Geezer's Long March Toward the Elite Sneaking Up On the Finish Line

[Mark E. Hurling]

Weight: 248.5

5 minutes warmup on the bike. (3's week)

Standing Overhead Press: Sets of 3, 110-125, set of 7, 140.

Barbell Row: Sets of 3, 160-185. Set of 8, 205.

Claw Grip: 2 sets of 5 with 220.

Back feels good again and the lft hand is nearly fully recovered although I could tell the claw grip on the left was a little weaker than usual. I have discovered a series of bruises on my right upper arm and torso. Apparently the Saturday session of jujitsu was a little more intense than I thought when I was getting grabbed and smacked to get me moved off line.

[JM3]

Get a thorough and vicious massage?

Personally I always felt that sleeping on the floor in my office on just a sleeping bag did good things for my back.

I like sleeping on a hard floor when my back sore.


Mark- are you icing?Using water therapies? I wouldn't get a vicious massage- id hit a place like this:

Www.spaworldusa.com. And let the joints float and relax a bit.

[tertius]

Well, there you go. Defer to the expert! Especially when he says you should go get pampered.

[Mark E. Hurling]

We had a jacuzzi for some time. It finally croaked to our great dismay. Too poor to get 'er fixed.

If I slept on the floor the damn cats would crawl up on me and suffocat me. Rita's not all that big but Max a huuuge neutered gray tabby must weigh nearly 30 pounds. If he got on my chest it'd be curtains for me. Curtains, I tell ya'.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Weight: 248

Did a running GXP this morning and forgot my bloody pager and cell phone at home. So of course I got paged and it woke up Dearly beloved who was mightily pissed at me for my featherheadedness waiting for me when I came in the door all sweaty. No jujitsu tonight, lots of work related things to take care of for a day or so. Hopefully Friday will have me lifting again if I can lift my nose from the grindstone.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Weight: 246.5

Demanding week at work. Thursday had me in at O-dark 30 and on my feet all day. After about 3 hours Mr. Back started getting very unhappy. So unhappy that I creaked out of bed Friday morning like the Tinman of Oz and figured that power snatches would snap me in twain. But Dr. Laura, she of the magic hands set me mostly right later that day.

So off to jujitsu where I got paged halfway there (again!) and had to run in and take care of some matters. Missed half an hour of the session. Once there though it was a great session with more revelations about movements, joint angles, strength curves, and weaknesses that have some direct cognates in what Rip teaches in lifting form and linear movement against resistance. I got paired up with another brown belt and we alternated practicing with each other and helping teach the lower ranks.

The real AH HA! moments came halfway into the session when Master Bellman started demonstrating some escapes from ground techniques when the attacker is attempting a mount. In the first, the attacker gets a mount and reaches down with one or both hands to choke, punch, or grab the defender's front. Any of these are linear attacks. The defender drives their hands inward over the center line and then upward and outward over his head. This pulls the attacker forward and down in a face plant and pretty unstable. Then the defender goes to work on hooking the left leg with his right leg and then wrapping around the left arm with both hands and pulling the elbow down as he rolls hard his right while doing a left side upward hip thrust. Done with the right force and timing it rolls the attacker right off.

Another escape was much the same but included a push of the left leg backward right where the knee meets the mat. That's where the push needs to be for the best leverage. A 3rd technique added the use of a quick roll to the right by the defender to offset the attacker's leg and balance before they can fully settle. Then the defender gets a knee under and inside one of the attacker's legs and forces it outward and back.

I began to see to angles playing a roles in the breaking down and weakening the strength of the attack by the 2nd technique. Then a bunch of things fells into place. The joints on the human body are strongest and most resistant when they approximate a 90 degree angle. But open that angle up or close it down to make the angle more acute or obtuse, and the strength begins to leak out of it like air from a punctured tire. That is eaxactly what was going on by shoving the leg back at the knee level. It opens up two 90 degree angles of the leg at the knee and the hip and makes it very hard to support or resist any force brought to bear on it especially from a side lateral roll. The same is true with wrapping and pulling down at the inside of the elbow to collapse it into a very acute angle that can't push well and definitely can't project linear force in any meaningful way to stop a side lateral force or roll. Finally, the biggest light bulb popped when I realized that turning the upper leg's femur outward and backward opened up a more obtuse angle of the femurs in relation to the hip or pelvis than can effectively exert force or resistance as well. Kind of like looking at turning the knees out but not too far out in the squat and keeping them tracking in line with the feet. SS:3 pgs. 46-47 and 57 show. But interestingly, too wide produces a point of quickly diminishing returns.

The last bit of the class had the other brown belt and I doing Phase II drills with 5 minutes of attacks of any kind from one and defenses and counters form the other. This began to escalate in intensity until we were getting very close to full on sparring on strikes, chokes, joint locks and the like. I was trying to damp myself down but as we got into it we went at it harder and faster until the black belts cooled us down with the admonition, no more strikes. This got us back on a more even keel. Great session for all that it was 103 in Northridge this morning. I must have lost 10 pounds.

[Mark E. Hurling]

I have just been informed by Dearly Beloved that I am sporting a large brown and purple bruise on my left forearm from the wrist to halfway to my elbow. It doesn't hurt in the slightest but I can say that I have never seen or had a bruise that started out brown before. Evidently that sparring went even further South than I thought

[Mark E. Hurling]

Weight: 245.5

5 minutes warmup on the bike. (5-3-1 week)

Dips: 3 sets of 8, 20 lbs.

Hammer Curls: 3 sets of 8, 115.

Deadlift. 135-5, 225-4, 275-1, 315-1, 365-1, 405-nope, 405-nope. I decided to try for 405 again and got it to right below my kneecaps. So close. I tried again and broke it off the floor but that was it. Next time for sure!

[bob g]

I thought about you while eating lunch at The Squirrel in Corvalis last week. OSU is a nice campus. We were just driving through but Corvalis seemed to have a good vibe. It is a long way from southern Califonia, though!

[Mark E. Hurling]

Corvallis is a nice place and the OSU Campus reminded me of SIU in a lot of ways. Best of all it is 950 miles North of SoCal.