Young and Relentless

Bigger Stronger Leaner
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Hey Guys,
I’ve been reading the articles and forums on T-Nation for about 2 years now but as you can see from the amount of posts I have I am more of a lurker… soaking up information and applying it to my lifting programs and nutrition trying to build the best program for myself, but it’s time I get involved in the community.

I want the accountability of posting up my workouts and progress to make sure I am making regular progress (I always do much better when recording my weights and notes on my workouts, yet it only lasts a month or so and I stop wanting to write everything down… so I hope to keep this thread running as long as possible.)

LIFTING HISTORY:
My dad was a professional football player up in Canada in the 80’s and taught me how to lift weights as a teenager and help me earn a starting spot on the highschool football team by gaining strength and size. I started out weighing 150 probably at 6 foot tall!!

I left football and competed in the NPC as a teenager placing 1st in the lightweights (sub 180) and 2nd overall at my first contest (after two years of serious training).

In college I studied kinesiology and started reading T-Nation and learning as much as possible and started training pretty hardcore 6 times a week with a large focus on compound lifts and was able to gain around 80 pounds over the four years. (I’m back down to a leaner, more sexy 210!)

On top of bodybuilding I also trained with powerlifters and strongmen while in college and was able to max out on the Deadlift with 600 lbs (with straps) and 500 without, 495 lbs on the Squat, and 335 lbs on the Bench (always the weakest of the three, even if trained twice a week).

I started studying MMA and BJJ as a new way of mastering my body and directing my passion for all things intensely physical.

And that’s when I fell in love… I absolutely love slinging iron and building muscle but I needed something to do with that size and strength, ya know? I didn’t want to be “all show and no go”.

I’ve been training 8-9 months now, but the first 7 months were at a school that I could only go to 3 classes a week (I loved the school, the coach and fellow trainees, but I needed more) down in Virginia where I went to school.

Now I am graduated and moved back to Canada and have the ability/access to about 25 hours of MMA/BJJ classes a week, which is awesome!

I’m working as a bouncer right now late nights on weekends mostly so I have the ability and means to train like I am a professional fighter almost. I can train cardio, strength and technique everyday of the week and eat big too!

Since being home the last 6 weeks I’ve gained 15 pounds, boosted the strength levels big time and learned more fight strategy and technique then I could have in all previous months put together.

I’ve had one amateur fight as of right now. I fought middleweight 185lbs, but when I stepped in the ring was probably 200 lbs. (Easy to lose weight because of bodybuilding) It was this past November and I was able to end it by ground and pound in about 1:40 I think… Here’s the video:

Half way decent for my first fight I guess.

On to the present. I have my second fight coming up in almost exactly two months (March 21st) and I’m gonna log my weight training, technique and cardio for my own good, for critique from you guys that have been in the game a lot longer than me, and to let T-Nation know how I’m progressing as an athlete.

This should be an adventure and hopefully this turns into something awesome and the next two months of training turn me into a monster. Come along for the ride…

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420×560 40 KB

From the 2006 Rochester Bodybuilding Championships.
1st in the Lightweight Teens division.
2nd overall Teens.

Before I ever threw leather or kicked someone in the head or armbarred anyone… I’m glad I did it for sure but not sure if I ever need to step on stage in a speedo again. lol Just part of the journey of getting to where I am today…

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The day I deadlifted 600 lbs is still one of my favourite and most fond memories of lifting. My buddies company Basic Nutrition was at the gym to do a photo shoot for his website, and me and about 10 of my friends were all lifting back that day pretty much dominating every olympic bar and free space in the gym.

It’s funny looking back on it now cause as soon as I went above 500 pounds literally absolutely everyone in the school’s gym stopped lifting and was just staring at me. There was probably about 120 people cause it was 5 o’clock in the afternoon… I could feel their eyes burning into me. They either wanted to see a feat of strength or someone get torn in two and left crippled after a lift gone bad.

Luckily for me it was the first of the two. With people screaming at me and slapping me in the lats and telling me I can’t pansy-out, I strapped up ( never strap anymore…and forearms have grown tremendously thanks to that) dug in, and ripped that weight like nobodies business.

For months I tried to beat that one-rep max but was never able to pulled 605.

I’ve obviously moved onto other styles of training but the deadlift still remains one of my favorite exercises and is always included in my training routine and I think having powerful hips will help with knockout power… Am I right? Hope so… lol

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Good luck man, and sick deadlift.

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Alright… so that’s enough background on me. You all know where I’ve been and where I’m going… Let’s get down to the training.

