Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who Is the Fairtex of Them All?

Bigger Stronger Leaner
1

I have been mulling the idea of starting a new training journal on T-Nation for some time, but for the longest time I didn’t see enough justification for it. This does, however, impel me towards accountability.

Over the last year my Fight Monkey Chinese made Muay Thai bag has been getting ridiculously mush at both ends. The setup I have with my current residence it to have the bag sitting on the floor, end on, and have a bracing and padding setup to avoid wrecking the apartment. My previous setup actually did wreck a section of drywall, the landlord family is cool assuming I repair it before such time as I move out. The noise that still comes from it is also cool because they have children who stampede around, and they appreciate that I need exercise.

The Fight Monkey, cumulatively of headshots, has gone totally mush at both ends and I started over the last couple of months to look for a replacement. I could get an American made version of the same thing for $300 subtotal, but I thought I should cast a wider net for something that will keep my happy for years.

I did a web search and the Rival name came up. I tried to buy one from several locations but nobody was in stock. I eventually contacted one of their authorized retailers, Mickey’s Fight Company in Woodbridge, Ontario. He didn’t have one either but offered me a Fairtex banana that he was saying would be between 140lb and 120lbs. He asked CDN $450 + $58.50 tax and then $70 for delivery to my location in Mississauga. I thought to risk the Caveat Emptor and gave him my card details.

This past Wednesday morning it was delivered and I could easily carry it inside and into my apartment. My scale thinks it is 109lb, and it must be close. It was also loosely packed. I contacted him and he said that it would dense up and I would over time feel the need to pack more fabric inside it.

I of course couldn’t resist going at this Fairtiex in the near term, and it is distinctly soft and giving all through. I think tomorrow I am going to take some material from my old bag and see if I can leg press a solution through the top.

So today I did about a 45 minute session, 3 minutes on and 1 minute off. As my setup only allows about a 90 degree traverse, kicks are front and oblique. In order to video record this, I had to turn on a light in the area that I normally don’t, and I felt a bit self conscious knowing I am on camera. Still, I can’t resist starting this journal thread.

I need from my own observation need to tune up a lot of things, but I expect the accountability aspect of a journal will spur me in the right direction.

What I am posting below are 3 rounds later in the session, yes, I expect to improve.

2

It occurs to me straight off with the objectivity of the videos that my striking speed is terrible. I suspect also my movement. Also, when going down a level I barely go down, I had thought it was lower.

A coworker recently gave me the contact information of two different fight gyms, I have to wait until I have all of the time, energy and money to really benefit before I seriously look into it.

This Fairtex bag is MUSH. I just today robbed some the stuffing from my old bag and added it to the Fairtex. I had it on the ground and I stuffed some in, grabbed the straps, leg pressed hard, added some more and so on. I now have it standing and leaning where it won’t fall over with the top that had the new material down. Hopefully by the time I do tomorrow morning’s session it will have settled in a bit. The bottom end that is up doesn’t seem too loose, but I will find out tomorrow after a few strikes.

Supplementation. While I know that pro fighters have advanced supplement regimens, anybody who teaches amateurs sort of looks at anyone asking for such advice as space cadets. I know that @zecarlo says he uses beta alanine and Branched Chain amino acids for his kickboxing. I turn 54 at some point this month and figure that due to the slowing down with age I have a particular imperative to enhance performance and recovery.

A typical training day intake looks like this:

Breakfast/pre workout meal
1 banana
coffee with almond beverage (I reduce coffee to befit a preworkout formula on training days)
3 scoops of Redcon1 meal replacement powder with 250ml of almond beverage and water.
1,000 IU of vitamin D
500mg of Vitamin C
1 gram of fish oil

from the end of breakfast/pwo meal until I take my preworkout formula I time 45 minutes.
Another 30 minutes for the formula to absorb. I also add Creatine Monohydrate 5grams and 5 grams of glutamine to the formula. If the formula has no vitamins, then a take a half day’s dosing of a multivitamin (relying on the rest of my day’s diet to provide the rest of my needs).

Post workout I take some sort of creatine product and another 5 grams of glutamine. Since using Cell Tech Creactor and the glutamine I find I recover very well.

Another session tomorrow, I will see if I can address issues.

