2024 - 04 - 29

The week concluded the scheduled curriculum portion of NonProphet’s Free Fall Program — of course, the “educational value” and such sessions will continue long into the future. 8-12 weeks seems to be a long time to focus before injury, boredom, or life’s curve balls yank you off track of your programming regardless of how malleable you intended it’s structure to be.

Summary:

All things must end, and this was a bit of a wonky week anyway. My effort in the Free Fall Program has concluded though technically I left 7 sessions on the table. These were all DIYs meaning “start the rest of your life.”

I will have to circle back to Sunday’s community / O2 mobilization session as my main teammates were competing at a BJJ event and needed to rest this week as well as be cornered at the event.

Some technical facets and life curveballs let me off the hook on Tuesday’s “fear” session and the week’s grappling was light overall. This is a good reminder that intensity (including focus) can never last. In this case, 8-weeks was about as long as I could sustain a focused program without getting “bored” or needing / wanting to move on or take a week off.

Contents:

• Monday: Free Fall Program 029 - DIY Endurance
• Tuesday: Free Fall Program 023 - Fear (Recoverability)
• Wednesday: NoGi BJJ - Closed guard passing / positional control
• Thursday: NoGi BJJ - Sweeping review from leg entanglements
• Friday: Rest - Passive
• Saturday: Gi and NoGi BJJ - light and technical rolls
• Sunday: Free Fall Program 025 - Community (buying on credit)

4/29/24: Endurance, Level 1

Intention:

This was another flip-flopped session where I was trying to intelligently program and plan for harder(er) sessions later in the week as well as target my specific areas of need (mobility, endurance, and O2-mobilization). Here I wanted to establish a baseline for when the Free Fall Program is complete and aim for 30-45 minutes as a starting point for endurance sessions.

Warm Up:

AMRAP/10
KB Farmer Carry x 30m (nasal breath 1:0:1:0)
KB Farmer Carry x 30m (breath hold)
Walk 60m (nasal breath 1:1:1:1)

Work:

20-40-60-80
Calories on Treadmill
Box Step Up (24”)
For Time:

Results:

Warm: unknown round, ~6 min breath shifted from 5s segments to 3s.
Work: 31:07

Notes:

What worked well and what allowed it:
This session landed right on target in terms of duration and heart rate. I’m getting my labs checked tomorrow warning, so I wanted to flush the system without adding additononal stress. The hypoxic warm up was also fun to target the “breathing muscles.”

What didn’t work and why:
24” step ups were right at the limit for me where I had to lunge / bounce a little to avoid swinging foot out to side. A shorter box would have allowed more cardio output (faster pace), taller would make the session more strength/mobility oriented (slower pace) — which I’ve mentioned before as a tool to manipulate the session’s intention.

Plan for next time:
This week will concluded the guided portion of the Free Fall program. Next I’ll likely continue emphasizing endurance and mobility as they’re still my most notable deficits; but enough strength / power should be added to stay motivated or — god forbid — occasionally just have fun.

4/30/24: Recoverability, Level 2

Intention:

The goal was to dig deep here, maybe a “session you swore you’d never do again” or something that’s just outside your wheelhouse, that you’re probably not quite capable of.

Warm Up:

10 min easy heavy bag (goal Zone 2)

Work:

Sandbag-Over-Shoulder
AMRAP/5, rest 2:30, then
AMRAP/4, rest 2:00, then
AMRAP/3, rest 1:30, then
AMRAP/2, rest 1:00, then
AMRAP/1

Support:

Play with some big sandbags!

Results:

Work:
Round 1: 72 x 50 lbs.
Round 2: 74 x 35 lbs.
Round 3: 54 x 35 lbs.
Round 4: 38 x 35 lbs.
Round 4: 21 x 35 lbs.

Support:
Sandbag Clean & Jerk x 80 lbs.
Sandbag Clean & Jerk x 150 lbs. (fail to stabilize jerk at top)

Notes:

What worked well and what allowed it:
This session left me with some stomach / diaphragm cramps, which to me is one of the hallmarks of “recoverability” training. The “play” at the beginning and end of the session were also good morale boosters.

What didn’t work and why:
The real session I’m afraid to do again is 300FY — i.e. max airbike calories in 10 minutes. However, I had never done a 5-4-3-2-1 “recoverability test” on the bike, which I was sure was going to be almost as awful. However, someone had broke the seat on bike at my gym, to which the nose was pointed right up your butt. Truth be told, the disappointment after getting psyched up to commit to a challenge was almost worse than the price I planned to pay.