STRENGTH:
The program I’m gonna use for the next two months is gonna look like this:
Monday & Thursday: Pull
Tuesday & Friday: Push
Saturday: Lower Body

“PUSH”
Clean & Military Press 5 x 5 (only one clean and fives presses in a row)
Flat Bench 5 x 5 (powerlifting style, elbows tucked, lats involved)
Incline Bench 5 x 5
Javeline Press 5 x 5 each (from the Monday’s with Christian article a few weeks back)

“PULL”
Deadlift 5 x 5 (alternate grip, no straps)
Barbell Rows 5 x 5 (overhand grip)
Barbell Shrugs 5 x 5 (alternate grip, no straps)
Upright Rows 5 x 5 (my shoulders like these not sure why people hate on em!)

“LEGS”
Squats 5 x 5
Straight Leg Deads 5 x 5
Front Squats 3 x 12
Hamstring Curls 3 x 12

I think I have pretty much most angles covered (horizontal push and pull, vertical push, hip and quad dominant) We do chin ups (vertical pull) and tons of rotational core work at class.

Between every set of each of every exercise I rest for two minutes using a stopwatch. For the first 30 seconds of that rest though I am doing some kind of assistance, pre-hab, core or “beauty” exercise (planks, biceps curls, sit ups, leg raises, alternate leg raise, kettlebell swings, turkish get-ups, hammer curls, wrestling neck bridges, and bicycle crunches) for as many reps as possible, not trying to destroy myself but get a good burn going and get myself sweating. So really I get a minute and a half of just standing around, sipping water and listening to music getting ready for the next set…

Like most 5 by 5 workouts, the plan is that if I am able to use the same weight for all five reps on all five sets for both workouts ( push and pull) or the one workout (legs) then I must raise the weight 5 pounds and work with that new weight until I can lift THAT new weight for 5 by 5. Easy, ya know? Forced progression and now that it’s written down it’s easy to remember what I need to be lifting for my work sets and if I need to turn up the intensity at all.

And that’s how I plan on getting stronger over the next 2 months.

Any glaring flaws? Anything to improve or alter? Let me know…

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your a strong dude…

that seems like a lot of weight training
for a n aspiring fighter…
what are your recovery plans?
and how many hours is this realitive to the rest of your training?

and why are you benching?

kmc

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CONDITIONING:
What good is that strength gonna be if I gas in the first minute of the fight right? So I also have to be focusing on that aspect of training as well. The fight is a GCA (Global Combat Alliance) amateur fight which means it is a 3 minute 3 round right.

I think people have called these smoker fights before cause 3 minutes isn’t that long and a smoker could do it… but I want to be able to be an aggressor for the entire fight meaning I need to be in great shape.

All 7 mornings of the week start at 8 or 9 and I’ll do 42 minutes on the exercise bike which ends up being between 25-27 kilometers (sorry Americans… we love that metric system). Why 42 minutes you ask? Well cause that’s exactly how long an episode of The Ultimate Fighter is. I do this fasted while sipping on one of those diet blue Monster energy drinks… I hate coffee!

It’s a good way for me to wake up get some blood flowing, challenge my self a little bit (it’s no spin class!), watch people train to get me in the mood for the day and break a sweat. After that I’ll do 20 minutes of shadow boxing to loosen up the upper body while listening to Saigon, Rage Against the Machine or Eminem… any thing to get me amped up.

I’ll go eat breakfast and read my Bible and then do one of my 5x5 workouts on 5 days a week and relax if it’s a wedneday or go to church if it’s a sunday.

That’s some aerobic work. Most of my anerobic and fight conditioning is gonna come from my classes. Every class (at least one a day sometimes 3 a day) starts off with 30 minutes of pretty intense conditioning… jumping rope, bear crawls, partner squats, 100’s of push-ups, sprawls, sit ups, lunges, stride jumps, jumping jacks, rolls, chin ups, jui jitsu partner drills and what now.

Then we work techniques for 45 minutes to an hour and then spar or roll which really works the conditioning too.

So I usually don’t have to worry too much about staying in fight shape. As these next two months go on if I’m going to every class I can I doubt that I am gonna gas. At least I hope.

Maybe as the fight gets closer I should program in some of my own stuff, but like I said they beat the crap out of us in class… not so much we can’t recover but enough that we will be ready for anything!

You guys do anything special or out of the ordinary to get into fight shape during your preparation that I should think about?

