Zhoozhitzu do Graugardo

Huge rehab milestone for my herniated disc

2012-02-25T06:49:00.000-08:00

In august 2006, I got a herniated disc in my lower back due to heavy deadlift. For years, I couldn't life anything with my legs without being in pain for several days/weeks after, but today - after a lot of focus on rehab training - I finally reached my first milestone goal of lifting 100 kg.

Great feeling!

Mission: Heal

2012-02-17T04:45:00.000-08:00

Now the Europeans are over, I have made a decision to change my focus for the upcoming period. Since august, I have had some problem with my right shoulder, that has come and gone. It has held me from doing any upper body weight training, which I miss very much, and it also restricts the amount of sparring I can do per week. Apart from the shoulder, I have some other little injuries in fingers, (other) shoulder, knees and so on.

As long as I keep competing and thereby push myself, these things seems to not get better at all. Therefore, I have made a decision to change my focus 100% towards recovery of my injuries. I have to get back on track, so I can amp up the weekly sparring and also get back in solid weight lifting shape. My weight has been stable around 78 kg for a while now, and I really want to get closer to the -82 kg division's weight limit, since most of my losses are to guys, who are physically stronger than me.

Mission goals:

Recover from shoulder injury
Be able to lift weights again

My promise to myself is therefore to do the following:

No competitions
No hard rounds of sparring
3-4x a week rehab training of shoulder, knee and back
Remember to ice shoulder after each training session

On a sidenote, my back feels really good. For a long time, I have wanted to start skiing/snowboarding, but I have been too afraid to do it because of the herniated disc. Since I have now successfully started to deadlift a little again, I took the chance yesterday and drove to a skiing slope in Sweden with my little brother. It was my first time on snowboard (I only skied once about 17 years ago), and it was a big succes. No pain in my back what so ever! Learning to snowboard will definitely be one of my projects for the future :)

Nice weekend at Danish Open

2012-02-13T14:23:00.000-08:00

Yet another weekend have been spent in a noisy sportshall, shouting instructions to my students on the mats. This time it was the annual Danish Open BJJ, which is a really nice and well organized event, that we like to attend each year.

I had a total of 41 guys from the team compete this time, and we ended up taking home nine gold, eight silver and eight bronze medals. I think everyone did really well, and it was pleasing to see them pull off stuff we have worked in the gym.

For many of the first-timers, it was nice to see them try to do the right moves, even though they still lacked the experience, timing and feeling to make them work. I think one of the biggest difficulties to overcome in order to be successful in competition as a beginner, is to stop "guessing" techniques along the way. Everyone looked disciplined in trying the right things, and it is only a matter of time and more competition experience, before they will start to create results.

Since my "old" juniors are now an integrate part of the adult team, I have started over with a completely new team of vicious kids training to become the champions of the future (meaning this years competitions, I am ambitious for them ;)). With the fantastic young athletes that came out of the last "season", it is really exciting for me to try and create a new team from scratch. They all looked really good, and I believe there is a lot of talent and potential amongst them. In the 10-12 year category, they took gold in every single division they participated in. Future, here we come! ;)

367 flighthours

2012-02-10T22:32:00.000-08:00

Great training with visitors today

2012-02-10T14:13:00.000-08:00

Friday is my favorite training day of the week. I've always wanted to train with everyone, especially in the different gyms around Copenhagen and Denmark. The problem have been to find the time to go to other gyms, when I was in my own basically every day.

When I got home from my round the world trip, I decided it was time to really do something about it. Going to other gyms was too troublesome for me in my busy schedule, so I had to let people come to me instead. I used to teach a class every friday evening, but made a decision to change it into a two and a half hour open mat training, open for every one, no matter where they normally train.

It has been a really big succes, and every friday, we have lots of visitors coming from different gyms to roll together. Everyone enjoys it, and in two and a half hours, we get a lot of sparring done with different bodies, than we normally train with. The social aspect is also very important, as guys training in different gyms, get to know each other better. At the end of the day, we are all just grown ups, who like to wrestle, there is really nothing more to it.

