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Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Training and Health
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Little summary of the last 3 months:

October

  • Lots of school & trips to Houston
  • Lots of booze
  • few sporadic gym trips
  • Quit weight watchers
[b]November[/b]
  • School got even crazier.
  • Drinking came to a head at the start of the month. Quit around the first week.
  • Probably hit the gym even less than October.
  • My usual stomach flu over thanksgiving.
  • Weight jumped to over 250
[b]December[/b]
  • Wrapped up school December 3rd.
  • Got drunk as soon as I got home from my last class; through the following evening.
  • Quit booze again.
  • Slowly working my way back to the gym.
  • Got sick around the 10th; finally got better around the 20th.

This week I’ve already hit the gym twice.
My weight’s down to the low 240s, just from quitting drinking (even with holiday food).

The new workout plan is:
Monday - yoga & muay thai
Tuesday - cardio bag class
Wednesday - muay thai
Thursday - cardio bag class
Friday - muay thai

Still working up to the new workout plan; haven’t done it yet.
This week, I’m hoping to complete Tuesday through Friday from the plan.
Haven’t done a Monday yet.
Holday-permitting, next week will be better.
Once I’ve adjusted to that schedule, I’ll probably step it up for All-in-all-out on Thursdays and maybe Cross-Fitness on Wednesdays, with muay thai on Tu, Wed, Fri.
But there’s no rush on upping the schedule, until my body’s ready.

Diet-wise, aside from cutting out alcohol & smokes; I’ve also been limiting going out to eat to once a week (not counting the occasional subway run).
Cooking a lot more.
About to cut out carbonated beverages altogether.

62

Hey man,

Sort of skimmed through your blog and noticed there’s been lots of ups and downs, starting and stopping. Looks like you’re having weight issues and that sort of thing. I give you credit for putting it all on here for people you know jack about to read, so take this with a grain of salt. Stick to something reasonable and do it. Don’t put all these goals in your head because you’ll eventually feel like nothings going right and end up giving up. Pick one thin you really need to change, ie: weight. and work on getting that in control. Don’t get me wrong, i do the same thing with changing my workouts or not followiing through with a plan i’ve set up, but i find for me, if i just have one goal then i’m better at focusing on it and getting a good result. Don’t look for quick fixes because they never work.

Anyway, you seem like a decent guy and i’m not trying to rag on ya, so take it for what it’s worth.

Good luck.

63

Thanks for the encouragement and the feedback brule.
I appreciate you being gentle. :slight_smile:
Don’t really have a valid reason for my behavior the last couple years.
My excuse is that school was overwhelming.

The times you see me start up are the times when I would have a break from school or a lull in the workload.
The times I fell off coincided with when school picked up (aside from sickness and/or injury).
I didn’t do a good job of juggling the two.
In retrospect it was probably a mistake to do a masters program 3.5 hours away in Houston.
All that driving, combined with the stress, the long hours, and the sheer amount of work, really took a lot out of me.

Now that I’m finally done with school, I’m trying to create some decent habits & build a routine.
Yes, my overall goal is to lose weight, but it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
I totally agree with you that consistency is the key.
I am trying my best to create a lifestyle I can be consistent with for the long run.
I’m comfortable not doing the perfect diet or the perfect routine if what I am doing is an improvement and something I can continue for months on end.
I can always tweak as time goes on.

Right now I’m focusing on 3 things: stay away from drinking & smoking, don’t go out to eat more than once a week, and get back into a consistent gym schedule.

I’m not ready to jump into a strict diet; just going to make some minor tweaks and just try to be consistent. Cutting out booze & not ordering anymore delivery are pretty much the extent of my willpower for food these days.

Working out five days a week is something I’ve been slowly working up to.
I’m not ready to go full-out 5 days a week yet and won’t be for a while.
Currently, my only high-intensity days are Tuesday & Thursday.
The workouts at the muay thai gym haven’t been very demanding.
At the muay thai gym, it’s up to me how hard I want to push it.
Working out is usually very fun for me and if i dread going to the gym, then I know that something’s wrong with my routine and/or I need some rest.
Going to see how my body reacts to the routine I listed.
If it’s too much, I’ll throw in a mid-week rest day.
If I end up adapting to it & feeling hungry for more, I’ll step up the workouts.

