has anyone tried lifting weights wearing earplugs? My gym is usually overly loud and crowded and I don't want to turn up my ipod too much because I have sub-optimal hearing abilities already and it doesn't block out the background noise anyway. But I am afraid that earplugs will interfere with my sense of balance because that is situated in the ears. Does anyone have experience? I am momentarily trying to work on my focus.

Earplugs affect your since of balance? Do deaf people fall over all the time?

I was wondering if they do because the air supply inside your ear is cut off not because I can't hear.

I headed to the gym, with intentions of doing a low impact workout with a medium effort on DLs, at 5pm. Being the true meat stick that I am, stubborn and dumb, I didn't achieve the "low impact" portion of my goals. 30 minutes on the treadmill at 7.0 mph (where 7.5 is my norm) was a good warmup, then off to DL. I ended up doing some pretty heave sets and also focused on explosiveness and managed to get myself very tired, both cardiovascular and muscle-fatigue wise. Did some standard back stuff after that and got to the BJJ place feeling fairly decent after a shake and apple.

I got there a little early and watch 12 year old girls doing Karate, which kinda sucked because BJJ w/ a boner is pretty tough. We started doing a bunch of warmups which I'm sure are very standard, and it really seemed like they wanted to focus on hamstrings which was obviously bad for me. But it really wasn't anything too bad, just moving around the floor in weird ways.

We introduced ourselves and the instructor took the time to stop everybody and point out that I have had no experience whatsoever with any combat sports, so that was nice... The instructor is a gigantic black dude named Smiley who has the craziest huge arms and hands that I've seriously ever seen in my life. Man is a bear.

Then it was time to learn some skills, and we started off with on one that seemed very complicated (which somebody later confirmed) and that began the common theme of me feeling way out of place. Anyways, then we rolled for what seemed lie 20 minutes. At first I was with this smaller black dude with dreadlocks, and every time I got him in a headlock his hair would prevent me from getting it set, lol. I rolled with a brown belt that gave me a couple "first timer" compliments, and it was very fun to see that he was dominating me but couldn't get me locked in any way because I was too strong for him. Then I had this sudden epiphany that it didn't seem like he was giving 100%. So I said something like "alright, be mean to me this time," and 5 seconds later I was on my back making gurgling noises, lol.

Overall it was a great experience and I'll continue to go back. I think that I'm in good enough shape that an hour BJJ a day is not going to make me have to change my workout routine or frequency. I hurt today, but in weird places like the tops of my feet which are very close to fully blistering, the inside of my biceps from friction, and both of my nipples that somehow were violently pinched several times. I guess I just noticed that my neck is kinda sore, but nothing out of the ordinary. I'm going to hold off on deciding whether or not I'm going tonight until a couple hours, so I can see what its like walking around. I figure there may be some pain I'm not expecting somewhere.

So my shake is 63g carb/42g prot/6g creatine apparently. Finally got a kitchen weight.

Balance isn't determined by airflow to the ear, it is fluid inside the labyrinthine canals (way inner ear) that tells your body which way is up.

Ear plugs should be fine, but may cause some pressure buildup on your ear drums during heavy lifts.

do you think that could result in a tear of the ear drum?

The thing about bjj that causes even ppl in amazing shape to gas out quickly is they tense up when they are rolling that makes you gas out no matter what.

The tops of your feet are going to be sore for awhile. Everyone gets mat burn, eventually your skin just toughens up I guess because I havent gotten it in awhile.

Brown belts are pretty amazing, with a gi on especially no strength dif should really matter. You might be able to muscle some blue belts without a gi because it makes it alot harder to get submissions but I doubt it.

This guy who is like a national champion powerlifter started taking bjj pretty recently with me. I use to see this guy in the gym all the time and was like man he is going to just be able to zombie choke me without a problem. but what happens is that when someone just starts out there whole body is so tense that they really cant lay any weight on you. So it's really hard for them to put any pressure for the top to even start trying a submission.

And really no matter how strong someone is if they arent super thick(which causes you to sit up higher on their body) there is no way they are going to muscle out on me. I do stay away from mounting giant dudes cuz they can really throw you off.

No, I was just saying you might notice it.

hahaha, damn

best part

Will throat ripping grip skills/finger strength and the ability to grab someones arms and tear them off translate well to this sport?

What a coincidence, I also stay away from mounting giant dudes. For different reasons though.

From my limited experience of one whole session, it seemed that my arm/grip strength was the only thing saving my ass. My lower body is strong and all, but I'm just not able to use it to my advantage. I could remove any choke hold put on me by the blue belts and down. The skinny brown belt could have snapped my neck off, with or without resistance. I guess the nuances of a really good choke hold or arm bar are not set in stone yet with a lot of guys, and I'm athletic enough to figure out how to leverage out of them.

I enjoyed being able to get out of a lot of stuff, I think I'd enjoy even more if I could maybe just not get into it in the first place! Then I'll work on chokin' fools...

Arm a d hand and finger strength are underrated. And apparently combat and fighting experience. I never fully believe that there are mostly weak 60yo Vietnam vets out there who could literally kill an above avg strength man with their bare hands until I read about it happening

Link?

My new lifting shoes:

http://www.shoezone.net/products.php...rts/80338.html

Cheap and nasty but did some light squats to test them today (upper body day) and they felt really good.

In my experience, the most useful skill/body movement pattern/body-part mastery for fighting is hip control, extension/explosion.

Useful for throws, takedowns/clinching, generating power for punches, kick mechanics, sprawling, body-weight control and manipulation in the guard, etc.

I'd rate shoulder dynamics, strength and mobility next in my naive hierarchy.

I'm going to take video of my BP today, best angle to use?

From the side.

Note: Use like 7, like you were Michael Bay and your BP was a helicopter explosion.

Note 2: Make sure some are super slow mo. Your bench looks way cooler this way.

from the side, is it best to be down the line of the bar, or like in the middle of the bench?

45 degree from side towards your feet, a bit higher than the bench

If I were you, I would take a mouthful of water before your first rep, then as you push the bar up, spray it out of your mouth. Put that in super-slow-mo, it will look awesome.

I'd be more interested in where you elbow position is relative to your shoulders, what your shoulders are doing, what your arch looks like, and where the bar is going up and down. Cookie's suggestion is pretty much std MO for PLers.

Well, where are your logs? Time to start them up, I think.

Lay down the law modfellow.

haha, my log is in my trusty notebook...i dont think my log would be too interesting since i dont keep an interesting diet or anything...