I highly recommend running an open mat session like this, if you have a gym!

Today was a special training, since I had two visitors in the gym, who I met on my trip. Jonathan, my sponsor and travel-partner from Kauai Kimonos, is here for a week, and Billy, a very talented young guy I trained with in the Dominican Republic dropped in for a one-day training. It was great to see them again, and we had some really good rounds of sparring.

In the weekend, I am taking 41 guys from the team to a competition here in Denmark - excited to coach and see them all have some good experiences :)

Video from seminar in the deep, Russian winter

2012-02-08T03:04:00.000-08:00

Just returned from four days of adventure in the Moscow. It was the coldest winter there in ten years, and the coldest time of year, so needless to say, it was a bit chilly. Never the less, it was a really interesting experience to see the city in a way, that not many other tourists will. Both because of the season, but also through Jiu Jitsu and the eyes and lives of the locals.

The group training there was a great bunch of guys, working hard to try and build up BJJ in a country, that is traditionally dominated by Sambo, Judo and wrestling. There is some serious talent mass there, and it can only be a matter of time, before the russians are becoming a force to be reckoned with on the international competition scene. I promoted four dirty, old white belts to blue and gave out a single yellow belt to a very good, young boy.

Like my last two trips, I have put together a little video of my experiences, training, sparring etc. It is about twenty minutes long and running in a slow pace, so don't watch it if you don't have time to sit down and enjoy it ;)

Off to -30°C in Moscow

2012-02-01T14:17:00.001-08:00

Tomorrow morning, I am heading to Russia to teach a seminar in Moscow over the weekend. Apparently, it hits around -30° celsius at night at this time and -15° is the warmest it gets in the daytime.

Definitely packing a thick gi for this trip! :)

Behind the scenes of BJJ European Open 2012

2012-02-01T06:33:00.000-08:00

Here is a little video, I put together from my trip to the Europeans in Portugal :)

Sun, surfing, segways and silver medal in Portugal

2012-01-30T16:40:00.000-08:00

I got back home from Portugal last night, and what an action-packed trip it was :)

Our little team performed really well and we took home three medals, one of each kind. The goal was to get a medal, so I am very satisfied with the result. It was a huge event over four days with a swarm of people filling up the sports hall. I met lots of people, who were reading this or my other blog, and many of my friends I trained and lived with on my trip around the world were there too. It was nice to see so many of them again.

For myself, it went pretty well, in fact a bit better than I had expected. I didn't really have any ambitions for myself, but ended up getting to the final in the master middle weight division, losing on points to the guy who also won the absolute.

I had three matches on the day, and it was nice to compete in master, where the time limit is six minutes instead of eight. It suited me really well, and my energy level was fine. Especially considering, that I haven't been able to do any real cardio or strength training since august.

Let's get straight to the matches :)

First up was a german guy, who had already won his first match. I was seeded one round, so I got the chance to check him out before I met him on the mat. His game looked pretty good and I noticed, that he used his left leg as lead in guard top, which puzzled me a little bit about my tactics. I can do all my moves to both left and right side, but with most people leading with their right leg, that is where I have most experience.

Anyways, I pulled guard right away and for some reason, I got my left leg over his arm right from the start. He was in the wrench, and I was not going to let him out. Broke posture, then locked in a reverse triangle to stabilize while he tried to pull his head out. As he paused, I switched it over to regular and finished when he stood up to escape.

A short first match, that didn't really even get me warm as I hoped for. But it was nice to be able to save some energy for the next ones.

Second match was against a guy I have known from the danish BJJ community for something like ten years now. It was a pleasure to compete against him, and we had a good time before and after the match. I knew his guardpassing style suited my guard really bad, and he also has a tight closed guard. So I couldn't really decided where to play the game, but I eventually picked his guard. From the moment he pulled it, it was survival mode for the rest of the match. I had a decent attempt at passing, but I was mostly defending his sweep and submission attempts. My hope was, that there would be scored no points or advantages, so I would get the referee's decision for being on top. It was a tactic with a tiny margin for winning, and it worked. It could easily have gone either way, but I pulled home the smallest possible win and advanced to next round.

