2024 - 02 - 19

Learning to rest in a place of discomfort is a valuable skill. In any case, you’re obligated to pick your poison and your punishment. How hard or how far you’re able to push the needle rarely depends on external conditions, however your willingness to do so may be a different story.

2/19/24 | Escape Velocity Session 029

Summary:

This week’s Escape Velocity sessions hit hard. As the program will be completed next week, this week was a time to “test your understanding”, where you’re given some guidelines and structure for a session, but the exact contents are left for you to decide — and suffer the consequences of.

The endurance and capacity sessions still point to an aerobic deficit on my part, while I’m proficient at relying on my skeleton to “rest”; and “power”, like “strength” isn’t a deficit area for me.

This is all great information as I prepare to wrap up the final week of Escape Velocity, take a de-load week, and then begin NP’s Free Fall program to explore both myself and applications / implementations for grappling in general.

Contents:

• Monday: Escape Velocity Session 29: Capacity / FYF
• Tuesday: Escape Velocity Session 30: Endurance / Check Your Understanding
• Wednesday: Rest (see notes)
• Thursday: NoGi BJJ - Wrestling / Takedown Finishes
• Friday: Escape Velocity Session 31: Capacity / Check Understanding
• Saturday: BJJ Open Mat - NoGi / Wrestling / Leg-Locks
• Sunday: Escape Velocity Session 32: Power

2/19/24: Capacity, Level 3

Intention:

“Sessions like these don’t require much equipment, but they do take quite a bit of commitment. Punishment for breaking can be used to gamify the session or to push the player beyond what he can do given normal constraints. We find that more often than not, a simple task and a clear intention are good enough for anyone.“

Warm Up:

5 min Air Bike, then

EMOM / 8 min.
Pull Up x 2
Archer Push Ups x 8
Air Squats x 12

Work:

For Time:

KB Swings x 100
Every break, do 20 total split jumps

Single-Arm Clean and Jerks (KB) x 100 (total)
Every break, do 10 push-ups

Goblet Squats x 100
Every break, do 5 burpee-pull-ups

*Breaking means setting the bell down on the ground. Resting is allowed in the front rack or farmer carry positions, NOT placing the bottom of the bell on your shoulder.

Results:

Warm Up:
Bike 44 cals
EMOM instead of AMRAP

Work:
20Kg (it was that or 32Kg)
36:55

Notes:

What worked well and what allowed it:
Finding creative ways to rest on your skeleton was a useful skill to have during this session. I was highly motivated to no have to break and do burpees.

What didn’t work and why:
I was notably on the lower side compared to other participants which (further) indicates an aerobic limitation. The “rests” cost me timer, but better aerobic fitness would have reduced the above mentioned fear of penalty reps and not been such a time sink while I tried to recover.

Plan for next time:
This would be interesting to repeat with a significantly lighter and heavier KB to see what load you can still move efficiently with, or if you have enough torque to save your bacon from the burpees without slowing to a crawl.

2/20/24: Endurance, Level 1

Intention:

“The goal is NOT to kill yourself in this session, so choose your rep scheme wisely… If you hit 40 minutes and you feel good, keep going, if not and you’re unsure if you can keep going, terminate the remaining time. Either way, take note of what happened, where things went right or wrong (or both), and create awareness around your pace if it was too much or not enough, and so on.”

Warm Up:

5 min AirBike (easy), then

5-1, by 1 (not for time)
Barbell Overhead Squat
Romanian Deadlift

Work:

EMOM / 40 minutes

Minute 1: AirBike x 10 cal
Minute 2: Double KB Front Squat
Minute 3: AirBike x 10 cal
Minute 4: Rest

Results:

Warm Up:
47 cal, 65 lbs.

Work:
236 cal, 2 x 16 Kg KBs

Notes:

What worked well and what allowed it:
I decided to tackle some movement limitations (hips and thoracic spine) for the warm up and was pleased with the snatch set-up I was using to get the bar overhead (never waste a rep!). The working squats were just the right load-reps to make me think twice about bumping it up to 12 or 15 / min especially in the later rounds.

What didn’t work and why:
My actual output was just under 12 cal / min, so you could say I got scared and erred conservatively when writing this session. It was a bit difficult to pace trying to conceive how what the rest minute would allow, but also how things would accumulate throughout the session.

Plan for next time:
This session was essentially “check your understanding” and was a good contrast to Session 029. If the goal of endurance sessions is to “push past when you want to quit”, but also “stop when you could have doubled the effort”, then this was pretty close. Another 40 minutes would have been brutal. Pushing to an hour would have been manageable, but as I learned in ESC029, my pace would have down-shifted in that remaining 20 minutes.

2/21/24: Rest

Last week I wrote about taking rest days when your mind feels ready, but your body tells you otherwise. This week was the opposite. I will have an essay coming out in the future titled Unplug and Grab a Beer that explains this process more thoroughly.

2/22/24: Sport, Level 1

Intention:

We’re continuing to focus on wrestling, and the sub-section is “follow through” and finishing takedowns currently.

Warm Up:

Standing Grip Fighting
Shot Progression (kneeling-static, kneeling dynamic, standing static, standing-dynamic)
Standing Connect-2 Drill

Work:

Techniques Reviewed:

• Tree Top finish (ft. on The Russian Tie Formula)
• Punch-Trip finish
• Arm-Drag Double / Kouchi Gari
• John Smith Low Single

Notes:

What worked well and what allowed it:
My observation is that students are learning and applying things much better 1) when I don’t assign an arbitrary time limit to training intervals (be that in a single session or for a certain block of content (e.g. one month); 2) we reinforce the foundation every session (movement and grip fighting); 3) we emphasize principles and illustrate them with specific techniques rather than one “silver bullet” at a time.

