Deadlift day. I decided to skip the cleans and do some pushups and pullups instead for small muscle support work. Had 7 down on my last set, the max reps set, and decided to do an eighth. Got it, but had an instant headache like I dropped the barbell on my skull. Didn’t last more than 30 seconds, but hurt like a bitch.

Class was all about choking from the back. We did four variations on the lapel choke. The first was the basic one. Open the collar, establish the choking grip, roll to your side, and then tuck and hide your choking elbow. I partnered up with Powerlifter Matt for drilling. We started off with doing the choke normally, but after a few reps, we were both coughing and our necks were getting rubbed raw, so we dialed it back from there.

Second variation was the same thing, but when he attempts to escape out. In that case, you can switch to s-mount and choke. Third was if he half escapes and then attempts to lay on one of your legs to prevent the mount. In that situation, you can kick one of his legs to move him off, then switch to the s-mount and choke. The last one was a variation on the bow and arrow choke, except it’s a lot tighter.

For our sparring, we started out with our partner’s backs and the over-under grip. Submit or escape, then switch positions. I paired up with Matt, Jen, and then Tina twice. I got a couple of chokes and a couple of escapes against most of them. Did get Matt with the Rousimar armlock and also on Jen. Took me a bit to finish it on Jen, but Damian pointed out my problem.

A recovery time experiment….as soon as I got home last night, I scarfed down a bunch of protein and an apple. Then later on spent 10 minutes rolling out my hamstrings on my foam roller. One or the other helped, because I feel pretty good this morning.