5/3/1 W6D7: Deadlift
Deadlift: 5x135/225/285/325, 13x365 (PR)
Chins: 13/12/11/10/10
Prone Hamstring Curls: 100x12/10/8/7
Satisfying end to this cycle. Pulled something in the front of my neck during the top set around rep 8, so I only got 9 before dead stopping as opposed to the 10 I wanted. Not worth worrying about.
5/3/1 W7D1: Deload Bench
Pause Bench: 5x45/95/115/135, 1x155/175/190, 3x3 @ 135
DB Row (Pause at Top): 3x5 @ 75
Pushdowns: 3x10 @ 77.5
Obviously an extremely easy day, in and out pretty quick. The single at my TM moved easily, even with a relatively long pause. Still moving a little gingerly because of the neck thing (which has seemingly migrated towards my left trap/shoulder/neck/collarbone area,) but it has plenty of time to fix itself.
You have any experience with that? Coming in as a strong wrestler will make you an interesting challenge
Nope: zero BJJ-specific experience, save for getting triangled once in a demo. I’m excited to see what I can make of it though. I have about as good of a background for it as I could hope for.
I did some BJJ on my colleges club team. I’m still definitely a novice, but I can say, as a wrestler going to BJJ, there are 3 things to realize.
your takedowns are going to be better than most other people on the mat (besides all the other former wrestlers…which is a lot)
you will have a huge advantage over other novices, but expect to just get schooled in way you wouldn’t imagine.
And 3, the big one
DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR BACK!!!
I was TERRIBLE coming out of any scramble for the first few months because I was so used to avoiding the pin, that I would immediately flip over on instinct and get choked tf out lol. Don’t do that. It’s not fun.
All great stuff here.
I’ll add that, as a wrestler, you’re used to basically exploding for 6 minutes and then dying.
That can catch a jits player off guard, because it’s a TON of intensity in short order. But a really skilled guy will know how to hold out and stall long enough to let you run out of gas, and will then politely fold you into a pretzel while you have zero ability to fight back.
Don’t lose that wrestling edge, because it’s awesome, but it’s worth recognizing when intensity is being “misapplied”
^totally true point, and one that I find (for some reason) to be drastically more noticeable in GI competitions compared to no gi.
Thanks for all the advice, guys. I can already pretty much guarantee that the whole “instinctively not going to my back and getting choked” thing is going to happen a lot, lol.
5/3/1 W7D2: Rest
Stretching; Pull-Aparts
Got a 95 on my latest chem test (@throwawayfitness) and watched the school’s team play some football. Nice day all in all.
great work.
5/3/1 W7D3: Deload Squat
Squat: Work to 315x1 (TM Single)
Leg Press: 3x5 @ 315
Chins: 3x3 @ +50
Leg Extensions: 3x10 @ 160
Another easy Deload day. Single moved smooth enough, and neck feels pretty much back to 100%. Hopefully, wrestling tomorrow.
5/3/1 W7D4: Wrestling Open Mat + Easy Conditioning
Open Mat Practice
15:00 @ 3.5 MPH @ 15% Incline Walk
Open mat today had me passed back and forth between a high-school state champ and a ~290 heavyweight who was one match from placing in Fargo.
Ouch.
5/3/1 W7D5: Press
Press: Work to 160x1
Push Press: Work to 200x1 (Second-Attempt PR), 5x1 @ 135
Machine Preacher Curls: 4x10 @ 65
Pull-Aparts: 4x20
TM single moved easily, so I decided to mess around with some push presses. Missed 200 outright the first time, but reattempted and was able to lock the bar despite losing my footing. Nothing else all that remarkable.
This is tangential ranting, but one of my biggest pet peeves is having to have conversations about lifting (or really any fitness modality) with people who aren’t really into training themselves, or otherwise just don’t get it.
I get asked for advice and stuff fairly often (which I always find odd, since in my mind I’m still very much a beginner here,) and 90% of the time just point people in the direction of 5/3/1 / conditioning / eating more. That’s not what I’m complaining about - I enjoy lending that advice. The few people who have actually taken it are doing well for themselves. What I’m complaining about having to listen to someone who squats half of my press say that I shouldn’t lock my elbows during it, on the basis of some TicTok he had seen thirty minutes ago, or gawking at the amount of food I go through in a meal and wondering out loud how I’m not fatter. Or claiming that insert non-couch-sitting activity is going to destroy my/their/all of humanity’s collective insert body part. Bonus points if it’s my spine. Or telling me - as I wipe my own fucking shin blood off of the bar - that they don’t deadlift because big traps would ruin their aesthetics. While standing at a whopping 125 Lbs.
