Today the UFC gym hosted an all-member
Daily Ultimate Training (DUT...still love that acronym) to celebrate
America's birthday. It was a massive class that utilized the whole
gym and there was easily over 100 people there.
The day before I took a judo class, a
jiu-jitsu class, and an MMA fight fit class (think crossfit with a
fighting twist), and was thoroughly drained after 3 hours of
training. Then I went out until about 2am. So I woke up this morning
sore and a little groggy. Oh yeah, I was completely ready for today's
epic DUT class...yeah right.
I tanked a bunch of water, ate a light
breakfast, and tanked some more water to shake the grogginess. Then I
hopped in the shower and stood under the hot water to loosen up my
body. Worked pretty good. The soreness backed off a bit. Feeling
better, I made my way to the gym.
Swarms of people were gathered and
there was a buzz of anticipation in the air. I hopped on a stationary
bike and did some light pedaling – or spinning as I've heard it
called – to warm up. Then the announcement came, “Attention all
members, those participating in today's DUT please gather at the
front desk. It's time!”
We started with a warmup run outside
and ran around the block. Felt like it was close to a quarter mile,
maybe more. I felt stiff as the run began but quickly loosened up and
began to get into a good stride. We circled back to the gym thinking
that was it for the run but then the coach leading kept going. I
guess we're doing 2 laps. I think this caught a lot of people off
guard because several people ran hard that first lap and slowed down
on the second lap. The opposite happened for me and by the end of the
second lap I was at the front of the pack and my legs were feeling
good. With the warmup completed it was time to get inside and get to
DUT-ing.
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| Warm up run...what's that...2 laps?! |
We were broken up into groups of 20 as
we finished the warmup run. My group started in the bag room. TRX
cables dangled from the metal framework alongside various punching
bags. This station's workout: 10 of us on a TRX cable doing push-ups
with our feet strapped into the cables, knees to chest after each
push-up for some core work (I think the coach called these atomic
push-ups...cool name). The other 10 get on a heavy back and do
alternating kicks. Do as much as we can in a minute, then the groups
switch. After one rotation the exercises switched up. Now the TRX
group did squat jumps, and the heavy bag group did 1-2 punches. We
repeated this circuit for 10 minutes. I had fun with the heavy bags
but felt the burn when on the TRX cables. A few times I had to stop
doing push-ups and just held a plank for a few seconds...not like
that's really a rest but it's just a little less exertion.
After 10 minutes it was time to rotate
to the next station. Time to get in the Octagon! It occurred to me as
I entered that this was my first time in the Octagon, I was stoked.
We did some forward somersaults, then backward somersaults. Felt like
jiu-jitsu drills, I'm sure Coach Mel influenced that one. Next Coach
Mel and Coach Sam demoed a workout circuit for us which included
V-sit ups, medicine ball slams, push ups, dumbbell squats with a
shoulder-press and knee-raise, and this crazy core move that looks
like you're squirming across the floor.
Unfortunately, the 10 minutes were up
before we could complete a full circuit in the Octagon. I could see
the coaches a little confused and bummed about the timing. I was too,
I wanted to do all the exercises. Ah well, off to the treadmills.
The coaches here had us do some
intervals on the treadmills, increasing the incline with each
interval. I though I heard Coach Leslie tell us to set our speed so
that we were at a full sprint, then I thought she said to set our
speed at 7.2 miles per hour. Couldn't really hear her too well, not
by lack of effort on her part because Leslie was shouting at the top
of her lungs. The place was just noisy and had a lot going on.
Anyway, me and the guys next to me figured we'll just set our speed
to 7.2 because that was the only number we heard.
The run wasn't too bad. I'm a pretty
strong runner and I recover quickly during our breaks between
intervals. The only time I had to push it was when the incline got up
to 15, I don't really know what that means but it was steep. After
that we began to decrease our incline with each interval. An
announcement came through the speakers saying there was only 2
minutes left until the next rotation. Again, our coaches looked
confused and I heard one of them say “Already? That's too fast.”
We had to skip a few intervals and set our incline to 3 to finish up.
After running on an incline of 15, 3 was a delight. Time was up and
it was time to hit up the bikes for some spinning.
The coaches had to explain how to use
the bikes (set the seat height, adjust the resistance, turn it on,
etc.) while we pedaled. He had us maintain 90 rpm and increase our
resistance every 30 seconds. I could feel the burn in my legs getting
hotter. Then he had us drop our rpm to 60 and increase our resistance
a lot so that we had to stand in our bikes to keep pedaling. That
burning was getting even hotter. But as I was stamping on the pedals
I remembered that the Tour De France is happening and wondered how
the race was going (I wonder if Cavendish won another stage?).
The bikes were set up in a large ring
and in the middle were a bunch of yoga mats, each with a dumbbell on
it. We hopped off the bikes and hit the mats for some core work. We
did some Russian twists holding the dumbbell (sit on the mat, lift
you feet off the ground, hold the weight and twist your body
side-to-side bringing the weight to the ground each time). Then we
got into a plank and did some plank exercises. By the end of it my
core was on fire and I was gasping for air. Couldn't see to well
either because of all the sweat in my eyes.
It was time of our 5th and
final station. We were on the turf and the coaches there had a
circuit workout set up for us. Dumbbells, medicine balls, tire-jumps,
and more. My favorite one here was the push-ups because we put our
feet on sliders so that we could lift our hips into a pike after each
push-up. I never used sliders before. My feet glided across the turf
easily, almost like ice-skating. I had fun sliding around...only at
first though because everything was burning after a few pike
push-ups.
Today's DUT was awesome. There were a
few timing issues but hey, first time the gym did an event of this
magnitude so there were bound to be a few hiccups. I'm sure it'll get
ironed out at the next one...and I really hope there will be a next
one. I had the most fun with the heavy bags and was most surprised
with the spinning bikes. Didn't realize how much that would burn.
Everybody there had a great attitude too. Very positive, encouraging,
and funny. I remember when we were doing a plank exercise one guy
said, “This don't feel natural man! It hurts.” and one of the
coaches replied, “That's how you know it's working! 10 seconds
left!”
There was a good team-oriented feeling
throughout the whole thing. The exercises we did were simple but
really effective and the coaches were great in showing how to do them
and encouraging us to push through when it got tough. We all sweat
together, suffered together, finished together, and in the end we all
triumphed. Good DUT indeed.
Happy 4th!
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| All Member DUT I'm in there somewhere |
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