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[quote]kmcnyc wrote:
your a strong dude…

that seems like a lot of weight training
for a n aspiring fighter…
what are your recovery plans?
and how many hours is this realitive to the rest of your training?

and why are you benching?

kmc[/quote]

Any reason not to bench? Matt Hughes could bench 450, right?
And GSP is benching 120 lb dumbbells in that video on youtube? Isn’t it smart to be strong in all angles and directions? I never understood the whole fighters should bench thing…

It is a lot of weight training. But like I said I absolutely love lifting, and the mentality of never surrendering to the iron and pushing myself as hard as possible always translates to other aspects of my life, i.e fighting, relationships, jobs, school, what not.

As far as recovery goes, I don’t get very sore from 5x5 really. It’s enough to build strength and I know that I pushed myself hard, but I don’t get tight or sore like when I did bodybuilding hypertrophy workouts, ya know?

I also eat between 4000-5000 calories a day, over 300 grams of protein, using creatine, and an awesome vitamin kit similar to animal pak, fish oil and lots of healthy fats from peanut butter and cashews, almonds and such.

All 5 workouts take about 6-7 hours to complete and when compared to the 20 hours or so of technique training it’s a smaller faction of total training time.

I get at least 8-9 hours of sleep a night and if not I’ll nap in the afternoon to make up for it.

Like I said I’m only working on weekend nights bouncing and live a relatively stress free life right now so I can dedicate myself to something this intense.

But we’ll give it a few weeks… I’m humble enough to know if I’m moving too slow or am risking injury I’ll knock them down to 3 per week…

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TECHNIQUE:
The school that I studying offers around 23 hours of class a week for 100 dollars a month, which if you went to every single class would be about a dollar an hour for top notch training which is just insanely awesome. With the way work is I will be able to go to around 20 hours of class on a good week and 15 on a week when I work a lot.

The school I train at started as jui-jitsu academy in 1995, and went MMA in 2003. The main instructor for stand up and grappling is a boxer that grew up in Brooklyn and moved to Canada who also has a brown belt in BJJ under Marcus Soares in the Carlson Gracie Federation. So it it pretty well rounded between MMA, no-gi grappling, and traditional BJJ. Here’s a youtube video promo thing:

Like I said I’m usually able to go to about 75% of the classes in a given week and this is what’s available to me:

4 1 hour and 1/2 BJJ Classes
2 1 hour and 1/2 BJJ Technique Only Classes (no workout, just drilling fundamentals)
2 2 hour and 1/2 Fight Competition Classes (for those that what to take it pro eventually)
6 1 hour 1/2 MMA Classes (stand up, no-gi, wrestling, conditioning)

23 hours available (plus we never end right on time getting in something extra)

I’ve been at the school a month now I have just seen tremendous improvements in myself. I’m much calmer when rolling and use less strength and don’t panic when in bad spots, stance and hands are much better standing, and picking up stuff all over the place from instructors and fellow students. I’m loving it so far.

Plus I love watching technique videos online (Eddie Bravo) and whenever I’m watching fights now I pick up on stuff like mistakes and great moves thinking how I can incorporate that into my next sparring session or roll. (But I’m not naive enough to think that watching videos/tape can be counted as training! lol)

But yeah that’s what my fight game is looking like right now and hopefully will look like all the way up until March 21. The Big Day.

Any tips on getting the most out of my training sessions? Any of you guys take notes? I was thinking about that, but sometimes my coach tells us things and is like “you tell no one this stuff! this is ours!”

so he’d be pissed if I put his stuff online… but basics I am focusing on hammering into myself like keeping my elbows in my fight stance, and making sure to get onto my hip when on my back is stuff that’s all universal… ya know?

What helps you guys get the most out of every session?

Do you guys go to EVERY SINGLE training session that you can? Or do you burn out?

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You seem like you have it pretty well covered. I don’t think I’d be lifting three days a week- if you’re going to fight, then skill work is far and away more important than lifting.

If it really had no effect on your performance and you have the work capacity though, then I guess go for it, but I still find it questionable.

Keep you chin down, and learn how to jab. If you bring the jab to MMA and start winning, it might revolutionize the entire MMA scene and make all fighters learn it. And that would be astounding.

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By the way, good luck.