I had a lot of success in 2009, when I stopped worrying about the weight so much and I just tried to get in the best shape I could. This time around, I’ll probably spend less time at the gym each day, but my goal is to keep it going a lot longer than 5 or 6 months.

64

Thursday 12/29/2011
Cardio bag class at the krav maga gym.
Brutal workout.
I see the people that have been there a while going for more than one class a night.
Can’t tell yet if they’re really that in shape, or if they’ve learned how to pace themselves.
I’d prefer not to pace myself.
If this class becomes too easy, I’ll probably just go for the harder classes.
I don’t like being at the gym more than an hour, hour and a half; as I need at least some time for my family.
Can’t see myself staying at the gym that long anymore.

65

Friday 12/30/2011
Earlier today i mentioned that muay thai class wasn’t too strenuous.
I wonder if my coach is reading this blog.
He smoked me today.
Didn’t help that I’d had some spicy food for a late lunch an hour before class.
2 hour workout from he||.
puked twice.
Lots of reps of just about every calisthenic I know and a lot I didn’t know.
5 minutes of skip knees.
punches on the bag for reps.
bob & weave under the rope - we’re doing a lot more boxing these days.
shadow boxing a number of specific defenses and counters for the last 20 min or so.
ouch.

66

Tuesday 1/3/2012
Went to muay thai.
Tried to do as much of the brutality workout as I could remember, with a few tweaks.
Left out the 5min round of skip knees; but got in 2 rounds of pad work.
solid workout, sore today (wed).

monthly meeting wednesday night so i’ll be back in the gym on thursday.

[EDIT: Thought I should put a blurb in here about being one month sober as of Tuesday, 1/3/2012]

67

Friday 1/6/2012
Had a real late night on Wednesday, ruined me for Thursday.
Got back in the gym on Friday.
Lots of calisthenics.
Got up to 20 continuous burpee jacks (5 jumping jacks + 1 burpee).
5 min of skip knees is still tough.
Did a lot of boxing pad work, with defense.
Worked a lot on footwork.
Coach has definitely started incorporating a lot more boxing, so my style is kind of going back to what it was in Baltimore.

68

Monday 1/9/2012
Yoga night.
Sweat a bit, but wasn’t a killer.
Nice to have a day where I don’t kill myself.
Felt really good afterwards.

Suntzu’s coming to town tonight.
Going to bag class before he gets here.

69

Tuesday 1/10/2012
Cardio bag class.
Was a little off-putting - instructor ran up to me in the middle of class and called me out for having “wrong side forward”.
A little background - I am southpaw, most of the cardio bag instructors claim to drill both sides evenly, but few actually do. So I usually go southpaw when everyone else is orthodox and switch orthodox when everyone else goes southpaw.
It caught me off guard a bit; kinda made me mad.
Switched and kinda half-azzed it till we finished up that side, waiting to see if she’d follow through with drilling the other side.
Luckily she did, and everything was gravy.
Class itself was pretty easy.
Lots of new folks, so I wonder if she toned it down.
Maybe the break I gave myself was enough to recover; but it really wasn’t that much.
Okay workout, but I finished wondering if I should stay for another class.
Wasn’t due to pick up Suntzu from the airport for another hour and a half.
Ended up going home & changing clothes, which ended up working out well.
We got some Thai food and watched 13 Assassins; interesting flick.
He was watching Strikeforce when i went to bed a little after midnight.

Woke up earlier than normal today.
Had to get up early to get my kid his passport, but I woke up even earlier than that.
Feel pretty good.
Probably just excited to work out with my friend again.
Going to figure out which gym to go to tonight

70

Wednesday 1/11/2012
Muay Thai tonight.
Suntzu came too.
3 rounds of jump rope with calisthenics on the rests.
Calisthenics circuit from hades - burpee jacks not too bad, still not able to do the ab exercises without letting my shoulders/legs touch the floor, upper body stuff still killing me, but it seems to be going faster though.
5 minutes of skip knees (survived much better this time).
stretch kicks.
Held pads for about 7 rounds.
Hit pads for 3 rounds.
3 rounds of bag.
Feel pretty good.
Slowly making progress - but it will be a long time till i’m back to proper form.