We'll have a rematch another day, where I'll promise to play less boring tactics :D

My opponent in the finale was exceptionally strong. I just couldn't move any of his limbs at all, and when I tried to sweep him, it felt like he was bolted to the floor. My technique and cardio felt good, but he was just physically too big of a handful for me. Usually I try to handle the big guys by taking the pace out of the match in the guard, but eventually he passed using a grip from hell on my ankle.

I managed to keep calm, recover my guard and sweep via deep half, but it was too late and I lost 5-2.

All in all, I am very satisfied with the result. I don't think I made any big mistakes in my matches, really. Of course, that is not always enough to win, but over all I am pleased with my own performance.

Apart from the competition, we had a great time in Lisbon. I wanted to focus on doing other things than just sitting in the sports hall for ten hours a day, so I had arranged for the team to go on a Segways race around town thursday. We did it last year, and it was still just as fun racing up and down those steep, narrow streets of the old town. Walking with my legs seem like such a waste of time after having tried a Segway :D The guys renting them out are super cool and one of them even does BJJ. I highly recommend dropping by GoCars Lisbon if you are there for the tournament next year and - like me - are getting tired of sitting indoors all the time in the noise.

The last day, we went surfing before heading to the airport. It was really nice to be back in the water, and despite difficult conditions, we had a great time there. I got to try my new camera on a surfboard for the first time and got some cool footage out of it.

Good things:

Silver medal at major IBJJF tournament
Cardio and endurance felt ok
Nice to work on guard top defense
No nervousness really

Bad things:

I need to fix my shoulder to get back to weight training
Deep half needs some polishing and experience

Off to Portugal tomorrow

2012-01-24T13:45:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow afternoon, I am heading to beautiful Lisbon in Portugal, to compete at the European Open.

Last year, I set a team with the goal of getting a medal at the tournament after six months of preparations, and we succeeded. This year, I did the same, but we have had a lot of unfortunate injuries and sickness, which means that we will be a smaller group going. I am still very satisfied with being able to take seven competitors from our small gym (eight with visitor, Mario :)), all the way to Portugal to compete at the biggest event in Europe.

I think we have a very good chance of taking home a few medals, and I know everyone will do perform really well and have a good experience.

Personally, I am having my debut in the masters division for brown belts. I have absolutely no idea, how it will go, but will just go on the mat and see what happens. There are some tough guys there, and it is hard to focus on myself, when I am so emotionally involved in my students matches. We'll see! :) No matter what, it will be cool to once again have the opportunity to compete at this level, in one of the world's biggest competitions.

After the competition, I have planned for us to rent segways for sightseeing around town and sunday I will take the whole team to the beach for surfing lessons before we go straight to the airport :)

Interview on Fightmap about quitting my job to start a gym as a blue belt

2012-01-21T09:28:00.000-08:00

Audio interview on the new website Fightmap just got online. I had a bit of a cold at the time, so sound a little funny.

Check out the interview here: http://fightmap.com/2012/01/christian-graugart-jiu-jitsu-dreams/

Competing at the Europeans next week, shoulder not feeling good.

2012-01-19T15:04:00.000-08:00

It's been almost five months since I got some shoulder problems from surfing and weight lifting. It still comes and goes and bothers me a lot. Since it happened, I have been forced to cut down on my weekly training schedule in periods and since I was in Moldova, it has gotten a lot worse.

A full weekend of hard sparring with big guys, many of them beginners who were trying to rip my limbs off with all their power, was definitely not good for me. Add to that, that finding icepacks in Moldova is basically impossible. No one seems to use them, and they don't sell them in pharmacies. Result is, that the inflammation has gotten much worse, and I haven't been able to spar since I got back home. Probably the worst pain in 3-4 months at this moment.

