MMATraining.com’s Jeff Harrison Retools at Renzo Gracie - Ottawa - Week 2

Follow along as MMATraining.com’s Jeff Harrison documents his training program from his home base at MAS Thai in Cambridge Ontario to Renzo Gracie - Ottawa. From BJJ, wrestling, muay thai, core strength and cardio training, Jeff’s daily workouts are here to give our subscribers a taste of what it is like in the life of a fighter rising up the professional MMA ranks.

Week Two

Monday

I got up a little early this morning to do a 5km run. I can’t say I love doing roadwork, and don’t really believe distance running is great for MMA training, but sometimes it’s good to get out just to clear my head and think about goals and get a change of scenery. At 12 I came in and did BJJ class with focus again on positions. We drilled out escapes hard and a neat sweep that I haven’t seen before as well. After Jiu Jitsu Mark Holst and I went to the YMCA. We did some heavy strength exercises, mixed in with full body timed pylometric and weighted movement sets. We trained until failure for over 2 hours with very little rest time. Complete exhaustion.

Night time brought 8 rounds of Thai sparring.

Tuesday

Started the day off at 12 o’clock again with a great Jiu Jitsu class. We worked on a series of submissions and sweeps from guard, followed by hard training. After it was conditioning with a light jog to warm up followed by sprints. We mixed it up doing lateral, backwards, bear crawl and other variations of sprinting to work different parts of our bodies. Back at the academy after, we did some eye and reflex sparring nice and light but at a fast pace. At 5:30 I rolled for 5x 6 minute rounds followed by another Jiu Jitsu technique class and live MMA sparring with 16 oz gloves on.

Wednesday

Noon Jiu Jitsu again. Positional training really was challenging today, as Monday’s strength and conditioning blowout was catching up with my muscles, but when tired technique has to kick in, so I worked on training smart instead of training hard. In the afternoon we did a shark tank with the pro fighters here, but just boxing sparring. Everyone landed some good clean shots and it was great training. At night I taught an advanced Muay Thai class, and then did a kettle bell workout for explosive hip power.

Thursday

Today I took it fairly easy and only sparred 5 rounds in the afternoon. I also held some pads for Mark, and taught a few classes.

Friday

Today Team Renzo Gracie Ottawa is holding an in house grappling tournament. I participated and was proud of my performance and how my skills are developing. It was all among team mates, so the result isn’t really important!

Saturday

Took the day off today from MMA training today. Did a long run through Ottawa and a good half hour stretch.

Sunday

Today, I did some training with Clint Martin, an up and coming 155lbers with an undefeated record. He is fighting soon so I put him through some pad drills with wrestling and BJJ incorporated. After5×5 minutes it was timed plyometrics. In the evening I went swimming to mix up my cardio workout a little. I have had a lot of fight offers lately, and am going to sit down with my team and choose which one to take. I’ll let you know next week!