71

Good on you dude.
I myself have just recently started to get back to working out from a 10 week hiatus.
Sucks to start at the bottom but such is life !
Last week I worked out all 5 days to get used to working out- less intense but progressing.
This week I am doing 3X a week but with more intensity but only next week will I add MA training ( doing ST for this week and last).
A long layoff really takes it out of you.
Right now I am doing only BW exercises - Chins, dips, handstand push-ups, one handed pushups, horizontal pull ups, squats.
The numbers suck, but they are on their way up, slowly but surely.

72

Thanks :slight_smile:
I’m noticing that lower intensity with more frequent workouts is more rewarding to me.
Since we’re just getting back into it, the need to push ourselves very hard to get any results really isn’t there - anything we do at this point will pretty much help.
I’ll push cardio intensity at various points in the week, but anything that makes me so sore that i require time to recuperate is pretty much off the table right now.
The intensity will come naturally as I feel better.

Like you, I’m also not lifting heavy.
Doing a ton of bodyweight stuff.
Still need to figure out how to insert pullups in there (requires a trip to a different gym).
Not sure if/when I’ll go back to doing squats & deadlifts with heavy weight.

This is the first week I’ll be adding a saturday class in years; planning to hit 6 workouts this week for the first time in years as well.
Goal is to not push it too much on Saturday & just have fun with it.

I want to stay consistent with what I’m doing for the next 8 months or so, reevaluate, and maybe shoot for an amateur bout in 10 months. Will make small tweaks to my diet, but not go “on a diet” until that time. Want to see how sticking with working out & small tweaks consistently affects me.
Cautious of burning out on the exercise & diet front, so I want to keep it fun & relaxed.

73

I think that when one is training with a goal and for competition that “moderate and consistent” is the way to go.
You can always rev it up 6 weeks prior to get the “intensity level” higher.
You seem to have a good blend of short term and long term goals, good on you.
As for the more intense ST:
Do it when you get to the point that you feel you HAVE to, ie: you are maxing out with your BW exercises at a level of endurance instead of strength.
Even then there are many tricks you can do to make the BW exercises more challenging.
Of course you will never get the pure raw strength and power like doing Squats, DL, Bench and overheads, but I you may not need it at this point and there is nothing wrong ( and many things right) about building a solid core/base with BW exercises.

74

Thursday 1/12/2012
Suntzu wanted to go to the Fit to Fight class at 7:30, so I jumped into Crossfitness Plus class.
They’ve switched up Crossfitness class.
Used to be: a brutal 20 min high rep weight circuit, a nasty 20 min core work out, and finish up with 20 min on the bag. We had to move to a different room for each section.
These days, everything’s in the bag room. It’s now 20 min of core, 20 min of rubber bands, and 20 min on the bag.
I would say that the bag section is better these days, but the other 2 sections are lacking the sheer suffering of the original. In all, it felt more like a slight variation on the cardio bag classes than the old crossfitness class.
Still a good workout though.
Sweat through my shirt.
Muay thai tonight and tomorrow.
Tonight’s going to be hard work, but planning to take it easy tomorrow & just have fun.

75

Saturday 1/14/2012
Took Friday night off because I was sore and feeling run down.
It’s easier to talk myself into working out when I’m tired when I can hit the gym on the way home, instead of driving all the way home to pick my friend up and then turn around to go back out.

Worked out Saturday.
Did a reasonable 2 hour workout and then sparred with Suntzu.
Team mate showed up when we were sparring and jumped in round robin.
First time working with the team mate, and it went well for the most part.
He’s been looking to prove himself to the older generation of guys at my gym for a while, so he kind of took it seriously even though we tried to make it fun.
He is a bigger guy and is actually really good; but I think I’m going to have to spend more time keeping the mood light. He called “cheap shot” a few times when we were going light and used it as an excuse to “get revenge”. He almost broke my nose with one really nice punch. He ended up quitting after accusing Suntzu of “thumbing” him in the eye.

I want to work with the guy more, because he’s good and he can make me better.
I just gotta figure out how to keep it fun.

