That’s not necessarily a bad thing most of the time. It means you’re probably quite healthy and will live a long life. But sometimes it’s going to get difficult. And these darker times are going to come immediately after your greatest moments.

Life is like that. Every peak must be followed by a valley, or it wasn’t a peak.

The Post-Event Plummet

Training is a little like being immunized. You are given a small dose of the disease so you can build up a resistance to it. But then, if your training is well planned, you’ll be given a slightly larger dose and be forced to recover from that. And this goes on and on, with you receiving successively bigger doses until you find yourself at the start line of something that scares the crap out of you.

RELATED: If Your Goals Don’t Scare You, They Aren’t Big Enough

That thing that scares the crap out of you is a good thing. Challenge builds strength, both of body and mind. But that big challenge is going to leave you feeling flat afterwards. The reason why is pretty simple. As you get close to the event, the body hides all the fatigue from training with adrenaline. Day after day your body goes to the well and draws more out so you can keep pushing forward. But once it’s all over and your body doesn’t need to do that? Boom. Flat on your face.

And it doesn’t just happen after big events. When I first got involved with the RKC, I used to think my fatigue post-event was due to jet lag from having to fly back and forth to the United States for every event, coupled with the high output over the weekend. But when I started teaching and having exactly the same experience, I realized the physical side of things had little to do with how I was feeling.

The Purpose of the Off-Season

Back in the days, before year-round competition, athletes had this thing called the off-season. You might have heard about it? They would finish their last game or event of the season, then take a while off to let the body rejuvenate.

“The longer the event, the longer the recovery needs to be.”

One of the greatest swimmers in the world, Ian Thorpe, would take the entire year after the Olympics off from serious training and competition. During this time he’d still swim a bit (and considering the mileage of elite swimmers “a bit” probably is still more than most of us will ever do), he’d engage in other fitness activities like running, and he’d go out and have a social life.

Team sports still manage to encourage their players to have an off-season, although it’s getting shorter and shorter, too. It’s these deliberate, post-season breaks that allow the players to freshen up mentally, as well as physically.

The thing about mental stress is that you can’t really feel it. When your muscles are tired, it’s pretty obvious. But when your mind is tired it can be hard to tell.

CNS fatigue can take as much as five times longer to recover from than muscular fatigue, so if you just did something epic and your legs took five days to feel normal again, it might take three weeks for your mind to freshen up completely. And this is exactly why even though you feel fantastic physically after a great personal-record performance, you fall flat when you try to hit it again too soon.

Plan Your Year Properly

In my group of colleagues, there are a lot who are all about the same age as me, and we share lengthy training histories, too. Just like me we’ve all kept looking for new challenges along the way and kept pushing where we’ve been able to. And that’s important because these challenges help us stay active and give us motivation to stay in shape.

“CNS fatigue can take as much as five times longer to recover from than muscular fatigue, so if you just did something epic and your legs took five days to feel normal again, it might take three weeks for your mind to freshen up completely.”

The bad part about getting older is that you just don’t get many days each year where you can push yourself right to the red zone. And each one requires significant mental and physical rest afterwards. There have been some excellent posts on Breaking Muscle recently about how to avoid burn out, and the number one way is to thoughtfully plan your year out. Give yourself time off after an event you know will be all in – and no, a week won’t cut it. The longer the event, the longer the recovery needs to be. I know after Ironman it took me about eight months to feel right again.

Change Events With the Seasons

The easiest way I know of to make sure you avoid burning out, which will ensure you’re able to keep plugging away at health and fitness no matter your age, is to change events with the seasons. You know, just like we had to as kids when we’d play different sports in summer and winter. The change of activities will use new muscles, challenge you in different ways, and help the body and mind freshen up.

We spend so much time speaking about developmental patterns these days and reference childhood learning, yet when it comes to the way we structure our own training, we ignore what we have our kids do.

Use the off-season to learn a new skill, spend time with loved ones you ignored during heavy competition training (and thank them for all their support, laundry, and provision of food when you were too bombed to do it all), and understand that it is natural to go through this trough of post-event apathy. If you take a genuine break, you will come back better and fresher, ready to hit a new peak, so use that time wisely and don’t rush straight back in the gym. 

