Stefanie's track journal and MMA ventures

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Full Saturday for me.
Woke up and went straight to reading dozens and dozens of papers of design theory (yayy :rolleyes: )…until 2:30pm, when I did some hills. Had a very good half hour warm up, with 7min jogging, plenty of striding back and forth mixed with “girly skips” ( :slight_smile: ), then stretched for about 10minutes. Then did hills for another 25minutes, up to 30meters, nice and relaxed. Tried to use my arms for a change…I think it worked.
By the way…GORGEOUS weather today…

Did some upper body weights right after: DB presses, bent rows, bench press, ummmm I did one more exercise and I completely forgot what it was… :confused:
Did abs in between sets, 5min elliptical cool down, and good 10min stretching at the end.

I had dry cereal and a tablespoon of peanut butter for breakfast, a large plate of cheese ravioli’s for lunch (after my workout) followed by a scoop of ice cream (I’m kinda mad my mom bought ice cream… :mad: ) and then a piece of bread for dinner with feta cheese (I’m Greek…what can I say…)and then some chocolate (from Greece!!!)
Ohhh right now I’m painting (I’m on painting hour 6 on a freakin Saturday, but at least it’s turning out decent), got hungry and took some peanuts.

I wonder what time I’ll go to sleep… :confused:

Forgot to mention something about yesterday in martial arts: one of the trainers talked to me personally asking about my injuries etc (very nice dude), asked me how track is going and everything and also said “when you’re done sprinting let us know so we can get you in the rink…you have great potential as a fighter”. :stuck_out_tongue: hahaha…dudeeeee…I want to SPRINT!!!

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My life is NUTS this semester, I really don’t know if I’m coming or going, but tttt
IT’S ALL GOOD.
I am convinced that all hard effort gets paid off at some point, right?

The funny thing is that I am known in my college for very good time management skills since I like doing a veriety of different things, but this semester I find myself praying for more than 24 hours in a day, and in case you haven’t noticed already, my prayers were not quite successful…

Things pile up… 16 hours of painting during the weekend (no, this was not on “my own” time, it was for college), is not very practical when other huge assignments are lined up due the same week…

I am surely not willing to give up other “extra” stuff that I do … track stays till I decide not to compete again. (well even then, i’ll still be running and jumping around, but I’ll get into that several years from now…)

Monday I did tempo, again, a bunch of 100s and 200s on grass for about 35minutes, I increased the number of 200s, which are quite a shock to my body expacially at 7:30am and at this phase of the season…anyways…my 100s are in the 16-17 range (a bit lower when I do these in the eventings) and my 200s anywhere from 34-38sec, at teh low end of the spectrum in evenings again…

I’ve been doing a little bit of weights about 6 times a week for now, and running wise I do tempo every other day and hills the “other” every other days…

I dot’n even know what I’m talking about right now, haha…I just want to go sleep, but I’m in the studio getting ready for a presentation. I need a vacation.

Went to martial arts on wednesday night before doing an “almost all nighter” the same night, because I had to take some energy out. IT WORKED. I felt soooo relaxed afterwards…People may think that i’m nuts that i’ll spend 2 hours at the gym and then stay up all night for a project and only get 2.5 hours of sleep, but for ME…it was needed…(although I ran the same morning, STILL!!)

buttttt SKIPPED track yesterday , and possibly today, as I’ll be done with everything when it will night time out and I’d really rather just go do some martial arts and do the track stuff properly tomorrow and Sunday, stress free!

I have this issue with not having patience with rest periods during hill sessions…

Ok…enough for now…I’ll keep y’all posted!!

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What were you doing then “at this phase of the season”?