Wednesday, I am flying to Portugal to compete at the Europeans. I know I won't feel anything during the match, but it still is annoying that it has affected my preparations so much. I have done zero upper body weight lifting since august and only been able to do half the amount of weekly sparring than usual.

But whatever, injuries are a part of the game, and the preparations are what they are. I have come to the conclusion, that I will never be 100% ready and fit, so just have to accept it. Worst thing I can do, would be to not step on the mat and compete. There are no excuses, and I need the experience in my BJJ backpack. It can always go good or bad, no matter how prepared I am.

More thoughts about the competition next week before I leave :)

BJJ Globetrotter wins "Best BJJ blog of 2011" award... twice.

2012-01-18T03:28:00.000-08:00

Recently found out, that my BJJ Globetrotter blog won best blog of the year awards with both GiReviews.net (tied) and Jiu Jitsu Laboratory.

Man, I miss writing that blog :)

Documentary from my trip to Moldova

2012-01-17T05:36:00.000-08:00

My weekend in Moldova was awesome. I taught six lessons in 48 hours and more than 75 people showed up to the seminar.

BJJ is just starting to really grow in the country, so it is extremely exciting to be a part of it and be able to help them on the way. I got to train and roll with lots of cool people, including some really skilled and tough Sambo guys.

A lot of impressions and things to write, but I think I'll just let the video do the talking :) It is a bit long and includes me being a bit geeky with my camera as well as lots of training and sparring footage. Hope you like it!

For more, check out a clip from a Moldovan TV station, that did a short feature on the seminar, including an interview with me: http://www.publika.md/vasile-bulgac-a-obtinut-primul-succes-pentru-moldova-la-jiu-jitsu-brazilian_659181.html

Sparring videos from Colombia

2012-01-16T15:13:00.000-08:00

Just got back from an awesome trip to Moldova - will write about that soon.

While you wait, here are some videos, I just discovered were on YouTube of me rolling during a visit to Gracie Barra in Medellin, Colombia:

Off to teach in Moldova

2012-01-12T11:04:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow morning, I am heading to Moldova to teach BJJ over the weekend. I visited during my round the world trip, and now it is time to go back, and see how much has happened since then. Unfortunately, it was not possible for me to make it to the village with the kids this time, but will definitely be back there another time.

Stay tuned for a report, when I get back home next week :)

385 flighthours

2012-01-11T04:47:00.000-08:00

After a tough night of hard sparring the night before, I did a nice and light training yesterday.

Training with Robson again

2012-01-10T13:08:00.000-08:00

Last night, Robson Barbosa dropped by to teach in my gym again. He is living in Sweden and has been coming consistently to train with us over the last 3 or so years. We had about 15 kids, 30 beginners and 40 advanced guys showing up for his classes yesterday, and everybody seemed to like the training.

As always, I got some really good sparring rounds with him. He has gotten an interesting game, that is very explosive and athletic, something that is great for me to practice handling.

I hope to be able to train with him a little more before the Europeans in the end of the month.

Season 2011 recap

2012-01-09T04:21:00.000-08:00

I had planned to write this before New Years, but couldn't find the time, so here it goes, a little delayed :)

2011 was a year, that changed me tremendously both as a person and Jiu Jitsu practitioner. I kickstarted it by competing at the European Open in Portugal for the first time. Lost my first match, but it was a great experience and marked the end of my 2010 competition team project.

Shortly after, I packed my backpack and ventured east for five months of the most intense and life-changing experience I've ever had. Carried by the hands of Jiu Jitsu, I managed to travel 57.920 kilometers all the way around the globe. On the way, I did 90 classes in 56 gyms, visited 43 cities in 24 countries and flew in 35 airplanes. Not to mention, that I made countless of new friends and connections, that will impact the rest of my life.

Needless to say, that trip has become something special to me. I could keep talking about it, but I am currently writing a book on it, where I will put it all in instead. There are just too many good stories and experiences to tell about, that I can't allow not to write it all down.

It was nice to be home in the summer. I had missed everyone here, and I could pick up on the physical training again, something I hadn't been able to do on the trip.