3

I did about 40 minutes on the bag yesterday, but scrutiny of the videos I made didn’t yield any sign of near term improvement. So I didn’t post them. I did get some good old fashioned exercise, so I can at least be partially content.

I just stuffed some additional stuffing from my old bag and have it sitting upside down with the top that I was barely able to close down. I expect the bulge to settle throughout the bag.

For tomorrow I am looking forwards to faster execution speed and more varied movement. I also notice many of my shots are too close and I don’t get full extension.

More as it comes to me.

4

I would have done a session yesterday except that I didn’t get enough sleep the night before. I got a lot of work done and hope that nothing comes back at me later as a mistake. I have worried about this in the past and all ended well. It seems that during the work week I end up at the end of it underslept. I only got about enough last night, I will go for a marathon tonight, but insisted on not missing another day.

I did about 45 minutes on my new Fairtex bag today. I already had opened the top and robbed material from my old bag to stuff into the new one. I laid it on the floor, opened the top, grabbed the straps and leg pressed hard to pack down the existing fill. I then grabbed a large clump of material from the old bag, fit it into position, and leg pressed that like hell. I carefully zipped it closed without snagging anything and noticed that it looked pregnant. I stood the bag up and leaned it up against something that would keep it into position such the the top was down and gave a day or so for the new fill to be compacted. For today’s session I had it right side up and still noticed over the course of the session that it was getting mush. Still, I have more material to fill in the Fairtex, later today.

As to my actual session, I was still a little unwilling to get out of bed, and the use of 1 coffee and a good preworkout formula only slightly perked me up. One has to be able to come up with effort even when one doesn’t feel like it, I think @idaho says this all the time.

i made 4 videos, and the closest to good pieces of corn are these two. In a sense I put a maybe good effort in, although I was fooling myself during the session as to how consistently I was keeping my hands up.

Hate it or not, these:

After the session I did grip work with my Gripmaster by Prohands that I got clearance priced last year. I try to keep it up every 4 days, I train I try at least every 2 days so hopefully I don’t overtrain it. At work I have grip strength to recover as I can’t hold boxes well enough with one hand.

As to recovery, the supplementation I have been using leaves my muscles not as if they are depleted and sore.

More as it comes to me.

Any good pieces of corn here anyone?

5

I had a largely restful weekend but felt low energy on Monday morning. I thought to forge through this and did about a 30 minute session on the bag. I made 3 videos, but want to wait until I think there is an actual improvement before posting any. I got a lot done at work, but was constantly catching myself making mistakes. Hopefully none got past me, I have always got through before.

6

this past week has been my usual predicament of not quite enough sleep until the weekend. I am only partly sure why, I do eat when I get home and try to time an hour before I head to bed. Usually after 6 hours of sleep I have to get up and piss, but at such a timing I don’t always drop off to sleep again. I might get some cheap dozing sleep, but just that.

I still find I can perform at work, with accuracy and a high order completion rate. I don’t know what it is. My contract was extended until May 20 and after that I might have more breathing room to seek out an actual fight gym. A coworker gave me the number to two places, one of which her son trains at. that is a start. For the time being I am just training at home. And what to it?

I did after some reasonable sleep a 30 minute session on the bag. The first round was just jabs, the next two just general boxing. I waited until after that to involve legs, but I am beginning to think I can handle 2 weapons much better than the added ones. Maybe just stick to boxing? I ask. I made a ream of videos, and selected to post here my 2nd and 3rd rounds, again just boxing.

Is this at least Green Giant Peaches and Cream?

7

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at the lack of outside input here: I have posted the same plodding videos of slightly stunted technique and slow speed.

Over the last week I have been having difficulty getting a truly restful sleep, and I have also dedicated a lot of energy towards work. I am surprised that I haven’t badly done anything wrong, and I look ahead to later this month when the contract expires and I can do a better job of training.

I did some sessions and scoffed at the quality of videos I have produced. I am at Sunday and had all yesterday to hybridize with Fifi, so I was keen getting up this morning to see what I can produce.

I had a little speech with myself and said look, this has to look like fighting. More shuffling around, more head movement. think of a combination, execute quickly and shuffle off somewhere else. I post this video and wonder if maybe I still haven’t achieved this.

