Intense Workout at Sculpt

Aaron quite often will do weights on a Tuesday, so recently I tagged along with him for one of his sessions. Instead of his normally easy going session however a friend of his, Ryan who owns the Gym Sculpt, organised an intense workout for Aaron.



Aaron talks to Ryan on the phone when organising his training session for later that afternoon.



Aaron makes a protein shake before heading off to his training at Sculpt.

 

Aaron waits for his trainer, Ryan, while he is busy with another client.



This image made my final cut for editing, however I did not print it out as I felt the next image is far too similar and of the same situation. 



Aaron waits for his trainer, Ryan, while he is busy with another client.





Aaron's trainer Ryan goes through the layout of the training session with him.



 

The first set of weights Aaron had to do was as quick as possible for a short period of time.





Aaron then moved on to a second machine for the same amount of time.







After all this Aaron had to sprint up and down the back of the Gym for several laps.



I also did not print this image as I felt there were stronger images in the set so far.





Of course being a fighter, part of Aaron's workout included some time on the punching bag.







After this, Aaron moved along to the second part of the workout where he had to repeatedly lift and lower weights.





A small amount of kick boxing was also in the workout.





Aaron rests for a brief amount of time before moving onto the next exercise.







Part of Aaron's exercise was to hit a tire with a sledge hammer. As cliche or odd as it may seem, this is a very tiring exercise and perfect for Aaron's workout.







Aaron pauses for a brief moment wrecked from the amount of rigorous exercise in the workout.



 



Near the end of the exercise, while doing push ups off the tire, Aaron collapses in exhaustion.



Aaron and his trainer Ryan asked for an image in the front office of Sculpt so i was happy to oblige.



This image was not printed because it's not overly strong as a photojournalism image.

Training at Pumma

Last Wednesday I met up with Aaron at his Gym, Pumma. With the kind permission of his coach, Vincent, i was able to roam around the Gym as everyone was doing warm ups and exercises.



Aaron and another gym member warm up with a few wrestling exercises.




Aaron and another gym mate pick up the pace while wrestling each other. This image has not been included in my final prints so far as i felt it was cropped too much on the left side.



Aaron takes a short breather after wrestling.

Aaron collapses in exhaustion for a brief moment after wrestling with team mates for a long time. This image was left out because i felt there could have been much more to the image.

Aaron and other team mates rest for a brief moment before beginning their wrestling practise again.

Aaron and another team mate rest and look on as other teammates continue to wrestle.

Keyboard

I have known Aaron for quite some time now, and have noticed that he is exceptionally self motivated. In training, and in life. Often i will hear from him that he has been reading up on something in the world just to have a better understanding of it or he will be working on something to improve his life skills.

In a nutshell, when he applies himself to something he usually excels at it.

Over the last couple of months he has been taking lessons to learn how to play the Keyboard, and over that short time he has already become quite good at it. While hanging out with him the other day i got a shot of him playing as he showed me a recent song he had learnt.



An especially self motivated person, on top of all his training Aaron recently took up lessons to play the keyboard.







Injuires

Like any sport there are ups and downs. More often than not, in the form of sport related injuries.

The amount of stretching required to do the sport Aaron does can often be as strenuous as the sport itself. This week at training Aaron hurt his back while doing a very advanced stretch. Unfortunately until he has healed he will not be back at training.

While spending some time with Aaron and our other friends I got some photos of him carefully stretching his back into health.



While watching Tv with friends, Aaron does small stretching exercises to heal his back which he injured at training this week.



Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Competition



On the 26th of March, 2011, Aaron entered in a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu competition at Nerang PCYC on the Gold Coast. During this competition he received first place for his weight class as well as third place for open weight class.



Left: Aaron warms up for his fight in the open weight Class. Right: Aaron receives first place for his weight class in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.



Aaron wrestles a fighter far larger than himself in the open weight class for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.



 

Being an open weight class, fighters with much larger body mass tend to have the advantage. Unfortunately for Aaron his opponent was from a larger weight class.





Aaron catches his breath after tapping out from his fight in the open weight class.







Portfolio

For my portfolio I have chosen to follow my friend Aaron Squires who is a Mixed Martial Arts fighter. For as long as I have known Aaron he has always had 100% dedication to his training. He currently trains at Pumma Mixed Martial Arts Gym in Burleigh.  I have started taking photos of him at training and at competitions, but I also hope to capture his life outside of the gym. 

For starters, here is an image I have taken of him and his friend Wade who also trains at Pumma while they were doing running exercises on North Burleigh hill.




This was directly after a full training session at their Pumma. Aaron and Wade had to run up and down this hill constantly for three minutes and do three repetitions of this.

 




I am torn between using these two images in my final folio. Even though it is a cool effect, I'm trying to avoid the both of them being very ghost like. However, i do love the motion that is in the first image.

 






Here Aaron (pictured on the right) and Wade rest after their 3-3 minute stints of running up the North Burleigh Hill.