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Fighting Irish summed it up nicely…

skill work is far more important than
lifting.
even though lifting all kinds of fun…
If you want to be a fighter
skills trump weight training
particularly when you are already a strong dude, and need to focus on learning new skills.

don’t compare the strength routines of other fighters. that is what works for them
or doesn’t work for them.
Matt Hughes is kind of in the stone ages as far as training but that is what he likes.
and he even admits its not that useful

http://www.muscle-fitness.co.uk/43.html

Your a young big strong dude, and naturally you like to lift. and that’s cool
I happen to think that the bench offers
nothing valuble to fighters.
there are other things that are better,
for fighters
and basicallystrength is not as important as other skills

5x5 might not seem that much to someone with a bodybuilding background.
add it up to your other work and recovery will start to catch up with you.
and really hamper flexibility.
lots of injuries happen in the weight room
vs the ring/matt

20 hours of technique and classes is allot
add life to the mix and it allot.

sounds like you are a super motivated dude
have fun and

good luck.

kmc

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[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
You seem like you have it pretty well covered. I don’t think I’d be lifting three days a week- if you’re going to fight, then skill work is far and away more important than lifting.

If it really had no effect on your performance and you have the work capacity though, then I guess go for it, but I still find it questionable.

Keep you chin down, and learn how to jab. If you bring the jab to MMA and start winning, it might revolutionize the entire MMA scene and make all fighters learn it. And that would be astounding. [/quote]

Oh I know skill work is more important for sure, but just like any sport you need to have strength, power, and speed and when coupled with technique it makes you a winner.

All the people that say that fighters shouldn’t lift weight remind me of old baseball coaches in the 1950’s that wouldn’t allow their players to lift weights because it would make them stiff and slow and bulky. But look what happened there.

I don’t know if their are any sports that are not improved through proper weight training. Heck I have friends that are strength coaches for girls figure skating teams! Who knew they could improve from some time in the gym.

I’ll work on the jab the best I can Irish. Our boxing coach is from Brooklyn and boxed since he was young so he puts a lot of that style into our game. Maybe we can change the game up? lol

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57 Days and Counting…

I got my morning cardio in on the bike like usual and loosened up the cobwebs and then spent most of the day creating this thread… lol hahahah Better not lose focus and become a keyboard jockey…

But I got in an awesome weight training session with my dad which went a little something like this…

“Friday Push” (2 min rests with 30 seconds of assistance exercises)
Clean & Press 5 x 5 with 150 lbs (with sit-ups)
Bench Press 5 x 5 with 250 lbs (with twisting crunches)
Incline Bench 5 x 5 with 220 lbs (with alternate leg raises)
Javelin Press 5 x 5 each with 55 lbs (with 35 lb KB swings

Lots of energy and strength today. Was able to push myself hard, and rest most of the rest of the day.

I have to work tonight (first night as a bouncer!!) so I couldn’t go to the night class which would have been the competition fight training for 2-3 hours, so that’s a big loss… I’ll make up for it tomorrow though with two separate classes and training legs with an college buddy of mine.

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[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
By the way, good luck.[/quote]

Luck of the Irish? nice… Now I can’t lose.

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[quote]drewkearns wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
You seem like you have it pretty well covered. I don’t think I’d be lifting three days a week- if you’re going to fight, then skill work is far and away more important than lifting.

If it really had no effect on your performance and you have the work capacity though, then I guess go for it, but I still find it questionable.

Keep you chin down, and learn how to jab. If you bring the jab to MMA and start winning, it might revolutionize the entire MMA scene and make all fighters learn it. And that would be astounding.

Oh I know skill work is more important for sure, but just like any sport you need to have strength, power, and speed and when coupled with technique it makes you a winner.

All the people that say that fighters shouldn’t lift weight remind me of old baseball coaches in the 1950’s that wouldn’t allow their players to lift weights because it would make them stiff and slow and bulky. But look what happened there.

I don’t know if their are any sports that are not improved through proper weight training. Heck I have friends that are strength coaches for girls figure skating teams! Who knew they could improve from some time in the gym.

I’ll work on the jab the best I can Irish. Our boxing coach is from Brooklyn and boxed since he was young so he puts a lot of that style into our game. Maybe we can change the game up? lol
[/quote]

Haha. Believe me, I’m not saying fighters shouldn’t lift weights- they should. And yes, boxing and MMA can be very dogmatic in general when it comes to lifting for fights.

But I remember back when I played HS football, we used to do it like this: lift from Dec. to July, hardcore, and eat as much as you could and get as big and strong as possible.

But when August came, and then the football season, you’d kind of live off of your accumulated strength, and just go out and do skill work and practice, practice, practice. Why? Because as much as being strong helped, it was useless without the practice. So from August to December, you didn’t even look at a weight. You practiced and ran and played- that was it.

I kind of think weightlifting should be the same way in fighting. In between fights, lift your balls off and get big and strong. However, in that last eight or ten weeks before the bout, you’d concentrate on running, sparring, padwork and bagwork, because that’s what you need.