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Haha…I was doing 300s and 400s…and 200s…
I didn’t really say it to imply that I’ve never done 200s in September before; only that it has been a while. Since June maybe? Maybe May…who remembers…I guess I can check my written journal that I keep, but who wants to get off the bed and run downstairs when they feel like death and have only had 7 hours of sleep in the past 2 nights and have just come back from a two hour martial arts session when they thought that their whole body was gonna cramp out during jiujitsu sparring (although it’s always ALL GOOD!!), which martial arts was the end piece of a long day of 2 hours of running around in the morning trying to fight with stupid huge plotters that seem to always break down when an architectural presentation is due, followed by 4 hours of architectural critiques in the studio?
Not me! :o

Martial arts was good, but I obviously felt out of energy. Even jump roping was a task. But at the end of the jiujitsu class, I even stayed extra because I was having so much fun at sparring, we were doing 4min rounds, SOOO tiringg…
I am very proud, I made a guy submit 2 times in one round :smiley:

I can’t wait to sleep!!!

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That is a looooong question! It’s good you had the answer though…

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You are a funny dude…

Neglected to post yesterday, woke up sooo sore and sooo tired. I think I was sore from jiujitsu practice, but I was also running a fever, so I dont’ know… Decided to attempt a tempo workout after all , on the track for a change, because I had a feeling I wasn’t gonna go anywhere on the grass… :o I could not pick up my legs. And yes, I had to do a workout because I did not do any running Thursday and Friday and that was unacceptable, despite the extreme amounts of work I had to complete for school…

So yeah, Saturday I felt like death… I couldn’t even complete what I had planned to do…
Oh I forgot to mention…I did that in the evening and lifted some weights in the morning…after 25min on the elliptical.
This dude in the gym…I asked him one random question about something and then I was stuck with him talking to me the WHOLE time and staring at me…so uncomfortable…
Especially when I’m doing squats and he’s standing behind me and I can see him through the mirror looking towards my direction… Goodnesssss.
So I am not talking to anybody ever again.
Unless it’s someone that I like of course. :wink:

Sunday (today) was more successfull. Did some hills up to 30meters. The warm up did feel like death again, I am still a little sore and tired from the whole week, but hills just did it for me…plussss I had nothing to stress about, since nothing is due on Monday and track was all I had to think about… what a wonderful thing!!

I also want to mention here that God really likes me… Every time there is a rainy weather forecast, he stops all drops when I’m doing my workout. Today for instance it was supposed to rain all day, and the instant I finish my last 40m hill I drop falls onto my forehead!

This past week the same thing happens, and then another time when it was raining all day and I decide “what the heck…I’ll run in the rain”, the rain stops the minute I step out…

Ok, I know ya’ll had enough of me, I’m going now!! :stuck_out_tongue:

Peace out.

P.S. Forgot to mention I did weigths today after my hills as well… upper body. Shoulders still feel kind of sore.

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Still feeling kind of tired…woke up early though to do my morning tempo on soaked grass, with three men mowing the lawn of my very own personal three soccer and two baseball fields…how rude!!! and three gym classes playing soccer and softball…good thing my training paradise is large enough to fit me :o
Did a bunch of 100s and 200s, they pretty much felt like work , even though done at an easy pace. OHHHH I also bought a med ball :smiley: so now I use it for my warm up for now, and also do some abs in between my tempo reps. I love med balls…they are fun. I wish i had a partner though…(Ben if you’re reading this do something…)

Then weights , lower body, again this felt like work without even lifting all that much.

I have a problem … My hang clean grip sucks… In the past I’ve dropped the bar with heavy weights, out of “fear” (it’s a psychological thing with me and hang cleans) and also out of lack of a good grip…today for instance I was only doing like 95lbs and I thought the bar was gonna slip at one point…what am I gonna do when the weight goes up? Catch it in the air? :confused:

On another note…I need to buy an mp3 player… I think my workouts would become a tad more pleasant (than they already are, of course :rolleyes: ) with some nice upbeat music.

OHHH went to jiujitsu practice for about 45min this evening. We learned a couple of takedown moves from knee position into side control and choke, pretty sweet. Then the strenuous part was about 20min of sparring, that thing makes me lose my breath, different from running, I gotta say!