I’ve never seen anyone actually change their views on this stuff by having it explained to them, so I pretty much just smile and laugh through the conversations, but holy fuck it gets grating.
HUGE EDIT: Some actually productive stuff - rewatching the push press, it looks like the reason I lost my footing was that I let the bar get way too far in front of me. It’s definitely a lift where I’d benefit quite a bit from outright practice, since I’m extremely inconsistent with it as-is. One idea I had (which I’m 90% sure is just something from @T3hPwnisher which I just read a while ago and internalized) was to have a press day with press supplemental and a push press day with bench supplemental (and maybe dips). Maybe it’s falling into the trap of focusing too much on what I’m good at, but that sounds much more appealing than what I have now. And conveniently enough, now I have a max for it to run percentages with.
BJJ starts the 21st, and is going to be Tuesday/Friday/Sunday nights for about an hour (which is short enough that I’ll probably throw on a pretty generous amount of conditioning on top afterwards). This leaves me with a few options:
The one thing I really don’t want to do is go to only some wrestling practices and only some BJJ practices, since I’ll still end up paying full dues and do worse at both. One of the biggest factors that’ll probably end up affecting the way I go here is how competitively-oriented the BJJ club is. If we’re not going to be rolling hard, fielding a lineup at local tournaments, and doing at least some stand-up work, I doubt I’ll be very interested. But if it is competitively oriented, I honestly do like the idea of branching out from wrestling. Getting to be a complete neophyte again sounds really fun.
So here’s an actionable plan:
I’m hoping to get some advice from you all about all of this stuff, so fire away if you have anything.
Another solid way to get in some push press practice is with conditioning work. I’m a big fan of coming right out of a set of burpees or just coming off the floor in general and going straight into a set of push presses. Forces you to get good at being explosive in less than ideal situations.
Regarding jits vs wrestling, refresh my memory, but aren’t you at school on a wrestling scholarship? If so, no brainer: focus on wrestling, jits on the side, if at all. If not…
I’d still wrestle as a young man and focus on jits post graduate. Wrestling is a young man’s game: this would be the time to capitalize on it. You can do BJJ LONG into your life, but the window for wrestling is short.
Nah, the scholarship’s all for academics. We only have a club team for wrestling, so it doesn’t have money to hand out (not that I’d be good enough to get it anyways). As for the rest, good points. I still want to try out BJJ for a practice or two to see what I’m missing out on, but wrestling probably still has more to offer at this point. And push-pressing in conditioning is probably a better call than what I proposed there.
If you can’t make bjj practices consistently and don’t want to pay fees, you could probably talk to a local bjj club about coming to their open mat. They may let you in for free, because you are a wrestler and live rolling will help their guys out and you will learn, or they may make you pay an open mat fee.
That’s something I haven’t considered, thanks. I’ll have to see if there are any clubs around where I am.
This is probably the best access you’ll have to practices & others to drill with for wrestling. I would take advantage of that while you can, then switch to BJJ later if you still want to. Also to consider-the climate of the two is just so different. Wrestling practices just had a different intensity, & any time I’ve gone to try out a BJJ class it hasn’t been nearly the same. I didn’t enjoy BJJ nearly enough to join a gym because of that, but if I could go back & have the access to wrestling like I did in high school (& college assuming it’s similar for you) I would do that 100%.
With all that said, I think you said at one point you have four years of eligibility for wrestling, so if you take a year off to do BJJ & don’t like it, you can always come back if you’re doing the 5 year STEM MBA program (which is what you’re doing, right? I graduated from UA a couple years ago)
Either way, I’m sure trying it out will be good & from there you’ll be able to make a good decision
The new plan I’ve been running with is more along the lines of either spending the fifth year getting a bio masters, or just heading off to med school that year. I brought in ~1.5 years worth of credits from AP’s, so I’m really not pressed for time either way. I didn’t know you were an alum, by the way, that’s cool. Roll Tide. And thanks for the rest of the advice - it seems like the consensus on this is getting pretty solid.
5/3/1 W7D6: Wrestling Practice
Run ~1/2 Mile @ Moderate, Run Stairs & Footwork Drills
Stance & Motion 3x1:00
Shots & Snapdowns
Assorted Escapes
Assorted Breakdowns
Drill Extra ~30 Minutes w/ Partner & State Champ Dude: Screw-Lock Throws, Opp’s Coller-Tie—>Baseball Grip—>Single or Shuck
Solid day. Really liked the last move that got shown to me after practice - definitely going to work on that one more.