Gi modification to the classic kimura, teaching at the @teamundergroundmma_official morning BJJ Gi class. Every Tuesday at 7am. If yo7 fancy starting the day with some cool techniques and good rolls, come through #teamunderground #bjj #jiujitsu #gi #kimura #londonbjj #bjjsoutheastlondon #southwarkbjj #oldkentroadbjj

On Saturday I got my purple belt. It’s a big milestone in my jiu-jitsu - I feel incredibly proud of myself for getting to this point through years of training. I also feel the responsibility that comes with it to live up to the standard the belt implies. I’ve come a long way since starting, but am aware of how much scope I still have to learn, improve and expand my game.  It feels amazing to get this far, and I’m hopeful and excited for the road I still have to go down.  Thank you to @bjjsteve83 , @jotaviklander, my whole family at @teamundergroundmma_official and all the people who have trained with me, helped me, humbled me and coached me all around the world to help me get here. It’s been one of the real joys of my life learning what I have so far, and I’m so excited and grateful for the next parts of that journey. #teamunderground #teamundergroundjiujitsu #teamundergroundmma #somajiujitsuschool #barbosajiujitsulondon

So for those that didn’t see, here’s a roundup of how my recent fight went (late post, was waiting on getting some pics or footage). Start to finish, it went pretty much exactly the way we planned. I’d seen this guy in other fights tended to gallop forward and over-reach with his punches. We also knew that my biggest advantage would be on the ground. We started, I threw a few punches, stepped back, he came forward to fill the space and I shot in for a takedown, getting straight to side control. He had my head wrapped up, but (for those that aren’t jiu jitsu people) given the fact I was in side control, this wasn’t gonna do much except for tire his arm out. Tried to end it right there with a Von Flue choke, but looking back my hips were too low and I was a little too preoccupied with all the squirming he was doing to get it off properly. After that, I scissored his near side arm between my legs, landed a few shots to open up the far side underhook, and got to the mounted crucifix, which was the main thing I wanted in the first place. From there with both his arms trapped, I was free to hit him in the face with uncontested shots until the ref put a stop to it. The ref took a bit longer than expected to stop it, honestly my arm was getting tired from hitting him by the end. Trey counted all the shots, and apparently I hit him 69 times before they stopped it - so I appreciate the ref’s commitment to the joke. Whole thing ended in about 2 minutes, first round finish by TKO Lot of nerves going in for this one, but honestly it turned out great. The day was a great turnout for the @teamundergroundmma_official , 7 wins from 9 fights, with the other two being fantastic performances from Robb & Trey. Very proud to be part of such an amazing team, and special thanks to @bjjsteve83 for all his help and dedication. On to the next.

Weigh in over - all went smoothly and according to plan. Faced off with my opponent. Feeling strong, healthy and extremely confident right now. The whole @teamundergroundmma_official squad made weight and we’re all in great shape, ready to go thanks to the help of the amazing @bjjsteve83 . Can’t wait to show what I can do in there and to see the whole team collect some well earned Ws. Excited for go time tomorrow. But for now I’m off to refeed with enough carbs to feed a small village. Peace.

FIGHT WEEK. I’m good to go. More good to go than I think I’ve ever been. My whole game feels very well rounded, way past where it used to be. Feeling dangerous in all aspects, got a little something for everyone. Weight’s where I need it. Never been in better condition. Mind in attack mode. No doubts. Ready. This is another way for me to do what I always do. Graft. Fight. Stay true to what I do. No matter what happens, that's the thing that I’ll be putting on display. No matter what comes up in there, that’ll be all I need. That being said - I’m completely confident in my ability to go in there and whoop someone’s ass. Gonna be alongside 10 other Team Underground fighters for this card. It’s a privilege to train, work and fight alongside them, and I can’t wait to see them all smash it in there. Excited for myself, excited for them. Let’s go get some. --------------- PPV Still available, link in bio. Watch out for updates throughout the week.

I've posted this exercise on my story a few times in the past few weeks, and a good few people have asked what the hell this is, and why this exactly? This is the Nordic Curl, also sometimes called the Russian Lean. It's like the makeshift cousin of the Glute-Ham Raise, without the giant machine. I believe that that real lower body strength involves more than just the number on a back squat. Far more important are things like balance, joint health, and the ability to generate force in any direction through a full range of motion.  Standard lifts won’t get you the full way for this - especially when it comes to glutes and hamstrings, and especially if you want applicable power for combat sports. If you watch any form of forward motion (jumping, sprinting, a shot in wrestling etc) and look at the mechanics of the leg, you'll see the knee flex and hip drive forward into extension at the same time. The primary thing that makes this happen is the hamstring working alongside the glutes. Few things work this better than Nordic curls, especially without equipment. The way to do it is pretty simple. Kneel with your feet tucked under an immovable object, shoelaces down. Lean forward, bending at the knee until you either come level with the ground or (more likely) the tension gets too much and you catch yourself with your hands. The two common gripes about this exercise are first, the low range of motion and the lack of a concentric, upward movement unless you're insanely strong already. Simplest fix of this? Wrap a £10 band around your torso. As long as it's strong enough it'll allow you to control the whole way down and back up. From there you can slowly lighten the bands until you're doing in unassisted the full way. If you've got questions on sport-specific conditioning or would like my help with anything else for that matter - feel free to drop me a DM. #nordiccurl #nordichamcurl #legtraining #powertraining #mobility #homeworkout #bodyweight #gymclosed #nogymnoproblem #nogymneeded #conditioningtraining #sportsperformance #unconventionaltraining #outdoorworkout #fightertraining #hardwork #ptlondonbridge

