Jose vs. Woodham - Wai Kru

Muscle-ups

Check the strap

Has Craig developed a taste for extremely ostentatious belt buckles? Why no! That's the British title belt around his waist.

Don't sweat the technique

Witness the fitness

Thanks to my exclusive diet of Bulls testicles and Guiness I have already smashed my previous record of 7 Handstand ring pushups to 9. The Crossfit challenge is gonna be mine.

Who'd be a fighter?, it's a hard life.

Photo by Hywel Teague

Double whammy!

For those of you who didn't manage to make it to Manchester this weekend, this is how it went down -

Craig Jose put in a first rate performance on Saturday night against Jay Woodham, pouring on the pressure all the way. Craig stoppped Woodham in the 4th making him the new British Muay Thai champion at -70kg. Jose is No.1 - Rock&Roll!

Lucasz Lehmann remains the Pole on a roll, taking his record to an unblemished 4-0 - all by way of knockout. In a Goliath vs. even Goliather clash, Lucasz sparked out the biggest man I have ever seen in my life.

If anyone has any photos please e-mail them over.

CrossFit Newcastle

Handstand pushups on the rings

Check out Ian Malones site www.crossfitnewcastle.com
Why not get in touch with Ian and get along to one of his sessions for some sick and twisted fitness.

Irving vs. Jenkins 2

Hywel teague/Fighters Only mag photo - IrvingVJenkins 1 @ Pride and Glory

It was a long time coming, after nearly a year since our first fight I took on Jenkins again yesterday at Cage Kombat 3. It wound up a draw, with one Judge giving it to me, one to Paul and one saw every round as even. It was a fair call.

I got a cut fairly early in the fight, the Doctor was going to stop the match and Jenkins came in on my side, asking to let the match continue! What a legend.

I've been struggling to train up for this one, and injuries and illness had a serious negative impact during the fight so I'm going to have to bite the bullet and take a couple of months away from the cage to heal everything properly. On the plus side I'll be able to put %100 into bringing everyones game on.

Thanks alot to the Toon Army that came to support, The Dinkys and the assorted Scottish fight fans that forgave my Englishness in return for some blood, much appreciated.

Kettlebell pressing.

Who struggles with pressing bells? especially when moving up in weight! I certainly do and there are hundreds of people out there who have the same problem. We will cover a couple of things that will assist in getting that heavier bell above the head and into the lockout. From personal experience I know that pressing kettlebells requires quite a high level of skill strength also. Take a 16kg bell and a man with 20in biceps and he will press that 1pood like it was nothing, give that same man a 32,40 or even a 45kg bell and that same man will both struggle to get the bell above the head and risk injury also. The main reason behind this is that he has not acquired the skill strength to move the bell through the correct planes, with or without leverage points.

With Kettlebells the progression to heavier weight can be a long one, unless you train smart. The tips and tricks that are about to follow should be used when trying to improve the numbers and certain techniques can be applied to many aspects of training.

Just recently I have had some time off the bells and have really struggled with the heavier weights which to me is very frustrating. What follows is a list of things I tend to do in order for me to get up to heavier weights in no particular order.

1. Swing. Swinging a heavier bell than the one you intend to press good, if you do not have one then use two if you do not have two then use you imagination and improvise (sandbags etc are cheap and effective - use them). This works the whole body but has great emphasis on the back and legs which will be used as the base for you to press from (full body tension.)

2. Deadlifting. Using a barbell we can even at the lightest body weights get up to some respectful numbers pulling strength and leg and back strength have a positive affect when pressing so use it and note the results for future reference.

3. Grind. Take a bell which you can press and go up in steps until you reach full lockout and then come down in steps. up 6in return to start up 12in return to start etc. This is an example of ramping up the volume or intensity to reach a goal. It is useful but make sure you don't go to failure or it will be detrimental to progress.

4. Tension techniques. Learn how to create tension throughout the body be tensing different body parts at a time and then learning how to create a full body of high tension. It is extremely important that we learn to engage the lats and bring them up to optimal tension you can practice this by squeezing a tennis ball between the lat and the upper biceps on the outer line of the armpit if you don't have a tennis ball use a towel. This is a really good technique for overcoming the sticking point and is sure to assist in blasting through any pressing plateau.

These are just a few things to help, look out for part two in which I will present some more tips and techniques and plan a routine to get to that next step.

Hope this helps.

F.O. training zone, more secrets of Irving's Punk-Jitsu revealed

If Betty Page didn't spell it all out for you, you can get more photo info on how to strike from the bottom in this month's F.O. training zone, featuring myself (I'm the one that's going bald) and Hywel Teague (the one that's already bald). We got the legal elbows, bicycle kicks and H.T. kicking me upside my head with the Capoeira. If it's not on the racks then ask for it.