The Dude Abides...

[KC Masterpiece]

1997-2000: Swam 18-24 hours a week. Used weights during the academic year about twice a week. During summers, 4 times. Lots of beer, cigarettes, meat and dairy. BW=79.5kg

2000-2001: Ran, lifted, swam a lot in preparation for US Marine Corps Officer Training. Little to no booze or tobacco. Still lots of meat and dairy. BW 82kg

2001-2002: Completed USMC training. Never looked back. Kept working out and running. BW 82kg

2002-2006: Almost totally sedentary. Flirted with vegetarianism a bit, but ingested a TON of booze and cigarettes and meat and dairy. Really a freak show in hindsight. BW between 92-98kg

2006-2009: Graduated college, lived by myself, worked out like a fiend, still smokin, not drinking nearly as much. Met a stunning woman who was vegetarian for 11+ years.... moved to San Francisco, went vegan (before her!! My brother and college roomate were vegans), finally emerged out of self-righteous quarterlife crisis and want to get back in training gear. Especially after finding out about a mild case of spinal stenosis, a back "problem" pretty rare in anyone under 50, let alone 30, but it can be worked with. BW 84kg

GOALS: drastically increase strength (overall and especially core strength) and begin training to compete in MMA. Any workouts I do is prep for future MMA training (first and foremost Muay Thai, BJJ as cross-training). I'm focusing on strength because that's always kind of been a weak point. I hope to adjust accordingly when the time is right. BW 87kg

Strength:

3 month - 250kg strength table totals(83s, 62b, 105d)
6 month - 300kg totals (100s, 75b, 125d)
1 year - 350kg totals (117s, 88b, 145d)

MMA:

3 month - Simply keep up to the best of my ability and attend all classes I set out to.
6 month - Build on what I will have learned during the first 3 months. Maybe spar 3 rounds at this point?
1 year - Be prepared for an amatuer fight within one year of this point
2-3 years - Have fought several times as an amateur (and WON of course)

MMA goals not as clear cut as strength b/c never done an MA before. Will update all but the first as necessary.

4/6/2009

[KC Masterpiece]

As the second of my first two weeks with the new routine comes to a close, I'll give you the general idea.

It's supposed to be 6 days a week (Sunday off), but i'm working to that, currently at 4 days a week. There are two main workouts that you alternate day-by-day: Strength & Stretch and Core & Cardio.

Strength & Stretch

5 min light cardio warmup
5 min light stretching

Strength: 8 sets, 10 concentrated reps each (working to 15 before increasing weight) for upper body 15 reps (working to 20) for lower, with little to no rest between sets.

1. Push Ups (max, not 10)
2. Single Dumbbell Bent Row, alternating
3. Dumbbell Squats
4. Lunge Pumps: similar to a forward single-leg lunge, but you step backwards and bend down, emphasising the "squatting" leg
5. Rotation Dumbbell Press
6. Trapezius Alphabet: using very light weights, lie down on Ball or bench, and do three sets of 10-15. Extend arms that make three different "letters" V, W, and M. Kind of hard to explain, i'll try to find pics.
7. Dips, with/without bench
8. Dumbbell Curls

10 minutes Cardio at target heart rate (120-100) declining to around 90-80 bpm

Stretch:

13 sets, 10-20 seconds each, gentle stretching, dynamic movement to following stretches if possible.

1. Neck Roll
2. Shoulder Roll
3. Standing Back Bend
4. Standing Front Bend
5. Narrow Stance Side Bend (to 3 and 9 o'clock)
6. Knee to Chest hug
7. Knee to side
8. Hammy stretch
9. Swing wide
10. Across the body
11. Lying glute stretch
12. Back Arch
13. Cat Cow

I also add some other basic upper body stretches after this; not much of it directly addresses the arms/chest/back.

It's been going well so far. The stretches are a delicate thing to get a hold of, still working on it slowly. The lunge pumps and trapezius alphabet's are BRUTAL. My form is horrible on both and am working on technique with now before I increase either weight or reps.

I'm thinking maybe try 5 days next week, see how that goes, and tinker with weights, reps and days from there.

[KC Masterpiece]

The second half of the work out, which is supposed to be done 3 times a week, is the core & cardio. I'll post the core workout soon. The cardio is progressively increased in two week increments.

Weeks One and Two:
(this follows the core workout, with a brief rest in between)

Run:
2 min warmup
5 min easy (90-100bpm)
5 min target (120-130bpm)
5 min easy
2 min warmdown

It's gone well so far. I haven't run since 2001 when I completed Marine Officer traning (I didn't do active duty--its a long story). Back then my 5k was hi 21 lo 22 minutes. Not exactly the case anymore, as i'm finding out.

In any case the running felt really good which I was suprised about. Hopefully it'll stick.

[puppydog]

Hey,
thanks for sharing your training with us, looks good. Definitely a good idea to have some base fitness before you start MMA ... without it people will be rolling all over you!

[Rochellita]

Good luck with your goals. I had to do a search on lumbar spinal stenosis as I haven't heard of it before, and it's great that you are training hard in spite of it.

[KC Masterpiece]

Hey,
thanks for sharing your training with us, looks good. Definitely a good idea to have some base fitness before you start MMA ... without it people will be rolling all over you!

Thanks for the comments. Yeah its embarrasing enough just being in a weight room after all this time off. I'm gonna take things slow; want to make the MMA training (not to mention the $$ to do so) worthwhile.

[KC Masterpiece]

Good luck with your goals. I had to do a search on lumbar spinal stenosis as I haven't heard of it before, and it's great that you are training hard in spite of it.

