Monday, October 11, 2010

External Training Update

I’ve got anywhere from a month to six weeks to prepare for my next test.  I remember vividly being wildly out of breath through most of the test and just getting through by sheer will power. 

To mitigate this feeling of oldness and general lack of fitness I’ve really tried to amp up my exercise regimen.  I’ve been training with a new class member, who is my age, three times a week in two hours blocks and other days it’s off to the gym where I try to get in a decent work out with emphasis on aerobics rather than weights.  I’m finding the fear of failure very motivational, but boy am I tired.  I get the sneaking suspicion that I’m not getting enough rest, but days off allow huge amounts of anxiety to seep in and thus, throw fuel on my motivational fire.

So this morning I’m completely tired because I couldn’t turn off my brain last night and ended up having a lousy night’s sleep.  Definitely not conducive to seizing the day. 
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Work with Dave has been pretty great.  I don’t feel like there is any stress around what we are teaching and he takes instruction extremely well.  The exercise for me is mental in that I have to break things apart for easier consumption and his sticking points aren’t necessarily ones that I’ve experienced in my past. 

Dave and I are continuing sparring regularly in hopes that we’ll learn to breath better and think a bit more before running in and exhausting ourselves.  Two minutes is good so far.  I’d like to see that at more towards three.
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Possible insight to test – An old student was in town and ran into Teacher somewhere and they talked about the test.  It sounds like it’s going to be heavy on teaching.  I’m intrigued. 

2 comments:

BSM said...

I'm not sure what you can do because you have the age factor like I did. If you had more time I'd say invest in a 40 or 50 lb kettlebell and do a good 30 min. routine once-per-week. Running helps a little but it's not the same thing as sparring. My kettlebell workout is the closest thing to endurance type sparring I could find short of actual sparring.

Related to your post on finger-tip push-ups - we did a ton of those in chin na but for finger strength. Their effects on the overall punching endurance are secondary.

Current teacher has us do regular and knuckle. The latter is to build wrist strength for punching.

Potatoe Fist said...

I must say that I'm heavily influenced by your old water bag workout from a few years ago. That would kill me and then I'd finished it off with burpees. After my knees healed up I went back to running.

Currently I'm just trying to jam in a heavy cross training regimen. I'll warm up, do a ten-minute rowing machine sprint, do all the tough kicks and then burpees. If I can keep my heart rate under 165 by the end of that I'm doing good.

I don't normally do the regular push-ups. I try to save all my energy for knuckle and finger. I'm not sure anything has changed, but it's definitely mind over matter.

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