Training Log

[Michelle Nicole]

Hey Gavin. I can understand that struggle. Sometimes it's not just the id that gets to us, but it's also a method of coping when stressed. So, it's possible that right now, while learning a new habit, you're stressed about keeping it, and that added stress kind of fucks with your head a bit, so that you kind of just shut down. And no matter how much you want something, once you get to that point it can be difficult to control. So. Don't beat yourself up too much. Instead of looking at it as just another letdown or failure to keep up something, use it as a learning opportunity. So that next time when you get to that point, you can utilize new coping strategies. For instance, when my brain started shutting down due to emotional trauma and stress, I would immediately go for the instant gratification of fast food, large Pepsi, and binge watching episodes of my favorite show. Now, I use what I love as coping mechanisms. It's evolved from bad food and laziness to using writing, exercise, yoga, and walks instead of food. Just an idea. Hope this helps.

[Gavin]

HI Michelle, thanks again for some good advice. I'm not beating myself up about, I just wanted to note it. Thank you.

Tonight I did 5 rounds of shadow boxing and then 10 rounds of heavy bag. I didn't have much power today, but I was able to work various boxing combos. I also tried practicing the floating block, it wasn't very good, but I'll keep persisting.

16hr15min

[Micc]

Gavin, "off" days happen. Just as Michelle says, the enforcing of a new habit puts stress on you, and this can result in binge eating. I have these moments, too. I actually have them A LOT. But I decided I will not give up. I will stand up as many times as I have to. Of course I know it's best NOT to fall, but if I can't deal with it and turn to my bad eating habits for a few days, I just need to get back on track. You fall down, you get up, start again. The work you've already put into it is still there, one "off" day won't do much harm. One month for sure, but not one day ;) So as long as you get up quickly, it's alright. It takes 60 days to create a new habit :) So just bear with it. You're on the right track!!

[Gavin]

Gavin, "off" days happen. Just as Michelle says, the enforcing of a new habit puts stress on you, and this can result in binge eating. I have these moments, too. I actually have them A LOT. But I decided I will not give up. I will stand up as many times as I have to. Of course I know it's best NOT to fall, but if I can't deal with it and turn to my bad eating habits for a few days, I just need to get back on track. You fall down, you get up, start again. The work you've already put into it is still there, one "off" day won't do much harm. One month for sure, but not one day ;) So as long as you get up quickly, it's alright. It takes 60 days to create a new habit :) So just bear with it. You're on the right track!!

 Micc, it's good to hear that people go through similar struggles. Thanks for sharing. The positivity in this thread is great.

Today I went to the gym and did three rounds of shadow boxing, then ten rounds on the heavy bag. I finished with 100 thips, and 100 jumping knees. I started at sixty and am going to work that up to 200-300. I just do this at the end of my own sessions.

This week I'm going to add at least 1 extra muay thai class after boxing. I am going to commit to doing it on Monday, and if I feel good Wednesday as well, if not I'll add the second next week. <- That's a confusing sentence, but I'm too tired to correct it.

 

17hr 15min.

[Gavin]

Today I did 1 hour boxing, 1.5 hours Muay Thai. It wasn't too bad, but we'll see how I pull up tomorrow.

 

19hr 45min

[Michelle Nicole]

Hey Gavin, what kind of stretching do you do to warm up and cool down ?

[Gavin]

Michell, I often miss the warm up because of the time I finish work. I recently started stretching after class for about 10 mins . I stretch everything basically...

 

Tonight I did 1 hr of Muay Thai. There was a visiting Thai trainer. Very cool!

 

I did struggle a bit tonight after the double session yesterday but it was to be expected.

 

20hr45 min

[Gavin]

I took two days off because I was messed up from Monday and tuesday, my body wasn't ready for that kind of volume in two days. It's actually interesting I had adapted to doing 1 hour 5 days in a row, but adding 1.5 hours to monday broke me down...

Anyway I did 3 rounds of shadow boxing, then 12 bag rounds, then 2 rounds of sparring tonight. I was at the gym for an hour and a half.

22hr15min

Ah,  I also did 120 teeps and 120 knees to finish. My jumps knees are getting a lot better.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

I love your updates Gavin. You've got a great attitude. Pretty cool.

[threeoaks]

Gavin thank you so much for this.  Appreciate reading it.  Keep going!  Dana

[Gavin]

I love your updates Gavin. You've got a great attitude. Pretty cool.

