Civilian training log [BJJ & SE]

[Northerner]

Upcoming block, 3 weeks of Fighter, as block three of I/CAT.

Goals

• High protein diet. I will not track calories but I will aim for 180-200g protein per day. I will do this the easiest way I know, by adding 3-4 protein rich snacks (whey shakes, quark, greek yoghurt) daily
• Bodyweight change not a goal, whichever way it goes is fine
• Gain conditioning.
• Maintain or gain strength.

Cluster and TM:
I will keep the same cluster for this block

• Bench press - 115kg (+2.5kg)
• Bulgarian split squat +4kg to dumbbells when applicable
• WPU - 125kg (+12.5kg) - I must've miscalculated last block, this is a 2.5kg increase in the added weight
• Trap bar deadlift, 1-3 sets once per week - 150kg (+5kg)

Conditioning
Will be exactly as mapped out in the I/CAT chapter.
I will take a few days off before I start this block.

[Northerner]

Block three of I/CAT finished.

This block started really well and went well for the first half. I completed my longest run ever in my life (15k) with little effort. But then I got very sick, likely covid. My whole family and also extended family was sick and some got tested positive for covid. So for about 14 days I got only one LSS run in. Came back feeling pretty detrained, but managed to squeeze in the remaining work before the month was up and finished the last long run today.

Goal 1 - High protein diet. I will not track calories but I will aim for 180-200g protein per day. I will do this the easiest way I know, by adding 3-4 protein rich snacks (whey shakes, quark, greek yoghurt) daily
Worked well first half of the block. As I got sick i had no appetite and as it also coincided with the holidays I ate mostly unhealthy food and candy. So all in all a failure to reach this goal.

Goal 2 - Bodyweight change not a goal, whichever way it goes is fine
Dropped 1kg and I'm currently at 89kg.

Goal 3 - Gain conditioning.
Not sure, didn't lose much at least

Goal 4 - Maintain or gain strength.
I believe this succeded. I was very close to miss a rep on bench press in the final strength days after my illness but I managed to squeeze them out.

All in all with some bad luck included I'm happy to have completed the block finally. Coming up is 3 weeks of SE/E/HIC for the finale of I/CAT. I'll use the same cluster as I did in basebuilding which will be Landmine Press, Landmine Squat, Landmine Row, Kettlebell Swing and some form of ab excercise, probably lying leg raises. I plan to test max reps for this in the upcoming days after new years celebrations are done.

[Northerner]

Upcoming block, 3 weeks of SE, as block four of I/CAT.

Goals for this block
I've contemplated this a bit. By just doing I/CAT the training kind of falls into place by itself. So for my goals these three weeks I decided to prioritize other domains equally important that I tend to neglect.

• Diet: Healthier and high in protein. Subgoals:
  • Meal prepping.
  • Daily intake of high protein snacks.
  • Daily intake of vegetables. With dinner or as shakes
  • Limit unhealthy snacks, none for most days but a maximum of ~10% of daily calories.
• Sleep: 7hrs+ of sleep with 85+% sleep effectiveness (Time in bed/Time slept). I actually treat insomnic patients in my job so I know what needs to be done and I'm also embarrased to neglect it, haha. However I also have two young children so good habits will only go so far...
• Bodyweight: Currently 89kg. I would like to keep losing weight slowly but it's not a huge deal. If I stay the same weight during this block that will be fine. Gaining weight however would be considered a failure.

SE Cluster:
I tested some different exercises today and repped out on them to build a cluster. I have my own home gym so I will do them with minimal rest between exercises.

• Push: Landmine press. 10kg x 50
• Pull: Landmine row. I loaded 15kg first and did 32 reps but it felt too heavy for SE. 10kg x 45.
• Hinge: Kettlebell swing: 20kg x 60
• Abs: Landmine russian twist. Never tried this one before. First set was unloaded but I managed to do 70+ reps, so I retested 5kg x 40
• Legs: Bodyweight squat: I tried 20kg KB goblet squat but I gassed after 20 reps, so I'll have to make do with bodyweight: 0 x 40

