On 14th August I began teaching a new private student. For reasons known only really to the student and me I have called the notes taken from these sessions "The Soapie Diaries". The student's primary objective was not to learn martial arts or self-protection. She wanted to improve her all-round fitness and was open to learn whatever I had to teach. It was an unusual mandate for me, but I decided to use the opportunity to try out my combat conditioning programme.
All sessions are different. A student will go over some of the same exercises and the same skills, but routines will always be different. This is to maintain interest and to never allow the student to be comforable. All sessions are very short and high intensity in nature.
14.08.12
We began with a beginner's Tabata session. Here the student was introduced to one of the best forms of high intensity interval training. She completed a five minute warm-up, eight 20 second rounds of activity and five minutes warm-down.
5 minutes hill running
20 seconds sprawl/dumbbell burpee
20 seconds straight hand strikes
20 seconds knees to heavy bag
20 seconds woodchoppers with car tyre
20 seconds sledgehammer
20 seconds box jumps
20 seconds tyre drags
30 seconds car tyre overhead throws
5 minutes pad-work
24.08.12
The workout took place inside a house. To vary my student's training, we did a type of aerobic warm-up with kickboxing and BJJ movements. We even put some music on to keep things going. I worked on basic boxing and kickboxing combinations, ground work techniques, mixed in with basic exercises, the farmer’s walk and step-up farmer’s walk using objects around the household. We finished with some stretching.
28.08.12
First Round
1 minute bear crawls
1 minute crab crawls
1 minute gorillas
1 minute sit-throughs
1 minute frog jumps
Second Round
1 minute seals
1 minute snaking
1 minute lizard crawls
1 minute side-snaking
Third Round
1 minute horse stance hold
1 minute extended press-up hold
1 minute one foot balance hold
1 minute plank
Finished with a series of stretching exercises
29.08.12
As an introduction to the 300 workout, my student did the 150 workout – 10 sets of 15 repetitions of each exercise.
5 minutes warm-up agility drills
Press-up burpees with dumbbells
Woodchoppers with dumbbell
Step-ups with dumbells
Uppercuts with dumbbells
Knee pins with dumbbells
Squats with dumbbells
Knee lift rotations
Sprawl/knee strike combination
Tuck jumps
Stretch out
31.08.12
I took my student through an intensive training session, focusing a lot on self-defence techniques.
100 reps rapid straight strikes
100 reps rapid hooks
100 reps knee strikes
100 reps round kicks
100 triple strike high and low with ratton stick
20 sprawls
20 sit throughs
We then did some work from the fence followed by transitions from various postures.
20 groin kicks
10 squats with 7kg medicine ball
10 lunges with 7kg medicine ball
10 woodchoppers with 7kg medicine ball