You, you’re in an even more difficult spot because you need to learn grappling on top of boxing, and that’s a science on its own. I can’t see lifting more than once or maybe twice a week leading up to a fight.

I know you like lifting, and I like the 5x5 scheme also. Those are tough reps you grind out, and its great shit. But you ain’t no bodybuilder anymore- you’re out to fight. And how do you get to be the best fighter out there?

By fighting. And I bet if you ask any coach out there what would make you a better fighter- taking that lifting session, or shadowboxing for the whole time that you would have been lifting, they’d tell you straight up which one.

That’s just my take. Maybe you can handle it. If you can, that’s cool. I’m just saying what I would do. But I’m not a competitive fighter either, just a guy who boxes for shits and giggles, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

(And LEARN THAT MOTHERFUCKING JAB!)

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56 Days and Counting…

Awesome day of training today. Even though I worked until 3:30 and didn’t get into bed until 4 A.M still still work up around 10 A.M and got on the bike and busted out 26 kilometers while watching TUF season 2 episode 3 (the Monster Energy really payed off today!!) and then made myself a nice big breakfast.

Headed off to MMA class from 12 until 2. Did a ton of boxing and stand up today (I worked that jab Irish!!) and then finished with a bunch of wrestling drills. Lots of sparring today which was great. Got paired up with someone who had been in the club for years and has pro experience in the ring so that was quite the experience, he was very gracious but definitely gave it to me pretty good. I got tagged pretty good a couple times, but he commented that I got him a couple times too. (Maybe he was just being nice though…)

Came home and ate two more times and then took a nap and headed off to train with my buddy thats a personal trainer, so I can get into his gym for free. Normally I work out in my basement, but I don’t have a squat rack yet so I need a place that I can train legs. This was my original college workout buddy who’s a tank and pushs me as hard as possible… so it’s always great to hit it up with him. It looked a little something like this:

“LEGS”
SQUATS 5 x 5 with 405 lbs
STRAIGHT LEG DEADS 5 x 5 with 315 lbs
FRONT SQUATS 3 x 12 with 185 lbs (had to rerack and adjust a couple times)
HAMSTRING CURLS 3 x 12 with 120 lbs

A great day, but time to eat a bunch and kick back maybe watch a movie before heading off to work again tonight…

OH yeah by the way, the first night bouncing went well last night… only had to throw out one person so we’re off to a good start!!

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Looking good drew. I would suggest throwing in some power work as well as eliminating steady state cardio. Check out stuff by Jonathan Chaimberg, jsp’s trainer.

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[quote]smorr wrote:
Looking good drew. I would suggest throwing in some power work as well as eliminating steady state cardio. Check out stuff by Jonathan Chaimberg, jsp’s trainer. [/quote]

What kind of power work? Cleans, Snatches and whatnot?

The steady state cardio is nothing serious… just riding the bike while watching TUF… just to wake up and get a sweat… I know that steady state kinda sucks but it’s better than sitting on the coach right? Plus if I burn a couple of calories I can eat a bigger breakfast too!!

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53 Days and Counting…

Another great day of training:

morning cardio… check
lifting session…check
technique training… check
eating big… check

Little more detail:
42 minutes on the bike (26 kilometers) then ate some breakfast and when right back down to the basement to lift. I slept in so I didn’t have much time before my 1 o’clock class, so it was boom boom boom. No sitting around, just right into it. Was feeling kinda sore still from Saturday’s leg session but a lot of times when I feel just a little bit stiff I end up having some of the best training sessions. Here’s how it went:

“PULL” (2 minute rest breaks)
Deadlift 5 x 5 with 345 lbs (sit-ups during the rest)
Barbell Rows 5 x 5 with 230 lbs (biceps curls during the rest)
Barbell Shrugs 5 x 5 with 330 lbs (wrestling bridges during the rest)
Upright Rows 5 x 5 with 130 lbs (leg raises during the rest)

The off to class:
Jump rope to start and then they ran rounds against me in the boxing ring. A new guy jumps in the ring every 2 minutes circulating until we hit 18 minutes… that’s two times the length of my fight if it goes the whole way. Did a bunch of kickboxing drills and then drill a ton of triangles and armbars and then rolled for 15 minutes and ending the session with 5 minutes straight of chin-ups and sit-ups with medicine balls back and forth.

Stacking it up:
Ate out italian, tons of protein, took my vitamins, ate some porkchops, peanut butter and honey sandwhichs, oatmeal and scrambled eggs and fruit.

And hungry for more (training… not food)

The gym calls me back tomorrow… “relentless”