique oriented stuff. Only conditioning once in a blue moon. It's a huge change from my old boxing gym where conditioning was priority 1 and most of our time was spent on the heavy bag and various conditioning exercises w/ sparring at the end and very little technique. I wish I could find something in between and it seems like that's exactly what you've got!

I really like them. It's good fun. I guess the technique is practiced by hitting and kicking pads. A lot. Trainers walk around and give advice on what you should do different while you do it. Makes the learning process very manageable. And you wear yourself out/get fitter at the same time.

Hi Maroon,
Thanks for the advice. I'll be doing/trying elevated rows in the gym next time.
Good job on buying the whey, sounds like you could use some

Pleasure Let us know how you get on!

Yes. I need the whey pretty badly! Hehe.

Thanks for dropping by Maroon.

My IR numbers are exactly the same (I also have feet elevated on a bench). You seem to have a gruelling schedule at the moment. It sounds like you are in fitness boot camp. Sounds like that if you can get enough sleep then you can shorten your rest periods between gym and Muay Thai.

Good luck man!

Eyy
Yep. Trying to fix the sleeping thing. Hopefully just a phase.

Damn maroon, I just caught up on your log. Your muay thai training sounds incredibly fun, and you're keeping up the lifting as well! Thats more than can be said for me, I ditched lifting when rugby got intense. But that's another story. Glad to see you're still making progress,

Hey Joe!
I've not been textbook (e-book?) good though. My whole training journey is haunted by some inconsistency. Doesn't matter though. Sticking to it long-term is where the results are achieved.
It's great that you are getting back into the lifting!

[maroon]

Thursday 15th October - Muay Thai:
Was good.
A bit akward to practice clinching on somebody much smaller.

I felt much fresher and better when I had not lifted the day before.

[AbleArcher]

Hey maroon, thanks for dropping by my log the other day. I'll have to admit I'm impressed you're combining lifting with Thai boxing, I did the latter myself some time ago but there was no way I'd be able to do it in tandem with weight training!

[maroon]

Hey maroon, thanks for dropping by my log the other day. I'll have to admit I'm impressed you're combining lifting with Thai boxing, I did the latter myself some time ago but there was no way I'd be able to do it in tandem with weight training!

Hey

I am committed to the strength training long-term; so I don't feel like I'm in a rush to reach my current goals and beyond. I'd rather get there slower (lifting 1, preferably 2 times a week) and learning Muay Thai at the same time than just doing one or the other. I am starting to love both and believe they will compliment each other greatly. But it will take some time.

After being physically passive for many years I am loving getting myself back into better shape now. Different type of shape though, as I never did resistance training before. I owe it all to SL. I would most likely not have started Muay Thai at the shocking state of fitness I was in before starting the lifting earlier in the year.

About combining I think the key factors are intensity and frequency. Both will be a bit lower in the gym for me when hitting the iron as long as I do Thai twice a week on top. I am hoping that when I start my eat-to-bulk phase soon I may have the energy/recovery to approach 3 lifting sessions + 2 thai sessions a week. I'll be happy with two strength sessions though if I push myself hard during those.

[maroon]

Another note. Power cleans seem great towards my Muay Thai as suggested by Neil; but I will only consider these when I have a decent strength foundation. I.e. minimum 3x5 squats @ 145kg. I think it will make more sense to do them when I have a stronger foundation to work the power with.

If I had somebody that could mentor me doing power cleans I'd start earlier.