Fatigue is the enemy, and I figure I still am plodding.

More as to what I will do to rectify this, I think I mentioned above that a co worker gave me contact information of 2 combat sports gyms. After contract end I should have reserves of money to buy a membership and have some time and energy to use it. Right now it is impractical.

8

Dont take this personal, most training logs don’t get a lot of traffic - even less if they aren’t directly related to some form of weightlifting. Moreover, it is particularly hard to give feedback to someone when it’s about any type of MMA training… Imagine trying to critique someone on a BJJ move when they are using a training dummy (it just wouldn’t work out well).

As someone who has never done boxing, but has martial arts background - I can say your footwork needs help, your guard needs to do a better job of protecting your chin, you gotta work on hitting speed (pull your hand back after striking!) and you have to stop telegraphing your hits with your feet. You ‘pounce’ before you hit 90% of the time… drive comes from the back foot, not from the front foot falling forward.
Don’t take this as harsh, please. No one is good at fighting until they’ve lost a LOT.

As you pointed to, these will help you out far more than any internet feedback would.

Oh, and leave the kicks out of it for now lol. Work on your flexibility and cardio - you will need both when you start training in a combat gym (there was never once a boxer who had too good of conditioning).

9

thanks for the words. I have had over the last several years another journal or 2 and I got told soundly then. Maybe it is that I got on Boxing Day a good deal on training shoes; I am willing to sweat them up but they have treads that give a firm grip as they are more for keeping one’s feet from splaying when doing squats etc.

I also notice that I am far to square with the bag, I should be more bladed.

The good takeaway is that I got a good sweat that is evidence of good physical exercise, and it isn’t everyone in their 50s that tries this. This journal was started to keep it in my mind that others at least view. When I get better rested maybe I can dig into it with a better mind to technique, and then there is joining a fight gym.

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10

I recall you starting a thread a few years ago about training to slam someone with either sand bags or a grappling dummy. It sounded like a good workout but I expressed my doubts that it would actually lead to the ability to pick up and slam a person in a violent situation. I feel similarly about anyone training for combat solo at any age. You can only get so far training alone, and it isn’t very far.

If you’re using your bag training as a workout everything looks great. Keep working hard.

If you’re serious about developing your combat skills, you need to train under a coach who can help you get there. Pick a discipline that’s available in your area and go train. Plenty of guys in their 50’s do. My town has a fighter with a winning record in amateur MMA who has to be pushing 60 now. I don’t know him but I’ve trained with plenty of people from his gym.

Here he is giving some young guy the business.

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11

It occurs to me that I haven’t posted lately. I took a week off of training (I had been at it for a while before this journal started) and I was putting a lot of energy in at work.

I got to it yesterday, and the videos are the same mess, I thought they would look better. I admit that I need the long weekend (it is Victoria Day weekend here in Canada) meaning I am tired. I will get more sleep tonight and see how I howl at it tomorrow.

12

Again, my week was topsy turvy.

I late on Tuesday got an offer of employment with the agency client company I have been working at for 7 months. The pay is higher, there might be weeks I get fewer hours which I like because I don’t want to do 37.5 paid hours every week seemingly forever. I like to gear down a bit every once in a while. this variability suits me fine.

I could have gone to a global groove dance event early this evening, but not only was I going through great stress getting the onboarding done this past week before the employment offer would have expired, I got news late thursday that my Mother wouldn’t survive until daylight Friday.

I took the news well. At work on Friday I told a few people who mentioned that I could take 2 paid days off for bereavement. Mom didn’t want a funeral anyway and I figured I have just onboarded and I will get going with my increased work responsibilities immediately on Monday. As a temp I didn’t have a computer login, I will have to deal with that as well as my other regular duties. The pay went up, but so did my responsibilities.

So, I just got word this morning that Mom is not really dead but still is in a long term care facility on pain medication and is still in serious shape. I spoke to her by phone and she was hard to understand. I mentioned that I took it well on Thursday but when talking to her after not having done so for over 20 years (no, neither of us was in pennitentiary) and her getting possibly near the end I got teary eyed and tried hard to contain myself.

I did get a session in earlier today on the bag just boxing. It was a short session that I didn’t record and then after I used my Gripmaster. Since I only took so much out of myself today, I think tomorrow before work I will do weighted carries. that gives more benefit to my legs and posterior chain generally.

