Saturday, July 25, 2009

Wow, totally forgot to post on the 20th! I have been matched for the September fight but I got the wrong date. It will be Septermber 19th.

My (mostly) bodyweight training is going quite well considering I've only been doing it for two weeks now.

Week 1 - 06/07/09 to 12/07/09

Monday - Jump Squats up stairs x 3. Three sets of 15 stairs in the entry to my flat. Only rest between exercised was the tie it took to walk back down the stairs, about 45 seconds maybe.

Calf raises with 10kg weight on shoulder - I could say it was a sandbag but I'll be honest and say it was cat litter!

Bulgarian split squats with 6kg hand weights, 5x5 on each leg.

I woke up on the Tuesday with a twisted knee, probably because I didn't warm up for what was quite a tough workout for me so I didn't do anything else this week because walking hurt!

Week 2 - 13/07/09 to 19/07/09

Monday

Pull ups, 5x5 - Used progressive weight addition, first set w' no weight, 2nd with 3kg, 3rd with 6kg, 4th with 3kg and 5th with no extra weight. This is the formula I follow wherever I mention progressive weight addition, the weights will be different though.

Towel Fly, 5x5 - This is where you start in a press up position with two towels in your hands, slide your arms out as far as they go then you use your shoulders etc to pull yourself back into a press up position. Can be done with dumbells too.

Dips, 5x5 - progressive weight addition with 3kg and 6kg

Raised feet pressups, 25 - just to finish with something that would push me, test me and hurt me in equal measure!

Tuesday was Thai boxing where I didn't have a really hard session but instead worked on footwork and angles in combination to 1-2 and 1-2-3 combinations involving punches, knees and kicks on the freestyle pads. Worked the heavy bag with same things but at full pace. Technically a rest day!

Wednesday

Assisted leg raises, 2x10 - this was leg raises using a skipping rope looped around my legs so that I could ensure it was slow enough to work my core properly.

Dorsal raises, 5x5

Mountain climbers, 4x30 seconds

Single leg plank, 30 seconds

Thursday: I was working so didn't go to Thai boxing.

Friday: Was scheduled to do lower body but knee was still a bit tweaky so I didn't want to risk it.

Saturday

I was grappling from 9-11. Worked on guard and half guard. Drilled guard passing. had a good war with Neil. Finally got a sub! Triangled Neil twice although one was a tap due to exhaustion on his half!

Sunday

I was grappling and doing padwork with Alan and Graham in the morning. had a rally good workout and sweated a bucket.

This week has been patchy since I was working a lot of late shifts and was simply too tired to train.

20/07/09 to 24/07/09

Monday

Weighted split squats, 5x5 with 6kg hand weihts fashioned onto my shoulders like a barbell

Stair squat jumps x3

weighted calf raises, 12x3 - same as split squat weight arrangement.

Tuesday I didn't work and took as a rest day. trained muay thai at night and had a blast smashing the pads and my shins doing drills involving checking kicks with a new fighter with us called Ross.

Wednesday I was working late.

Thursday I was working late also. I had planned on doing upper body but have not done this.

Today I had business to attend to and had this scheduled as a rest day. Went to Dundee and bought supplements for my training. Reflex One Stop is getting a try out this time - all in one vitamins, minerals, protein, carbs, creatine and glutamine!


I completed each rep of every exercise slowly to recruit more muscle fibres. The concentric contraction (pulling myself up in pull up for example) was 2 seconds and the eccentric contraction was 3 or 4 seconds depending on exercise and my own judge of time since I used a rough measure of time (elephants). I used 1 min rest between sets and 5 mins rest between exercises in most cases. Apparently you can gain upto 755 of your strength this way abnd thus work yourself harder than you normally would be able to. This would equal greater gains in the same time.

Tomorrow I will be doing a demonstation of Thai Boxing with my camp at the Seafrong Spectacular. We will also be fundraising so I hope it is a nice day. Going to a Buddy Holly tribute in the evening, should be good!

I will be following the above type of schedule for my fight but also adding Thai training Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Sat evenings fo two hours also. I will be swapping some exercises for others in order to make it more fun and also to recruit different secondary muscle groups. I hope this will result in me being stronger and in better shape for this opponent. I'm predicting a stoppage in the 3rd - you heard it here first!

Finally, it has come to my attention that more people than my wife regularly read this, so if you are one of these people then thank you very much for following my blog, sometimes my writing is so terrible I hope nobody else reads it! My 100th post will be a summary of what I have achieved since I started this blog and what I want to achieve in the next academic year.