Thanks for the encouragment! It usually only occurs in older people, so i'm still confused as to how it got me now. Anyway, I figured I could either ignore it and wait till it puts me in early retirement, or try to counteract it. I'm quite pleased that I haven't even noticed the back since I started training two weeks ago (especially since I'm doing *light* back extensions!).

[KC Masterpiece]

Here's the core workout, as promised:

10 excersizes, 1 set of 10 (work to 15) reps. Little to no rest between sets.

1. Hanging single knee raises
2. Cross ball reach (not many medicine balls in my tiny gym; working with 10 lb weight for now)
3. Lying toe touch*
4. Lying heel touch*
5. Glute Bridge
6. Prone crossover*
7. Back extensions (with 10lb weight)
8. Adductor Raises
9. Abductor Raises
10. Planks (10 seconds each: Up, right side, Down, left side)

I really feel the starred sets on my abs, hamstrings and lower back, respectively... in a good way...

For most of these, since they are so low resistance, i'm really working form and thrusting as much as possible at the peak of the movement, like raising to a glute bridge: fast and hard to peak and then down slowly, repeat, etc.

The prone crossover has gone especially well; good for back and hamstring flexibility as well as strength.

Did the core and cardio workout today. The core went really well despite the three day weekend! Changed cardio from weeks one and two to the workout for weeks three and four:

2 min warmup
5 min easy (about 12 min mile pace)
5 min target heart rate (8 min mile pace)
2 min easy
5 min target
5 min easy
2 min warmdown

Felt good--I wanted to keep going, but I have a habit of doing too much too soon so I "took it easy" so I can recover enough for a full week of workouts. This 22 minutes was also the most i've run in probably 8 years.

[KC Masterpiece]

Did the core and cardio workout today. The core went really well despite the three day weekend!

...This 22 minutes was also the most i've run in probably 8 years.

Yeah so these 22 minutes may have felt good at the time, but apparently the three day weekend was waiting to make itself felt the day after. So much so that I didn't make it this morning for the strenght and stretch

Nothing was immovably sore, which is a good sign, but sore enough for me to forget hitting the snooze this morning and thus missing the workout.

High hopes for tommorrow.

[KC Masterpiece]

Strength and Stretch today. For some reason I decided to get all my strength moves up to the max reps (15 for UB or 20 for LB), so that I could go back down to 10/15 reps with a higher weight next week. Feelin it now.

Push ups - 15
BOR - 15 @ 35
Squats - 20 @ 60
Rotation Press - 10 @ 50
Trapezius Alpha - 15 @ 6 lbs -- it still burned like hell
Dips (not bench dips) - 10 (3 clean, 6 with toes touching ground, 1 assisted)
Curls - 15 @ 20

I cut out the lunge pumps--so awkward that I felt on the verge of injury; didn't work my quads or hams at all, it was more glute but it just didn't feel right.

I also cut out bench dips. I hope to be at 10 clean dips by mid march.

Food Yesterday:

2 scoops vega
3 small bowls cereal
"salami" sandwhich (large) with lettuce, aoili , and olive spread
lasagna with a side of nutter butters

Food needs work, but workout felt good.

[KC Masterpiece]

Oh also, bodyweight tabs:

Weight at beginning of program (2/1): 190 lbs
Weight at end of week one (2/6): 187
Weight at end of week three (2/19): 185

[KC Masterpiece]

Core & Cardio:

Core:

1. Hanging single knee raises - 15 each
2. Cross ball reach (not many medicine balls in my tiny gym; working with 10 lb weight for now) - 20
3. Lying toe touch* - 15 each side
4. Lying heel touch* - 15 each side
5. Glute Bridge 15
6. Prone crossover* -15 each side
7. Back extensions (with 10lb weight) - 15
8. Adductor Raises - 15 @ 50lbs
9. Abductor Raises - 15 @ 50 lbs
10. Planks - 15 seconds each: Up, right side, Down, left side

Everything felt great. Good form, etc. By the planks I was quivering like a cat in a rainstorm. Maybe one more with this work out, then i'll progress to the second phase that adds several moves and takes some away from the existing one.

Cardio:

5 min easy 12 min/mile pace
5 min target 8 min/mile
2 easy
5 target (worked up 1-min increments from 10 to 7:30 min/mile pace)
5 easy
2 warm down

Run was bad I incremented for my second target 5-min block because I had little choice after blasting out the first block. Maybe I should switch the two so that I get the most out of the second block when my bpm is really goin'. At least another week with this cardio routine.

[KC Masterpiece]

Ugh, long story short, I'm not training until Thursday. The circumstances are such that if I trained as I have been the last few weeks, i'd burnout or at the very least watch as my job or school work suffered.

Taking two days off to recover and get back at it on Thursday.

[puppydog]

you might want to reconsider - performing terribly at my job hasn't seemed to have much effect on my career. In fact, it's earned me more and more promotions.

keep training, get big and strong, and they'll be afraid to fire you!

[KC Masterpiece]

Come to think of it, that is basically how I got to the position i'm now in.....

Basically I got sucker punched three times outside a friends house in one of San Francisco's quietest residential neighborhoods. Go figure.

I didn't want to let that bastard throw me off my training schedule but come Monday morning, I couldn't exactly get out of bed due to neck and face stiffness...

Now 10 years since my first "street fight" its never been more clear how stupid and dangerous a thing it is. Hence my desire to officially compete in a sport where all risks are knowingly assumed and all bouts are regulated rather than duke it out on the street and risk permanent injury or death.

Though I had the foresight not to "fight back" (four on one are not the best odds) the pain was more tolerable knowing they didnt' get my stuff and that my chin tested well.

Back on the horse tomorrow!