What Drives You? Guest Post by Derek Simonds

What drives you? Not you abstractly but you specifically. I don’t know exactly what drives Adam but I know he has set his sights on World Records and broke them. I think he is looking to break some more. Is he driven to break records? Again I don’t know but I would guess yes.

I want an age group world championship in my chosen sport of BJJ. Does that drive me? Hell yes! I have, with the blessings of my wife and children dedicated this year to winning a world championship. To that end I will be competing in 6 major tournaments looking for my gold medal. The first tournament I will be competing at is the Pan Am No-Gi Jiu-Jitsu championship in NY October 1st.

Derek helping a fellow take a nap on the mat.

Applying a choke in a tournament is a good thing.
In my garage gym I have a silver medal from a tournament hanging from my squat rack. When I need inspiration I look at that medal and say “no more silver”. That is the mindset I want not only in the gym but on the mat. Adam asked me to write a short article that takes you through my training. I got into the training game late in life. I was always athletic but never really trained other than some traditional body building stuff. My wife and I got into triathlons back in 2003 (I was 33 at the time) and I enjoyed the training but I looked like an escapee from a POW camp. Definitely not the aesthetic I was after. Around the same time I found Crossfit and started training in their methodologies. That was fun for a while but I wasn’t making the progress I wanted. I messed around with a couple of other martial arts and started training BJJ in 2006. Having cardio from triathlon training was great for BJJ but I found I was lacking in a lot of other areas mainly strength. There is a reason fighting sports use weight classes. As weight goes up so does strength and guess what? Take two competitors with the same skill level and the stronger dude wins more often then not.
Knowing that strength was a weakness of mine I set out to fix that. I started with the basic barbell lifts and used them to build a base to work from. I firmly believe that the only one that can tell me what to do is me. I am my own experiment. I take what I can from others and what works stays what doesn’t goes. I also know that we as humans are capable of so much more work capacity than the average person puts out during the week.

Here is what my training schedule looked like last week. And for the record I work full time and lift at 5:30 AM to make sure I get it done.
M BS, Bench, Fat Gripz work + accessory lifts
T 40 LB Weighted Vest 40 Minute walk + 10 X 40 M Sprints and weighted plank moves to finish out the workout
W FS, DL and Press + All manner of P/U’s
H Off
F PC, Fat Gripz RDL’s DB Bench + All manner of P/U’s
Sa BS, Strongman type stuff, sled dragging, keg carries + accessory lifts (this is a fun workout)
Su Run with the kids.  This is slow and easy.  Almost like a recovery workout but I do get some distance in.

Each week I rotate focus between FS and Press and BS and Bench.  This week it is 2 times for BS and Bench next week will be 2 times for FS and Press.

Here is what my grappling will looked like.

M Off
T BJJ Fundamentals 1 hour, competition class 90 minutes
W BJJ Fundamentals 1 hour, BJJ Advanced 90 minutes
H BJJ Fundamentals 1 hour, No-Gi 90 minutes
F BJJ Competition class 90 minutes
S Off
S Off

For the record none of my lifts qualify me as strong in any record books nor do they need to. I do them because they make me feel strong!
How did my training go this week? Life threw me a curve and I developed a case of shingles on my wrist. You know what I did? I stayed off the mat and focused on cardio and strength. I didn’t let that change my goal. In fact I was able to hit some major PR’s in a few of my key lifts this week and that tells me I am on the right track. Sure it is a setback in regards to getting in some hard grappling this week but it will be gone by next Thursday and I will be back on the mat.

Find what drives you and do more than you believe is possible. You are the only one that matters so make it count. See you on the podium.

Derek

I’m excited to see how Derek does this season, wishing you best of luck bro! ATG