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Training, Diet and Nutrition
Tips.
with Carolyn
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cdlarocque@comcast.net
www.carolyndlarocque.com
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Journal
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| Follow-up to Stretching & Yoga for Fighters |
I just want to clarify some information related to my previous article on stretching and yoga for fighters. I did not intend for you to start doing all those yoga stretches prior to every jiu jitsu class or training session. It was meant to be a guide to some good stretches for specific areas that you could use before and after training if you felt you needed to. They could also be used for an independent stretching program done at other times when you’re not training, to help maintain your full range of motion and improve your flexibility.
That list is a menu of stretches I do, when needed, before and after class. I have tight hamstrings, a stiff lower back, and frequently sore shoulders, so I feel I need to loosen those areas up with stretching, in addition to doing a typical jiu jits warm-up. After class or training, I usually stretch again to relax my muscles, cool down, and restore oxygen levels. I also stretch every night before bed, and take a long yoga class two to three times a week.
Many publications of current research indicate that only dynamic stretching (stretching that mimics activity you will do in your sport but at lower intensity) should be done prior to your training. Then the deeper static stretching is done afterwards. I agree with that for super fit and healthy athletes. But how many of us who train in jiu jitsu fit that description? Not me. I’m old and have many old injuries I need to deal with in order to train in jiu jitsu. Furthermore, one super intense training day may require one or two days of lighter activity and stretching just to work the kinks out. So, for me, stretching is a very important part of my regular routine. Without stretching, I’d be ripped up, hunched over, dislocated, completely out of balance, and misaligned.
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| Submitted by Carolyn Larocque on Sunday, April 06, 2008 at 08:43
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| Stretching & Yoga for Fighters |
Stretching and Yoga for Fighters
For me, stretching means maintaining my full range of motion (ROM) and preventing injuries. I use stretches that originate in Yoga. They prepare my muscles and connective tissues for the physical demands of Jiu Jitsu training, and help repair damage and minimize soreness after training.
Uneven joint range of motion and/or flexibility limitations can create rotational torque that can affect other areas of the body. Everything in the body is connected, so a weakness, limitation, misalignment, or imbalance in a lower joint area, like the ankle, will affect many areas above it, including the knee, hips, and back. These stresses are worsened by loading the body with heavy resistance, as in weight lifting and fighting, or by doing highly repetitive activities such as running, cycling, and swimming. Any weakness or limitation in your ROM or flexibility also exposes you to increased risk for injury in the fighting ring and during training.
ROM can vary day-to-day depending on what was done during the previous week’s training. Also, old injuries can “act up” periodically. Even everyday activities like sitting or traveling, or prolonged inactivity can cause problems. Daily stretching or Yoga will help to minimize or alleviate any training stiffness or tightness you experience on a regular basis, and protect you from future injuries.
Keep in mind that stretching is not just about flexibility and ROM. The power for athletic movement is produced by the contraction, or shortening, of muscles. Stretching will counteract the negative effects of repeated contractions that occur during running and other sports like jiu jitsu.
When you bend your arm, it is the contraction of the biceps that draws the arm up. To reverse the action, the opposing muscle group, the triceps, contracts in order to straighten the arm. So while the biceps contracts, the triceps lengthens, and vice-versa since they are opposing muscle groups. So when a muscle contracts, the muscle acts as a lever, and the joint acts a fulcrum. Movement is the result of muscles shortening. Muscles pull bones together rather than pushing bones apart.
All athletic movement is basically repetitive and coordinated contraction of muscles and muscle groups. Years of athletic training can change the resting length of the muscle spindle (the message center of the muscle) and flexibility of your muscles. When the spindle learns that the muscle is being asked to continually shorten, it adjusts to the demands placed on it and becomes increasingly resistant to stretching. Muscles that are persistently worked without stretching can become hard and short. They become inflexible, and are no longer adaptable to sudden changes or stresses, such as those we encounter very frequently during sparring. Resistant muscles have many negative effects on the body:
- Inhibits full ROM of joints
- Prohibits full contraction of opposing muscle groups
- Leads to misalignment of body posture
- Causes general discomfort and inefficient movements
- Increases the risk of injury, and
- Reduces maximum pumping action within each muscle.
