2024 - 06 - 03
Endurance Week 4 | Coaching and Conditioning
Austin Haedicke
814 Words | Read Time: 3 Minutes, 42 Seconds
2024-06-10 10:25 -0700
I was honored to have the opportunity to corner many of my teammates this past weekend for a couple action packed events. As a result I’m reconsidering the competition arena and with that comes a re-evaluation of training goals, methods, and measures.
Summary:
Early this week I opted for a little extra BJJ and Tuesday’s conditioning was fun to explore some different (striking / bag work) movements though it proved challenging to find my pace as breathing is much different when striking versus running.
The mid-week grappling continued to focus on butterfly types of set-ups for both upper body and lower body attacks (videos below). This content was similar to what I was working in to private lessons with some of our competitors to prep for their matches.
Friday’s endurance training was rough. My HR was high, though my breathing pace remained constant, I was smoked, hated every minute of the trek. My HRV / stress wasn’t bad, but still something felt off. At any rate, we had a good showing at Saturday’s tournament — winning several gold and brone medals and coming away with some things to work on as usual — and we lost a razor close tough superfight on Sunday.
Contents:
- Monday: Gi BJJ / Butterfly Sweeps
- Tuesday: Tempo Endurance / Striking
- Wednesday: NoGi BJJ / Butterfly Guard and Kesa Gatame
- Thursday: NoGi BJJ / more Arm Saddle (triangles)
- Friday: Monostructural Endurance
- Saturday: BJJ Privates and Tournament Coaching
- Sunday: Tournament Coaching
Overview:
I’m still fiddling with a trainng log / journal template that I’ll of course share with premium subscribers once I’ve settled on a format. The general concept is that I was to:
- Have a focus to my training.
- Be held accountable for maintaining that focus.
- Set goals and objectives.
- Build habits to accompish those goals.
- Track compliance with and efficacy of those habits.
What worked well and what allowed it?
This was a tough week for my personal training, but one of the things I love most is being able to share what I love and what I’ve invested so much time, energy, and broken parts of my body in. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be than cornering my teammates.
What didn’t work and why?
As I hinted at last week, the 3rd or 4th week in a training block is usually where I hit a wall, or cannot “fake” work capacity. While breathing kept my heart rate pretty even in the monostrucutral sessions, it was higher than it should have been given the distance / duration.
Plan for next week:
I’m not necessarily “looking for a way out”, but spending more time on the mat and getting a concentrated dose of the competiton scene has reminded my of the seductiveness of fitness’s easily quantifiable metrics. While I firmly believe that fitness and physicality are weapons that we should train (to develop and use tactically), what is the goal and what “juice” is worth the “squeeze”?
Without a pre-prograamed endurance block it’s hard to stay disciplined when there are diminishing returns (to direct grappling performance) and when I don’t enjoy the activitiy — at least Olympic weightlifting was fun. However, OLYs were the same story. The mobility required for me to get to a “black belt level” in the snatch would take a ton of time away from my grappling.
6/3/24: Gi BJJ
6/4/24: Tempo Endurance
Intention:
Use a variety of striking implements (Thai / boxing bags) and simple tools (boxes and jump ropes) to maintain Zone 2 pace > 30 min.
Work / Results:
Notes:
This session was supposed to for closer to 50 minutes, but I had another obligation that cut the session short. Note that HR was all over the place and the average was low. This is a good reminder of “knowing your machine” and your tools. Sometimes you hit the mark, sometimes you miss it.
6/5/24: NoGi BJJ
6/6/24: NoGi BJJ
A post shared by @jasonraubjj89
6/7/24:
Intention:
I wanted to push for 50 minutes. But it was hot, late in the day, the dogs were in a weird mood, I was in a weird mood. Something was better than nothing, but there definitely some eyebrows raised in this session.
Work / Results:
6/8/24:
Intention:
New Breed Summer Open, Emerson, GA
Work / Results:
Matt (left) took second in the absolute division (due to a technicality), and first in his division. As a team we took several other medals and even those that did not make the podium stuck (mostly) to their game plan, which gives us something to work with.
6/9/24:
Intention:
Enigma Invitational, Atlanta, GA
Work / Results:
Simon (left) looked the best I’ve ever seen and lost a razor close match. The opponent played tactically well and scored a guard pass midway through the match right the points period started. However, Simon was threatening with submissions throughout the whole match.