TKD and fitness training- Currently cutting down from 9 sessions a week to recover for nationals in 12 days. Won't seem like such a monster. Focus for nationals: Reaction + Speed + Footwork + Head shot = National Champion 29-8 TKD- 90 mins Warm up (fast knee lifts, footwork, stretching, etc) Heavy Shield Kicking (focus- attacking, working off the front foot roundhouse attack with sidestepping and multiple kick follow ups) Focus pad training (Same focus less power more on speed and sharp head kicks) Isometric stretching Front splits, each side approx 5 mins. Side Splits, approx 5 mins. Intermittant contraction and release. 30-8 Rest day. Lots of uni work due
This log and a good amount of essay procrastination inspired me. Did some light hip/core recovery, was feeling a little tight. Lancelot Stretch- 40 seconds each side x 2 Psoas Stretch- 40 seconds each side x 2 Single Leg Hip Bridge- 10 reps each side x 2 Side Plank- 40 seconds each side x 2 Clam Stretch- 40 seconds each side x 2 Bodyweight Single Leg Toe Touch- 10 reps each side x2
31/8 Stupid Stupid uni- normally break my track work and training down but tonight had to smash it all in together, lucky training wasn't to taxing. Trackwork- light jog, stretch 5 x 100m Sprints with 30 second rest rest 3 minutes Repeat Drive to training (10 mins) Warmup sparring (footwork and light kicks) approx 5 mins. Self defense drills (punches high guard- generally not Sport TKD stuff) 15 mins Partner assisted stretching, various core exercises and light kicking 20mins Line Kicking- padwork headkicks (since well stretched out) about 25-30 mins. Finisher- heavy shield kicks full power non-stop up and down hall cool down + stretch. Today was an okay session, not too intense apart from the sprints. It was good to have a kind of practice for having a hard fight, recovering and then going and doing it over again. Feel good for nationals next week- just need to maintain my focus and only do whats going to help me get over the line and win.
1/9 Got to training late, essay still causing me grief. (light session) Missed warmup Stretch Footwork practice (across hall) Shadow kicking/sparring up and down hall focus on movement/agility All gear on- specific scenario training/partner work. Drills up and down hall several times each, attacking and defending. - Pressure, motioning and footwork as set up Single attack, break away Set up attack with sidestepping break away Single attack, clinch/jam up Any attack, clinch/jam- use footwork to set up another shot. Pick one and do it repeatedly. Cooldown/stretch Felt a bit tight since I missed the warm up but got into it as we went along with the pad work. Head kicks coming out nicely, though my partner didnt appreciate being smacked around that much in "non/semi-contact drills" Normally I've been doing resistance band training after my sessions but I dont have time as I have to come home and do this stupid assignment. It will be done in 24 hours and I can focus on nationals!
2-4/9: Light stretching/kicking rest/taper phase 5/9 Sport Class: AM: Warm up, jogging, stretching, knee lifts and light kicks 5 x 70m (normally 100 cut down the distance and focussed on intensity) Sprints with 30 second rest rest 3 minutes Repeat PM: Heavy session with lots of padwork, explosive drills etc. Feel really sharp best session all year. 6-7/9 Rest, stretching and light kicking, really making sure all my sore muscles from the last month are recovered as that's something that has had a big impact in the past. Nationals is the major event of the year. 8/9 TKD session. Good light session, practiced the techniques I will use on the day of the comp and just worked up a good sweat. Weigh in is tomorrow, so I will go to uni in the morning, drive 3 hours to the comp, weigh in and rest (staying at the comp venue) My weight is right on the money weighing 74kg and fighting at -74kg so all is good. Looking forward to fighting the day after, there are a few gooduns in the division. Theres one guy who beat me at a state open a few months ago and I got really ripped off, so I want to verse him first, but wont know the draw untill tomorrow.
