Roadwork and Ground Work (diary entry)

English: New York State Federation Cross Country Meet (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

19.10.14 We began today’s morning session with a run. Despite cross-country running being one of the few sports that I found I found I was reasonably good at when at school, it isn’t a form of training I place high on my list of priorities. Roadwork is a time honoured and traditional form of stamina and endurance building for fighting. It has its place and extended runs can be good for building mental fortitude, but I don’t it on an extended basis anymore. Our run was relatively short, taking only 15 to 20 minutes and I used it work through footwork movements, shadow boxing and a few explosive drills. This, of course, keeps it all more specific to combat conditioning. We then went through some ballistic stretching and ground movement exercises such as spider crawls and frog jumps. Frog jumps were then applied to passing the guard, and we went through a Swiss ball routine for improving the top game. We looked at different ways to transition to the knee pin, using the Swiss ball to create some gravitational resistance.