Technically speaking, I'm in Week 7 of my EightWeeksOut for the first Revolution tournament of the year in March. But because the event was rescheduled for a week later, my training camp has gained a week. So while I'm in week 7, my program is still in week 6, with three weeks to go.
The next two weeks are Fight Speed weeks leading into Compete Week. The goal during those two weeks is to really push the pace in training, to try and work at ever more intense levels from every position. There is a pace to be kept, for sure. This isn't about going berserk. But it is about looking to all observers like a man with a plan, and than plan should be evident to anyone paying attention.
This week I've started the Fight Speed version of matwork (TM). Here, instead of doing 3, 4 or 5 sets of 20 reps, I'm doing 10 sets of 10 reps, with the same two-minute break in between sets. The goal here is to spend less and less time grinding out reps and more and more time exploding through them.
What's nice is that my ability to recover has improved significantly over the past few weeks. Right now, I'm able to get my heart rate to drop by more than 40% within 90 seconds of ending a threshold set. In other words, and using today as an example, I had an avearge heart-rate of 160 bpm immediately after finishing each set. In 90 seconds, my heart rate had dropped by an average of 42%.
When I started the threshold training part of the camp, the recovery drop was closer to 30% (31.6% to be exact). My goal is to get it to 50% over the next three weeks or so, focusing on the 10 x 10 matwork (TM). I think I'm scheduled to do one more grinder session of 5 sets of 20 on Thursday. But after that, it's all speed work from here on out.