Why is Yoga better than just stretching?
Most people don’t stretch properly. They don’t have the patience to release the tension from a stretch and end up stretching too hard, actually making the muscle tighter, not more relaxed. Yoga teaches you proper stretching technique which requires breath control. Each stretch technique incorporates the breath by using the exhale phase to advance the stretch. Then the stretch is relaxed during an inhale, and advanced a little further on the next exhale. The cycle repeats for several progressions until you reach your maximum stretch.
Many yoga schools design programs specifically for martial artists and other athletes. There are also class formats called Power Yoga, which focus on building strength, power, and endurance, along with flexibility and balance. Martial artists and fighters love the isometric strength training and explosive power that develops by practicing Power Yoga. Additionally, you learn to control your breathing and maximize the volume of air you can draw in with each breath.
So what is Yoga?
The word “Yoga” means union or joining. There are many systems of yoga, each providing a different way to unify the various aspects of man (mind, body and spirit). Many aim to balance and join the different flows of energy within the body. It is said that the physical poses are a path that leads to greater self-knowledge. Each pose allows you to explore inner structures of the body, to feel inwardly, and to discover where you are strong, tight, weak, or open.
Many yoga methods emphasize precise and careful body alignment, muscle balance, and maximum spinal extension. This is the type of yoga most recommended for athletes. It is believed that if the average athlete can improve posture and maximize muscular balance and coordination, athletic performance will improve.
When the body is balanced, flesh feels like flesh. It is neither too hard (and susceptible to injury), nor too soft (and incapable of supporting the skeleton properly). When the body is balanced, the skeletal muscle system facilitates movement. Balanced movement is self-perpetuating, meaning, the more freely you can move, the more you can move.
I use yoga-based stretches before and after jiu jitsu training. The following outline describes the ones I use most often.
Pre-training Stretches
• Butterfly – With soles of feet together and flat back, hinge at hips and release chest down over feet. Exhale each time you progress the stretch. (hip opener)
• Seated Straddle – With straight legs wide open, hinge at the hips with flat back and reach front. Exhale each time you progress the stretch. Then twist toward each leg, one at a time, and exhale as you stretch forward over the leg. (hip flexors, hamstrings, low back, spine)
• Seated Double Front Leg Stretch – With legs straight out front, flex feet and quads so heels rise off floor. Hinge at hips and fold over legs, reaching for feet or ankles. Relax head, neck and shoulders, and exhale each time you progress the stretch. (hamstrings, low back, spines)
• Plow – Roll back bringing both legs up and over your head so your feet touch the floor behind your head. Keep legs straight and do not turn your head. Support your low back with your hands if your feet do not touch the floor easily. Hold this pose for approximately five breathes and focus on releasing any tension you feel from your neck on down to your feet. (neck, spine, hamstrings)
• Cradle the Baby – Sit with legs out front. Cross one ankle over the other leg at just above the knee. Bend the straight leg lifting the crossed leg up. Wrap your arms around the bottom of the raised foot and knee, clasping your hands like you would cradle a baby. Hug this leg toward your chest while maintaining a straight firm back. Rock the leg side-to-side, breathing normally, and focus on releasing the tension you feel in your glute, lower back, hips, and knee. Repeat other leg.
• Deep Squat – With feet shoulder-width apart and slightly turned out, squat down as low as you can without lifting your heels off the floor. Focus on posturing up, bringing your hips forward, straightening your back, and opening your chest. Open your hips by placing your palms together in front and gently pressing your elbows out into your knees or thighs. Hold this pose for approximately five breaths, exhaling each time you press out. (ankles, calves, knees, hip opener)
• Standing Shoulder Opener – Stand with feet shoulder-width apart. Clasp hands behind back with palms together. Exhale as you fold forward with a straight back. Take an inhale, and then release your head and neck down, rounding the back if necessary, and raise your clasped hands up and away from your back. Hold this pose for a few breaths as you focus on opening the shoulders and releasing any tension you feel. (shoulder opener)
• Downward-facing Dog – From standing, bend over and step feet back so both hands and feet are on the floor. Arch your back and raise your tailbone up towards the ceiling. Maintain straight arms and legs, and keep palms and fingers pressing flat onto floor. Your body should look like an inverted “V”. Release your head and neck and look through your legs or at your belly. Exhale as you press your heels to the floor. Inhale as you relax the pose. Exhale as you press again, and repeat until you feel the tension leave your legs and low back. If you are really tight, you can alternate pressing one heel down at a time, and then work on both together. (Strengthens shoulders, serratus over the ribs, and triceps. Stretches wrists, lumbar spine, glutes, hamstrings, and calves.)