Kieran

Monday, July 06, 2009

This is my 98th post in this blog. My 100th post will be to explain what I have been doing recently in order to get stronger. I'm firstly trying a bunch of routines three times a week using minimal equipment and I'll do this for four weeks.

I go on holiday to Tiree for the first week in August, during which I want to be running on the beach regulalrly and kayaking in the sea! Lynn and I are also going to do a lot of walking and photography of the local wildlife and scenery.

When I come back I will either be buying weights or joining a gym for a month to try out another routine, which will be followed three days a week for another four weeks UNLESS the bodyweight and minimal equipment routine makes a large difference to my size and strength. If I am to be fighting on September 18th then I would rather not go to the gym unless I have to as travelling there and back (either to the garage we will keep our equipment in or to the gym) adds on too much time since I will be working  as well as training muay thai almost every night. If using minimal equipment and bodyweight exercises is not giving me the results I need then I'll try out the gym plan even though it will be more expensive in both money and time.

I've been sorting out my nutrition too and the food plan and shopping Lynn and I have been following has been going for a year now. I'm still eating some processed and junk foods (white bread, ice cream etc) but most of the stuff we eat is made in the house from scratch. I've not mentioned it on this blog much but my personal finances are being managed better. I plan on keeping an accounts book and logging receipts and expenditure in it so I can keep track of my money better. I also need to start internet banking.

I bought a notebook to use as a work and training diary so my next two posts will be updated straight from there at two week intervals. The plan being that I will look and feel great at the end of these next 4 weeks. I'm working legs, core  and upper body on different days and also grappling at least once a week and muay thai at least once a week, should be two - no need for running or sprint intervals yet. The full plan will be uploaded on 20th July, the start of my third week. Since I am keeping a training diary I will be able to upload to this blog the honest excercise, reps and effort I've been putting in.

Hope everyone is enjoying the sun and summer - I'm not, but that's another story!

Kieran

Sunday, July 05, 2009

Started up a Flikr account. I'm over at flikr.com/photos/keerin

I really enjoyed photography when I was doing media studies at college, after I left school and continued onto Dundee College to study photography. Circumstances dictated that I had to leave and on top of that, the SLR that I owned at the the time had a severely scratched lens. Being poor and stupid I threw it out, not thinking to keep the camera body, get my lens polished or even just buy a new lens (all possibilities now that I thiink back). I really enjoyed photography, despite the fact I wasn't very good at it. I really enjoyed the darkroom and processing of films and photos and I enjoyed taking pictures without the aid of a digital viewscreen for immediate consideration.

Anyway, a friend was selling a number of old Soviet cameras and I purchased them (personal note - pay Graeme!). Also, my wife bought me an old Praktica from the charity shop where she volunteers. I now have a healthy collection of vintage cameras and lenses. These are:

Praktica B200
Fed 5
Zenit 12XP
Zenit 19

The Praktica is a German camera and came in  a nice wee leather shoulder bag with seperate compartments for the camera and lens, another lens and a hotshoe flash, all included.  I'll edit this post more when I have time to check the sizes and specs of them.

The Fed 5 is Ukranian and was made in the '70's. It is a Leica copy so I can buy new lenses for it as long as I get Leica lenses. It comes in a lovely brown case. This is probably my favourite camera because it feels lovely in your hands and the mechanics sound so smooth. Winding it on and releasing the shutter is actually a pleasure to feel and hear. It may not be satisfying to people who prefer the huge CLUNK, but it is to me.

The Zenit 12XP and 19 both came with a variety of lenses and were both fitted with their standard 58mm lenses.  I have a 28mm wide angle lens, 2.5/120mm lens, 4/120mm lens,  Macro lens and also an 80-200mm zoom lens. I was trying out all these lenses the other day on an excursion along the cliffs in Arbroath so hopefully they come out alright. I've only used the Zenit 12XP so far because the Zenit 19 is a total beast of a camera and also only works with two watch batteries, which I don't have right now.

My future plans for photography is to get the chemicals and spiral tank to develop my own black and white negatives and eventually get an enlarger and the approprate equipment to be able to process my own pictures. I can always "black out" a room to use as a dark room and we have a cupboard that can be gutted (minus Lynn's sweing equipment) and used for this purpose if need be. It costs £7.99 to get a roll of B&W film developed in Arbroath and takes 2 weeks! I want to speak to the college and try to convince them to open the labs they have to the public (I.E. - me!) so that i can use there rooms for B&W photography. I prefer this over colour, but then again if you look at my Flikr you will see the lovely colours that the Fed 5 produces that have started to sway me to colour, if only with the Fed....

Kieran