Happy New Year Fought on Sunday. I lost my fight against the eventual silver medalist. It was disappointing because I had beaten the player before. I took some good opportunities initially then lost my focus after referees did not score some head shots. I'm going to fight again in 19 days. For the nationals I did not do heavy preparation before the fight, to ensure "proper recovery" and tapering. As I will be dropping a weight division for the next competition I will be training hard up until the day before the fight. How I perform with the weight drop and training intensity will determine if I am going to make the drop at the national team selections in 4 months, and international competitions next year. Winning a national title was my major goal this year. I failed to achieve it. While I have different goals next year which are more directed at international competitions- I will improve my skills so next year at the nationals I beat the guy who beat me and win the trophy.
Monday 12th Am- 15 mins skipping, footwork to loosen up. Still sore from nationals. Pm- warmup, free headshots sparring 10-15 mins, Lightrish session. Worked on some techniques identified in the fight. A great deal of my time is going to be spent on scoring on the daedo electronic chest protectors. Particularly hitting with the appropriate area of the foot. Also need to implement more cardio to make the drop to -68. Tuesday 13th Dieted through the day. Eating cleaner more than less and cutting out snacks. Making sure my main focus is on eating lean natural protein, fruits and vegetables and wholegrain carbs. I'm also using caffiene in the form of black coffee as an appetite suppressant and to replace my addiction to sugary energy drinks. Training. 5-10 mins skipping 5-10 mins head shot sparring Working on kicking: footwork, air kicking, pad work and breaking rebrakeable boards. The concepts behind board breaking lend themselves well to sport Taekwondo. Hitting must be at a precise foot and leg movement with maximum commitment, follow through and technique. Plus you get to break things Finisher- speed kick drills on paddles
Rest- I fought a few days ago and have been training since. Had a day to recover. ate light but healthily and high protein foods. Next session tomorrow night
Lack of updates. I went interstate last week. To fight of course. Did a few training sessions with a top coach. Have a few things to work on since I got back. Notably - long range explosive running kick - punchy cut kick - combos off the front leg Inc. Checking, following up (ESP. High section) - long range reverse turn - appropriate/safe way to land reverse and jump back kicks - cut/front foot set up for reverse - reinforce not leaning Back - re: head kicks. Aim for throat/jaw not top of head. In the comp I won 1st match via point difference and a knockout kick in the 2nd round. Semi's I lost to a talented Korean fighter who won the day. He picked my game plan and caught me with right leg roundhouse (face) counters around my cut kick. I got out of the comp what I wanted- developing my front foot, making weight for the lower division (-68) and refueling and rehydrating for the competition. Technical areas to improve: not leaning back (how I got caught) developing more fainting and motioning, following up after front foot- checking after front foot, not running in too obviously. Will post my pre season routine shortly
9 weeks. I have 9 weeks untill my next comp. And then about 6 weeks from there untill national team selections for 2012 university championships. Following this is the US open. For 8 weeks Im going to do off season style training including: 2 x stair running sessions per week (adding weight after week 3 and removing it for the last week to note improvement 2-3 x strength training per week. Focus on major movements e.g. Deadlift, squat, pullups, military press 1 x basics session a week. Reinforce my new technical focus by practicing basic techniques in front of a mirror 1-2 x sport Tkd sessions- to stay sharp 1-3 dedicated (short) core workouts either by themselves, before or after a session, just to gain some strength and controll for technical work. 1 (recovery and time permitting) LSD run. I have a course that takes about 1 hr to run that I like to hit when I can. It sounds like a big workload but the sessions (stairs, strength, core, basics) are all quite short. Which means I should be able to fit them into my schedule
Week of training for week 2-9 October 2011 M- Core T- Basics W- Rest T- Sport TKD- Axe Kick Focus F- Strength S- Sport TKD- Front foot and Axe focus S- Stairs (1step x 3, 2s x 3, 3s x 3 time 11.53) So I missed 1 x Strength Session, 1 x stairs session from my minimum targets, Uni is a constant getter in the way-er-er as is social life. Ill get all the minimums in but I'm enjoying time off in the off season! Strength Routine. Deadlift Back Squat Romanian Deadlift Lunge Pullups Upright Row (& Bent Over Row Time permitting) Military Press Earlier in the year I was doing 10-12 Reps & 2-3 sets each. However I'm wanting to increase the strength a lot for this training phase so heres the plan Set One 10-12 Set Two 6-8 Set Three 4+ Set Four 4+ Increasing the weight every set. If anyones reading through this blog feel free to tell me a better way to set out the reps/sets.