Conditioning
Speed will be 400m repeats. I've tried them twice during this last block but I failed to pace myself. I have a longer term goal of 2.4km (1.5mile) in 10:30 so the appropriate pace for 400m would be 1:45 which will be my goal pace for these repeats.
Hills will be either the tiny hill by my house with no rest or a larger hill EMOM
For LSS my goal will be to jog slowly enough to keep HR under 150. My wife got me a HR monitor for christmas so that will certainly be helpful.
LR 6.5k-13k, maybe some fartlek
Ruck will likely to be replaced by another LR

[Northerner]

A little mid-block update. Training is going well overall and I'm on schedule. However I've taken two extra rest days, because tonight I just tried BJJ for the first time. I had so much fun, barring any major injuries (my neck and traps are already sore haha) I will make BJJ my priority, hopefully for a very long time. I will start with 2x/week and hopefully move to 3x/week if I can manage it with work/life.

So this will change my training and goals indefinitely. I'm adamant to finish this last week of I/CAT as written, but it will take a bit longer.

But I have to say, a year of TB has really done wonders with my fitness. This is the first time since I started TB that I actually tested my strength and conditioning in a sport and I was pleasantly surprised. Now, obviously everyone in class took it very easy on me today. But I still felt quite strong, agile and I wasn't close to gassing in 1h30mins. Had this been last year I would have gassed during the warm up, and sadly that's not a joke.

I'm very excited, off to buy a GI!

[Northerner]

Unfortunately I injured my knee during BJJ about 2 weeks ago.

I'll make a quick recap just so I can remember for my own sake in the future:
So I've been pretty careful during BJJ, tapping early, going slow. My long term plan has formed to a focus of injury mitigation as my main priority. I had already gotten back into yoga in the morning before the evening BJJ class. But unfortunately this came too fast. The night of the injury I was feeling pretty OK. Followed the usual class with no problems. Sparred 7 rounds with no pain. The final round was with a small lightweight guy as new as me. We went pretty easy and I actually took his back and submitted him, no attacks on my legs or knees during the whole class. I sat with him and we talked for a while, then when I stood up there was a sharp sudden pain in my right knee. I hobbled a bit but was able to walk to my car, went home, washed my GI as usual and later went to bed. Next day my knee was swollen all around and I had lost a lot of its ROM and hobbled around. I didn't go to the doctor, I would've if I'd heard a snap or couldn't walk at all. But I figured I'd start with rest and see where it went. It's been two weeks and it's a lot better but not back to normal. So no diagnosis and I'm kinda still waiting it out and I started with some light rehab.

Looking back I've had knee problems for years. I've just kinda went around it instead of adressing it. Like in this journal. Couldn't squat -> BSS. During basebuilding the landmine squats hurt my knees but I kept doing them. Jogging sometimes hurt my knees so I slowed down and went only on trails etc.

With BJJ I can't do it like this anymore because I will get into situations where 200 pound men fold and twist my knees. So I have to strengthen them and everything else, in all positions.

Now of couse this sucks a lot. But it's not my first time getting injured so all I can do is formulate a plan rather than wallowing.

SHORT TERM:
* First and foremost priority is to not stop everything and become inactive. I can still do pullups and bench press and I'll start doing that in the next days. Hopefully I can do TPDL pretty soon also.

* BJJ will have to wait, hopefully just for a couple of weeks. Then I'll ease into it by just doing drilling and no sparring for a while

* I will do the knees over toes guy ZERO program. I've started a bit with the first exercises. I've been doing weighted sled drags and they feel great for my knees and are pain free.

* I had 2 SE sessions left on I/CAT that I will not finish

LONG TERM
* Keep doing Knees over toes if it helps

* Start a OPERATOR/BJJ plan as soon as I'm able

* Lots of yoga, solo drills, mobility training to keep the risk of injury as low as possible



Also a quick review of I/CAT. I think this is a terrific plan for anyone who wants all-round fitness planned out in a smart fashion. BJJ will be my priority for a while so I probably won't do I/CAT any more. But I would under different circumstances.

[Northerner]

Yesterday I build this bad boy and today I took him for a test drive. Did about 200+200 meters walking backwards on gravel with 20kg on the sled. Both knees felt very good afterwards

[Northerner]

My knee is better but still pretty far from healed. I also caught a bad flu and I've been basically out of training for the past 6 weeks. I've managed to get some easy rehab for my knee and some short walks in but that's about it. So it's been quite a dire situation and I've lost a lot of what i gained during last years training.

