Well this week has been full of some pretty hard training. I was aiming to enter a BJJ Tournament next Sunday so have started doing some strength and conditioning circuits and picking up my intensity in training in preparation for it. Then on Thursday I was asked if I wanted a match up for a MMA fight soon on March 24th. I’ve said yes and things are still being sorted but now the focus has shifted towards fighting MMA.
It’s great having that focus to training for something though. Immediately upon being offered the fight I started to visualise fighting and all the training needed to be done before it. You even notice the difference when shadow boxing or warming up, there’s an extra snap in the punches you’re moving around more and really visualising fight situations compared to the normal mundane shadow box routine you put on to look like you’re doing something.
Recovery
After a hard week of training my muscles are aching and feeling in good need of a stretch. I didn’t stretch properly after some classes which I immediately regretted the next day when I started to feel tight in the leg muscles. You’d think after doing 3×10 roundhouses on each leg, then 3×5 power kicks each leg I would of stretched them out good. But I guess I didn’t do a good enough job because when we went for hill sprints yesterday they REALLY started to feel tight and almost like they would cramp or I’d even pull a muscle if I pushed too hard.
Lesson learned…. again.
The best thing after the training session was we had an Ice bath. Jumping in an ice bath initially sucks, but you really do feel better after it. Especially if you’ve picked up some bumps and bruises through training. My legs still feel tight today but they’d probably be a lot worse if I hadn’t had an ice bath. I think I’ll go get a Thai massage later this afternoon to help.
The Official IMA Ice Bath
Something I should of used before doing hill sprints is some Muay Thai Oil or Boxing Liniment Oil (see below pic). This stuff is the shiznit and before each jog when I was at Sitmonchai I’d apply some of this to my legs to help them get warm and loosen the muscles. It’s a bit like Deep Heat and has a distinct smell to it. Luckily I bought a little stack before I left Thailand, but stupidly I keep forgetting to put them in my gym bag. They’re definitely going to be in there from now on though 
Boxing liniment
I’m looking forward to another week of challenges in training to overcome. Tomorrow I’ll post some of the details of what we’ve been doing for our strength and conditioning training.
Train hard, train safe – Peace!
