Pre Tournament

Lately I have not had any spare time to keep up with my blog, but I have been doing a good job of keeping up with training. The last few weeks have been spent getting both my team and I ready for various upcoming tournaments. I am a big believer in focusing on fitness for tournament preparation. My philosophy is forget about learning something new and using it next week in the tournament, practice what you already know and work on your conditioning. Along those lines the Tue practice consisted of a fairly tough warm-up then I reviewed some smash pass defense options. What I thought would be a review was really something new for some of the people which goes against my general philosophy, but I kept it very basic so they should be able to use some of it if the situation presents itself. I mostly focused on shoulder walking away from the opponent to create space and getting back in the game. Some of the people in class are doing a Judo tournament this weekend and some are doing a BJJ tournament, so the smash pass defense seemed like something everyone could benefit from.

My personal progress - I am competing in the Maryland Open this weekend, which is a Judo tournament. It is not a huge tournament and I dont expect a big turnout, but I really need to put in my best effort at every Judo tournament I go to this year. Right now I still dont do very well against Judo Black belts (which should be expected since I am still a Brown belt) and the tournaments I will be attending (with the possible exception of one) will almost always lump the Brown and Black belts together.

After thinking it through I came to the following conclusions. Judo Black belts are like everything else, some are really good, some are good and some are not so good. It sounds simple and rudimentary but it works for me. Right now I can beat the Black belts that fall into the "not so good category" but those are few and far between. The "mid level Black belts typically beat me and the "high level" Black belts destroy me. There is not much I can do against the "high level" Black belts right now so I am not going to worry about them. My focus this year is going to be on beating the "mid level" Black belts. Right now I can give them a good fight, but I tend to come up short. My goal for the next few tournaments will be to level the playing field against the mid level Black belts with conditioning. If I can run them down I have a good chance and anytime I can get the fight to the ground I have a very good chance.

On the conditioning front I have 4 separate routines. My goal is to be able to complete each routine. If I can get through each routine I will be "ready".

The first 2 routines are my lunch time workouts:
Day 1
10 - 15 min on the recumbent bike as a warm up

10 reps dumb bell bench press
2 min ALL OUT sprint on the recumbent bike
10 pull ups
Rest
Repeat
My goal for this routine is to do 5 rounds with 10 pull-ups on each round.
I did 3 rounds on Monday with 2 rounds of 10 pull-ups and 1 round of 8 pull-ups. not bad, after the Judo tournament this weekend I will up the number of rounds to 5 and slowly work on increasing the pull-ups to 10 in each round.

Day 2
10 min run as a warm-up

10 seated lat pulls
2 min ALL OUT sprint on the treadmill
10 dips
Rest
Repeat

Again, the goal is to get 5 rounds. On Tues I got 3 full rounds in so I will up it to 5 next week. I probably need to up the lat pulls and dips to 15 on each round.

Non-training nights - I have a kettle bell routine I like to do with about 15 different exercises and I do standing free squats between each exercise. My goal is to get 25 reps on each exercise with 10 squats between each exercise. The workout has gotten a little boring lately so I may need to fine some different exercises, or perhaps up the squats to 15 or 20.

Weekends
3 min Jump rope
10 reps Clean and Press
3 min Jump rope
10 reps Clean and Press
Rest
Repeat

Yes, the goal is to get 5 rounds. This workout is extremely difficult. Right now I am doing the Clean and Press on the first half of the first round and only doing the Cleans for the rest of the workout. I also cannot do the second half of each round without the rest in between. So right now the workout is basically Jump Rope for 3 min followed by 10 Cleans followed by a short rest. I may have bitten off a little more than I can chew with this workout, but I like pushing myself with it. Did I mention I do this work out in my detached garage with no heat?

I am ready for the Judo tournament this weekend, I am going in with a positive attitude, a high fitness level and in a good frame of mind. I WILL be ready for the New York open.