Plan the work, work the plan

This is something my dad used to say to me about a hundred times a week back in high school.  Prolly had something to do with the fact that I kept turning stuff in late or just straight forgetting to do it in the first place.  Anyhow, I've finally started to listen to him.  Here's my attempt to plan out my next 6 weeks.

As I mentioned before, my gym attendance has been really hit-or-miss recently & above all I want to represent my school well.  This means that I've got to get back in the gym, get back to work & get up to competition level.  The obvious answer is to just dive head-first into it & spend every available moment rolling.  Unfortunately, there are 2 drawbacks to that plan:

1. I have other committments.  Work, training for my new UFC gig, friends, family, etc. all put taxes on my time.  As I get closer & closer to the competition, I'll be racheting those down drastically, but I'm too much of a social butterfly to quit cold-turkey.
2. Attainable goals.  I'm used to going home & relaxing after work.  Watching TV, surfing the web, etc.  If I try to say I'm going full-bore straight out of the gate, I'll get burnt out sometime around Thursday & stay home.  Then I'll get frustrated with myself for having failed already.  Rather than setting myself up for an early failure (and setting a bad tone for the rest of training), I'm going to give myself attainable goals that I'm confident I can meet, thus building from success to success.

For this reason, I've mapped out a more gradual approach.  I decided to retroactively declare last week as the beginning of training.  I went to the gym twice in Week 1: Wednesday for BJJ Fundamentals & Muay Thai Fundamentals and Thursday for Judo & Advanced Muay Thai.  This week (Week 2), I will go to the gym at least 3 times.  Week 3, I'll go at least 4 times, and so on.

A few ground rules:

1. If I show up to the gym for a Muay Thai class, but no grappling, it doesn't count towards my recquired sessions.  The whole point of this training schedule is to get me ready for a grappling competition, so striking counts for zero right now, other than cardio work.
2. Judo on Thursdays & Competition Class on Fridays are mandatory.  They are mt two weakest areas (standing & strategy) & the two that I think could most positively affect influence my game if improved.
3. MMA Conditioning on Saturdays is "highly recommended".  I don't think I've ever felt exhausted during a match, but you can never have a deep enough has tank.  That being said, it is also not a grappling class & therefore will not count towards the required number of sessions.
4. I have do my best to split my time equally between gi & no-gi classes.  I'm competing in both disciplines, so I better be ready & comfortable with both.
5. Two classes in one day (6am & 5:30pm class or 5:30 & 7:30 class) still just count as 1 training session.  So I can't go 3 times tomorrow & call it a week.  Obviously, the type of class can be used for balancing gi vs. no-gi.
6. The weekly required number of sessions is simply the minimum.  I'm not going to be forcing myself to lay around the house just because I already checked off all my boxes.

All that so that I can get to this: Week 5.  It's the part of this process that I am simultaneously the most excited & the most nervous about.  For those of you smart enough to follow the pattern, by Week 5, I have committed to 6 days in the gym.  I'm here to let you know that it's going to be even more intense than that: I'm not committing to just 6 classes, or just 6 evenings  taking a coupla class, I'm committing, here & now, to ALL 22 CLASSES OFFERED BETWEEN MONDAY, OCTOBER 8th-SATURDAY OCTOBER 13th.  I had 5 vacation days that I had to take before year end, so I took off that week.  For those six days, I will be doing nothing other than sleeping, eating, showering, washing gear & training.  It's going to be a glorious nightmare!  On top of that, I'll be doing Russ' Drilling Seminar the Saturday before, and (if my body doesn't flat out refuse) all 4 classes the following Monday (October 15th).  All in all, I'm hoping to get in 27 classes in 9 days.

My Training Schedule.  Each day I go to the gym, I get to put a big fat X on my calendar & note which classes I went to.

So there it is, my nice color-coordinated Training Schedule.  The colors getting more & more intense leading up to Boot Camp, then tapering off a bit the two weeks prior to the tournament so that I don't risk injury.  Week 6 is back down to 5 days in the gym, full intensity, and Week 7, though it'll still be 5 days in the gym, will be much lower intensity.

So anyway, that's how I've planned the work.  Tomorrow (Hobbit Day!) will be my first training day of Week 2.  I'll hit 3 days in a row to make sure I keep in line with my requirements.  Until then, see y'all around the intra-webs.