 

 

Gavin thank you so much for this.  Appreciate reading it.  Keep going!  Dana

 

Thank you both, it's nice to hear. Actually, more than that, it's very encouraging.

Yesterday when I arrived at the gym all of the mat space was taken by the personal trainers, so instead of doing my own bag work, I joined a wrestling class.

It was damn hard. I really struggled. The coach mentioned how the energy system is very different to striking. We worked a double leg, single leg and the sprawl. I am somewhat aware of these techinques from jiu jitsu and judo, especially the sprawl, but the coach gave a lot of good details. Judoka used to learn something like a sprawl to block the morote gari which is the judo equivalent of a double leg and is now banned from competition.

Something I didn't mention in my last post is who I sparred with. Every friday at the gym there is a group of guys who do their own sparring. I do bag work on the same mat every week. One of them asked me if I'd like to work in. I was a bit unsure as they are a lot better than me - "I'm not sure I'm good enough", I said.

He replied "It's not about whether you're good enough, just if you want to". Or something like that. I love this about martial arts. A no ego, welcoming attitude. I did two rounds and they both toned down their sparring to accomodate me.

One asked me if I had a background in a kicking art. I did Karate competitively for around 4 years as a teenager. He said he could tell. I'm not sure what that means exactly, maybe leg dexterity.

Anyway, one of them invited me to join them whenever I feel like sparring, which is cool.

This week is a weird one as my mum is flying in to visit, so I'll miss two days of training. I also need to figure out a way to recover quick enough to increase my volume without taking so much time off. I also need to get my weight moving down. My weight has stayed static around 102.4kg for the last two weeks. My legs look leaner, but I haven't measured them (sorry michelle!). Either way, it's unsastisfactory.

Here's some things I'm going to do this week:

Fish oil and bcaas everyday.

A mid week hydrotherapy session in the morning (this is a test to see if it helps me recover)

Strict adherence to my diet!

A protein shake in the morning

Four sessions of training (and possibly one friday morning)

This is probably my biggest challenge if I can not increase my weekly training volume there is no way I will reach my goal of 1000 hours in the time frame i have set. I will do my best to attack it and if I can't see a way to achieve it I will have to adjust my goal.

I hope everyone has a good week of training.

[maybethestars]

Hey Gavin, I just wanted to say that reading your updates on here has inspired me to start my own training log to keep track of my progress. Your goal is awesome and I have no doubts that you will make leaps and bounds in progress achieving it.

[Micc]

This log has inspired me, too. I was thinking in how to get my training to the next level, as I feel somethimg is lacking in it now. I will try to make achievable and detailed goals like kicking the bag a number of times a week, skipping the rope or focusing more on learning to throw elbows. Gotta work out a plan and stick to it!!!

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

This log has inspired me, too. I was thinking in how to get my training to the next level, as I feel somethimg is lacking in it now. I will try to make achievable and detailed goals like kicking the bag a number of times a week, skipping the rope or focusing more on learning to throw elbows. Gotta work out a plan and stick to it!!!

 

Micc, do I see in your signature that you are starting (started?) a Muay Thai blog?

[Micc]

Yes, indeed! I already had one in Polish about general topics, but I was thinking about starting an English one devoted more to training and muay thai specifically. So....here it is! I started it yesterday so I need to tweak it a bit. But this gives me a nice motivation to put out a plan and stick to it! :)

Ps. and work on my English ;)

Micc, do I see in your signature that you are starting (started?) a Muay Thai blog?

[Michelle Nicole]

No worries Gavin ! Just remember it's not going to be weight that goes first for everyone. You might be converting fat to muscle, hence the seemingly no weight loss at first. It will come if you keep up, I promise :) also, idk what your diet is like, but i read somewhere (unfortunately cannot remember) but diet is equally important as training. That includes water intake. I'm imagining that you've probably adjusted diet to coincide with training, but curious as to what you did for yours. If you don't mind my asking. I've noticed, with mine at least, recovery between things helps substantially when I eat right.

[Gavin]

Hey Gavin, I just wanted to say that reading your updates on here has inspired me to start my own training log to keep track of my progress. Your goal is awesome and I have no doubts that you will make leaps and bounds in progress achieving it.

Hi Steph,

That's fantastic.   I think writing down and tracking will help you a lot.