Plan for next time:
Looking at the outputs of this session, it still seems clear that recoveryability isn’t my “weakest link", it’s what I do every sparring session. If it is a problem, it’s likely due to either (or both) a movement limitation or an oxygetn limitation (endurance / O2 mobilization).

5/1/24: Sport, Level 1

Intention:

This session was a review (for me) of some fundamental closed guard mechanics, not something you typically see in moder NoGi BJJ. However, to Kyle’s point, this (and subsequent upper body attacks) are critical for setting up lower body attacks.

Warm Up:

4 x 2 min posture control games from closed guard (2 on top, 2 on bottom)

Work:

~ 45 min drilling / reviewing K-Guard to Backside 50/50 and sweeping to top position.

~ 20 min Pass-Sweep-Submit positional training from closed guard.

Notes:

What worked well and what allowed it:
I found a fair amount of success this session with BJJ 101 classics like triangles and hip-bump sweeps. Part of that was exatly the intention of the session, that always attacking (anywhere) the lower body becomes predictable and as an opponent or partner overcompensates, other opportunities present themselves.

What didn’t work and why:
It did stand out to me though that some of these “fundamentals” and “classics” could be refreshed in my brain. The nuances of what grips are / aren’t available in Gi/NoGi left me fumbling a little bit, but reasonably illustrate the divergance of specialization.

Plan for next time:
As I’ve mentioned in previous training logs, after I complete my class training block on leglocks we will be looking at upper body attacks, specifically guillotines and armbars; and that will seguay nicely into back attacks.

5/2/24: Sport, Level 1

Intention:

I had initially planned for this session to be a standing (takedown) to leglock class, but it was a small class with lots of new people, so I had to pivot quickly to a variety of sweeps that the milieu could digest.

Warm Up:

Rocking Chair and “Popcorn” Drills

Work:

~ 50 min drilling: SLX sweeps, S2S sweeps, and butterfly entries to SLX and 411.

~ 20 min Sweep-Pass-Submit from leg entanglements

Notes:

What worked well and what allowed it:
Overall, I think I did an efficient job of pivoting to class material that was (more or less) digestable for everyone in class. Sometimes, there’s a huge range of sizes and skill levels and this is more difficult to accommodate in a small class, but I think everyone was able to have some success, or at least fun whilst struggling.

What didn’t work and why:
Class retention. With the warmer weather already here, summer vacation plans will be in full swing. Unfortunately, this is seen ubiquitously across human/service industries.

Plan for next time:
As mentioned above, we’re going to continue to warm up classes with a mini-review of the previous block’s content to frame the main training portions for class. This allows a bit of a buffer if you miss a week or two.

5/4/24: Sport, Level 1

Intention:

Admitedly, I didn’t have a clear intention for this session. Generally, I wanted to try and get at least one round with everyone in the room which allows for diversity in intensity. Subtly, I wanted to try and work on upper body attacks or leg entries from a standing / neutral position.

Warm Up:

None

Work:

9 x 6 minute rounds

Notes:

What worked well and what allowed it:
Overall this session was pretty refressing. We have several people competing tomorrow, so a lot of the rounds were movement focused “flow rolls” at a warm-up or slightly higher pace.

What didn’t work and why:
I was slightly irritated that a lot time between rounds was spent “just talking” but not in a technical fashion. I understand, of course, that a huge part of BJJ is the community; I was just aware of my irritation as my main training partners were not on the mats and I wasn’t able to get in as many rounds as I would have liked.

Plan for next time:
This was a good reminder to not necessarily be beholden to arbitrary metrics. I could say that “I want to get 10 rounds every Saturday” but that may not be helpful if I subconsciously duck the harder rounds. I’m not sure what an effective metric would be to identify, within a single session, not only how ardently you adhered to your intention, but how effective it was in your progression.

5/5/24: O2 Mobilization (Capacity), Level 2

Intention:

“…Many times the motivation to train is based on being there for someone or just the idea of not being able to support those you care about… share why you want that person to train with you, even if it’s only out of boredom.”

Warm Up:

OHS Ladder 1-5-1
P1: “rests” in bottom position
P2: does 1 x OHS, then “rests” in bottom position
P1: does 1 x OHS, then “rests”
P2: does 2 x OHS, then “rests”
P1: does 2 x OHS, then “rests”, etc…

Work:

Goal: Team Average BW in Burpees
Score: Total Combined Bike Calories / Total Minutes to Complete Burpees

P1: starts working on burpees
P2: starts riding bike for cals

Transition as often as needed, but it costs 5 air squats for both players to do so, each time they transition.

Results:

TBD, I’ll leave a comment on this post when it’s been updated!

Notes:

TBD, I’ll leave a comment on this post when it’s been updated!