What didn’t work and why:
I still find myself chasing “the thing” or the next “break through” then next “level up” move, set up, sequence, cheat code, or undiscovered shortcut. The truth is that grappling (and life) is hard.

Plan for next time:
The next couple weeks will emphasize wrestling scrambles or bottom-top (non-neutral) wrestling. This will be to encourage not conceding takedowns and to create opportunities for counterattacks.

2/23/24: Capacity, Level 2

Intention:

“This is where you can really learn something about your current capacity, not just in terms of output but also in recovery as you reach a number that gets too hard to go up, instead of just being done as you would in a death by, you can scale down and learn to hold on…

…the purpose of this session is to sensitize you to your internal landscape, to the costs associated with different intensities, and to try and play around with different budgeting strategies.”

Warm Up:

5 min AirBike (easy), then
6 min forearm plank
*every time you break, 3 x double KB Clean & Jerk

Work:

Every 1:30 for 22 rounds (33 minutes total):
6x Bike Calories
6x KB Swing
6x KB Headcutter
+1 calorie / rep each round until failure, then decelerate incrementally and try to hold on.

Result:

Warm:
44 cals, 2 x 16 Kg KB (4 sets)

Work:
20 Kg KB
6-7-8-9-9-9-8-7-7-7-8-7-7-7-7-6-6-6-6-7
Average = 6.9 calorie / reps per round; 20.7 cals / 1:30; 13.8 cal / min

Notes:

What worked well and what allowed it:
I didn’t have the need or desire to compare my score to others’. This was a “test your understanding” session and I understood the test. I started fantasizing excuses to quit around the second set of 9 cals / reps and was pretty sure I was going to puke in the 12th round. But, as stated in the intention, the goals wasn’t just to find your limit, but to hang on. That meant for a few of the later rounds I still dropped what hammer I could and didn’t let my self off the hook.

What didn’t work and why:
I did this session as written, though there was an annotated abbreviation to increase every-other-round. I’m not sure what the difference would have been, but more than likely a slow grind up to the top; but of course the way I did it you’re reminded of the high cost of coming out hot — but just the same, you learn to not quit just because it hurts.

Plan for next time:
My results came to an average of 6.9 calorie / reps per movement per round. That’s about 20.7 calories / 1:30 round or 13.8 cals / minute. Therefore, you could say that my work capacity for 30-40 minutes is about 14 calories / minute.
Note that for true “endurance” sessions, 30/40 minutes is usually where my power drops off and if I plan on a true Zone 2 for 60-90 minutes that’s more likely 8 - 10 calories per minute.

2/24/24: Sport, Level 2

Intention:

I still wanted to focus on wrestling and a few leg lock drills. My elbows were feeling tweaky from a lot of bike work, so initially I wanted this to be an easier day. The rolls weren’t too hard, and there was a lot more rest between rounds than what actually got documented. However, this was a good reminder that one’s recovery state (or lack thereof) has a great effect on “perceived effort.”

Warm Up:

One or two light open rounds.

Work:

1-2 hour open mat
*there was some discussion and review of recent competition footage that extended the session as well.

Result:

Work: 83% (10:2, though this is very skewed since we didn’t have a rolling timer, there was some non-documented down time).

Focus: 67% (8:4)

Notes:

What worked well and what allowed it:
I can feel a definite improvement in my ability to grind through and finish takedowns from a failed / bad / sprawled position.

What didn’t work and why:
Movement is still key. I gave up a few takedowns getting heavy and slow, and my set ups were forced rather than created. A good tactic seems to be to “bug” and wear out your opponent and “create” an opportunity for a clear shot — not necessarily always weighing them down or “trying to make something happen. (ramrod)”

Plan for next time:
Immediately, within the same session, I added a couple rounds of movement sprawls. My partner and I did “live” paced handfighting and set ups, and one would (at random) shoot on the other. The goal is for the defending person to “get to work” sprawls; so the shots and set ups are full speed, but the finishes are backed off so the person can react and practice.

2/25/24: Power, Level 2

Intention:

“Part 1 of this session is known as “Olypiganza” a structure that we use frequently to prime for explosive power and aerobic efficiency.”

Warm Up:

5 x 30/30 sec Rebounding / Switch Steps
Work up to high knee-to-feet jump
Work up to high stiff-leg-box-jump
Work up to high box-tuck-jump
Mobility / CARs

Work:

EMOM / failure:
1 Power Clean + 4 Burpees-over-bar
* add weight every minute until technical failure on clean

Rest ~5 min, then
Take 70% of top weight successfully completed above,
30 x Power Clean (for time)

Rest ~5 min, then
5 x 10 Deadlift with timed clean weight

Results:

Warm Up:
Knee-to-Feet Jump, up to 7.5”
Stiff-Leg-Box Jump, up to 24”
Box-Tuck Jump, up to 26”

Work:
Part 1: ~11 min, fail at 245 lbs.
Part 2: 9:12 at 160 lbs.
Part 3: 160 lbs.

Notes:

What worked well and what allowed it:
I was very satisfied with almost tying my lifetime PR despite not having done Olympic lifts for a couple months now. This tells me that I did my due diligence learning the technical aspects of the lifts; which became notably important in the last 10 reps of the timed set of 30.

What didn’t work and why:
I didn’t read the directions for this session fully, which should have included an OTM bodyweight movement during the times cleans. This would have definitely slowed the process, so I added a Part 3 of deadlifts to compensate.

Plan for next time:
I was glad to do some heavy pulling this session. It was a good compliment to the overuse of bike / pushing on my elbows. It’s also good to know that while my technique isn’t spectacular with the Olympic lifts, my power out put is still decent.