2011 was also an intense year of competition for me. I had originally planned to compete a lot on my trip, but it proved too difficult to practically work out with my busy travel schedule. I managed to do the Worlds in California though, which was a great experience, despite being in horrible shape for it.

When I got home, I felt more confident in my game than ever, and I used that to aim for an ambitious end of the season, competition-wise. In just two months, I did five major competitions around Europe, going to Switzerland, England, Scotland, Paris and Sweden. I took medals in all of them, a few from losing first match, but also a handful of golds from actually winning some matches :)

All in all, my 2011 competition season summed up to seven tournaments and a record of 8 wins and 6 losses. In total, it was four gold, one silver and two bronze for me. For the whole team, we managed to get 67 medals in two months. I can't complain about that :)

Competition is a great indicator, for what one needs to work on, and my experiences this year has been no exception to that rule. Even though competition doesn't really interest me as in I don't hold any ambitions to win, I find it very interesting, when I just see it as a part of my job and development in the sport. Stepping on the mat is just a part of what I do, and really has nothing to do with proving myself or trying to win something. I have learned a ton from competing this year, and all of it, I have taken back to my gym and let my students and training partners benefit from.

I have always known, that I don't have a "competitive spirit". For many years, I used this as a reason to not compete. Now, I still don't have it, but I see the enormous value of competing anyways, and will keep doing it for other reasons, than to try and reach a certain result. A longer blog post about my thoughts on competing is on it's way, as well as being written in the book to come.

I have only spent a little over half a year in the gym at home this season, but it has been an amazing time. The team seems to be at an all time high, with all the classes being full of enthusiastic and fantastic people. Beginners and experienced guys and girls work together and the development of everybody's games are skyrocketing. I recently promoted a lot of guys on the team, which is always something that makes me really proud.

Since I got home, I have had a lot of visits from around the world, which has been really great. Some of them had followed my blog and some of them, I had visited on my trip. We had Martin Aedma from Estonia over for a few weeks during the summer. Robson Barbosa dropped by as usual, a guy from Finland and an american traveller had both read my blog and came, two Scottish BJJers dropped by, a guy from Paris trained with us for a week, Fernando I visited in Costa Rica taught for two months and two days ago, the guy I stayed with in the Galapagos Islands just arrived to train with us for the Europeans. Coming home from Portugal, the man behind Kauai Kimonos and another one of my travel partners from the trip, will be here for a few weeks. This is Jiu Jitsu networking at it's best ;)

So what does 2012 hold? In three weeks, I will compete at the European Open in Portugal. I have also gotten a handful of invitations for seminars, and so far I will be going teaching in Moldova this coming weekend and Moscow, Russia, in the beginning of February. I am also planning a two week trip to Thailand in March, but probably won't be training much there. As far as the rest of the year, I don't know yet, but I will do my best to make it as awesome as 2011!

Now I gotta run, the gym and the world is waiting! :)

398 flighthours sparring video

2011-12-29T03:45:00.000-08:00

Shot a video of some training from tuesday. Most of my sparring is "silent coaching", where I do something specific in order to help my training partner improve in an area of their game, that is lacking. I rarely just go for the kill myself, maybe a result of not having many guys to train with that are much better than me.

First round is with one of my young guys, who are competing in juvenile. I am taking a few of them to the European Open in a month, and is expecting them to do really well. Last year, we got a silver medal in that age division, so we are going for the gold this time :)

With the strong focus on wrestling, I have had on my kids team, they usually end up on top in the competitions. Therefore, I need them to train a lot of defense against the different guard attacks, they will be exposed to. So in the first round, you will see me do a lot of different attacks and positions, so he can practice keeping his base and defending, while setting up his passes.

Guy in second round has a killer underhook against deep halfguard, so I made sure to get caught in that to practice defending it and also let him get even better at it. Besides that, he just recently moved up to blue belt division and needs to work his "plan B", so I usually roll a little extra hard with him.

