It was summer 2023
Red hot and I train in a GI.
A GI is a thick dressing gown like jacket that we wear in BJJ…
I wasn’t feeling it. Too hot, poor nutrition, worse hydration.
Long story short, I had a lazy summer missing weeks of training at a time, Coming back and training once to have the rest of the week off again.
Eventually I snapped myself out of the slump and decided I’m going to hit it hard.
I would train BJJ when I could and the days I couldn’t I’d go to my garage and do 100 KB swings and 10 Turkish Get ups.
Some days I’d train in my garage and then go BJJ in the evening.
My fitness improved, My BJJ was improving again and I was feeling good.
Until…
I was in my garage Swinging and something that felt like an elastic band stretching and then suddenly snapping back to its original form happened in my back.
That didn’t feel good I thought. My back was already tight and I could feel it getting worse each second. But I decided to do another set anyway just to see…
Thankfully I could still walk around. My garage is in the back alley so I had to get back to the house. But as the night went on my movement became more and more restricted.
I Couldn’t get off the sofa. When I did I couldn’t stand up straight. I had to crawl up the stairs. The next day I was using a baseball bat as a crutch.
How to avoid seriously injuring yourself
To be honest I should have know better.
I should have eased into training again and gradually improved my load… But I didn’t.
This happens a lot.
Thankfully most quit before something breaks…
But you’ll see it, you’ll probably do it. Especially now its getting warmer again. People want their summer bodies
so they’ll start training again. Instead of easing into training they’ll train 5x per week for multiple hours at a time.
You’ll’ scrawny people following a five day body builders split to try and gain some muscle.
From Zero to One Hundred real quick.
Most of the time though they’ll tire themselves out before an injury happens.
Here’s some tips to avoid injury and prolong your training
Gradually Increase your training load
If you’ve not trained in a while. Take it easy, relax and start off slow and steady. Train twice a week for a month then increase it to 3 x per week for a month and so on.
This allows your body to adjust to the new demands being placed on it. Avoiding any overuse strains and sprains and microtears on the soft tissues. Your body recovers and adapts rather than just repeatedly getting hammered before its begun to heal.
This rule applies to if you are well trained and are adding a new form of training into your regime. Say you lift weights and you want to start BJJ or MMA or running… whatever it is start off slow with ounce or twice per week on top of your normal regime for 4 weeks then add another session in.
Recover Properly
Training is stressful. it releases the stress hormone cortisol and inflammation in the body. This is part of the recovery process. However our lives are stressful. Our food is shit and most of our sleep has been compromised for another episode of whatever’s hot on Netflix. Our bodies are already pumped with cortisol and inflammation.
When you from 0-100 with your training your further adding to that problem and not recovering. Your bodies being beaten up and aches and pains and worse injuries are going to happen.
You need to recover properly.
Here’s how –
Nutrients The body utilises nutrients in ways that’ll blow your mind (or just keeping it functioning normally) from fat loss, energy creation and healing the body needs nutrients. Nutrients we aren’t getting from our meal deal lunches, sugary Starbucks and other junk the modern world gives us instant access too. These foods add inflammation to the body.
Try and get a well balanced diet before you start training (We won’t go into the specifics of that on this post)
Sleep – Where the magic happens, pull an all nighter and you’ll soon realise the importance of sleep. Sleep is where the body recovers and restores itself. Lack of sleep can increase injury, reduce motor and cognitive function and you’ll also reach for the sugary, fatty foods rather than make healthy choices after a poor nights sleep. Poor sleep increases Cortisol in the body further affecting the recovery process.
Relax – Especially when it comes to training. We forget we have the rest of our lives with this body. When I got my first stripe in BJJ I wanted my second. I upped my training to a point where I was not recovering between sessions. It made my training worse. We got time. But that was a digression.
Were stressed. We eat poor food, we have poor sleep, we wake up late, check our phones and emails. Rush to work, Check emails, deal with people, Don’t move much, eat pick me ups, go home and sit all night to repeat.
Stress, Stress, Stress
We need to take time out, slow down and relax man.
Have a hot bath.
Take a walk (in nature, no phone)
Practice deep breathing
Laugh and joke with friends whatever you do just break the stress cycle.
Move More
We spend most of out time sitting. Which creates tightness in muscles causing posture issues. We go from sitting to training then back to sitting.
Exercising an hour a day isn’t enough to fix this issues caused by our sedentary lifestyles.
We need to get up and move more.
Try and get a daily walk in.
Take breaks from the desk and do a few stretches or walk to the water cooler (Do they still do those?)
Loosen up those tight muscles
To summarise – Move more throughout the day, gradually increase your training load, Rest and recover properly… Just whatever you do don’t end up crawling out of your garage like me.