Looking forward:
I've accepted the fact that I won't be able to comfortably do BJJ again until I've fixed my knee properly. So I'll keep up rehab and work whatever else I can in the meanwhile. My goal is to do pain free squats with (low) load before I return to BJJ, hopefully this is doable in the foreseeable future.

Upcoming block, 3 weeks of OP/PRO + ATG Zero

Mon: OP/Pro
Tue: ATG Zero
Wed: OP/Pro
Thur: ATG Zero
Fri: OP/Pro
Sat: ATG Zero
Sat: Rest

Goals for this block

• Rehab my knee with ATG zero.
• Regain strength in Bench press, TPDL and WPU
• Cardio is not a priority these 3 weeks
• Bodyweight: Currently 86kg after the flu. I expect to gain some back now which will be fine.

Cluster:
TMs are just conservative guesses for this first block

• Bench Press, TM 100kg
• TPDL, TM 120kg
• WPU +0kg, +5kg, +10kg

I will also do some finishers to help future BJJ: neck training, plank/shank, forearms

Conditioning
Reverse sledding. I will very carefully start with easy, short jogs and see how the knee reacts. No HICS during this block.

[Northerner]

Block finished and it's time to evaluate. Goals were

Rehab my knee with ATG zero: Has worked out quite well. I've regained my ROM now and I've gained stability. I need to keep working on increasing it further. Knee still hurts a bit sometimes and stiffnes up a bit. Not ready for heavy squats, sprints or BJJ yet.

Regain strength in Bench press TPDL and WPU: Pretty weak so far, best TPDL was 130x2 and Bench 90x3 but I've been out from heavy strength so long that it still feels fine

Cardio is not a priority these 3 weeks: I did try a short jog 2.4km and I don't feel like it exacerbated my knee injury

Bodyweight: Currently 86kg after the flu I expect to gain some back now which will be fine: No change which is fine

I will now repeat the block another three weeks. Same goals except I will add light cardio. Probably some variation of fobbits and try some light jogs with increasing distances.


Upcoming:
Mon: OP/Pro
Tue: ATG Zero, Fobbit or LSS
Wed: OP/Pro
Thur: ATG Zero, Fobbit or LSS
Fri: OP/Pro
Sat: ATG Zero, Fobbit or LSS
Sat: Rest

Cluster:
Bench Press, TM 102.5kg (+2.5kg)
TPDL, TM 125kg (+5kg)
WPU +0kg, +5kg, +10kg (no change)

[Northerner]

Block is finished, evaluation of goals:
Rehab my knee with ATG zero: slowly progressing. ROM is greater than pre-injury at this point but my knee still feels fragile. Pain is generally non existent now. It's more about the feeling that if I were to sprint, jump, do BJJ or squat heavy it would make things worse again. So I'll slowly and carefully push the limit. I went on a slow jog and got some pain and swelling again so I'm backing off running for now and focusing on rehab and strength. I've kept up with the ATG program every other day and I've added som extra rehab work with resistance bands and even tried some light squats.

Regain strength in Bench press TPDL and WPU: Strenght increasing back to more normal levels. Best bench was 100kg x 2, best TPDL 130x3 being a bit careful.

Cardio is not a priority these 3 weeks: Like i said, LSS run didn't go well. Haven't really done much cardio because of that.

Bodyweight: About the same or maybe +1kg. Not a big deal either way right now.

[Northerner]

For the next block I will keep the same OP/Pro cluster, increasing weights by 5kg and doing the hypertrophy ranges for the secondary lifts. I'll keep up with ATG zero but do it the same time as MS and do HIC/E the other days. I'm not sure yet what kind of conditioning I can do right now so I will try various versions and evaluate. Maybe some HIC variations that doesn't require running like Meat Eater 2, SE work or even light rucking.

Goals:
1) Rehab knee further.
2) Keep increasing strength
3) Reintroduce conditioning 3x/week

Mon: OP/Pro + ATG Zero
Tue: E or HIC
Wed: OP/Pro + ATG Zero
Thur: E or HIC
Fri: OP/Pro + ATG Zero
Sat: E or HIC
Sat: Rest