Training in Spain Yesterday. Light technical session approx 1hr 45. Padwork and some light sparring at the beggining Today AM: Physical workout. Fitness padwork (speed drills) Luckily the Spain team had a week off so they are easing back into training slowly... This week I want to work on one major area. Improving my recovery after kicks, mainly covering up. By recovery I mean ability to not get countered on after kicking, so having better movement out or jamming up more efficiently. I can focus on this during most drills that we do, just make sure to recover after every combo!
Everything's going well. I did a few comps early December in Europe, then had a holiday- Basically did the back packers thing for about 4 weeks. Made posting pretty difficult. Im training in Barcelona at their Institute of Sport which should be a really good development camp. The athletes who are fighting at the Olympic Selections for Europe are all here- So it's top class! While the training is good, there isn't much to do between the sessions, so I imagine I'll be posting a lot more, which is why I'm updating the log!
Day 2 PM- Running and agility drills as a warm up. Work sets, practising attacking and defensive head shots with a partner, not hitting anything just using partner for distance and pressure and they move their head out of the way. Padwork- Some warm up kicks then 2minute rounds focusing on distance and pressure. The main thing that stands out about the training here is that it's very rare to practise single kicks, everything is combinations!
Thanks Simon... AM training- Resistance. They focus pretty heavily on machines here. I think becuase it's only supplementary training? I dont really want to tell the S&C coach that dead lifts are a better idea 4 upper 4 lower body exercises. each 10 reps 4 sets Sitting Leg Extension Bench Press Hamstring Curl Machine Fly's Standing glute extension (havnt seen this machine before- almost perfect for back kick training) Leg press Pull ups- did 5,6,5 (was aiming for 8) (Obviously missed on upper body exercise, not sure what it was supposed to be though) The thing that stands out to me from practising this today was just how weak my upper body is compared to my lower body. Really something to assess when I get back home!
PM Training- Sparring! Did a warm up and then they set up the Daedo PSS (the tkd electonics) Their sparring format is EXACTLY the same as a fight. One other fighter acts as a ref and they do full 3x2 min rds, full contact and intensity. I had 3 fights. 1st fight- Was getting pretty trounced by one of the smaller guys, went into the last round about 7 points behind, realised I dont want to look like a flop so I went harder, scored a great spin hook and a few body shots, final score was about 7-10 2nd fight- I fought one of the heavy weights. Was worried about his power so spend the fight on the out side. Got ahead with a back kick in the 1st round 1-2. Second round he scored an axe kick, this is because I started moving linearly back every time he came in, instead of mixing it up with side stepping, wont make this mistake again, final score after 3rd round = 6-7 to him. 3rd fight- Was even 1st round, I was up 1-0, Second round he got a nice 4pt head shot when I threw a pretty obvious kick, he got up again when I threw punch that landed too high. Last round I attacked alot but not strategically, got countered again with the same Spin Hook and he ended up winning 9(maybe 10)-1(or 2/3?) Notes: Wasn't really into it last fight, need to make sure when I get in the ring with these guys that I'm 100% switched on or I will get a headache. Learnt a few fancy ways of scoring on Daedo which is good. Mainly just need to relax and be more tactical, throw more than one kick and stop attacking the flank with turning kick. Watched the Barcelona game that evening with some of the guys, it's funny how not speaking the language everyone is united by football ! Next Day- AM Physical Warmup and speed drills on pads for 1.5 hours. Not too intense but my body is starting to feel the accumulated fatigue. I've been sleeping a lot during day, like 3-5 hours in addition to about 8 at night, that and the diet help. But I'm looking forward to full rest days this weekend!