Photos 1 & 3 courtesy of Shutterstock.

Photo 2 “Ian Thorpe” by Morton Lin. Attribution-NonCommercial License.

The post The Critical Importance of the Off-Season for Your Recovery appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

For How Long Do You Want to Do BJJ?

Too many people train like they are getting ready to compete at the world championship, but never actually intend to do so. Even worse, people train like they are preparing for the worlds year round. Most people training BJJ will never win a black belt world championship. Most will never even compete at mundials. Yet, walk into most academies and you would think everyone is getting ready to do just that.

Take a long hard look at why you are training BJJ. Are you a competitor? Are you doing it for self-defense? Are you training because you love the sport or consider it a good workout? For the majority of you who are not looking to win the worlds, your focus should be on longevity. The way you train, eat, and sleep is going to determine how long you can stay on the mats.

Monitor Your Training Intensity

In Brazilian jiu jitsu, intensity must be monitored closely. Training is taxing on the body, especially the nervous system. When you train too much, you will feel slow with your movements. That is a warning sign to take a day off or reduce your intensity.

Since our goal is longevity, you should stick to two or three days a week of hard training. The other days are for light training sessions, such as technique or drills. If there are days when you train multiple times, one of the sessions needs to be light and should be done after your more intense session.

Leave Your Ego at the Door

Injuries can happen in a contact sport – I understand that. But an injury from not tapping is a different story. We all get caught in submissions. It happens. But do not let your ego get in the way. Tap before it hurts, not after. The more you tap, the more you learn.

Next, listen to your body. If you do not feel like rolling hard, then don’t. You know your body better than anyone else. Some days your body might feel like going to the academy just for some light rolling. Let your body – not your ego – determine how hard you train.

Do Mobility and Recovery Work Every Day

There is no off day for mobility work. You should be working every day to improve your range of motion. You should work just as hard, if not harder on your mobility as you on your training. Find a routine that works for you. Spend ten to twenty minutes a day working your mobility. And one day a week spend 45 minutes to an hour on just corrective work.

Eat Real Food

The best diet is one you can stick to. Find a style of eating that works for you. The bottom line on all diets is the focus should be on real food. Eat until you are full, but not stuffed. Drink plenty of clean water. Let loose once in a while. Individual diets may vary when it comes to nutrient timing or macronutrient ratios, but the concepts behind good nutrition are all the same.

Conclusion

The longer I train, the more I realize the importance of training smart. I have seen many people start BJJ only to stop six months to a year later due to burnout or injury. The longer you train, the more adjustments you will have to make to your training intensity, lifestyle, and nutrition. But if you are smart with your training, you will be able to stay on the mats for many years to come.

Photos courtesy of David Brown Photography.

The post How Long Do You Want to Do BJJ? Training for Longevity appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

We train more. We train heavier.

Everyone talks about this or that hardcore session making them puke. But how many people do you ever hear doing hardcore recovery sessions or working their movement abilities to the max? Where is the time spent reversing the side effects of training that are undesirable, such as muscle soreness or shortening?

People are happy to spend time training like a bad ass and trying to impress everyone else in the gym. The real key to athletic success is to not care at all about what others think of your training, but let your athletic results speak for you. Training and competition are two entirely different things. Training is to build the body and allow improvements to occur, and competition is the time to let it all hang out and truly go to your limits. Obviously, like redlining a car all day long, going to your limits too often will cause problems at some point.

Recently I heard a great quote about running in triathlon, “The best way to run well in a race is to be a good cyclist and a great swimmer.” Meaning if you are strong and can relax in the water you’ll get to the bike relatively fresh. Then, because of your cycling abilities you can cruise the ride allowing you to lace up and head out of transition on seemingly fresh legs.

In Guys Like Me: 4 Keys to Fitness for Mature Athletes, I wrote that my first two keys to athleticism in your 40s and beyond were: movement and movement. Taking this concept a step further, do you know what makes you move well? Not moving poorly in the first place and avoiding exercises that don’t suit you.

I can give you a great personal example:

Having torn my right hamstring completely off the bone there are some things that just really upset it. It’s been reattached, and works pretty well for the most part, but there are just some things I shouldn’t do like hill sprints and barbell snatches. There’s nothing wrong with either exercise, but for me, with my injury history, both of these exercises will leave me so sore for days afterwards I can’t even move, let alone train (and in the case of snatches would likely see me needing a hip replacement if I did them often).