Third round is against a heavyweight guy, who has a really good guard. It is so difficult to pass, that he doesn't get to train his bottom game escapes so much. To make sure, he gets a chance to do that, I am more aggressive in passing his guard and putting some pressure on him from top.

About listening to my body and respecting, what it says.

2011-12-28T13:50:00.000-08:00

If there is one thing, I have come to a conclusion about through out the years of training, it is, that when my body is trying tell me something, it is for a reason, and I shouldn't ignore it.

Six years ago, I got a herniated disc in my lower back after a deadlift 1 rep max test. Since then, I haven't done any lower body training because of pain in my leg. I have tried physiotherapy and all sorts of other weird stuff, but nothing really helped, and eventually, I just designed my life and training around the injury, not stressing it too much. A lot of situations in Jiu Jitsu, I just skip if I get there and if I have been standing up for about ten minutes, I always find a place to sit down, not even thinking about it.

I haven't really done any serious rehab training for my lower back since the injury. The first many years, I didn't even know what had happened. Since the pain was in my hip area, many doctors and physiotherapists failed to diagnose me. An MRI scan a few years back finally did the job, and it was nice to find out what was actually the problem.

Now, about a month ago, I re-injured my lower back. It was pretty bad, as I couldn't stand up for a full day. When that happened, I realized, that my body was trying to tell me something. It told me loud and clearly, that I shouldn't ignore my disc injury anymore, and it was now time to do something serious about it. There was no doubt about the message, and I completely got it.

The last month, I have been strengthening my lower back with a serious training programme and it seem to have done wonders. Not only is the injury gone, I feel like my back is even stronger now, than it was before. Since I herniated my disc six years ago, I have not been able to do any form of squat or deadlift. Even with the bar only and no weights on, I would be looking at a good week of nerve pain down my leg after a few sets.

I am thrilled to write, that last week, I managed to do deadlifts for the first time in six years, and I have had no pain from it at all. I am moving slowly and is currently lifting 70 kg and doing some hurdle jumps. It feels great to finally be able to do some leg training again.

Once again, I am reminded, that I should respect my body and obey to whatever it is telling me to do. I recommend you do the same :)

Ten quick tips for you, who is practicing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

2011-12-25T17:13:00.000-08:00

I am trying to organize a ton of notes for my upcoming book, The BJJ Globetrotter, on which I am writing like a maniac at the moment. It is containing a lot of my thoughts and philosophy on Jiu Jitsu, and looking at the notes, I decided to quickly boil some of them down for a blogpost.

So here are ten quick tips to make your training and life easier:

1) Don't worry about getting good. There is always someone out there, who will kick your ass anyway, no matter how "good" you get. Just enjoy the daily training, that’s the real value of Jiu Jitsu.

2) The number one factor to really learn Jiu Jitsu is time. Talent and hard work will get you nowhere without time, and there are no shortcuts. Everyone has periods, where they feel like they have stopped improving or are getting worse. Frustrations like that, are a part of the journey and they will pass. Stick with it and eventually you will be a black belt too, it’s just that simple.

3) Don't try to learn too many things at once. Focus on really learning a few things, maybe only four or five a year. Make a commitment to yourself to always go for these in sparring, and with time, you will end up with a handful of solid a-game moves, that you can pull off against almost anyone. As a beginner, trying to learn a hundred moves off YouTube is a classic mistake. Pick out a few basic things, that you have been taught in person instead.

4) Trust experience. The advantage of having a more experienced teacher is, that he made all the mistakes for you in the past. Even though something might initially not make sense or seem to work for you, trust what he tells you, keep trying and it will pay off in the end.

5) Don’t worry about the color of your belt and number of little tape stripes on it. It really doesn’t make sense to try and sharply divide the skill level of individual athletes into so many categories. Imagine a ranking system like that in any other sport, like maybe tennis, golf or basketball? Measuring your expectations of performance against who ever you clap hands with, through these nonsense visual indicators is impossible. Despite being a cute idea, belts symbolize many other things, than just how you are “supposed” to do in sparring and competition. We are each on own our own journey, and you can confidently be proud of where ever you have personally gotten to. It is normal for many people to feel, that they don’t deserve a promotion, but you have to trust your instructor on that. He probably trained a lot longer than you, and most likely knows better. There will be plenty of time to mature in your belt, and it is a part of it.