If all goes well, by June you'll be outdoors and free to socialise. I on the other hand will be locked in a cage with a guy who want to knock me out. You and I might have a little work to do. MMA is about as wide in terms of physical conditioning as you can get. Strength, endurance, power, aerobic capacity, anaerobic/alactic capacity, mobility, joint integrity, all combined, with weight & fatigue management on top, without taking up space for technical work - there's a lot to manage.  To try to go from a 1 to a 10 on any of these in 12 weeks would be counter-productive. Instead, we look to optimise across the set of them in the time we have. Luckily this is the kind of thing I geek out on. I'm using a model like in the diagram - adapted from a "conjugate sequencing" method developed by a guy called Verkhoshansky for power athletes in the soviet union. Each phase leads into the next, forming what's called "phase potentiation", with undulating blocks of intensity to prevent overtraining, becoming increasingly sports-specific until the final taper. If on the other hand you just want to get in shape for summer, it's a bit more straight forward. Here's a few tips: Be selective - Don’t diffuse your energy and attention. You can make big progress at one thing by summer. One. Figure out what you want most, and focus solely on that first. Measure - Look at your goal. How will you know if you're going in the wrong direction? As importantly, how will you know when you're done? Figure out at least one way to measure (preferably with a number). That's a north star you can use the whole time you move forward. Reverse engineer it - Work backwards from the goal. Small chunk it until you have a week by week plan. This might not land you exactly at the goal by the end, but it'll get you a lot closer than you will without direction. Factor in recovery - Recovery is inevitable. If you don't do it intentionally, your body will find a way to make you eventually.  If you'd like me to handle all the planning for you just DM me and ask about my online programs. If you want to watch me fight, PPV link is in my bio. Till June, Tom

So I've got myself a fight coming up. Very excited about this. Past couple attempts at getting in there didn't work out due to pullouts, lockdowns etc. so this feels long overdue. Don't know a lot about the guy I'm fighting. I'll be preparing for just about anything but overall feeling very confident going in. Been ready to go for a long time. Having said that, I've got about 12 weeks to prepare, which gives me a good bit of time to get into peak shape and make sure everything is super sharp. I'm constantly reading up on MMA conditioning related stuff too, so this is a perfect opportunity for me to apply some new ideas. I'll be posting regular updates, thoughts on stuff I'm working on, and some stuff that'll be useful for others too so keep an eye out! This will be held behind closed doors, but pay per view tickets are available now. Link to buy the PPV in the bio -there's a few for me to sell if you buy well in advance the support would mean a lot to me. It's only £11.99, and I guarantee I'll give you guys a show.

Free 20 day challenge starting on Monday! Sign up this weekend to get a spot in time! Link in bio

Don't know if you've noticed, but the world is super unpredictable and completely nuts right now. There's light at the end of the tunnel, but we're still a long way from normal. There's talk of London going into Tier 3 and another lockdown in January. So how do you keep things on track when everything might go crazy? A couple of weeks ago I had to self isolate for 2 weeks - couldn't go out even to run. My available training space went from every park and street in London, to my bedroom and an outdoor space less than 5 metres across. Normally I run 10 miles a day, plus all my other training. That's a lot of training to replace with nothing. So what do you do? I shadow-boxed. I skipped. I did bodyweight training. Burpees, squats, pushups. I stretched. I drilled jiu-jitsu. I learned stuff I'd never tried before like animal flow. I matched my regular training output and, honestly, learned a lot of new stuff I wouldn't have had time for before. That probably sounds like a pain in the arse to a lot of you. But there's the secret. That kind of work would be a pain in the arse if you aren't used to it, with or without a lockdown. So is devoting time and effort to anything if you aren't used to it. It's never a lack of information or resources that really keep us from training. Everything you need is available to you with an afternoon of googling, some pdfs and some free youtube videos. The real trick is being able to plan. To leverage your surroundings and the tools available to you. Systemising your work so that starting is easy. So that the payoff you feel from putting the work in outweighs the pain of getting it done. So that you build habits, eventually reaching the critical point where doing it feels a hundred times easier and more natural than not doing it. These kind of plans are worth their weight in gold. Without one, all the equipment and information in the world won't get you to your goals. With one, whatever you happen to have will become enough to get it done. To find out how to create a plan like this for 2021, sign up for my free 10-day Gym Freedom Challenge starting Monday. Link in bio to reserve a spot