• Cobra – Lying on your belly, place hands next to your chest and tops of feet on floor, toes pointed. Flex your quads so your knees lift off the floor, and arch your back as you raise your upper body off the floor. Inhale as you lift up and press your hips towards the floor. Exhale as you release back to the floor. Repeat a few times releasing any tension you feel in the lower back and hips. (Strengthens, triceps, shoulders, and traps. Stretches wrists, hand flexors, chest, serratus over the ribs, abdominals, hip flexors, and spine.)
• Walking Lunges – From standing, step one leg forward far enough that the heel of your rear leg lifts up off the floor. Slowly drop the rear knee to the floor ensuring that your front knee does not slide forward past your toes. Rise back up stepping the rear leg up to the front leg. Repeat leading with the other leg. Alternate legs walking these lunges back and forth across the floor. (hip flexors, quads, knees, calves, ankles, feet)
• Pyramid Pose into Deep Lunge – From standing, Step one leg forward keeping legs straight and hips squared front. Exhale as you hinge at the hips and fold forward placing hands on floor at each side of your front foot. Take several breaths here as you release any tension you feel in lower back, hamstrings, and calves.
Then bend the front knee and extend the back leg out into a deep lunge. Keep the back leg straight with the heel up off the floor. You can take several breaths here as you release tension in your hips and quads, and/or posture up bringing your hands to your front leg or hips. Inhale as you elongate your spine and exhale as you deepen your stretch into the lunge. You should be expanding the distance between your front knee and back foot, maintaining balance by focusing your base on the outside edges of each foot, and opening the front knee out over the pinky toe. Release the tension in your hips, quads, knees, claves, ankles, and feet.
Post-training Stretches
• Forward Bend from a wall – Stand with back against a wall and feet shoulder-width apart. Move feet out approximately 12” away from the wall. Exhale as you bend forward with a flat back. Take an inhale, and exhale again as you fold your chest down onto your thighs and release your head and neck. Let your head and arms dangle. Take several breaths here releasing tension from neck, spine, hips, and hamstrings.
• Kneeling Shoulder Stretch – With hands and knees on floor, shoulders stacked over wrists and hips stacked over knees, extend your arms out front and lower your armpits to the floor. Release the tension in your neck and shoulders with each exhale. (lats, serratus, intercostals, external obliques, and spine)
• Lying Knee Stretches – Lying on your back with legs stretched out straight, bring one knee in to chest and hug it tight. Take a deep inhale, and the exhale as you raise your head up to your knee. Repeat 3 time, and then extend the leg out straight, and repeat the breathing holding the calf of the straight leg so your foot is over your head. The repeat all with the other leg.
• Figure 4 Glute Stretch – Lying on your back, bend your knees with feet on the floor, and cross your right ankle over your left leg just above the knee. Reach your right hand through the opening between the two legs and clasp your other hand behind that left leg. Straighten the left leg and gently pull it forward with your hands. You should feel the stretch in the glute of the bent (right) leg. Exhale each time your advance the stretch and focus on releasing the tension in the glute and hamstrings. Repeat on other leg.
• Lying Torso Twist - Lying on your back, bring knees in to chest and hug them tight. Open your arms out to each side at shoulder hight with palms up. Gently roll the knees to one side and turn your head to the opposite side. Hold this pose for several breaths releasing tension along the spine. Repeat other side.