Soon I will take delivery of a large number of Haagen Dasz ice cream cartons, I find that when i perform at this job at a high level I gravitate towards it.

13

The first two weeks as a regular employee have been demanding, as I have computer work to do in addition to having my usual quota of other work done. Also, the online modules I have to go through number over a dozen. I was going to get some of it done this weekend, but I ended up leaving work early on Friday due to a slightly sore throat. Lots of sleep later I am confident in my coming work week. I did a bit of stuff online today, but much more remains.

I will have to hold off for a few days before I can get any exercise. i get some at work,but still I want to get serious with Mr Fairtex.

In the meantime, this cropped up on a Canadian newspaper:

I know some people are anti war, which is in a sense understandable. Others are anti society and I wonder which category this person they caught is in.

This to me is sad as it was one of those machines that got shot at a lot and we Canadians rescued the Netherlands from being destroyed by the Waffen SS.

@idaho what is your take on this?

14

A non educated idiot, who has no knowledge of history, never realizing the true measure of the tremendous courage displayed by the veterans of WW11. However, it does not surprise me thou, since history is being semantically replaced by those who never lived through war.

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15

Younger fat guy must have taken this fight on a bet after too many cocktails…lol

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16

I suppose I should keep my own fucking journal going.

I have been focusing a lot on my new job (it is the same one I was temp at and got hired on from) and I have at times been going at the banana bag. I just haven’t given it the attention I really intended at the beginning of this journal.

Recently it occurred to me to stop plodding around and at the bag, even if I get some good exercise at it. I must focus on the bag being a dangerous opponent and see if I can execute lightning fast movements to ‘out fox’ it. that is what fighting has to look like.

As to my coworker having some time ago given me the contact info on two different fight gyms in my city, I have I think the money for a membership but not the time and energy. It isn’t as if I am doing continental shifts or anything, I just find I slowly gear up my day ahead of work and don’t want to divide my attention between that and some distraction.

that said, tomorrow is Canada Day and I have the day off. I will make some videos and see if I have anything worth posting.

17

So today I did a training session. I waited until an earlier in the day errand was done, and found myself in the unusual position of doing this not early in the day. I slept a lot last night, and I figure I got the benefit of it.

I am trying with this today to go back to basics in the sense of it has to look like I am trying to outfox someone else and ding them. I didn’t go for a 45 minute session, I kept it to about 30 minutes, with the warmup being shadow boxing in front of my mirror.

The videos posted today are the first two on the bag, I took my BCAAs after the second. I figure I slowly started showing fatigue and was dawdling later, so that is why I post here the first two rounds.

18

I am curious as to why T-Nation switched to a log in only format. I figure it might take some people time as casual browsers to sample the board, and later might decide to join.

19

I realize that I have gone over a week without updates here, and I have been doing some training sessions. I am trying to be mindful to make it look more like fighting, but with the kind of energy I put out in the course of my employment I am often sluggish when trying to get some high activity striking happening.

Today was a 45 minute approximate session, and after 2 rounds of shadow boxing to warm up I made several videos of my earlier rounds on the bag. Here is the first of those:

I still find that during the mornings before afternoon shift work I don’t have it in me to get up early, shower, travel to a gym, spend time and effort following a training plan, shower again and then show for work. I will try if in the coming weeks I get a reduced hours schedule to actually do this. Maybe I am best hiring a coach for a one on one and using the time after to drill in what he recommends.

If I have more time and energy, there is less money, but lately I think I am doing well in that area.

20

As to today, I decided that I hadn’t done weighted carries in months and there should have a day of it. My bag I the other week stuffed more material into, this is the fourth occasion. I figure it must have some good weight, a figure coming soon.

The format is to stand the bag up, in a stance with right foot for\ward of my left I used my right hand to grab the bottom of the bag and lift it to my left shoulder. I then walked the length of my apartment, I think 23 feet. then I turn around and walk back to the beginning end to put it down. 90 seconds later I lift it the other way onto my right shoulder and alternate back and forth.

I got 9 lifts and carries before calling it enough.

I got to work later and ran across the supervisor who heaped great praise upon my efforts. That felt good.