This dude is living my dream.

Renzo Gracie dropped by Hollywood BJJ today for an impromptu seminar.  It was awesome.  BTW - Shawn Williams is a Renzo Gracie black belt and Hollywood BJJ is part of the Renzo Gracie association.  Anyway, Renzo taught us a few techniques and then we drilled.  I hadn’t seen any of the techniques before so it was really a great learning experience.  In addition to being a two-fisted ass kicker, Renzo Gracie is a really funny guy.  He was cracking jokes and fooling around with Shawn and overall kept everyone focused and positive.  He was totally gracious and signed autographs and took pictures with everyone.  It was a lot of fun.

Sometimes I get in trouble in class for using too much power and not enough technique. Both of the schools where I train teach very technical jiu-jitsu. At either place if you spaz out and try to muscle your way through an opponent you’re likely to get barked at. For a long time, I struggled with the balance between technique and power and viewed them as antagonistic goals. In my mind you could either have power or be technical but not both. During this period I was getting crushed on the mat because I was trying to put together sequences without using any strength. I concluded that my technique was poor and I put more and more time into drilling technique. Oddly, my overall game didn’t improve and I continued to find myself overpowered on the mat by guys a lot weaker and smaller than me. I was stuck in this rut for kind of a long time and I was getting kind of discouraged until I discovered Pavel Tsatsouline’s The Naked Warrior.

I bought this book a few months ago when I had to go on an extended business trip. I knew I wouldn’t have access to kettlebells and I wanted to stay fit somehow. I ordered a copy of The Naked Warrior because I was intrigued by the book’s underlying value proposition: namely how to get a killer strength workout using only bodyweight exercises. The book is fascinating in many ways but the most intriguing aspect was a very clear discussion of the conceptual tension between technique and strength. In a nutshell, Pavel says that true strength is technique. In other words, the idea that strength is simply the amount of force you can generate by contracting a muscle is weight-room pseudo-science. In actuality, strength is an outcome of many discrete techniques that applied together, result in unbelievable power. The Naked Warrior program basically breaks down all of these techniques into easily understandable “chunks” that you can put into practice without screwing around in a weight room all day.

There are only two exercises in the Naked Warrior program. The one-arm pushup and the one-legged squat (or pistol). That’s it. After a few months of Naked Warrior training I can do five shaky one-armed pushups on both sides but I still can’t do a real pistol. I can only manage a few pistols by rocking up off a box which is technically cheating, but it’s the best I can do at the moment. But in doing these exercises I’m getting a lot of practice with the various strength techniques contained in the book. There are really too many to cover in this blog post so I’ll just briefly describe the techniques that provided “break-through” moments for me. There are perhaps another dozen techniques in the book, and some of them are frankly beyond my skill level. If you’re interested you can pick up the book from amazon.com.

The anal lock
This technique is exactly what it sounds like. Basically you just clench your sphincter as tight as you can. This is extremely helpful during one-arm pushups because it makes my entire trunk much more rigid. If you’re doing a real one-arm pushup with your shoulders square to the deck you absolutely cannot get off the ground unless your body is rigid.

The armpit corkscrew
The idea here is that if you corkscrew your arm outward from your armpit you will generate much more power than if you just do a regular pressing motion with your arm. If you try it you’ll feel much more tension in your lats and core as those muscles are engaged in the corkscrew motion whereas they are not engaged in a straight-up press.

Pneumatic breathing
This technique had the most dramatic effect on my strength. I always used to inhale on the negative and exhale on the positive while lifting weights. If you employ pneumatic breathing, you keep most of the air in your lungs but let a little bit escape as though through a tiny valve. When you watch boxers you hear them make a sound like “sst sst” or “chh chh” when they punch. That’s pneumatic breathing.

The odd thing about these techniques is that it requires a lot of mental focus to put them all together. If I’m mentally scattered and I try to do a pistol or one-arm pushup I can’t get off the ground. I’ll just stall out in the down position while my face reddens from the strain and I feel like a fool. It’s weird how you can feel power leaking out of your body if you don’t use these techniques. That brings me to another important principle of the Naked Warrior program. Namely, you should never work out to exhaustion. Instead you should do sub-maximal sets many times throughout the day to ensure that you are fresh and mentally focused. Pavel uses the slightly obscene term “Greasing the Groove” to describe this workout pace.

