2024 - 06 - 10

Coaching a couple tournaments last weekend reinvigorated my enthusiasm for grappling. This wasn’t really a question on the forefront, but it was lingering in my training logs. What we give our attention is what controls our lives and what matters to us. It doesn’t matter what we tell ourselves (or others) we care about, the proof is in how we spend our most valuable resource — time.

Weekly Intention:

Keep / re-make BJJ the focus (70%) of training, support with mobility (15%).

Summary:

I bailed on my endurance program. It’s a long road to efficacy on-the-mat from long, slow runs. Thus, recommitting to the majority (60% - 70%) of my training time being dedicated to grappling, has caused me to be more intentional about how I spent accessory or supplemental training time.

I now have to eat my own advice, hearkening back to a 2022 article title Barbells and Bell Curves that I wrote for “novices.”

Meanwhile, I’m trying to not re-invent the wheel with BJJ / training journals / apps. If you read this full post you’ll get a sense of what June’s upcoming download will look like — spoiler, it’s a Google Sheet training log template.

You could certainly log the same information in a paper journal, which I think may actually be better, but the digital format allows for fancy formatting, charts and graphs — I’m a nerd at heart.

Alternatively, there are some apps that already do a great job at their niche domain. This is what I’ve settled on using for the last year so:

• Endurance / aerobic things (plus heart rate and sleep): Garmin Connect / Garmin Vivoactive watch
• Strength and Weight Training: Strong App
• Nutrition and Biometrics / Labs: Cronometer

Discussion:

What worked well?

Getting rid of “junk” training, or having a smaller “suitcase” of training time, was more fun and effective each session. While cross-training, to no-one’s surprise my wrestling, leglocks, and back defense were super solid.

Where do I need to improve?

While cross-training at another BJJ gym, I got caught in a guillotine and had had a hard time passing another guy’s guard. We were super slippery, but it still highlighted a bit of a deficit.

Lessons learned:

Sometimes you get more done by giving yourself more constraints and more refined focus — e.g. when you have a bigger suitcase you fill it with junk you don’t need, some of it is somewhat useful, but it’s mostly bloat.

PRs / Injury / Illness / Misc.

None.

Habit Tracking / Sleep / Stress:

Note, I was kind of hit-and-miss with bedtime, watched film almost every day, and I didn’t drink as much as this chart makes it look, but I wanted to keep myself accountable.

Less than 6 drinks / week is about 1 / day. In that regard, 6 of those 7 days should have been green. However, that begs the question of dosage on that one day when I did drink? If you’re sober Monday - Friday, then polish off a case on the weekend, that’s not good. That’s not what I did, but I wanted the graphic to present the most negative light for myself to incentivize change.

Session Details:

6/10/24: Monday

6/11/24: Tuesday

6/12/24: Wednesday

6/13/24: Thursday

6/14/24: Friday

6/15/24: Saturday

6/16/24: Sunday