I'm Finally Back!

I'm back and in more ways than one. I was released from therapy several weeks ago. Strong enough to walk up and down stairs without a limp, but not much else.

Started a running program that VERY SLOWLY builds back some more bounce into my step. It is actually more about building confidence in my step.

I also continue to hit the resistance training and cardio workouts hard.

This past Sunday, I rolled with some adult-sized folks, for the first time since my injury back on 2/19. The warm up was 3 x 7 minute rounds. 1 minute rest. Going at 75% resistance. Then go into a lesson, then drills.

I was GASSED at the second round. My fingers were rubbed raw from my grips and my quad was jelly. But I was happy.

I did have to tap in the weirdest situations though. I tapped when I was mounted by my opponent and had some weird pressure on my knee and felt smothered up top. Again much more about confidence in my position than anything.

My schedule will be Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays 8-9:30 pm. I'll be at it tonight!

French Toast Breakfast. Yummy.

I love french toast. But I don't like fried bread.

There is a difference to me.

"Fried bread" is white bread lightly coated in a mixture of egg and milk and fried quickly on the griddle.

French toast is sweet, yummy goodness. The outside of the toast is a bit on the crunch side. Not crunchy like cookies, but... you know. The inside is custardy and sweet and has soaked all the way through to become "one with the bread". Mmmm....

This is what I made for the wife and kids today. Some stale Breadsmith French peasant bread, and a couple slices of the Cinnabon Cinnamon Bread turned into my patented French Toast.

2 eggs

1/2 skim milk

a touch of vanilla

1 TBS of sugar - white or brown

I like to dip the bread and then set it aside for the batter to really soak through the bread. I use a stove top griddle. One of those that is a heavy aluminum piece. I turn it on medium high, get it nice and warm then turn it down to medium.

Butter up the griddle and then get ready to place the pieces of battered bread on the griddle. Once I place the pieces down on the griddle - I don't move them until I can feel the bottom set up. It takes about 4 minutes. Then I flip the piece over.

I like to let the toast slowly cook through to get a custardy texture on the inside, instead of a dry egg taste on white bread.

A little powdered sugar, a little cinnamon, syrup and butter.

Mmmm.....

Heard from the Doc!

Got a email back from Dr. Ratamess.

He's the PhD. that wrote the article "Weight training in JiuJitsu" back in 1998.
It turns out, as happens with many things that are written for peer reviewed journals, he wrote that artcle in 1996 and it wasn't published until 1998.

I asked him what changes or additions would you make to the article in the 12 years since this article was published (14 years since written)?

Nicholas Ratamess -
(My) recommendations on loading, sets, rest intervals, and exercise order has not changed. The largest change has been in exercise selection. In my article I mostly focused on concentional weight training exercises. However, since there has been a large increase in popularity of core training as well as sport-specific mixed martial arts training. The popularity of sand bags, kettle bells, stability balls, ropes, rings, BOSu balls, medicine balls,etc have grown incredibly in the last decade. Many mixed martial artists used integrated approaches with free weights plus sport-specific exercises such as Turkish get-ups, sand bag throws, resisted striking, and several body weight exercises which mimic different techniques (to name a few!)
Thanks Doc!

Tight Hips - Check that Back

In my rehab, we've been working on everything that supports proper leg and knee movement. Everything from ankle and associated muscle, ligament and tendon strength and flexibility to hip and core strength flexibility.

My most recent session involved my PT's watching me doing lunges walking backwards (with a medicine ball up in the air and chopping down and across) and talking between themselves at how poorly my hips were moving and how I try to accomodate the poor hip flexibility with my feet - which of course leads to more knee problems. DUH!

Anyhow, their goal for this session was to work on my hip flexibility. They kept wondering how my body functioned in JiuJitsu and TaeKwonDo with such tight hips.

I never noticed how tight my hips were until they were stretching me. I was always able to kick pretty high. I felt like I was able to get some "heavy" hips when rolling. Really flattening out and remaining solid.

But I did sense the hip stiffness. As they stretched me over, they noticed that my hip flexibility was impeded by my hip flexors and my upper quad being so tight..

I was rolled to my back and my spine was pushed this way and that. The diagnosis was my "TL" was to blame. Thoracolumbar Junction. The spot between the T12 (twelvth thoracic vertebrae)and L1 (First lumbar vertebrae). The nerves in that area innervate my glutes, abdomen, hip and thigh area.

The fix:
1) Get that area massaged.
2) Stretch the hip flexor area.
3) Stretch and activate your TL spot. (sexy)


How to do that.
For #1. I ask my kids to walk on my back! Always fun!
#2. Stretching the hip flexor area. It helps activate release points along the nerves that run from your TL junction. Lie on your back. Bring your knees up, feet still on the ground. Cross your legs - knee over knee. Let the knee and leg in the top position slowly stretch the bottom leg down and across your body. Hold the stretch for 5 second. Then squeeze your knees together and then relax. And hold the stretch again for another 5 count. And then squeeze and stretch once more. After every squeeze of the knees, you should feel your legs and hip just relax a touch more every time.
Someone without a TL problem should feel most of the stretch in the hip and glute of the bottom leg. I felt all of this stretch in the front thigh, hip flexor part of my bottom leg. Switch legs.

#3. Stretching and activation of TL. This involved lying face down on your belly. Get into pushup position - the military style with your hands right under your shoulders. While keeping your legs, hips and pelvis flat on the ground, slowly push up on your upperbody. The goal is to slowly loosen your back around mid to the lower-mid back.



Do this everyday. You should see some response from your hips and thighs.