76

Monday 1/16/2012
Went to Gold’s for yoga class.
Thought class was at 6, but it was actually at 5:30; strolled into the room around 5:55.
Class was okay, I like the krav yoga teacher much better.
Afterwards, I did some lat & rear delt work to offset imbalances in my training.

  • t-bar row - 90lbs x 10 reps x 4 sets
  • hammer strength close grip bilateral (separate weight for each arm) pull down - 60lbs each side x 10 reps x 5 sets
  • wide cable pull down (separate cable for each arm) - together: 80lbs x 10 reps, 90lbs x 10 reps, 100lbs x 10 reps; alternating: 100lbs x 10 reps.

Not a killer workout, but enough to break a sweat.

77

Tuesday 1/17/2012
Visited the gym my work friends go to; where one of my buddies used to teach.
The boxing coach there is a great guy and I’ve wanted to train under him for a while.
I was surprised, the vibe at the gym was awesome.
Most of the guys that work out there come from the mma gym I used to work out at sometimes.
I really didn’t like the vibe of the other mma gym; everyone used to try to stare you down whenever you walked in.
This gym was the exact opposite, everyone was friendly.
The workout itself was short but sweet.
I’m a fan of the boxing coach’s technique and he gave me some useful correction for head movement.
Plus they have some really nice bags.
Probably go back again, though I’m not sure if I can make it a regular thing.

EDIT:
We got there an hour early, so we stretched, did some pad work, & lifted some weights while we waited.
Did a 5x5 clean & press with 95lbs.
Workout itself was 1 hour long.
Broke a nice sweat, but didn’t kill myself.
Sore today though, mostly from the weights on monday.

78

Wednesday I learned that fighting 6 o’clock traffic to drive all the way home kills my motivation to do anything else.
Was sore & a bit tired because I haven’t been sleeping enough.
Feeling better today, so going to shoot for 2 workouts to make up for it.
I think if I plan on driving home before working out again, I’m going to have to leave work early.

79

Thursday 1/19/2012
Suntzu and I hit up cardio bag class at the krav gym tonight.
Great workout, but rather tough on our shoulders.
We were both burnt afterwards.
Lots of burpees.

Tonight I gotta make up for wednesday.

80

Friday 1/20/2012
Muay thai class.
Showed up early, stayed at least 2 hours.
Lots & lots of defense drills today.
Worked with Suntzu and a mma guy; featherweight like 135.
Found out later the mma guy is close with my friend (Ray Ray) and is an accomplished fighter out of another gym (Rodrigo Pinheiro + Pete Spratt + Aaron Rosa).
This guy had come to my gym the week before and worked with the guy I sparred Saturday the 14th; Rich, the guy who almost busted my nose.
Rich almost killed the guy.
Tonight I learned why.

We did a lot of training and defense drills - over an hour’s worth.
He didn’t want to or didn’t know how to slow it down.
I didn’t mind it most of the time, because he’s half my weight and really couldn’t do much damage.
At one point I guess I embarrassed him, because he threw a full speed jumping round kick out of frustration. I called him on it, saying “do we really want to be blasting each other?” - I’m double his weight & his head is the height that I usually throw round kicks to the ribs; not exactly someone I’d feel good about “green-lighting.”
Coach jumped in.
Apologies were made.
Got back to business & finished out the class.
Otherwise; he actually wasn’t a bad workout partner.

I did switch up my style starting friday though.
I’m going back to parrying.
Since I’ve come back to the muay thai gym, the style has changed a bit- focusing more on boxing. The reason behind this is because our traditional style of muay thai is more geared towards elbows; which aren’t usually legal in the US, so coach is trying to make it more “dutch” in order to better fit the local rules.
The newer style incorporates a lot of head movement in place of parries.
As a fighter; I don’t have very fast feet or head movement, but I have pretty fast hands.
As a southpaw, using head movement is very awkward; I often find myself in very bad position - both off-balance & exposed to my opponent.
Parrying works out very well for me, because my balance isn’t all over the place.
I stay centered and ready to deliver my offense.
Even when I have to shell up, it works out better, because I’m usually in better position to see what’s coming and to fire back immediately.
I felt like the change was instantly better, but we’ll give it time to see how it plays out in sparring.