“The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on.”  – Ulysses S. Grant

I cant remember where I first saw this quote, but, considering the subject at hand, it seemed wholly appropriate. For those of you who aren’t on Facebook, or don’t follow along there regularly, I competed in my first Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tournament this weekend. I competed in the American Grappling Challenge Submission Only Tournament at Pickerington Central High School.

For the uninitiated, Submission Only tournaments are a very different breed than your standard run of the mill grappling tournament. As the name states, matches end by submission only. There are no time limits, and no score is kept. You fight until one man quits. I will be honest here as well. The fact that there were no time limits, in a tournament format, had me pretty nervous. I will delve into that in a bit though.

Saturday morning, Jessica and I got up, got everything for the day put together, and headed out to the tournament. After a stop at Starbucks for “The biggest Iced Americano you have” we were on our way. The drive wasnt too bad, considering that it was literally on the opposite side of Columbus from where I live. Traffic, for whatever reason, was only mildly retarded, and I managed to not lose my temper, as is usually the case with driving here. Its been three years now, and the fact the cumulative driving IQ of the residents of the Buckeye State remain in the toilet still boggles the mind. The phrases “yield” and “right of way” have no bearing here, but I digress.

We got to the tournament with plenty of time to spare. As we walked in, there was a check-in booth that was pulling double duty as a ticket booth, as well as an AGC merchandise stand in the cafeteria, outside the gym. There were also a few vendors setup in the common area, selling T-shirts and various MMA and jiujitsu gear. This is a welcome change from what I am used to with powerlifting, where you usually find absolutely zero vendors offering anything, aside from over priced hotdogs and overcooked “pulled pork” sandwiches. Once I signed my waiver, and got Jessicas spectator fee (ONLY 5 BUCKS!) paid, we went into the gym. As we walked in, the bleachers were pulled out on one side, and mats were laid out across the playing area. The other side of the gym had the bleachers up tight against the wall so the athletes had room to warmup. We stopped along the way to watch some of the kids and teenagers compete, and made our way to the locker room to weigh in. I stepped onto the scale at a slim and trim fighting weight of 282.6. I am fortunate, or unfortunate, depending on your perspective, that in jiu jitsu, the maximum allowable weight before the unlimited division is 224.9 pounds. Makes it nice when I have to fight smaller guys, but also means that I could be giving up 50+ pounds at some point in my journey. After weighins, we put our stuff down, and hung out to watch some matches finish up, and then watch the superfights that were scheduled. There were 6 total, 4 fights in the gi, and 2 no gi matches. I will spare the details, but there were some very good matches, and, at least to me, a couple of surprising victories.

After the superfights, I just kind of hung out. Being a white belt, my matches are always some of the last ones to start. Tournaments are done in descending belt rank, so I had some time. Eventually, they got close to where I was going to compete, and I started warming up. I use the term warming up loosely, as I have no idea what a “proper” warmup for jiujitsu is supposed to be like. I just stick to what I know; get some blood flowing, break a light sweat,  and stretch out my legs and hips well. This takes me about 15-20 minutes. After that, I was good to go.

There were three guys competing in my division. Rather than standard bracketing, it would be cone in a round-robin format, with each competitor facing the other two. The first guy I fought was Duke Grant. He was  fighting out of West Virginia. He is a 3-stripe white belt from Saulo Ribiero Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I’m not sure where that’s at in West Virginia, only that is indeed in the state. Rather than try to give the play-by-play, I will let the video do the talking for me, and give you the short version. He submitted about 4 minutes in to shoulder pressure. The second guy in the bracket I fought is named Mike (I think?) Frazee. He was fighting for Team Jorge Gurgel Brazilian Jiu Jitsu out of Cincinnati, Ohio. Much the same as in the first fight, I defeated him by a straight arm lock. You will see it in the video. After the match, I was 2-0, and had won my division.

After having watched the video a few times, I am still happy that I won, but see a ton of mental mistakes and holes on my part. There are a few glaring ones that, after having let the euphoria of victory pass, piss me the fuck off. Ive only been at this 4 months, so its to be expected, but at the same time, they shouldn’t be there, and will cost me dearly should I repeat them when I compete again in August. I have a solid plan for improvement before then, so I am not worried, but disappointed in myself for losing focus. I will chalk it up to newness and first tournament excitement, but they still happened. I’m going to get it fixed though. I am fortunate to have a great team to train with, and instructors who want to see their students win and dominate, sometimes seemingly more so than the students themselves do.

In closing, I want to take a second to thank some people. Professors Jorge Gurgel, John Stutzman, and Dustin Ware have all put in a lot of time and effort with me in class to make sure I was set up to do what I needed to do to win. Rich Ryu, Kelly Toole, Eric York, and the rest of the guys at the Ohio Combat Sports Academy that I train with, day in and day out. I mention those three guys by name as it seems that I constantly heard them coaching me from the side through both of my matches Saturday, and very often during training as well. Thanks guys. Finally to Jessica. She spent a long time helping me get my mind right Friday night before the tournament, filmed the matches, got some awesome pictures, grabbed stuff for me when I needed it, and hung out all day watching the guys on the team compete. Thanks baby. I love you. You definitely helped me get where I needed to be. I also want to say thanks to Paul, Brandon, my brother, and everyone who called, texted, and busted my balls on Facebook and twitter. I appreciate the support.

Guys and Gals,

The 2013 Central Virginia Sports Performance Seminar is rapidly approaching. In just under 2 weeks, many of the smartest dudes on the planet with regards to training will be together in Richmond, VA, at the University of Richmond, to talk training for athletes. Also, only having 20 seats left as of yesterday, you need to act quickly! I have been fortunate enough to attend the last two years, and this will be my third year attending. It has been an excellent learning experience every time.

Aside from the great learning opportunity at the actual seminar its self, there are some great networking opportunities, if you’re into that kind of thing. I’m going to go ahead and assume you are, and that you’re not reading this from your Moms basement. I have had the opportunity to meet, talk training, and drink copious amounts of bourbon with some very smart people. Turns out, they’re pretty good people as well. Its a pretty cool opportunity to get to sit next to Joel Jamieson and listen to him dissect fights over beers while watching the UFC. Discussing GPP with a Big 10 strength coach for 3 hours over a dozen or so Makers and Sprites? That happened too. It’s good time, and adds a bunch of value to your investment. Its worth the trip.

They’ve also got options for guys who want to pick up the information from the seminar, but cant make the trip to Richmond. You lose out on the chance to ask 500 questions, and spend your evenings admiring my handsome face through the bottom of a rocks glass, but you will still have the opportunity to learn a ton. The seminar will be live streamed online. The University of Richmond has all sorts of sweet ass video gear, so it will be pretty high-quality video. Not like most of the busted ass stuff you see on UStream, this isn’t guys broadcasting with a 12 dollar WalMart webcam.

Jay DeMayo, the guy that hosts this every year, was kind enough to send me some links, and you can check them out. I know it looks like a sales page. Because it is. That being said, I don’t make a dime of commission if you purchase there, or anywhere else. Just trying to help you advance from BROmode to someone who actually knows what the hell they’re talking about.

This is probably the best way to go about it. Shows the lineups, and the available options.

http://cvasps.com/seminar/

Here’s the lineup for this year:

Friday April 26th

Kelly Starrett – Integrating Screening, Diagnostics, and Performance: the pinnacle of evaluation and identification is your programming

Dr. Natalia Verkhoshansky – Depth Jump vs Drop Jump

Landon Evans – Excel for Sport.

Henk Kraaijenhof – Helping the Best to Get Better: developments in improving performance by training and recovery.

Saturday April 27th

Ben Peterson – The Effect of Aerobic Capacity on Repeated Sprint Performance: and examination of VO2 on and off transient kinetics, their applications for fatigue, and practical applications for training.

Henk Kraaijenhof – Wired to Win: an overview of the psycho-physiology to train the most important performance organ: the brain.

Joel Jamieson – Review of a Camp: the preparation of a UFC Champion

Jesse Burdick and Mark Bell – Strength is Never a Weakness.

Dr. Natalia Verkhoshansky – Progressing the Jumping Exercises: Practical Application for Coaches.

Dr. Michael Kalinski – Hormones in Sport and Exercise

Dr. Michael Yessis – The Yessis Model, The 1×20 Strength Training Program

Yosef Johnson – Performance Result Based TrainingMethods

See you guys in a few weeks!

Jason

I have received a bunch of emails, Facebook Messages, and other random requests for a sauce to go with pulled pork. I have abstained from replying for a while, well, because thats what seemingly EVERYONE in the barbecue world does. Keeps their stuff secret, as if it contains footage of the shooters on the Grassy Knoll. Not how we do here. To be honest, I think that for most people, any sauce will do. However, I’m not most people, and I don’t do things that suck, or are stupid. THAT, Dear Reader, is why I’m sharing this recipe with you. Because, in truth, this neither sucks, nor is stupid. It is AWESOME. But that’s how we roll here. Enjoy the first of many recipes from here at the ‘CueLab.

AWESOME SAUCE

2 cups Apple Cider Vinegar

1 Cup Ketchup

.5 cup Hot sauce (I have a habanero one I get at whole foods that kicks ass)

.5 cup Sugar

1TBSP Kosher Salt

2 TBSP Coarse ground pepper

1TBSP Red Pepper Flakes

.5 TBSP Cayenne Pepper

1TBSP Honey

In a medium saucepan, combine the liquid ingredients over medium heat. Add in dry ingredients and honey, and stir until it is all dissolved. Let it cool down, and throw it in a blender or food processor. Run it on full speed, or whatever your blender setting you have that equates to TOTAL DESTRUCTION. Run for 30 seconds to 1 minute until you can’t discern the red pepper flakes. ONce you’ve done this, funnel it into a bottle and stick it in your fridge.Use on pulled pork. Feed it to your friends. Bask in the glory of what I have bestowed upon you.

DISCLAIMER TIME: This recipe isn’t wholly mine. I stole it from Myron Mixon, added some stuff, changed the method, and am presenting it to you now, as I make it. I will be honest, I have neither the time, resources, or interest to try to produce recipes like these from scratch. I will GLADLY rip recipes off, change some stuff, and call it my own. I’m like an artist, but without the weird clothes and hair, and awful interest in music.

If you should decide to try this, and I hope that you do, let me know what you think! Comments and feedback are always appreciated!

8 week testing at the 5 Points Attitude Adjustment Academy is done. The squat didn’t make the cut onto the video. To be completely honest, I didnt think it was impressive enough, to me, to add in. Not that I wasn’t happy with it, I was, but I didn’t feel it was worthy. I will go into this in another post, but as for now, I am going to leave it at that.  As a bit of a refresher, I have been training with Wendler in his garage. We are using, obviously, 5/3/1 with some modifications. I wont speak extensively as to the modifications, as we are testing material for a future 5/3/1 book. When is it going to be written? Thats up to him. Now that you have seen the results, here is what happened in each of the lifts, training-wise.

Overhead Press: This lift was the one that made the biggest jump for me. I remember how I actually found my actual max for this lift. I was over at Jims, and we had done some random stuff. The bar was on the rack, and I gave it a go. Warmed up for it properly, and went to 185. I MISSED IT. Waited a couple of minutes, MISSED AGAIN. One more try, and it went up. Also managed to look worse than the 225 in the video above. That being said, it was a 40lb PR in 8 weeks. Not like I went from 275-315, but I will take it. Learned a lot about the lift its self, as it had literally been over 7 years since I have done any pressing overhead consistently. Realized that this is a lift that I can NOT take to a 1RM. For future testing, it will be done as a rep max. Its not a competitive lift anyway, so long as I am close, and show some sort of progression, I will be good to go. My goal for this lift was 225×1. The highest I worked up to in training, after our working sets, was 185×5. All of our loading was based on a max of 160 lbs.

Supine Press: Another lift that I havent trained consistently since my Army days. Honestly, before going to Jims and training upper body stuff exclusively with the football bar, I honestly believed that elbow pain and the inherent instability from my injury wouldn’t allow me to do any sort of consistent upper body pressing at all. Was very wrong of me. I hit 315 for a new PR. Was also a 40lb PR from my best prior to starting, 275×1. The goal I had going in was 300×1. At one point in this training cycle, I worked up to 275×3; and all of our loads were based on a training max of 240lbs.

Deadlift: Our deadlift training, to be honest, was all over. As we are constantly testing out and trying new ways to do things, we rotated in a bunch of different things into our pulls for this cycle. Trap bar, Oly shoes, standing on blocks, etc. I pulled a very easy 675×1. 80 pounds off of my best raw pull, but thanks to some unfortunate circumstances at the time, I was pretty fired up and motivated to do something awesome. This is where I also mention I was 20 pounds heavier at that time too. The goal I had, considering everything that had changed during the cycle, was 657×1. I obviously hit that one pretty easy. I didnt take a max prior to starting this new training cycle. The heaviest I worked up to, prior to the 675, was 605×1, which resulted in a pretty sweet lat tear that kept me from pulling for 3 weeks. OUR TRAINING LOADS FOR THE DEADLIFT WAS 525lbs. This is a topic for another time as well.

Squat: The one lift that was the bastard of the four. Seemed that everytime I had a bar on my back, I felt like shit. Not horrific, just not strong like I did the other 3 lifts. I would like to think that it was a combination of changing literally everything about the lift, from stance to shoes to performance. I actually WALKED THEM OUT. Something I said I would never do again. Whoops! Time changes, and so do your outlooks and experiences. During training, I worked up to 465×10, and 500×2. Ended up taking a rep max for this lift, and hit a fairly easy 555×3. I could have done more reps, but the goal for this one was 550×1. Im not worried about the relatively low max right now, as that isn’t what my training is focused on. Slow and steady progress, and increasing my level of awesome is all Im worried about until about December. The I will switch gears. Our training max for the squat during this cycle was 485lbs.

All in all, a great training cycle. Save for the slight back I had because of the lat tear, everything went really well. Looking forward to the upcoming ones for sure. Jim and I have talked, and we are going to introduce some different ideas into our training, and slowly start to improve our strength aside from just merely increasing baseline levels.

Here is our Training from Tuesday. Every rep of every set of our actual working sets. Jim and I are still messing around with finding a good spot to put the camera to get the best videos, but we’re kind of limited in our placement. It is, after all, just a 2 car garage. If it matters to any of you guys, my bodyweight is/was around 270.

Depth is starting to work its way down, which serves two purposes for me. One, it allows me to make sure everything is consistent. Secondly, it helps me validate the effectiveness of the mobility and flexibility work that I have been doing. The first few weeks of squatting like this hurt. Bad. Not injury type pain, but a HOLY-SHIT-WHAT-IS-HAPPENING-TO-ME type of pain. Kind of hard to explain, but as time passes and I get more comfortable squatting with a stance this close, to a respectable level of depth, I can feel adhesions and things of that nature breaking loose. Feelsgoodman.jpg

So, I realize that it has been a while since I have updated anything here, that I don’t currently have a log on EFS right now, and I haven’t said much of anything about my training, diet, or anything else I’m doing gym wise on Facebook or Twitter in a long time.

Truth be told, I have had a pretty rough few months. I’m not going to go into it here, as it’s deserving of a post its self, but needless to say, life will stomp your ass sometimes. I know that it did mine. I’m back on the horse now though, training and life are going very well for me, and I have a lot of different things I’m working on right now. Definitely have some new goals in the gym and in life, and for once, they are literally 100% selfish. I know that sounds ridiculous to say, but for a long time, I was guilty of letting others in my life play a part in what I wanted to do. Not that I was being controlled or unduly influenced by anyone, as I wasn’t, but I realized a while back that the goals, especially the ones I had in the gym, weren’t just MY goals. They were mine and someone elses. Honestly, at the time, I was completely oblivious to it. Looking back, it was never a hindrance, but I think at some points, I was subconsciously reeling it in, keeping myself from what I wanted to do. Those days are over, and that part of me closed a while ago. NOT SORRY.

For those of you who don’t know, a couple of weeks ago, I started training with Jim Wendler. Jim has been a very good friend of mine for a very long time, and we had trained together a few times, but nothing serious. Can’t really recall what started it, but I had had something come up, and asked him if I could come train at his gym; better known as The 5 Points Attitude Adjustment Academy. He said no problem, and I went in, and not too long after, we decided that we would start training together. This is going to work out well for both of us, as our current goals are currently in line. After being down and out for a while, its good to be back on the horse.

“If its important, you WILL find a way. if not, you will find an excuse.”

Tuesday night was time for some deadlifts.  Got to the gym later than I had planned on, but I had a phone call that I was waiting on, and had to take when it came in. For those of you who don’t know, Josh Bryant has been doing all of my deadlift programming. Its heavy, and a lot of volume, and as you will see below, very effective. This workout wasn’t even close to being within the parameters of what he had programmed, but Im still dealing with the stuff from the past week, and while its getting better, I still used it as an opportunity to get my head right for a bit.