So, if you’re an office worker who spends all day hunched over a desk don’t choose cycling as your hobby. That’s just more time spent hunched over and compounding the problem. Find something that gets you back into good posture and teaches you how to use your posterior chain properly again (and actually some modified Olympic lifts and hill sprints would be excellent choices for many here).

But if you’ve already taken the steps of making sure your training isn’t hurting you, here are some essential pre-emptive mobility tips for the everyday athlete trying to eke extra performance out of their bodies.

Training adaptations don’t actually take place while you train.

They take place while you rest. If your rest and recovery strategy isn’t as hardcore as your training is you won’t go far for long before injury rears it’s ugly head. My best training results have come from following a “two on, one easy” scheme. At other times I have found as a business owner that the first week of the month is an ideal time to have a recovery week allowing me to finish off last month’s paperwork and plan the new month out ahead of time. Making training fit with the rest of life is the biggest key to ongoing success.

1. Sort your feet and ankles out.

The kinetic chain of movement starts at the feet, as they are the first contact point with the ground. All the force you generate by pushing on the ground needs to be transferred through your feet and ankles. No good “going barefoot ‘cause Paleo man did, too” if your feet collapse and you have them turned out like a duck.

Spend some time working to regain full movement patterns in your ankles and strengthening the soles of your feet and lower legs. Make sure you walk with your feet pointing straight ahead. While we’re at it, learn to stand up straight, too, and find ways to remind yourself to walk with your feet pointing ahead throughout the day. If you don’t do this, don’t come crying to me about how you’ve destroyed your medial knee cartilage while training for a marathon.

2. Stretch patiently.

Pavel Tsatsouline has an excellent book called Relax into Stretch. The short version goes like this: Your muscles sense a change in length and tighten up in order to protect themselves from tearing. While unconscious everyone can do the splits I’ve been told. Yet awake we have these learned limits to our range of movement. You’ll find if you breathe deeply and consciously relax that all of a sudden, while in a stretch position, you’ll suddenly feel the body drop lower or the limb move further. Some positions you’ll have to wait far longer than others. My hamstring, for instance, can take up to twenty minutes at times to relax and get to the length I want. So find a comfortable position to stretch where you’re tight and just wait it out.

3. Bridge.

This really should be first in our priorities but you need to understand relaxed stretching first. Given how we all spend hours a day sitting in flexion, bridging could be the fastest way to get your spine back into alignment.

There are three steps to bridging –

1. Use a Swiss ball.
2. Lie on your back on the ball and “make yourself taller” by consciously arching around the ball – think like a snake trying to wrap itself completely around the ball, so every vertebrae has the same distance between it.
3. Wait. Seriously, just wait. Relax into the movement, breathe deeply and allow your body to slowly let gravity work on it and pull you back into position.

The bottom line is this – learning to avoid things that are hurting you is no different than learning not to touch the hot plate. Yet people keep doing it and wonder why they either don’t get anywhere (because they’re always injured) or why they’re always injured. Just because an exercise or training plan works for someone else (and this is particularly the case when recreational trainees start trying to emulate what the professionals do), doesn’t mean it will work for you. Listen to your body and act accordingly.

The best plan to maintain good movement skills is to never lose them in the first place. However, if you have lost them and you recognize the need to regain them, then you will need to spend as much time as you would on anything else you were seeking to increase. For instance, you’d think nothing of spending three to five hours per week on improving strength, so if mobility is deficient then you will need the same amount of time to improve it per week, and likely will need to make it a focus for four to six weeks, too. Take this seriously if you plan to remain active into the second half of your life.

Stay on top of these little things – feet and ankles, bridging, stretching and recovery – and your training will seem to continue seamlessly for long stretches without interruption. Otherwise you’ll just follow Mark Reifkind’s “classic tough guy periodization” of “heavy, heavier, heaviest, injury…light, light, light, light, heavy, heavier, heaviest, injury…” The question you need to ask yourself is what is important to you – looking tough right now, but ignoring those little aches and pains, or being fit forever?

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