2025 Fitness Review
2025: not a great year. Broadly speaking, it was a year of failures in terms of my major goals. Now, the word failure often has a moral dimension to it, I’m not invoking that here; objectively, I did not meet my goals for whatever reasons. I likely will not get into the reasons or excuses, as it’s not relevant here. There were some micro-wins, which I’ll also share at the end, and I’ll restate my 2026 goals to finish.
Failures
Failure 1: Body Composition
I gained about 15 pounds last year. Some charitable friends will note some of it may have been muscle. No. I know how my clothes fit, I know how I feel when I move, and I see the mirror and pictures. I gained too much body fat last year. I can’t tell you I say that with no hit at all to my vanity, but really, blood work and biomarkers confirmed that the additional weight was not healthy.
Failure 2: Training Volume
My total training volume fell sharply last year, almost 20%. The prior year my training volume averaged over 8.5 hours each week (10 hours the prior year). This year it was barely 7 total hours. This includes the following sub-categories:
Aerobic: Zone 2.
Threshold: intervals where heart rate touches 85-95+% heart rate.
Strength: max, dynamic or circuit efforts.
Hybrid: almost always a combination of #1 and #3.
Jiujitsu (JJ): mat time.
For the first half of the year, Aerobic training was way down. This makes sense from a circumstances perspective, because that is the category that requires the longest duration and frequency. While it should NOT be the first category that takes a hit, in 2025 it sadly was. For the year, it was ~3.5 hours per week, but even that average was pushed up by some huge outlier weeks in the back half of summer when the Rail Trail extension opened up. I am a strength athlete at heart, and a runner second. But that is not what my health or fitness gaps require.
Failure 3: BJJ Competition
I competed only once, and lost both my matches. Losing matches is not the failure. You plan to win, but, “Man Plans, God Laughs.” No, rather, this was a failure because it was built on the fragile foundation of pillars one and two above. I competed in a weight class higher than normal, and got far too tired, far too quickly during the matches. When I train my BJJ and MMA athletes, I remind them of how little control they have once the event begins. The idea behind a robust strength and conditioning program is to control the variables you can - your weight, your strength, power, conditioning, joint health. Bluntly, I did not lock those down, and was beaten soundly because of it. This was the first time my Mom¹ has been able to see me compete at something since high school, so this was particularly painful (probably more painful for her, let’s be clear).
Micro Wins:
I have two items to share that I was happy about in 2025.
Win 1: Refocus on Cardiorespiratory Fitness (CRF) - fancy term, right?!?
After getting thoroughly trounced at the BJJ comp in June, it was clear I needed to refocus my own strength and conditioning on the obvious gaps. I doubled down on some research and a conditioning cert, and then created a conditioning template that could work for me, as well as other combat athletes and general ATC clients (who ask for it). It includes three types of assessments, a good chunk of base-building lower intensity sessions, and a manageable interval progression that utilizes six different types of interval styles, all customizable. I have run it for nearly six months, and have seen measurable improvement.
Win 2: Sleep Apnea Improvement
I have had some level of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) since I was in my early 20s. I failed CPAP therapy way back then, and more recently about two years ago. However, last year I was fitted with a custom dental appliance, and after a week of getting used to it, the resulting sleep improvement was astonishing. Combined with my ADHD, the OSA made consistent sleep problematic. I typically slept five to six hours every night, rarely achieving even seven. I would also wake up about four to five times each night, and often would have to change locations to fall back asleep. I’d go from my bed to the couch, back to the bed, etc. I’d have to watch TV or doomscroll my phone, both great things to do at 3:00AM. But with the appliance, I easily sleep seven to eight hours and wake up only once or twice each night. On the rare days when I can sleep in, I have logged nine, even ten hours. As I said to my neurologist, calling this profoundly impactful is an understatement. Maybe not since high school have I consistently slept this soundly. It has made me no less miserable, but I am way less sleepy every day.
On to 2026
It’s probably not hard to guess the main goals for the coming year.
Reduce body fat and scale weight - 95% of this goal is just about health. Aforementioned bloodwork and other biomarkers need to be improved to prior levels. If I concern myself at all with actual scale weight, it’s simply because I occasionally compete in a sport that has weight classes, and and the scale must display a specific number.
CRF priority - there is no strength and conditioning assessment in my sport that would indicate I need to get stronger, only fitter. My conditioning is not poor, but relative to my strength levels, it remains a gap I must fill. I am pleased with the back half of 2025 with respect to this, but conditioning to the levels I’d like to achieve just takes more time, consistency, and discipline.
In the assessment graph, I currently rank as “Average” (2) in aerobic and hybrid fitness. I need to push those to a level of “Good” (3).
Compete in BJJ - my relationship with competing in grappling doesn’t seem particularly unique. I get very excited to sign up, and mere weeks into training for it, hate myself, and hate the training, and want to be done with it immediately. But when I’m attending competitions to support my teammates, I miss competing tremendously. There exists something distinctly effective about putting a date on a calendar, and having to show up and compete (in whatever sport). It focuses your training, sharpens your strengths, and exposes your weaknesses - both in training and in the actual competition. So I do it. But I’m still not doing it until I lock down pillars one and two.
¹ Yes, I do feel like an eight year old talking about my Mamma coming to watch me compete, but people close to me know she deals with some illness. While she’s not housebound, getting her out to an event like this is a good effort.