Warmups were the same as Saturday night. This set me up very well for squatting, and seemed that it did the same for me for pulling as well. Also helped me get nice and warm, as it was 52 degrees at EFS when I walked in the door.

Jumprope

150 jumps

Foam Rolling

Hips, hamstrings, upper and lower back, quads, IT Bands, calves

Static stretching

About 20 minutes for all of the above muscle groups

Lat pulls

90x3x15

Leg Extensions

45x3x15

GHR

3×6

Box Jumps

24” x6x2

Raw Deadlift

145×3

235×3

325×1

415×1

595×1

685×1

735×1

775×0

I pulled all of the reps up to 415 with a hook grip. The 415 didn’t go, so I switched it up to the standard mixed grip from there. I put the belt on at 595, and obviously added the chalk in as well. The 735 was 10 pounds over my best meet deadlift, and a raw PR. My best pull ever is 755, and that was in a deadlift suit, and the pedal all the way down on the gas. In hindsight, the 775 was a bad choice for an attempt,. but I was feeling abnormally good. It made it to my knees, and died there. It just put the brakes on.

Neutral Grip Chins

10 sets of 3

Shrugs

135×20

225×20

335x5x12

SSB Goodmorning

95x5x12

Chest Supported Rows

1 plate 5×12

Ab wheel

5×12

The chins were done in-between sets of Shrugs and goodmornings. I would do a set of shrugs, then a set of chins, and back to shrugs until I was done with the shrugs, then the same thing with the good mornings. Rest period was roughly 20 seconds longer than it took me to walk back and forth across the gym from station to station.

Overall, it went very well. Was actually a big PR for me, and doubly exciting, as I hadn’t been training for it other than just training to “get stronger.” Hopefully this trend continues, as between this workout and the last, its been two of the best workouts I have had in a long time.

Training at EFS

Went in yesterday evening with a lot of shit on my mind and a plan to get a lot of stuff done. The past week or so was absolutely terrible for me. I have actually sat down and thought about it a lot, and realized that indeed, it was one of the worst weeks of my life. I was there Saturday evening as I had to take my fiancee to the airport Saturday afternoon. She has some medical stuff going on that is going to require her to be home for quite a while. To be honest, we don’t have any idea yet how long either. It was an awful day for me. She had just moved in about 5 weeks or so prior to this, and we had no idea that this was going to happen. The training Saturday definitely helped me get my mind off of things for a while and will continue to help as time passes.

The warmup was fairly long. Between driving around making sure all of her stuff was ready to go, to actually getting her to the airport, waiting there, then driving around some more to help clear my head, my hips and back were fairly tight. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it was almost 200 miles in the car, and I never left Columbus. Long day. I also had literally nothing else I needed to or wanted to accomplish. The warmup went like this:

Jumprope
150 jumps

Foam Rolling
Hips, hamstrings, upper and lower back, quads, IT Bands, calves

Static stretching
About 20 minutes for all of the above muscle groups

Lat pulls
90x3x15

Leg Extensions
45x3x15

GHR
3×6

Box Jumps
24” x6x2

Squat – raw, close stance
Barx10
150×10
240×5
330×3
420×1
510×1
600×1
330×22

Leg Press
600x3x20

SSB Goodmorning
95x3x12

Face Pulls
90x3x15

Decline Situps
3×15

Started back at it Friday night after work and a nap. Squat day is going to remain a Saturday for me, but I was headed home early, because I had my boys this weekend.

Jumprope
100 Jumps

Foam Roller
Hips, IT Bands, Quads, Back

Static Stretching

Close stance below parallel box squat to
bar x10
150×5
240×5
330×5
420×5
510×5 Stance on these was shoulder width.

Leg Press
580x2x30
Done with a hip width stance

Lunges
3×12 each leg

Calf Raise
3 plates x50

Pulldown Abs
3×15

Started training with Brian again. This will work well for me for two reasons. The first being that I got strong as hell last time I did, the second being that I realized that with being a full time student and working full time, I cant give my own programming the focus that I need to. Brian is really good at the programming side, and we talk enough that he is aware of what I need to improve on. Before we get into the meet training, were really going to focus on improving my leg size and strength, as well as pushing my bodyweight up over 300. We’ve got some time, and a very good plan. Im looking forward to seeing how it comes out.

If I was in the WWF, this is the song I would use for my entrance music. BRUTAL AND AWESOME. Like me.