Note: for those that may think I’m trying to do something with martial arts while running track, it’s really no big deal, I only do it for fun and for myself, since I’m a multitaskful person…I take track quite seriously, and so I need something for pure fun… Martial arts do it for me. :wink:

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Would straps help you at all? I am sure they would help your grip, but would they make you feel more secure doing the movement?

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Use hook grip (and chalk if possible). I added at least 10% to my clean with hook grip plus my grip ‘quality’ was MUCH more consistent at any weight.

RE: dropping…do you have rubber/bumper plates? If the bar slips out of your hand just let it drop even if you’re using regular plates. Better the bar/plates get hurt than you getting hurt trying to catch it.

Yes. Good idea. Need I reiterate the improvements I see with mp3 players? Do you know how boring a 10 hour track meet (or a long practice by yourself) can be for kids? Mp3 player can help wash that all way at the right moment.

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To do list:

  1. Buy those straps/hook grips/whatever they are called, for hang cleans
  2. Purchase an MP3 player.
  3. Figure out how the MP3 player works (sounds minor, but you wouldn’t know who you’re dealing with here :o )

I did some 40m hills today, and I actually brought reading to do with me, since I’m not used to anything that is longer than a 2min rest :o between reps…
Funny thing is…when there is somethign to do, I don’t want to do it! And time actually went by fast for me today. Of course,I have no major projects due this week, which is an overall relief in my schedule and training, so that’s GOOD :slight_smile:

Some minor issues: sensed some shin splints coming in my left shin, stretched the HECK out of it while doing my hills today, walked on heels, stretched the calves, by the end of the session it felt loose , pfeeeeewww…and NO it was not because my shin got warmed up and I just didn’t feel the irritation…I was warmed up after a LONG 30min warm up… The heel walking did it, I’m telling you :o

On another note…GORGEOUS weather today… It needs to stay like this…forever!

Did upper body for weights. I asked a man to spot me for my last set of bench press (just to be safe…no major weight or anything), and he seemed disappointed he didn’t have to do anything… His expression read “why the heck call me over here if you’re not gonna use me?”
Weirdo…

Oh: I discovered something great: if I wake up exactly after 7 hours of sleep, I’m in my REM, and that’s bad…all my dreams get cut off smack in the middle and I wake up in a bad mood… :cool:
I think 7.5 hrs has proven to be just right for me, but I think tonight I’m going to try 8.5 and see what happens!!! :wink:

Gotta hurry though if I want to make it…
:rolleyes:

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Hook grip is not an item, it is a style of holding the bar.

http://tomgorman.moonfruit.com/hookgrip

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09/28/06
First of all, I decided to start dating these entries…It’s hard to figure things out when I go back and look at things

I will try that and see if it works. Someone told me it’s kind of painful at first and weightlifters use it all the time. If it doesn’t work for me I might as well get the straps. Nice to have options.

Didn’t get a chance to post yesterday.
Did some grass tempo in the early morning, grass was so wet…and it wasn’t sunny either, so I was cold the whole time (even after a 30min warm up…)with wet feet. I am not anticipating it getting colder out there…

Another issue with my training right now is that I train in the evenings on Tuesdays and Thursdays with hills (Saturday any time), and I do my tempo M-W-F in the early morning. I am well recovered for my hill sessions (which are the important ones), but tempo pretty much SUCKS :o I don’t feel good during them, it’s too early, I’m usually tired, and my feet get wet…Doing tempo in the evening is not option, as I finish with my last class at 6:30pm and it is dark by 7pm. “Maybe do you tempo in the dark?”. Nahhh…first of all I like to see where I’m stepping (this is grass after all…) and secondly my dad would come chasing after me to make sure nothing happens to me on a deserted field. :rolleyes: (although with my martial arts knowledge I should be fine :wink: )

Did abs in between my sets of 100s and 200s. Then straight to lower body weights. I’m not sure why my arms get tired when I do deadlifts…Is it because I try to hold the bar close to my legs? Do the arms just “hang”, regardless of how close they are to th body? I’ve always been taught to keep the bar close to the shins, I think that’s where the arm fatigue might be coming from.
Comments?
It happens on the SLDL as well.