Training in JiuJitsu Part V

Nope, the pic isn't an error.
The Part-Time Grappler (PTG) brought up an excellent point in a comment on my previous post. Due to the nature of the game, training with resisting opponents, the PTG, Liam, brought up the gains that can be obtained by training on uneven surfaces - BOSU, Swiss Balls, etc would be very helpful in the game of JiuJitsu.

I agree wholeheartedly. The exercises that I listed in my previous post can all be done in different ways and on different surfaces. I was trying to touch a bit on that when I spoke to using different ways to manipulate the resistance load while doing an exercise. My goal is to keep my training fresh - not only to overcome boredom, but to keep my body from getting used to the training and to achieve maximum gains.

Unstable surface -

Try a BOSU, Swiss Ball or Balance Board to engage other muscle groups.

The shoulder exercises for example can be done sitting on a bench or standing. OR sitting on a Swiss Ball. OR standing on a BOSU - as the PTG mentions.

I'd suggest doing that if you try these other more unstable surfaces, you drop your resistance loads quite a bit. Keeping good form is essential. Watch how your body starts to recruit all of those stabilizer muscles to help keep that form.

Change center of gravity -
Try doing walking lunges. Do them with a weight and some without. Change the position of that weight. Do some lunges with a medicine ball held above your head, or out in front of you. For my physical therapy, I have to do walking lunges, hold the lunge and then do a chopping motion with the medicine ball, across my body from shoulder level down across in front of my body to the opposite hip.


Not only do your deltoids, trapezius, and back start to get a good burn - but you are utilizing every muscle fiber that is used to stabilize you.


Different positioning -
Try changing the positions in which you do some of the exercises. For example, on the chart I listed Good Mornings. Try those as a standard good-morning, then switch to a back extension and then try it by squeezing your glutes and hamstrings. Do it with your feet parallel or toes pointed out and then pointed in.
Varying your grip - palms up or palms down, wide grip or narrow, etc.
Or it could be the difference between lat pulldowns versus wide grip pull-ups.
A small variation in positioning or grip can produce great gains in your performance.

Play with your resistance load -
This is beyond just changing up the weight you do. And there are a ton of variations on that. Low weight, high number of repetitions.
High weight, and low repetitions.
Try using a combination of resistance bands plus free weight. When I do squats, I squat with a barbell and attached to the barbell are resistance bands.
A variation is the use of chains as your resistance load. As the weights go up, the resistance increases.

I love this topic because of the variety of methods of manipulating resistance load in weight training. It not only makes training more fun, but it keeps your body off-balance which leads to accelerated gains. I'd argue that it also leads to fewer injuries. Maybe that will be a hypothesis to tackle at another time.

Training in JiuJitsu Part IV

I have some exercises that were in the article. The list isn't fancy. It is about doing the technique properly and manipulating that load in different ways. Experiment with resistance load. Experiment with repetitions. Experiment with your rest period.

The way that the article lists them is that there are particular movements that provide resistance exercise and that the resistance exercise benefits different applications.

It is the way that you conduct the resistance exercise that conditions your body in different ways.

For example:

Resistance exercise - Wide-stance squat

Application - lower body and trunk strength, balance, throwing and un-balancing

Can be done many different ways for different effects. A squat with an emphasis on the concentric contraction (pushing up out of the squat with force) - can benefit explosiveness.

A squat with an emphasis on eccentric contraction (slow lowering of the weight at twice the count of the pushing) - can benefit muscle and tendon tensile strength. The slow lowering also recruits other muscle groups beyond just your large muscles. The other muscles provide benefit in posture and balance and provide balanced muscle development.

Training in Jits Part III

In a previous post, I gave a little primer to Nicholas Ratamess article for Weight Training in JiuJitsu. The beginning of the article basically spoke to the need of a variety of training methods that address the complexity of the sport.

My take away was that there is no Black and White for training for any sport. There are nuances and complexities to the human body and maximizing the body's response for a sport would need more than working on your 1 Rep Max in a Bench Press. That may be an oversimplifying. Another example could be what I used to do - JiuJitsu was all about pulling into a body. Crunching, shrimping, elbows in, protecting the neck, etc. My work out should be about those kinds of movements. Not too balanced.

Since my injury and since reading the article, what I learned is that I personally need a work out regimen that is offers variety of exercises (so that I do not get bored), that engages the muscles in many different ways (concentric vs. eccentric vs. multiple joint and muscle groups) and trains my body properly.

I will post an abbreviated list of Ratamess's exercises that address the different types of movements.

Ratamess's next point of his article is to discuss his set of "thoughts" for the progression of the types of exercises you do in your work out day. This list is pulled from three different sources:

1) Fleck, SJ and WJ Kraemer. Designing Resistance Training Programs, Human Kinetics, 1997

2) Pauletto,B. Let's talk training#3: Choice and order of exercises. NSCA Journal 1986.

3) Wathen, D. Exercise order. Load assignment. In: Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning; Human Kinetics, 1994.

His recommendations, also depends on what type of work out you are doing for the day (is it a core day, cardio day, strength day....

1) Core First - this is optimal when energy levels are high.

2) Perform power/speed exercises that would require technique mastery before doing strength, assistance and sport-specific exercises.

3) Perform core, multijoint strength exercises after power exercises or do them first when no power exercises are scheduled.

4) Perform large-muscle-group exercises before those for small muscle groups.

5) Perform exercises for individual weak areas before doing those for stronger areas.

6) Perform difficult exercises before doing easier ones.

7) If using a total-body work out - alternate between upper and lower body or between agonist/antagonist muscle groups.

8) If using a split routine (body building) perform basic exercises first.

Next - tips to maximize aerobic and anaerobic capacity and recovery by using weight training.