• Bow Pose – Lying on your belly, reach hands behind and grab hold of your feet or ankles. Press the feet out into your hands as you arch your back and raise your thighs and chest off the floor. Inhale as you relax this stretch, and then exhale as you press the feet out advancing the stretch further.
• Happy Baby Pose/Back Massage – Lying on your back, bring knees up to outside of chest and grab the inner arches of your feet with your hands. Rock from side to side as you gently extend and contract each leg alternating one then the other. You should feel a massage-like pressure along your back, hips, and kidney area where they roll over the floor.
• Kneeling Quad Stretch – Kneel on the floor and sit back on your feet. Place your hands behind you on the floor as you lean back to stretch the quadriceps. Keep knees together and toes pointed out behind you. Breathe normally and focus on releasing the tension in your legs and hips.
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| Submitted by Carolyn Larocque on Wednesday, March 05, 2008 at 09:34
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| Add More Cardio & Keep Your Muscle |
In response to my article below on Oxygen, I received a question from a guy who wants to increase his cardio training, but is worried about loosing muscle mass and strength. This could be a concern if you started training to run marathons or cross-country cycling, but adding 30-40 minutes of light to moderate cardio training, like jogging, won’t adversely affect your muscle mass. Adding more cardio won’t build any muscle, but you will improve your cardio endurance and increase your maximum oxygen uptake, as well as burn fat.
Low-intensity aerobic exercise like jogging, primarily uses your body fat stores and glycogen (the carbs you just ate) for fuel. Burning some fat is good; however, if this activity continues for more than 30-40 minutes, your body starts to drift into depletion of these energy sources. Your body won’t be able to convert your fat into energy fast enough to keep up with demand. It will then begin to cannibalize it’s own muscle for protein to use as fuel.
Decreased muscle mass slows down your metabolism, making it easier for you to gain weight/fat, and decreases your energy level over time. Maintaining muscle mass is key to controlling your energy levels and minimizing body fat stores. Muscle eats fat. If you add one pound of muscle, your body burns up to 50 additional calories a day to keep that muscle alive. Add six pounds of muscle, and you’re burning up to 300 more calories a day, even at rest.
You may burn more total calories during your aerobic workout than during strength training, but weight-lifters will continue to burn calories long after they have left the gym. This is called afterburn. The increased metabolic effects of biking or jogging last only for the length of time you are doing the activity. The effects of weight training last up to 48 hours, during which time your body continues to burn fat as it rebuilds its muscles.
So how do you significantly increase your cardio-fitness without loosing muscle mass? The answer is circuit training. You need to develop some training routines (circuits) that include short bursts of intense cardio exercise with intervals of strength and power moves.
A circuit typically incorporates three to seven stations that you cycle through a number of times depending on how many minutes you spend at each one. For example, a circuit could include the following:
1. Jump Rope (1 minute)
2. Suicide Lunges w/ kettlebell or 25 lb plate (1 minute)
3. Push-ups (30 seconds), and Back Extensions (30 seconds)
4. Line Running (1 minute)
5. Squat-Presses w/ kettlebell or 25 lb plate (1 minute)
6. Pull-ups (30 seconds), and Sit-ups (30 seconds)
7. Two-foot Jump-up onto box or stack of matts (1 minute)
There would be a pre-determined “rest period” in between each work station that can vary from one minute to 15 seconds. You would cycle through these stations as many times as possible for a half hour to an hour, depending on what else you need to accomplish during your training time.
The Work-to-Rest (work:rest) time ratio will depend on the number of stations in the circuit, the intensity of the exercises, and the training response you want to achieve. Work-to-rest ratios typically range from 3:1 to 1:1, however, extremes can include longer work phases, like six minute rounds, or shorter rest phases, like 15 seconds or even no rest phase.
If you like working with kettlebells, try some of the circuits described at www.ExtonKettlebells.com, or have a personal trainer custom-design a circuit program for you. There are many ways to design a circuit. Make sure you know what you need.
Cardiovascular training is absolutely necessary if you want to be able to maintain a high level of performance over several minutes, as in a tournament ring. Therefore, you need to achieve maximum intensity levels during your circuit training. You must be prepared to push yourself harder then you would normally. To reach your highest intensity levels during the circuit, you need to sprint, not jog; jump, not hop; and max out the lunge so pushing back up is a power move.