My martial arts school held a very informative seminar last night on Health/Diet/Fitness by a man graduated from National Academy of Sports Medicine CPT, who studied with internationally recognized strength coach Charles Poliquin (anybody know him?), Russian Kettlebell Challenge Instructor (I’d like to post a thread on kettlebells actually…my martial arts school claims that there is no better lifting program than kettlebells…), and currently studying assessment protocols for arthrokinematics.

To summarize the whole seminar, which included a lot of things I already knew but was not necessarily consisent with (diet wise), he covered:
Nutrition: Lifestyle eating, 90%adherence, body measuring, decision making, Classic Energy Balance Model versus his New Energy Model, Rules to follow while eating, Superfoods
Fitness: Practicing vs. Training, classifications of strength qualities, reps and sets, RM’s, Loads, exercise selection, six basic movements(kettlebell based:squat, deadlift, lunge, push, pull, twist), personalizing workouts, frequent program design mistakes
Supplements: Fish Oil, Conjugated Lineleic Acid (CLA), Branched Chain Amino Acids, Creatine Monohyrate

Thennnn…did 45min of Muay Thai, a bit more intense than usual, did a lot of pad work and my kicks are looking very powerful :wink: (done the right way, with shin/foot guards, so no worries for small injuries…).
And 45min braz. jiujitsu, with more than usual time on free sparring, which is still taking my breath away! I don’t know how on earth you get in proper conditioning for that…no wonder why those fights are only 4min long.
I gave a dude twice my size a hard time :smiley:

Looking forward to some hills today!!

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First of all, all sessions are important!
Secondly, even if you wanted to do tempos in the evenings, how would that be possible with the MA sessions done then, like today?
Is it possible to reverse the days of your sessions? Would that help in any way?

The bar should be close to your body, yes!

Plenty of info in here about CP and kettlebells.

Tell us about the food part if/when you can…

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OK!

Evening tempo sessions: not possible…too dark. Lets leave it at that! :wink:

Hmmm…I really would rather do good early evening hill sessions, rather than crappy hill sessions in the morning.

I still don’t know why my freakin arms get fatigued from the deadlifts :confused:

I did a quick search. Thanks!

Sure…I can start posting it again, I’ve been inconsistent with my entries, indeed! I think it’s improving.

I’ll post my training stuff (plus food) at the end of the day, when I will have done some martial arts as well. Generally, I was able to do tempo later this morning, after some breakfast, and it felt better! Although still not great…I realized i’m not even running my 100s and 200s relaxed all the time, and when I do relax, it shows on the stop watch (in a positive way). Something to pay attention to…

Ok…since I’m at it, I’ll finish my tempo post!
It was raining until 9:15am, and I was all set to do my workout in the rain. 9:30 on “my” fields, and the rain stops! While doing my warm up and my first set thinking the whole time about how I am God’s favorite (hahha… :rolleyes: considering it’s supposed to rain all day in the area), it starts POURING through set 2…and then it calmed down a bit and was drizzling the whole time, with a break during my last set…
Needless to say I was pretty wet…I put a blanket on a wooden picnic table and did my abs in between my sets,about 400, although I did not use medicine ball this time… (didn’t feel like carrying things with me in the rain… :cool: )

Weights were good, worked on hang cleans, squats and reverse hypers. I almost lost the bar at my last two reps of cleans. No I did not try the hook grip (I value my thumb :o ), and I don’t have straps yet.