Okay we’re finally getting to the good part. Readers of this blog know I injured my MCL recently. Part of my rehab is to ride an exercise bike. Since I don’t have room for a bike in my crummy apartment I joined 24 hour fitness. Last week after riding the bike I decided to check out the weight room. I haven’t set foot in a weight room since I started BJJ in June of 2007 but just for fun I decided to do some bench presses. I’ve benched the same weight since I was in high school: 4 Olympic plates or 225 pounds, which is basically a bodyweight bench press for me. Not too impressive. After an extended absence from the weight room I thought I might be able to squeeze out a couple of reps at that weight. Instead I easily did 3 sets of 7 reps. I was stunned. I wasn’t even breathing hard. So on a lark I loaded on two more Olympic plates which is my former one-rep maximum of 315 pounds and I was able to squeeze out another 7 reps. I couldn’t frickin believe it.

After thinking it through I realized that I had been unconsciously employing the Naked Warrior techniques. During the press my feet were barely touching the ground because I had been unconsciously doing the anal lock. My trunk was so rigid that my legs were elevated bringing my feet with them. I also realized that I had been doing pneumatic breathing. I never utilized these techniques before, because I didn’t know that they existed. So in a somewhat trivial and unscientific way the Naked Warrior routine was validated for me. It seems that strength really is a function of technique. I should also add that my physique is particularly unimpressive at the moment. I used to have a big chest and arms but those pretty much went away when I stopped lifting weights. Sadly my gut is as prominent as ever.

Anyway I was kind of stoked to see if I could reproduce this success with squats but due to my MCL issue I decided to take it easy rather than run the risk of aggravating my injury. I did do a few sets of squats with low weight but I don’t have anything remarkable to add other than I wasn’t breathing too hard which I would expect working out at that weight. When my leg is better I should try to beat my one-rep squat max but I don’t know when that will be.

Part II of this blog will discuss the question, “Does max strength even matter in BJJ?”

I made it to class today - my first class since busting my MCL.  I’m wearing this ridiculous brace that only allows my leg to bend in one direction.  The warm-ups were kind of tough.  I can’t run right as I still have a pronounced limp.  However, I got through it and the drills were a lot easier.  I had a dream of competing in the upcoming Pan-Ams, but that’s going to have to wait.  I think I’ll go to all the open mats between now and then and give my tournament-bound teammates someone to beat up on.

I’ve discovered that you really can’t do many exercises with a sprained MCL. Last week my plan was to stay fit with the awesome Naked Warrior workout. Unfortunately, I can’t even do a pistol on my good leg because I can’t keep the lame leg straight as I squat down.

Then I tried to do some one-arm pushups but unless you can keep your body completely tight and rigid from head to toe you won’t budge from the down position. I could literally feel power leaking out of my bad knee when I tried to do one-arm pushups and eventually I just gave up.

I have figured out a few exercises that put no strain on my knee. First and most obvious is the situp. I’ve been doing a lot of cross-choke situps. Basically this involves reaching far between your legs with the blades of your wrists turned in as though your are cross-grabbing the lapels of an opponent’s kimono. On the negative I try to touch my elbows to my belt-line, just as I would with a real cross choke.

The other exercise I’ve been doing is the kettlebell press from a seated position. I just sit on the ground with my legs stretched out in a V in front of me. Then I crush-grip the handle of a 45lb kettlebell and do a strict military-press overhead. This is an awesome workout for your core because your obliques and abs have to be flexed tight during the press or the kettlebell will just pull you backwards and you’ll smash your head. I can only do about five reps on each side. By comparison, when I do a regular clean-and-press I can generally do 10-12 reps with a 53lb kettlebell because of the additional power from my legs. By eliminating the legs you amplify the difficulty of the press and recruit different muscles.

A hellish variation of the seated press is the seated curl. From the same position as before, you just crush-grip a kettlebell by the horns and hold it in curl position in front of you for as long as you can. This drill engages the back muscles more. If you don’t keep your back tight, the weight of the bell will just pull you forward.

You don’t really need to crush-grip the bell in either of these exercises but I’m doing so because I want to improve my grip strength and frankly it’s the only exercise I’m going to get for a while.

When my knee is rehabbed a little more I’m going to try to get back to my Naked Warrior training and I hope to blog about it more in the coming weeks.