The goal is to increase your maximum oxygen uptake (VO2max), and your cardio endurance. You will achieve these goals over time as you increase the intensity and/or duration of your work phases, and reduce the amount of time in your rest phases. Soon you will see improvement in your sparring. You will be able to train for longer periods of time, and you will be able to maintain good technique throughout each match. You may get an edge over your opponent by not needed as much recovery time before the next round. Many matches have been won simply because one guy had more wind than his opponent.
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| Submitted by Carolyn Larocque on Sunday, February 24, 2008 at 08:05
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| Fatigue, Poor Endurance, and General Weakness |
Fatigue, Poor Endurance, and General Weakness
Fatigue and poor endurance are a couple of the obstacles you must overcome in order to succeed in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu training. Many people quit early on because they can’t overcome these obstacles and feel Jiu Jitsu training is just too hard for them. I was 40 years old when I started training, and I had my doubts too. It took over six months for me to adapt to the physical demands on my body, and figure out what else I had to do in order to continue training. I had to make a lot of changes in my day-to-day lifestyle. Two of the biggest changes I made were how I ate and what I ate.
Everyone knows that being over weight and aging slow you down and affect your performance in sports, but not everyone understands these effects on a cellular level. I’m going to give you an overview of some cellular issues without a detailed lesson in biochemistry.
As a fitness trainer, I study weight control and how it relates to the quality of food we eat, as well as the quantity of food we eat. I believe that the quality is more important than the quantity and, most people who are over weight regularly consume poor quality foods. This poor diet leads not only to weight gain, but also to poor health and acidic body conditions. Essentially, a poor diet ages you prematurely.
Now, we don’t see too many over weight Jiu Jitsu fighters, not at higher ranks anyway. The ones who hang in there and train for many years are the ones who are committed to the training, and who have learned to eat well enough to sustain their bodies through the rigors of the training.
To better understand how important a healthy diet is, I want to explain a poorly understood contributor to weight-gain and poor health. I’m talking about Microforms – yeast, fungus, and mold. Many people don’t know that these organisms are always present within our bodies, along with the bacteria and viruses. A healthy body maintains the proper environmental conditions to keep these microforms under control. But a poor diet leads to a breakdown of this healthy environment and allows the microforms to over grow. The condition worsens as the body begins to store excess fat and becomes acidic. Microforms thrive in the acidic environment and continue to multiply.
This is how it happens. Microforms ferment sugar in our bodies that we would otherwise use for energy. During this fermentation process, they spew out toxic, acidic waste, such as Acetaldehyde, increasing the acidic conditions even further. These toxic wastes, mycotoxins, reduce the absorption of protein, minerals, and other nutrients, which in turn weakens the body’s ability to produce enzymes and hormones and hundreds of other chemical components necessary for cell energy, organ activity, cell reconstruction, and your overall energy production. Acetaldehyde also destroys essential enzymes on contact further depleting cell energy. The result is fatigue, poor endurance, an inability to repair tissues, and general weakness.
The pancrease, liver, and adrenal glands play a major role in controlling energy levels, and are all negatively affected by mycotoxins. You may experience rapid drops in blood sugar levels, as well as electrolyte imbalance. Your supplies of the B-complex vitamins, iron, and other minerals are rapidly depleted, which causes fatigue and worsens recovery periods after training.
Additionally, microforms contribute to chronic fatigue, which is caused by damage to nerve tissue and breakdown or neurotransmitters. The acidic mycotoxins strip away the myelin sheath that coats and protects nerves and enables transmission of impulses.
Mycotoxins such as Acetaldehyde also bind to red blood cells, making them less flexible and less able to get into and through small capillaries of the circulatory system. This leads to starvation and oxygen deprivation in the tissues.
Lastly, the liver converts Acetaldehyde into alcohol, and that process depletes the body of magnesium, sulfur, hydrogen, and potassium, further reducing cell energy. The alcohol itself has negative side effects including disorientation, dizziness, and mental confusion. The same symptoms as being drunk.