P.S. Hot shower after a longish workout in the rain is a great pleasure :slight_smile:

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Food part as that relates to the seminar, I meant… :o

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Yes, sure! But I will have to post it on Sunday, right now I’ll just report my day briefly and then CRASH …(zzzz…)…tomorrow will be a long day in New York being a tourist and seeing architecture and art exhibits, and right now I am pretty much DEAD :o

Martial arts was fun and productive today.
Muay Thai for an hour:
about 8min jump roping or so
4min shadow boxing
teeps and kicks on the bags and then some partner work on the same things for the rest of the time. The bag work is always pretty tiring, nothing major though…

Braz.Jujitsu for another hour:
some ab work
partner medicine ball drills for about 5min (LOVE the medicine ball) >>throw the ball to my partner, he catches it, places it on the floor right in front of him, does a “push up” only the down motion is touching his hips all the way down to the floor and spread legs apart, then hop back up on his legs (kinda like a burpee), pick up the ball, throw it right at me, and then I do exactly what he did before…and so on so forth.
If anyone understood the exercise by my description, I really admire that!
Then learned a couple of new techniques, practiced them in partners.
Ended with 15min sparring … pretty pretty tiring I must say, was sweating. Fun fun! :slight_smile:

P.S. In muay thai we did a lot of kicking as I mentioned before…SUCH a great feeling kicking the heck out of that bag! (I kick correctly now :wink: )

Food for they day:
7am whole wheat english muffin with honey and a banana
9:30-10:45 tempo
a few mixed nuts, half handfull (it’s amazing how I can even eat walnuts -a usual “eeeew”- when I’m hungry after a workout…)
11-noon weights
a few more mixed nuts (half handfull) and some cranberries and a pear
green tea
2pm boiled vegetables with beans (pretty small portion, I also had a piece of leftover steak with me, but I had absolutely no appetite to eat it) and an apple a bit later
more green tea
5pm peanut butter sandwich (on whole wheat bread) with honey (I actually had a very good appetite today…I didn’t know what to do to satisfy it at this point)
5:30 a few pieces of grilled chicken strips (about 4), and a cookie
6:30 there was an art reception, and I had the traditional cheese and crackers and two pieces of pineapple, oh and 5 cranberries and 3 black chips that I had never tasted before…quite good, I don’t even know what I ate :o
Hahaha…this list is getting rather long…bear with me…I DID work out for nearly 4.5 hours today… :cool:
Martial arts 8-10pm
11pm half cup (uncooked) oatmeal, made it with water and some milk and honey for sweetness (so good…)
and a protein drink (with milk this time, 1%, and about 3/4 scoop of protein powder)

PFEEEEEWWW…I’m done! :o And I don’t even feel like I ate all that much…

Comments are welcome (on anything)

Again, I can write more about the nutrition seminar on Sunday.

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My trip to New York was greatttttt…and I LOVE walking around in Manhattan…so much to see…!! And the galleries I saw were great too :smiley: , considering I spent one full hour in the top room of the Guggenheim, when I realized I had only an hour left to spiral through the whole rest of the building!! :rolleyes:

So yesterday was walking around ALL day…my problematic knee really felt it by late afternoon… got sore… So obviously no workout yesterday…woke up at 6:15am, got home at 11pm with a neighborhood black out. Fun fun :slight_smile: The house actually smelled so good with all the yankee candles lit up! Black outs should happen more often at night :stuck_out_tongue: (or I can just shut off all the lights and light up the candles anyways, but that’s not as exciting, isn’t it?)

Food was all right yesterday. Woke up with a bagel (plain), ate a cereal bar for a snack later, munched some mixed nuts before the Guggenheim and a little bit during (was STARVING), ate a nasty “scottish” sandwich for lunch consisting of whole grain bread, cream cheese, lettuce, tomatoes and salmon :eek: , threw half away, small pouch of honey roasted peanuts for snack, teryaki chicken with vegetables for dinner, and sugar fest on the bus home: two chocolate chip cookies, a milano cookie and a brownie…

Today it was raing HARDDDD all morning, almost did not do my hill workout, but guess what…it completely stopped raining around the time I wanted to run :slight_smile: . Did my weights first:
upper body:

  1. lateral pull downs (I’m really irritated with the machine at my gym…the weights are split in 15lb intervals…so it is very hard to go up… :mad: )
  2. front DB rows (a guy right next to me was grunting and huffing and puffing while doing some inclines…it was hard to concentrate…I should have reported him since my gym is “grunt free”!!! But I am a nice person!)
  3. bent rows (these seemed hard a week ago, today they were pleasantly all right!)
  4. bench press (I forgot my wrist guard at home for these…without it I have to keep a close grip, which makes it harder)

Then went to my hill for some intervals up to 40meters. Although it was raining all day, the grass was great! But I felt heavy and a bit tired for the most part.
Some constructive self criticism: I need to think about relaxing and driving form the hips…today it seems that I completely forgot those things…
And seriously…I need to cool down…I finished my last hill and went straight into my car.

But listen to this: 3 minutes after I get into my car, it start raining again :stuck_out_tongue: I am not kidding, I have very good timing! I’d better enjoy it while it lasts, because I doubt the whole winter is going to serve me such luck!

Food for today:
Morning oatmeal with milk, peanut butter and honey
My lunch was a bowl of chocolate mousse…yes, no comment!
Workout 4-6:30pm
Dinner: two drums of chicken and baked carrots, two small pieces (bites) of baked potatoes, and two slices of greek yellow cheese

I also would like to note here what an immense challenge it is to live in a Greek home where there HAS to be a dessert at all times in the kitchen, prepared by a mom who is cooking/baking talent… :rolleyes:

Tomorrow morning will be a rainy/eeeky/dirty/muddy tempo day for me!!!

But let me enjoy my Sunday night now :cool:

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I forgot to post about the Nutrition seminar, and I am not including it in my last post, because I think readers would be overwhelmed by the length of it :rolleyes:

Generally, the following things were covered:
Striving for: 1)optimum health, 2)optimum body composition and 3)optimum performance. He emphasized how it’s easy to do some of those 3 points, but hard to do all of them…

He talked about 90% adherence, so cheat meals are 10% of the week…So if for example a person eats 40meals/snacks were week, 4 of those will not follow his guidelines. You treat 90% adherence like a science experiment; it has to be consistent, and it needs valid results.

He’s a big fan of measuring: gathering data about your progress, whether good or bad. Things to mearsure: weight, appearance, body fat %, girth measurements (not sure what that is?).

He went over the Classic Energy Balance Model, which states that: Calorie restriction or overfeeding (in the absense of other metabolic intervention like drugs, supplements, or exercise), is likely to simply produce equal losses in lean body mass and fat mass (w/restriction) or equal gains in lean body mass and fat mass (w/overfeeding).
While this affects body mass, it may only lead to a smaller or larger version of the same shape.

His New Energy Model: Trying to manipulate total energy intake alone to alter body composition lets us down because the energy expenditure side of the equation quickly changes to match intake conditions in order to preserve body mass. Energy expenditure chases energy intake.

Rules to follow:

  1. Eat every 2-3 hours; between 5-8 feedings/day
  2. Eat lean, complete protein with each feeding
  3. Eat veggies with each feeding
  4. Eat veggies (and fruits) in each meal; “other” carbs after exercise only.
  5. Include a variety of healthy fats every day.
  6. Ditch the calorie containing drinks
  7. Use whole foods plus liquid nutrition if necessary.
  8. Have 10% foods.
  9. Develop preparation strategies.
  10. Balance daily routine with healthy variety.

Superfoods:
Protein foods: lean red meat, salmon, omega 3 eggs, lowfat plain yogurt, supplemental protein
Carbohydrate foods: spinach, tomatoes, cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, blueberries, rasberries, etc), mixed beans (kidney, white, etc), quinoa (ancient grains), whole oats
Fat foods: mixed nuts, avocados, olive oil, fish oil, flax seeds
Liquid Drinks: green tea, liquid exercise drinks

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Re: rules 1-10, was Berardi there? :stuck_out_tongue:

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He actually studied with Dr. John Berardi! :wink: