Back to the grind - Money, Money, Money

This week has been okay. I say okay and not good because although I have done a lot of work in the gym trying to build some muscle, I haven't done so great on the wrestling I missed Monday's and Wednesday's session much to my dismay.  We did however have a cracking Thanksgiving Roast and we made it to Nicola Todd's 30th for a good catch up with folk in 52 Canoe Tiki Hut, Great bar by the way... So it wasn't all bad!

You may remember a few posts ago I mentioned that there seems to always be something to pay for, well last month it was the soccer mum car I drive (not complaining - but it is) this month, in the words of Champ Kind we have been hit by a Triple "WHAMMY!" - The Boiler packed in which left us £280 lighter than we would normally be, plus I had to stay home hence missing Monday Wrestling, then there was the TV license fee to pay George Entwhistle off. Finally, Cameron starts nursery next week at a cost of £45 a day. I was under the impression that kids didn't cost as much as people say, but i'm going to take this opportunity to make a sharp u-turn and join their bandwagon. They are cheap enough at home but as they get older, they get more expensive. It won't be so bad when I have to buy him a PS3 or an XBOX360.
Its funny how quickly your money goes, every month we budget and try to find ways to cut outgoings but there is never anything to cut and there is no way i'm getting rid of Sky. Anyway, I digress yet again from the point. 

This does relate to me not training... because I literally couldn't afford to spend the cash to get to Glasgow to train on Wednesday. Friday's session two weeks ago was okay as well but think it could have been better from me. Donald came along which as great, he took a bit of a push around and I accidentally injured him. He went for a leg attack and dropped his eye onto my thumb. Hope his vision is back to normal soon but it was at least a week off.

If only I could do this!

We are currently in week 2 of Hypertrophy and wow! The first week almost broke me but especially as I'm still not feeling quite 100% I have got some type of lurgy, its not taken hold yet and i'm trying to break it through my current addiction to Yorkshire tea.
Hypertrophy! let me take you on a scientific journey back to Standard Grade Biology of why this stage of training is so hard and where a lot of people will throw the towel in. A wise man told me that If you aren't in pain during your hypertrophy phase then your training programme isn't working. 

For those of you who have absolutely no clue what i'm talking about allow me to elaborate. I'll put my Sports Science degree to good use:

Hypertrophy is effectively the term used to describe the increase and growth of the muscle cells. Initially when you start training, like I was doing for the first 10 weeks you get an increase in nerve impulses that cause muscle contraction meaning I was getting stronger but perhaps without any noticeable changes to the muscle size. 

I'm not going to go massively scientific because one, most people wont be interested and for some it won't be scientific enough but suffice to say Skeletal muscle adapts to regular increasing loads. Progressing that load means stressing the muscle and forcing an adaptation. It adapts by increasing the size of and amount of the contractile proteins (actin and myosin). These are in each muscle fibre which in turn increase size and strength. Russell et. al. 2000.

Crash course in SES.

Having missed Wrestling sessions earlier in the week I was really looking forward to Friday. We had a bit of banter on facebook as Simmo was back in town with his brother Dave and they were coming to wrestle. Dougie T threatened to come but was making a cake for Nicola and couldn't get there. To be fair to him the cake was pretty damn good.
We went through the basics and I was keen to see the two brothers wrestle, they had a wee dance around the place for the first minute, almost like a ballet. I wrestled Simmo, no video unfortunately and I think I got the better of him this time although to his credit, he managed to get a roll in. I was trying to do anything I would normally do, I couldn't gut wrench, I couldn't leg lace and I certainly couldn't roll the big fella so it was a case of pushing out and stealing a point here and there. Dave was really good, for a complete beginner he got stuck in is pretty strong and quite quick. I have since found out that two hands on the back of the neck is illegal, as is choking, as is palming in the face. Noted for next time! 

Dave Simm - Legend

Nikos, was there as well and we had an awful fight as you'll see. The stance was awful and we both picked up on that. I was having a nightmare with my leg attacks all night, they just weren't working and my gator roll on Dave failed, hence I left myself in a bit of trouble and gave a point away. 

Steven Cote, was coaching, he is a European Silver medallist and an awesome guy to have shouting instructions to you, his knowledge is fantastic and he passes it over really well. I'm going to do a little feature on him in the next few weeks, maybe even get a guest blog out of him. He has some interesting stories!

Now its probably worth noting again that some of the technique in these videos is absolutely shocking, this was after an hour of pretty intense training so we were pretty tired. The one thing I really want to draw your attention to is the end of the video i've posted and the direction my left knee folds - I put it in slow motion, its pretty painful watching back and I have no idea how there is no damage. I can pretty much guarantee that 3 months ago my knee would have blown out if it had been bent like and its testament to the programme that Alex has me on that i'm not currently on the waiting list for another reconstruction and this whole adventure would already be over. So thank you to him for that. 

The other news from the week was that I had an appearance in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Scotsman which was pretty decent, I had a phone interview with Nigel Duncan who wrote up the article and did a great job. I don't think I have ever been quoted so accurately but he was a little generous with the headline in the written paper "Wrestling is whole new ball game for Rugby League Star" - if you didn't see it on-line here it is - ARTICLE

After Friday I wasn't best pleased with how I had wrestled, every time I went for a take down I seemed to be getting caught and I couldn't figure out why. So I looked back at the videos and found that I was diving in like a rugby player to try and tackle and you can't do that in Wrestling. Its way too easy to defend. So on Monday's session Nikos and I wanted to practice keeping our wrestling "power stance" which we did quite effectively, I was much happier with this Monday session and think i've made progress in fact I loved Monday's session. I was working with Mark Ross and Michael Cavanagh gave us some really useful tips and we learnt the cradle pin which I really like, think it could become a stock move. Sport is a funny thing, one week your good and on form, the next you are struggling but i'm back to the good this week and much happier for it. I'm going to beast it in the gym as get to all three sessions - No pressure to actually make the Scottish Wrestling team now that the Scotsman have reported on #mission2014. I will up my game and train harder. That's a promise!

So, what next - well yesterdays session saw Mark Ross appear, again he enjoyed it. I learnt a lot including some new moves and had a great bout against Nikos, we have both been doing this for the same amount of time and are both progressing nicely. Hopefully we will continue to do so and that pretty much rounds up the last two weeks. Mixed fortunes I think, now I just need to win the lottery and Karma will be restored!

Thanks for all the support so far folks, I appreciate there is a long way to go but we are making progress. 

As always, feel free to share the blog and if you want to keep up to date you can follow me on twitter. Also, if you fancy coming along to a wrestling session you don't need any experience. We train on Monday's 12:30pm - 2:00pm and again on Fridays at 6:00pm - 7:30pm both at [EN]GAGE. Hope to see some more faces down soon.

Cheers

@shocksjr

Hypertrophy - good and evil!

Sorry for my lack of blogging last week, I'm trying to keep it interesting and last week, wasn't that interesting. Not much to feedback on. However, after my full on Wrestling week two weeks ago, I hit the wall over last weekend and ended up with a nice bout of man flu. I was off work for a couple of days and annoyingly I was supposed to be starting the hypertrophy stage of my training, but as I was away at the end of the week as well we decided to put that on hold until this week. So I did actually manage to get a rest week in...kind of...

My saving grace at the moment - Optumus Massage

The increase in wrestling sessions has taken its toll. I am absolutely loving it, I wish I had been introduced to the sport about 10 years ago but after that week I felt the beginnings of niggles creeping back in. After the Friday wrestling session at
[EN]GAGE with Ash, I thought I may have damaged my knee again. If you have ever had a knee injury you'll know all about the dread you feel when your knee starts twinging. 

Que - Pav (Optumus) to check it out and fix me up. As it turns out, the clicking that I was having around my knee was actually the origin of my calf (gastrocnemius) and that was causing me massive problems around the knee joint. Pav was barely touching my calf for a massage and through gritted teeth I was trying not to scream. Normally... i'm pretty reserved regarding my expression of massage. Meaning I don't let on if i'm in serious amounts of pain. I've seen my mate Giler get a massage from Pav before at rugby and he screams and I've always wondered whether it was low pain threshold or just incredibly tight. I now know! I wasn't far off his reaction last week. Pav sorted out my back and calves last week which have been much better and almost had immediate improvements in my back rotation afterwards.

The tension that had built up in my calves was simply because I had been doing a lot of work on the wrestling stance and been training in positional instances. The good news is its beginning to click and i've finally got a rough idea of what i'm doing. I can tell that i'm getting better each time  I go to training and start to do something, its all about practice, as i've said before practice makes permanent. 



Little Nicky having a snooze



The massage heralded the last of my proper training last week and it was deemed my proper rest week to let the body recover and just chill out. I headed out for my first night out since September and it got pretty messy as expected. It was the Bear's birthday and we hit the Grassmarket, Hanover Street before heading to Shanghai to see Stevie Winton (manager) the bear bought Vodka which was nice and we all got pretty steaming. Bear even posted a video on facebook of my passed out on his sofa. I was snoring like "Little Nicky". 

Luckily I had booked in for some time off on the rest of the week and headed southwards to pay a visit with Emma and Cameron to her grandparents. It did mean a hung over / tired trip to Blackpool way. We had a great time down there but on Saturday, we had a slight issue that resulted in Syd (Emma's Grandad) being taken to Hospital, he is fine and on the mend but it was the event that kicked off a crap week. I should state that it was a crap week but on the wrestling front its been great. The reason its been so crap is that the freezer has packed in at home, probably the thermostat. I can live with that... it would be useful but its not the end of the world. Yesterday our Boiler broke, meaning no hot water, no heating and no washing machine. Rage!!! #risk25 sometimes you just can't catch a break bad things come in threes - and I didn't win the Edinburgh Napier Alumus of the year award last night either, although it was great to be nominate so i'm chuffed with that.

Anyway we headed back up to Scotland, late on Sunday night, I had the best sleep i'm maybe ever had that night and it was all back to normal on Monday. Wrestling on Monday was good fun, I managed to drag in Donald Grant, from the mighty Edinburgh Eagles Rugby League, he was training at [EN]GAGE anyway and he had his introduction to Wrestling. He was another one of the guys who loved the physicality of it and found it to be quite useful and transferable to rugby, think it was probably more physically demanding than he thought. 

I started phase 2 of my gym programme on Monday- Hypertrophy and it was straight in there with Squats, straight leg deadlifts, walking lunges and bench press to name a few all for four sets at varying weights and slowly to get a solid concentric contraction and activate the slow twitch fibres. It was physically exhausting and heavy loads with a decrease in weight but increase in reps. I had instant muscle soreness after day one, there was no delay making it OMS and day two Tuesday had me in pieces, I could barely walk up the stairs at home but the worst thing was the I went to the toilet at about 2:00am and ended up getting pins and needles in my legs which combined with DOMS is perhaps one of the most horrible experiences i've ever had. I was stuck for about 10 minutes before I made it back to bed. The best thing about it though was i've finally been allowed to do some bicep EZ curls and tricep push downs! brilliant! Love Beach Weights!

Sean Keogh (red) in action at 84kg

Wednesday had me back through travelling with Martin to the Palace of Art in Glasgow for some intense wrestling with the institute guys. No traffic this time but it did mean we got there about 45 minutes early. Only one thing for it, massive stretching session! I was happy to stretch and felt a lot better for it. I was in real pain. Vio (Scotland Assistant Coach) arrived and informed us it was a conditioning session for the evening which was fine, I was working with Sean Keogh (Finished 5th - 84kg 2010 Commonwealth Games). Was fantastic to train with him, he is a good guy and taught me a lot. He has come back from a series of injuries which is good, but he is back fit now and will be a medal hope for 2014. We worked on loads of stuff, mainly positional training, defence and attack which was great. This is where I realised that I actually knew more than I thought I did. We finished off the session with a 9 exercise conditioning set which we did twice with 3 sets on each exercise (all wrestling specific). I could have almost been sick and my legs were physically shot. I pinged my calf on the final exercise and I need to get that looked at ASAP but i can't tell if its just a strain or a relapse from last weeks tightness. The KCR from Laura, sorted me out and again there were some abnormal sounds coming from the hip flexors and back. I do rate KCR as a protocol, think it helps to relieve alot of the pressure.

 

In other news though, my friends Paddy and Louise had a beautiful little boy this week, which is fantastic for them, Congratulations to them and I wish them all the best as a new family and hope they enjoy parenthood. They are in for some great fun! Hopefully we'll get to see little Jack soon.

Next week we have Simmo and his brother heading up for a wrestle. I'm exciting about that one. Simmo was a guest blogger for me last month and Dave, his younger brother used to play rugby league with me and went down to Crusaders in Wales. My money is on Dave at the moment but you never know. For those that were asking, my first competitive match will probably be in April, i'm going for the British Novices and hoping to be in ridiculously good shape with some good Wrestling knowledge to do some damage and get a medal.

www.tysonfitnessnutrition.com

 Finally, Thanks to Paul Tyson fitness. I've just ordered my latest batch of supplements and they should be here soon. Thanks for your support. Its much appreciated!

Thanks for taking time to read, feel free to share and if you want to keep up to date you can follow on twitter @shocksjr

Cheers,

The Palace, [EN]GAGE and the Return!

So, despite having a "rest week" this week, I have been pretty busy on the wrestling side of things, which if nothing else makes a nice change, even if it is just mixing things up a little bit. The "rest week" was of course to allow my body to recuperate after the last 10 weeks of preparation before hitting my first 6 week block of hypertrophy (muscle building). The week hasn't really been that, if anything i'm more sore just now than I have been in the last 10 weeks!

The reason for this soreness is in fact the number of wrestling sessions that i've been able to get to this week. As usual we start on the Monday, It was a good session as always with Michael Cavanagh at the helm. The warm up drills were pretty standard, normally I avoid coming last and manage to avoid doing push ups which is a bonus. But there is one exercise that is all about strength and flexibility. It's hard as nails and works better for the more dainty of people. Not the big rigs! 

Its hard to describe but basically one person is on their hands and knees anchored into the mat, the other clasps onto their chest and flips into a bridge position before pulling themselves over into the start position. It is pretty much as hard as it sounds. I did it a couple of times and my back made some noises and cracked in places I never knew existed.

Leg-lace - never get caught!

The session was great, Nikos loves getting stuck into the physical side of things and always gives 100% and he is strong! I managed to get a couple of good takes downs during the sparring at the end but I have got probably 30kg on him which makes it a lot easier for me - if we were the same weight, it would be a proper battle! We did a lot of work on Leg laces. This is a basic tie up of the legs that is brutal and effective to score points, quite good fun to do as well! Best never ever to get caught! Example left - if you get into that, you are in serous trouble. I love it!

Monday's session took its toll on me but as Emma and Cameron had headed up to Aberdeen for a few days I took full advantage and decided to head through to the Palace of Art is Glasgow, its the Scottish Institute of Sport centre of excellence and where Scottish Wrestling base their programme out of. Before going, I had to get my back looked at, I had KCR from Laura to loosen me off, it certainly helped but I was still struggling a bit and decided that a trip to the gym was in order to speak to Alex. Triggerpoint therapy and stretching was the order of the afternoon and Wow, I don't think I have ever been so close to tears in a gym! The x-ball that you use replicates a forearm massage and I had to put that in my back, glutes and also in my hip flexors. That plus some deep stretching had me grimacing, trying not to scream. 

I went to the Palace of Art with Martin King, an Edinburgh lad, studying in Dundee who is also embarking on his own #mission2014 but in the 66kg category. He is a good lad, had been wrestling for a couple of years and is really good to watch whilst he is sparring.

Sighthill - Hermiston Gait = 1 hour!

I don't want to get into a rant on traffic at this time of year. So, I will leave it at this... on Tuesday it took me an hour to do the journey to the right to get to Glasgow and combined my time stuck in traffic jams over 3 days was 6.5 hours! that's almost a full day at work! Those Journeys combined should have taken 1h 40

Anyway, we made it and I was introduced to Viorem (Vio) Etko, former GBR wrestler (originally from Moldova) who is now the Scottish Wrestling Assistant Coach. He was doing some crazy warm up stuff, handstand walks, flips, you name it the man is strong and agile. I obviously don't really know him very well yet, but we got on fairly well and he seems like a dead on guy. I also met Pedram, Iranian Junior Champion, who was my partner for the session. Pedram is still learning English but he gets his point across quite well through demonstration, he is obviously a very natural wrestler and was throwing me around a fair bit. I loved the session, I learnt a lot and it was good to meet some of the people involved. The key thing I learnt was to relax the shoulders and just enjoy it and take my time - technique = slow to ingrain it. They were the key points Pedram wanted to get across. 

Too Much Red =
Miserable night, miserable journey

Wednesday hailed an altogether different story. Martin and I road tripped again, this time with in the Luton van to pick the remainder of the wrestling mat up from the Palace. We got it, left at 4pm and guess what... traffic jam! I hate the M8. We arrived at the Palace at 6:30pm.

The session when we got there was stretching to start with one of the Institute staff, it was fluid and surprisingly tough. Volodymyr (Head Coach) was there for this session and offered some good advice and as it turns out, i'm a little bit unique. I'm right handed but lead with my left, which makes me a bit of a weirdo when it comes to wrestling, so from now on, i'm going Rocky Balboa and fighting South Paw. Vio, took me firmly under his wing on the Wednesday session and I got a good bit of one on one coaching, more about getting in close and how to use my weight and get control. It was great to have that time, a bit of banter and again I found myself learning a lot. Kindly, Vio said and I quote "to look at you I wouldn't think you were strong - but you do have strength." to which I was at first surprised because I think I look and feel quite strong but then as you find out very quickly in this sport - looks can be very deceiving. Volodymyr also complemented me before I hit the M8 again and said I was pretty quick on my feet for a big guy and that the night was a good start! I don't think you can get too much more positive for an hour and a half of getting thrown around. There is a heck of along way to go but I feel good and meeting the coaches encouraged me to work harder. 

My only negative comment on my experience from the palace is that I would like to know where all the Institute Wrestlers were! There are 18 registered on the institute and in total over the two days I think I met and trained with 8 of them. I'll see how many rock up next week!

The Wrestling mat at [EN]GAGE in all its glory!

I mentioned briefly the mat we picked up, well it for lack of a better expression is a beautiful piece of kit that took its place at [EN]GAGE for Friday night, my final session of the week. I had a special guest. Mr Ash Carroll, my former coach at Edinburgh Eagles and Ash was also the assistant coach as I finished my Scotland 'A' career in 2010. Ash is a strong man, he would be classed as a heavyweight and was a good contest for us both I think. Ash did really well with the standing up simulated drills and some of the take downs. I identified that my grip isn't strong enough and that is something I would like to work on. That said, I think my ground work and attacking from the ground is probably the strongest part of my wrestling at the moment. I managed to get a few throws on ash including a gut wrench which was good (maybe not for Ash). I'm covered in bruises and in a massive amount of pain so Ash must have been doing something right and more importantly, I think he enjoyed it.

This is the stage that I probably dislike the most with any sort of training regime, I was the same with rugby league. I'm not sure if its the intensive learning and the frustration of not knowing everything, or whether its that I have the goal of Commonwealth Games and really don't know a massive amount about the sport and haven't had a competitive fight yet. I have to keep on pulling myself back and remember that I am still in training and there is plenty of time. I'm not into my physical best yet. I won't be until about March after I have gone through Hypertrophy and Max Strength and Wrestling skills wont come over night. Like I said, there is a long way to go but I think we are on track at the moment, its just a little frustrating!

Finally, I had a bit of a news flash this week as well! The Titan - Simmo is returning to [EN]GAGE on 22 November for a re-match. His comment "get used to looking at the yellow!"

What he doesn't realise is that if I can see the mat and the yellow, he will be looking at the lights on the ceiling, and in that position - in wrestling - its all over! Bring it big fella.

That's all for this week folks. As always, Thanks for taking some time out to read the blog. Hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to share it and a big thank you to all the guys who are taking time out to help and sponsor me for #mission2014 you can find out more about the team and sponsors by clicking the links

Mike
@shocksjr