6) Compete, even though your brain tries to convince you not to. You will lose and you will suck, but it is an important and non-avoidable part of competing, that pays off in the long run. For us normal people, it takes everything from 20-40 matches to start getting a hang of competing. Everything up until that point is full of nerves, irrational thoughts and lots of bad results. And don't wait till you feel “ready” to compete. No matter how ready and prepared you might think you are, there is still a very good chance, that you will lose anyway. Just jump in the deep water as early as possible and learn how to swim there, instead of spending all your time practicing on land. The experience - no matter the result - is worth way more, than giving in to your natural fear of failing. You will agree, when you've done it.

7) Train with everyone. There isn't one correct way to do Jiu Jitsu and you might have ten different black belts show you ten ways to do the same technique, before you settle on how it works best for you. Also, the people in that other gym in town have similar interests as you, and could very likely become great friends and training partners. Why not pay them a visit next week? Jiu Jitsu politics makes zero sense, except for those, who are worried about losing money or status in a fantasy hierarchy, which basically only exists in their own heads. In the real world, where most of us lives, grown ups should be allowed to play with any other grown ups they like. Especially, if they pay for it.

8) Jiu Jitsu is a fantastic vehicle for social life and traveling. With this sport, you posses a special key to experience other worlds. You can walk into any academy on the planet and you will have an instant network of local friends. That is a bulletproof recipe for lifetime experiences, memories and friendships. Do it.

9) The final answer, on wether you should train gi or no-gi is here. Just do whatever you enjoy most.

10) If you come by a waterfall, always do a cool Kung Fu pose under it. It will improve your balance and sweep defense.

Back injury rehab exercises

2011-12-15T10:39:00.000-08:00

Someone commented on one of my recent posts about my back injury, asking about what exercises I used for the rehab. Since my new handy GoPro camera is always at hand in the gym, I brought it downstairs to our CrossFit gym today and filmed my routine.

I tried to remember all the exercises, I have been doing since I got the injury, but probably missed one or two. In the video, I show all of them, but during the last few weeks, it has of course been a progression, starting with the easy ones, building up strength to be able to do the hard ones.

My back feels really good now, and I have started to roll again. Still only sparring with the 15-16 year old boys that don't have the weight to push my back too much, but they are giving me a serious run for my money.

Maybe you can use some of it too, maybe not. At least it is here for my own future reference, if I get back pain again :)

Quick update: Back on the mats!

2011-12-09T10:36:00.000-08:00

I visited my physio today and he was surprised, how fast I had healed up. Rolled a little bit with the teens wednesday and today with some adults, just making sure I didn't have any heavy loads on my lower back. It went fine, and I am psyched to work my way back up to high intensity training again.

Rehabbing like a boss, will roll tomorrow.

2011-12-06T10:27:00.000-08:00

I've been really consistent with the rehab training for my back this time, doing it twice a day since I got the injury last friday. There is a great improvement, and I plan on trying to slowroll a little tomorrow. I'll probably start out by rolling with the kids and teens first, before I move on to the adults next week. It is such a privilege to have high level technical sparring partners in all ages and sizes to chose from, when I am injured :)

Was working on some technique for an hour today, and back didn't complain at all, so I am very pleased. I think my mental focus on fixing this injury has really made a difference to me. Instead of seeing the injury as an annoying thing keeping me from training, I have chosen to look it as a challenge. Like a competition, I am trying to win and I will work every day to improve whatever it takes to succeed. In some way, it has actually been exciting to try and fix myself. I must say I am a little surprised, that I feel this way about having an injury, but I will definitely keep this mindset for next time something happens. Makes it a little less boring to be sidelined from sparring.

Hopefully, I will have enough time to get up in gear before the European Open in Portugal in January. Just bought the plane ticket today!