The Pancake, the Weeble the Gator and the Bear!

It's been a week or so since Simmo guest blogged about his experience of wrestling. If you didn't catch the video of that "big rig" contest its here. That was probably the first session where i've really gone at it and wanted to beat someone being focused on what I was trying to do. It would probably have been a different story if we were standing up, maybe a bit more agility from both of us or maybe not. I've had two very differing opinions of analysis from that video. The first was from S & C coach Alex who thought that my agility and speed were very good and I showed a decent amount of strength. Pretty positive overall.

Love you really Simmo

The second and not nearly so technical was from my mum who suggested that Simmo, who she did state was a lovely "young" man was a bit like a weeble toy. Which had me in stitches for a little while... Here is a still we took from the wrestle last week (left).
Simmo's feedback has been fairly positive... I think what i'm finding with the wrestling and trying to get my mates involved is that once they try it, they like it. It is quite similar to rugby in many ways as I keep telling folk. You don't really think about it and the preconception of wrestling is in a ring with a oiled up tanned muscle machine in speedos with a steel chair.

After Grappling with Simmo. I was pretty sore, for me it was tough because Simmo has got a few more Kg on me than most people i'm training with, i'm still hovering around the 114 - 115kg mark at the moment. I was in pieces on the Tuesday after a bit of DOMS set in so decided to call the repair man to fix me up. Pav from Optumus popped round and basically violated my shoulder, it was effectively rape. He got deep into the rotator cuff and tried to sort that out for me. His massages are great to be fair, the difference from before to after was insane and I had much better range of movement. 

My shoulder has been giving the most amount of jip over the last couple of weeks, I must have tweaked it a little and its not had a chance to recover, the problem is that I keep on hurting it doing ridiculous stuff... taking the child seat out of the car or lying on it funny whilst i'm sleeping. Anyway, i've got prehab stuff to do with it using therabands which is helping! With a combination of massage and KCR from Laura, I'm feeling pretty good and pretty chilled out even after hard sessions. The noise my back made on Friday when Laura did her therapy on it was pretty impressive!

So after, wrestling last Monday and doing quite well, I was hoping that I would have someone to take on the next week. I text bear, given that he has been along to throws training with Jig and has been in the gym a couple of times over the last two months. The response I got was typical Bear and along the lines of:

"are you just going through your phone book and finding you fat friends?" 

A little harsh I thought on him and Simmo. Although for me the closer to my weight the better for training. It's tough because both of them are quite strong. Bear did manage to get to Wrestling last week and we were going over head locks into gator rolls. It was fine and we were shown how to counter and escape before you were thrown. Unfortunately, for me at least, I got myself into a stupid position where I knew exactly what was going to happen as Bear had my head locked up and was pulling my arm underneath me. There was a slight pause, it was one of those moments where through your mind you knew what was about to happen and for some reason  I couldn't recall the counter quick enough. I remembered as I was about a foot off the floor that I should have rotated before being rotated and thrown. Annoyingly for me... it happened twice! So I will concede, given that i'm being truthful in this blog that I was well beaten by bear on this occasion. 

That said, I realised something about wrestling this week and that is that its a fluid sport and its all about building up your repertoire of moves available to you, I think i'm getting better at it, but more mat time is needed. I find myself in some situations not knowing where to go next and that is all down to inexperience. So, i'm trying to figure out where I am and what i'm doing but it really is all practice. Que - Favourite quote about Practice "Practice makes permanent not perfect".

That Monday session hailed the last in my 10 week block, i'm moving on to a rest week this week followed by two 6 week blocks of Hypertrophy. I can not wait. This is where the muscle mass should in theory come on and put me back up to 120kg. I still need to shed a bit of fat around the mid section but that will come and to be honest although it would be nice to get rid of it from an aesthetic point of view, its not essential. The end of the 10 week block had me lifting some relatively good weight, I blasted a set of 3 x 180kg deadlifts and would probably hope to have a 1RM of approximately 200kg. My back is strong at the moment. That on top of Overhead squats at 8 x 55kg. (horrible exercise). Had me in a happy place (minus Bear's Ego dent as mentioned). I've included a snapshot of week 10 training to give you an indication of the types of exercise I was doing and the weights at the end of week 10 from circuits 1 & 2.


circuit training week 10 - weights and exercises

I even managed to top the week off with some family time - a chat on Skype to my brother Adam is wife Karen and son Nathan who he has taught to call me "muppet mike". Had lunch with my other brother Paul with his wife Nat and my Niece and Nephew, Ava and Josh. I even caught up with my folks and the in laws. It was great to see them all but i'm pretty sure Paul thinks i'll be wearing a mask, have a stage name and a finishing move. I have explained, so hopefully he has that out of his head! If not i'll bring him in for a session (he is going for second dan Ju-jitsu after all).
So, after 10 weeks... where does #mission2014 go from here. Like I mentioned, it goes to hypertrophy. I still have a lot of work to do and i'm not stopping until I get there or I don't. I still think it will be surreal to get to Glasgow 2014 and its a massive goal that does seem at times seem unachievable, everything has gone pretty quick and to be honest the support from friends and family has been terrific in places. I don't know if it is realistic target, but i'll stick at it and hope that in just under two years I will be representing Scotland on the mat in the Commonweath Games. How funny would it be to read this blog back having been to the Commonwealth Games and dare I dream with a medal of some description. I digress, I daydream. 

I'll be getting Tyson Fitness on the nutritional case over the next week to get my diet on track to make sure I can pull off the hypertrophy sessions, from what i've seen its going to be fairly intense i'm sure they will be hooking me up with all the good stuff I need but i'll let them decide (new protein shaker wouldn't go amiss!)

[EN]GAGE Wrestling Club

I've started the Wrestling club on a Friday night at [EN]GAGE Sports Centre (18:00-19:30) which was great on Friday, one of the guys Steve leads the session and his knowledge and method of coaching is a valuable asset and we certainly found it really useful especially in simulated situations, like the one I struggled with. I was training with one of the guys, managed to get a nice "pancake", a "gator role" and a pin. I did have a weight advantage though. For those who don't know what a "pancake" is, it's basically the defending of a double leg attack where you basically rotate them onto their back. The beauty of this move is that you can use the bone on the knuckle of your thumb on the jaw line, which apart from being very uncomfortable releases the grip and allows you to throw. It's pretty rough, but pretty effective!  

This week is pretty full on for me, I have Wrestling 4 times this week, I'm finally getting to the Palace of Arts to meet the national coach and let him know what my ambitions are and to take some guidance off him. I'm heading there Tuesday and Wednesday and will be familyless for those days as they are all away, allows me to catch up on sleep!
The hope for me would be that I would like to eventually like to fill one of Scottish Wrestling's institute places and get the support that I need to keep this up, travelling to Glasgow will take its toll, mentally and financially and of course the work and training at ENGAGE is also keeping me busy! but where there is a will, there is a way! I've got loads of hard work and some matches to win before I get to where I need to be with that, but fingers crossed.

My final thought for the day shifts back towards work, I've been nominated for the Edinburgh Napier University Achievement awards, nothing to do with wrestling but about all the stuff I did at uni for sport and for what I have been doing since I graduated. The awards aren't until the 15th November but its really humbling to have been nominated for doing something that you love doing, so fingers crossed for me on that one! Even if I don't win, its a great thing to have been put forward for and one that I would love to win for a number of reasons. 

Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed the update - feel free to share it around and if you want to get involved in wrestling in Edinburgh let me know. Engage Wrestling Club is on facebook just click the link and as always you can follow me on twitter.

@shocksjr

I decided to go back to this one, got confusing with the others. The reason I had two in the first place was because I was trying to keep it separate but thought, what the heck... who cares!

Cheers and thanks for taking time to read the blog!
P.S - Happy Birthday Bear!

Aran Simm - Guest Blogger - Fancy a Wrestle?

Whilst I'm doing this blog, I guess it could get quite monotonous having to read me spraffing on about what i'm up to, so i'm going to mix it up every now and again and get a couple of other perspectives from friends, family, colleagues. Whoevers' arm I can twist into writing something for me. I might even throw in a prize for the best one! Anyway, the first one is from Aran "Simmo" Simm, he made it to wrestling on Monday and got put through his paces. Thanks for coming and making up numbers...only kidding... but seriously, thanks for taking time out to write for me, hope everyone enjoys Aran's contribution to the blog.

You fancy a session of wrestling Simmo?... Why not, how hard can it be smashing you up?

Shockers and I on Napier RL Knights Night

After 3 days of nagging Ive finally got around to writing this blog for Mike. My name is Aran, i'm one of mike's  good friends, often known as "Simmo" or T-Rex (supportive, character building picture received from mike in 2011, below) due to my very short arms. I''ve known mike for about 9 years. I live in Bristol now and  I was a "very drunken" groomsman, for his wedding to the beautiful Emma, back in March. I first met him when i was told that some guy wants to set up a rugby league team at Napier University. Being from Wigan, ( and already bored of Rugby Yawnion) I decided to get in touch. We've had many a drunken night together as the picture to the left will show you, think that one was 2004/2005, those costumes aren't as good as when we made our own out of cardboard the year before.

 Shockers sent me in 2011 with  a message
 "saw this and thought of you"

To start I was invited along to a Rugby League 9's tournament once and was playing for Edinburgh against Scotland Students, I recognised the guy known as Shockers and thought I'd see how tough he was so from a good 8 metres out from the line i dropped the shoulder and surged forward with the ball and scored, right under the sticks and right underneath Shockers., HAHA, after much gloating..........Scotland then went on to smash us 6 tries to 1. I think Shox scored 2, so he was always a good rugby player.


Anyway on to the wrestling...

When Mike first mentioned #mission2014, I was a little reserved, but as his friends and others got behind his bid and I kept reading his blogs and I thought, well next time I'm up in Edinburgh, I've got to go and see just how he's adjusting. After my very early triumph against him all those years ago in the rugby (which continued for many years) I was keen to see if I could still smash him UP! I turned up a little late and was escorted to the mat, my shoes and socks were off. Very quickly we were practising a take down move I can only describe "as the duck under with a pirouette , after  many times of getting my face on the floor we then moved onto the hook the ankle with a choke slam. On a personal note I excelled at this move, throwing a hand-off into Mike's face was quite fun,  until Michael Cavanagh (our coach) kindly informed me how sloppy my technique was and it was more a bicep push to the face.

Injury inflicted by Mike at Paintball

We then moved onto the defensive escape were you had to quickly get off the floor and spin around on top of the guy who was pretty much lying on top of you.  This move I called the "elbow joint stretcher", it really makes you feel the burn and drop to the ground. Mike is known for his no mercy tactics, after once hunting  at a paintballing event on his stag, shouting " Where are you boar?" before inflicting the injury below. (I would like to put on the record that the "Boars" visor had steamed up and he had no idea where he was #nomercy. As demonstrated here:

So I didn't do well with this drill.

We then finished with a grappling drill, The intensity was huge!, where the same instances of me getting an early win, and Mike following this up with about seven take downs on me, as shown in below video continued.

In short, #mission2014 is a massive journey and just one session has left me with enough bruises, I'd love to go again to help him train, I'm personally gutted that I only get to do this whenever I'm back in Edinburgh, so I'd encourage anyone to go along to the sessions at the ENGAGE centre at Sighthill. #mission2014 is do-able and I know Mike will give it his all.

Good Luck pal, #getinvolved

@asimmshady

Road to 2014: impromptu update

I wasn't planning on updating till later on in the week but... I found movie maker on my laptop and got a little bit excited this evening after I was sent some video. Hopefully my counterpart in this movie Aran "Simmo" Simm will be writing a guest blog section for the next update with a few of my thoughts thrown in there. 

Now what you are about to witness! Please bare in mind that this was our first proper grapple. Probably also worth noting that Simmo on a couple of occasions fails to abide by Wrestling etiquette (a friendly slap before starting  - tut tut). We will let him off though because he was good enough to come to the session today and put in a shift. 

It's on our knees grappling trying to throw and pin. Not bad for big lads! hope you like it an let me know what you think of my movie making skills! haha.

Will update properly later in the week but for now ENJOY...

Road to 2014: Skinfolds, Sweats and London

I know what your thinking! long time no read, where have you been?  Are getting lazy in your blogging and training? Well the answer to that is of course no.

Sometimes you hit weeks where you are just mega busy that you just haven't got time to think or when you do stop your brain is fried and you don't want to think. Like I said on day one, I still have a job, I still have a family and I think i've still got some friends out there, not that I see them that often these days.

After my last post a couple of weeks ago, remember when I killed myself on the watt bike then couldn't complete a circuit. Well I took that a little bit to heart and absolutely beasted myself the following week I hit all my sessions running a couple of miles 4 circuits at increased repetitions and weight. It felt awesome! and I really feel like i'm getting stronger. It's a bit annoying that we aren't hitting any of the big weights on the chest or the guns but i'm going to sneak in some beach weights at the end of a session every now and again. I did have a terrible experience last week when I was training and it's something I am going to try never to do again. I forgot a spare pair of boxer shorts for after training. It's a horrible feeling getting back into soaked in sweat boxer shorts after a session. Properly minging!

I have this perception of myself as carrying a fair bit of timber and I think i'm a little bit self conscious at times. So, when I was asked to go do a skinfold test my immediate thoughts were S**T, I really don't want to do that. I think last time i did a skinfold test up at Heriot Watt before the Student Rugby League World Cup in 2008 I was sitting at something like 28% fat. which was pretty big.



Skinfold testing sites courtesy of getfit21.com

 This time I went through the whole shebang and had it done by Russell (Technician at Edinburgh Napier University Sports Science Dept.) he went through his protocol and we had some good chat, Mr Ross was there as well showing me how it all worked and making sure everything was correct. Russell noted that my back was massive and fairly muscular, so the results wouldn't do me justice.

Anyway they measure body fat at different parts of the body as represented in the diagram to the right (I have no idea why this guy doesn't have  a penis, unless its a butch bald woman).

Skinfold calipers - I haven't got a belly button piercing

So, let me assume for a minute that you have never had a skinfold test. It's basically for determining body percentage of body fat. It's a good baseline test to see how fat you are at the start of a programme and if you do it later in the programme you should in theory have decreased. They use calipers like those on the right. I probably don't need to but that is not me in that picture, despite me not having a belly button piercing, i'm not that thin and I I certainly have more hair! Anyway from those readings you get an overall percentage of which mine was a very respectable 14.3%, needless to say I was delighted with that. It's within good levels. For those who are more scientific the sum of 8 which is regarded as the more important measurement was 146 I think. still a bit high.

So with 92 weeks to go until the commonwealth games, we have met Clyde the official Glasgow 2014 Mascot. I don't particularly mind the mascot but love the fact that representing Scotland we have a weed. I find that quite amusing. I'm sure Clyde will be getting about a lot more in the future and we'll see more of him. The other celebrity I saw this week was at the British Institute for Facilities Management Awards (the university was short listed). I went to London with the mangers from my department at the university, Clive Anderson was hosting the evening, I drank my bodyweight in red wine and had a slap up meal at the Grosvenor Park Lane but I missed breakfast the next day. My wake up call never came and got me.

The best part was that Clive Anderson ripped the piss out of everything, could barely say facilities management and almost had to present an award for a new feminine hygiene disposal product. It was priceless.


Awards Venue BIFM 2012 - Grosvenor, Park Lane

 So where am I now, training is going well, we have progressed onto week 8 of 10 the maintenance phase. Back squat is at 75 for 12 reps which is good. and I'm push pressing 50kg at the moment. I can not weight for hypertrophy! its going to be so good. What has been disappointing is that once through lack of child care and once through work I missed 2 wrestling sessions at [EN]GAGE. I actually can't wait for Monday's session. We picked up the wrestling mat from the Palace of Arts in Glasgow last week and I can't wait to get on it! Really good of Scottish Wrestling to give us a loan of it and hopefully we will be able to increase our wrestling provision at the centre. I'm still talking a good talk about getting through to Glasgow to get training with the National Squad boys and will be doing that in the next month. Just waiting on a few of the coaches getting back from holiday and finding out when I can travel through to Glasgow, its a big time and financial commitment for me to do that but needs must!

In fact i'm going to go do a session now to get rid of the cobwebs from earlier in the week now the hangover has finally subsided. It's only fair that I absolutely beast myself. In other news, it was great to get a bit of a let your hair down session at Dave and Rea Simms wedding the other week, had a lovely time. had a few drinks with Hendy,Giler and Mikey before getting a little too drunk as usual. I cant hold my booze these days! Mikey even turned up to Wrestling the following Monday.

I'm still hunting sponsors, I've been a bit lazy over the last few weeks with that and do need to pick up the pace, there has actually been some interest and i'm trying to build on that to make sure I can deliver but all help is appreciated.

I'm going to be using my twitter account @shocksjr from now on I think with the exception of using the blog. I won't delete the other one because I've got some cool followers on there however I can't be arsed managing the two accounts. So if you aren't following me on that one - Now is your chance!

Finally, Thanks for taking time out to read the blog, hope you enjoyed it and a big thank you to the guys who are helping my out and sponsoring!

Cheers.

[EN]GAGE WRESTLING CLUB - facebook page (for those who want a wrestle)