 

This log has inspired me, too. I was thinking in how to get my training to the next level, as I feel somethimg is lacking in it now. I will try to make achievable and detailed goals like kicking the bag a number of times a week, skipping the rope or focusing more on learning to throw elbows. Gotta work out a plan and stick to it!!!

Yes!

I recommend working out your big goal and then breaking down what you have to do into monthly, weekly and daily chunks. "How to get my training to the next level" - what does that mean? Try and be more specific. It's too vague to be achievable. Fight 3 times this year. <- That's more specific, and there is a time frame.

All the best. I'll be reading your blog!

 

[Gavin]

No worries Gavin ! Just remember it's not going to be weight that goes first for everyone. You might be converting fat to muscle, hence the seemingly no weight loss at first. It will come if you keep up, I promise :) also, idk what your diet is like, but i read somewhere (unfortunately cannot remember) but diet is equally important as training. That includes water intake. I'm imagining that you've probably adjusted diet to coincide with training, but curious as to what you did for yours. If you don't mind my asking. I've noticed, with mine at least, recovery between things helps substantially when I eat right.

 

My water intake is good - 3+ litres a day. My diet is pretty good, but I have been eating a lot of snacks and then I have a day here or there where I eat a lot of shit. My diet for this week consists of oats and a bannana in the morning, protein shake mid morning, chicken, vegetables and brown rice for lunch, piece of fruit, lean mince with tomatos and beans, and brown rice for dinner. Plus BCAAs.

If I can adhere to this I'm sure I will lose weight this week. I've also halved my brown rice intake.

Tonight was 1 hour of boxing. Not much to say here, but I think I've figured a sensible way to increase my training volume. Wil write about it next week.

 

24hr 30 min

[Micc]

Yes!

I recommend working out your big goal and then breaking down what you have to do into monthly, weekly and daily chunks. "How to get my training to the next level" - what does that mean? Try and be more specific. It's too vague to be achievable. Fight 3 times this year. <- That's more specific, and there is a time frame.

All the best. I'll be reading your blog!

 

Thank you! Yeah that's exactly what I want to do - plan and make achievable goals! :)

I've also taken a look at your diet - try to add green vegatables like broccoli, bean sprouts, spinach, cucumber to at least 3 of you daily meals. All these vegetables have de-acidification (I'm not sure it's the correct word) properties. So we usually eat a lot of acidic stuff (chocolate or fast foods :)) and these vegetables help keep the acid level in our bodies low and this helps us lose weight or keep our cravings in check. This is basically a shortend version of the whole process.

[Michelle Nicole]

What are BCAAs ?

[maybethestars]

Thanks Gavin! I'll also look towards makinga specific goal like you have/what Micc is doing. By the way Micc I'm also going to start following your blog :D

What are BCAAs ?

 

I'm curious about this too...

[Micc]

BCAA is Branched-chain amino acid, usually sold in capsules or powder as a sports nutricion supplement.

I use it, too. It helps to speed up the recovery time and the muscles are happy. :) It's one of the few sports nutricion supplements that have not been proven to be useless. They weren't proven useful either, but they might work :) And they don't make your muscles grow or anything like that, just speeding up the recovery of your muscles. And as I'm not fluent in this matter in English my description is really simple, but I hope it helps anyway:)

 

PS. Steph, thank you! I will do my best to write meaningful stuff there!! :D And it really makes me happy that you are interested in my blogging :) 

[Michelle Nicole]

Ohh, i actually do have something with those. I've just never seen it written like that before.

[Gavin]

Thank you! Yeah that's exactly what I want to do - plan and make achievable goals! :)

I've also taken a look at your diet - try to add green vegatables like broccoli, bean sprouts, spinach, cucumber to at least 3 of you daily meals. All these vegetables have de-acidification (I'm not sure it's the correct word) properties. So we usually eat a lot of acidic stuff (chocolate or fast foods :)) and these vegetables help keep the acid level in our bodies low and this helps us lose weight or keep our cravings in check. This is basically a shortend version of the whole process.

 

Good advice. I'll add some of that in next week (I've already bought groceries haha)

MICC hit in on the head BCAAS - branch chained amino acids. Essentially building blocks of protein, stuff like leucine. It actually tastes pretty good, so I recommend it to any sweet tooths who have trouble getting enough water in. Zero sugar too.

[Gavin]

1 hour of boxing tonight, combo was 1, slip, 1, 2, slip, 2, 1, slip, 1,2,1, slip, slip, 2,1,2. Was good fun.

 

25hr30min.