March 16th

Personal training session #4 today.

Diet
Breakfast: Oatmeal, nuts and sugar
Mid-morning: Tuna, ricecake, boiled egg, apple
Lunch: Chilli, rice, steamed veg
Mid-afternoon: Tuna, ricecake, boiled egg, apple
Pre-workout: Oat bar
Post workout: Strawberry milk
Dinner: Thai chicken stirfry with rice

Had the oat bar at 4 for training at 6.30. Felt good, so I'll follow this timing to follow in future so I’m not working out when I get a sugar ‘crash’

Exercise
Warmup: Shadowing, 3 x2 minutes, stretches
Technique Work: About 20 minutes or so of work on sparring technique. We did a sort of ‘If your opponent does X, you do Y’ set of exercises, and some ‘under no circumstances should you being doing Z!’ stuff
Focus Pads: 15 minutes or so working on combinations, movement, slipping punches
Speed Bag: 3 x2 minutes timing work, good for endurance as well
Wall Pad: 3 x2 minutes, concentrating on one type of punch. Started with crosses, then jabs, then 1-2 combinations.
50 situps, 50 pressups, stretches

Good session, the sparring technique lesson in particular was very useful.

Alexis didn’t have much feedback on my performance in sparring on Monday, saying that I’d done well, and simply needed to do everything “better”. Basically this just meant that I needed to move quicker, throw harder punches, snap back my arms to guard more quickly, and so on. Only real criticism was my continuing issue keeping my right hand up when I jab.

Another thing Alexis mentioned was ‘killer instinct’, which apparently I’m not demonstrating in my fights. I agree with him, but its hard to reconcile ‘killer’ with the ‘50%’ we’re supposed to be running at during sparring. I’m sure that if I was a more experienced fighter I could do both, for example by throwing very quick punches without putting my weight behind them, but I’m simply not good enough to do that. I’m trying to hit with some control, and that means I sometimes go slow.

On the wall pad at the end, I was tired and was throwing my usual right hand punches with my elbow way out to the side. I need to watch out for this, can’t afford crappy technique, even when I’m exhausted.

All in all, good session, I feel like I’m quickly improving both my fitness and boxing skill. Hopefully I can keep getting better.

25 days to go…