So, overall, Microforms play an important role in how you feel, and they are directly related to problems with fatigue, poor endurance, and general weakness. So couple this with intense Jiu Jitsu training, and you are suffering. But you don’t have to be obese to suffer from these micro-enemies… Even thin and mildly over-weight people can have an overgrowth. You can see it in your performance, and you can definitely feel it.
For example, a person wants to train, but when they do, it really takes a toll on them. They can’t maintain their energy levels during training, are exhausted afterwards, and suffer from prolonged periods of delayed onset muscle soreness, fatigue, and ongoing tiredness. So the person suffers for a period of time, for me it was about six months. And then they must make a decision: quit, or commit.
If the person truly wants to continue training, they have to change their internal environmental and get in shape so their body will be able to support this level of activity. It’s your choice – commit to the lifestyle required for Jiu Jitsu training; continue suffering with pain and fatigue; or quit.
I believe you can prolong your years of healthy training simply by eating better and avoiding the things that age you. Future articles will address some specific things that age you, as well as some specific things you can do to turn back the clock. They have worked for me, and they can work for you.
References: The Microform facts described above came primarily from the book, The pH Miracle – Balance Your Diet, Reclaim Your Health, by Robert O. Young, Ph.D., and Shelley Redford Young.
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| Submitted by Carolyn Larocque on Sunday, February 03, 2008 at 16:56
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| Acidity & Weight Gain |
Over-Acidity and Weight Gain
Over the past few years, I have been researching on-line and printed resources concerning body pH and problems that arise from being overly acidic. More and more findings concur that acidic body pH is the root cause of just about anything that ails you. Most of the major diseases and degenerative conditions, including but not limited to, diabetes, obesity, arthritis, and even cancer, could be prevented by maintaining a neutral or slightly alkaline pH environment within our bodies. Of course there are exceptions to some diseases like cancer, where a person has been acutely exposed to some carcinogenic chemical or something like that, and then they develop cancer, but in general, it all comes down to what you eat and how you live.
Your body faces all kinds of breakdown if it is allowed to get too acidic or is forced to fight too hard for too long just to stay basic, or if it gets overgrown with microforms that thrive in the acidic conditions. An overly acidic internal environment also contributes to the excess pounds you are carrying around. In a defensive manner, the body creates fat cells to carry acids away from your vital organs to try to protect them. In one sense, your fat is saving your life. But that is also why your body doesn’t want to let it go. When you eat to make your body more basic, your body won’t need to keep that fat any more.
Weight problems can also result from yeast and fungus interfering with digestion of food. The nutritional deficiencies created can actually trigger your body to pack on extra pounds, in part because you are always hungry. More commonly, blood poisoned by microtoxins goes to the liver to be detoxified, and that added stress distracts the liver from efficiently metabolizing fat and sugar.
The chaos in an imbalanced body will exhaust the adrenal glands, and the resulting low levels of energy contribute to weight gain. Another related problem is fatigue of the thyroid gland, which controls the rate of metabolism. Cravings for sugar, oversized appetites, and low blood sugar levels all follow an overgrowth of harmful yeast, fungus, and mold in the body.
Together, these patterns all make it easier to gain fat and harder to lose it. On top of that, poor digestion and possibly depression will develop or worsen. Changing the way you eat and exercising daily are the two most important ways you can help your body maintain a proper acid/base balance. A healthy body naturally maintains its own ideal weight.
Much of this technical body chemistry is further explained in the book: The pH Miracle by Robert O. Young, Ph.D. and Shelley Redford Young. It is the first of three books they have written concerning body pH. They have done a great job explaining how medical science was overshadowed by ‘Germ Theory’ and lead to our medical professionals treating the symptoms of these conditions, the diseases, with pharmaceutical drugs instead of preventing the cause of these conditions, which is poor diet and lifestyle.
Stay tuned for future segments on the following topics:
• More Nutrition, Diet & Fitness
• Stretching Programs & Yoga
• Juicing
• Adding more cardio and maintaining muscle mass
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| Submitted by Carolyn Larocque on Saturday, January 19, 2008 at 07:59
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