The beat up body, training and how you deal with it thread

It's tough. Recently a new school opened up near me run by a couple of recent Olympic judoka, with classes every day plus randori/shiai classes as well. It's an amazing opportunity to improve my skills, but it's rough. I'm 30 years old (which may not seem so bad), but I'm training with a whole lot of 21-22 year olds on the national talent program, who pretty much just train, eat, sleep and train more. Add to that the two owners, and another very recent Olympian and it's alot for my body to take.
I've looked into and tried numerous measures, as I'm a bit of a supplements junkie that was the first place I looked. Alot of them haven't done much good at all, what I do know is creatine (especially green magnitude) and protein supplements work wonders when used properly. Considering I'm dieting for nationals at the moment, the creatine is an absolute godsend. It keeps my strength and endurance high and helps me recover alot quicker.

On top of that hot baths followed by a cold shower does ALOT of good when I'm feeling like my body is sore and broken.
Nutrition also plays a massive part. Getting alot of serves of fruit and veg for all those vitamins is imperative. Lots of red meat too. Throwing back a protein shake after working out or judo is also massively important and I've noticed a significant difference in my ability to recover from it.
Also important: water water water.
Common sense also has to play a part. I've had to relax a bit and cut down on my strength training, both volume and intensity. I love lifting big, but when I have judo the same night it's just stupid to be lifting max all the time, because it wipes me out the next day. So I've had to move my lifting to days where I have the next day off work so I get maximum sleep and recovery.

As much as I hate it, sometimes I have to give myself a night off judo too. After class last week I had two jarred fingers (I couldn't make a fist or take a proper grip with them for 2 days), a bum shoulder (recurring injury), banged up toes and a sore lower back. As great as it may be to say you never miss a session, it's stupid when it isn't doing you any good, or even the reverse.
I've learned lately, even at the relatively young age of 30, that you really have to look after your body if you want it to work for you when you get older. Training balls to the wall all the time is only going to leave you broken in your later years.

 

benkei that is a great post, i am almost 38 myself and injured at 29 doing heavy squatting and deadlifting.

At some point you need to train with your brain, i am a big fan of P90X because you can do so much without straining your body like you do with heavy weights. People could be surprised what kind of body they can develop doing push ups alone, some db weight training and shooting for forms rather then lifting heavy.

Nutrition is what count the most veggies and fruits and yes lots of water. Kre Alkalyn is the creatine i used, you don't need to cycle it, and its so easy to take.

I am thinking BJJ maybe in September if my back is 100%, right now i am still getting treatments but its going very well, been doing parts of P90X and some boxing.

 

Try to have them for the last 10 years, and being told you will never be able to do the sports you loved because of a stupid weight training program done wrong.

God bless prolotherapy because without it i would have left this sorry ass planet a long time ago. At least now i can train again and enjoy simple things in life but i am not 100% pain free.

 

i have to deal with a knee inury. i cant do kicks with that leg

 

I actually have GERD right now (gastroesophageal reflux disease) so occasionally I get heartburn or incredibly nauseous when lying down for the night. I'm snacking on Tums right before class which typically helps but the other day during padwork I had to stop less I puked on my partner. I have a doctor's appointment here soon so hopefully they'll have something to help me with.

 

That doesn't sound a whole bunch of fun!
Just put my Google-fu to use, sounds a lot like what my uncle suffers from.
He had to sleep with 2 dictionaries propping up the head of his bed to keep acid etc down.

 

It has came to a point when i dread getting a notification saying you have commented here frodo.

This is terrible news, Does your phisio know what may have caused the shoulder issue?

 

Sorry to hear that

Research done by several NFL coaches on both living subjects and cadavers showed that trauma on the shoulder joint from both overhead and explosive OL lifts when added to the trauma caused by contact from pushing shoving hitting into other players was simply too much impact for the joint to take. (For this read also grappling and MMA training)

Cant remember all the details (it was years ago on dave tate’s site when coach 69 and coach X used to post) but basically you cant mix heavy OL and overhead work and contact sports without something very bad happening to the shoulders

I found this out too the hard way, spending several month without being able to lay on one side of the body because you are in that much pain really sucks

Take home message for me was powerlifting and MMA/grappling, yes in moderation, overhead work and OL lifting not very often if at all

 

Look up Eric creasey’s rehab stuff if you haven’t already, he works a lot with pro baseball pitchers (read guys with really ****ed up shoulders) and when you get back into lifting his stuff might help you out

Injuries suck but look on the bright side; only people that train really hard very get them so at least you can be proud of that

 

Eric creasey's rehab stuff = win!

Stew Smith may be worth a look.

 

You do know that more power lifters put there backs out carrying weight plates than actually heavy dead lifting, something to do with not paying attention to form and not warming up when lifting heavy’s not involved

Yep his mobility stuff is very good and something I should do more regularly, but I only tend to do it when things start to hurt rather than when I’m healthy to ensure it doesn’t start hurting again

Have you got his building the efficient athlete as well? That covered assessing injuries, how to rehab and structure training and a few different warm up exercises than his other dvd, it also covered correct lifting as well. It’s a 7 disc set

 

PM me about the efficient athlete dvd’s if you are interested in them, its not the same as having him there lol but you can learn a lot about self assessment and corrective exercises

Look up Joe Defranco’s mobility 8 drills on youtube, they include a few foam rolling exercises, a couple of dynamic stretches and two static stretches, all done in 10 minutes, his thinking was athletes always put off stretching because its boring and takes too long, so he’d rather have a condensed session that they actually do rather than a long comprehensive stretching routine they never do because it just takes too long

I use creasey’s stuff to warm up before lifting and MMA, and use defranco’s stuff with only 2 added stretches from creasey 4 or 5 times a week at night or in the evening, its making a difference and I find it easy to keep to because the session is so short

 

What helps me to prevent or help in healing injuries is integrating yoga into my routine. The combination of breath work along with gentle approach helps to:

- improve range of motion
- improve lean muscle
- strengthen core which helps bring everything together
- clears the mind so you can better focus on whatever tasks you're working on.

Along with martial arts training, yoga is something I personally do every week and have replaced yoga with my gym/weight workout. If you're looking for a great studio for South Florida Yoga or Martial Arts, come check us out.