"Fighting is an incredibly honest form of expression. There's no real equivocation in an elbow to the jaw, no pussyfooting about the gray shadings of meaning inherent in civilized and power-shielded discourse. It's a potent tie to our immediate and ever-present animal."

Eugene S. Robinson

http://www.eugenesrobinson.com/

I have decided to change my workout plan slightly. I've not specified any goals yet, I will do that when I get bored to keep me motivated.

Monday

Pull ups
Overhead tricep extension (or dips if feeling strong)
Shrugs

Roadwork - 45 mins minimum

Wednesday

Chest fly
Single arm row
Twist crunch (dumbbell)

Roadwork - 45 mins minimum

Friday

Jumping squats
Dumbbell lunges
Turkish get-up

Roadwork - 45 mins minimum

Each exercise will generally be done in sets of 5, containing 5 reps each with 2 minutes rest between each set and 2 minutes rest between each exercise. This means each day is around an hour of exercise in total including roadwork. Roadwork is running at a slow jog, usually for minimum of 45 mins but generally no longer than 90 mins.

I will be doing all of these with the equipment available to me at home - two 10kg dumbells, two 6kg handweights and a belt which I use to hand weights from my waist. Each week I will try to post with an update as to what I can lift with each exercise. If I miss a blog update, I'm also keeping a paper diary so will update from that.

I'm doing this in order to get stronger, basically. My weakness has always been strength. Once I've reached a level of strength I am happy with in terms of exercises here, I will start doing sprint intervals and hill sprints instead of roadwork. I will also start to work on speed and co-ordination (still researching this). While I'm not training regularly in MMA or Muay Thai and not training for fighting, I might as well get better at something!

This is a list of dudes whose striking techniques I plan on dissecting in order to make myself a better fighter. I'll be making a grappling one soon too.

Low Kicks: Pat Barry; Jose Aldo

Body Kicks: Mauricio "Shogun" Rua

Head Kicks: Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic

Knees (head & body): Yasuhiro Kido (not MMA, but applicable)

Boxing: BJ Penn

I'll add to this list in future posts when it isn't 2am!

Kieran