COMO RECUPERAR LA FORMA DEPUES DE UN DESCANSO

Training Layoffs Pt 2
From: Stephan Kesting

Last time I tried to reassure you that occasionally taking breaks from your training is NOT the end of the world. Injuries need time to heal, priorities can shift rapidly, and sometimes life just plain gets in the way of training. But there ARE things you can do to make it a little easier when you do eventually get back to training.  My recommendations are based on a mix of scientific research and my own personal experience.

Hopefully you'll come away from this lesson with a couple nuggets of practical advice.

PHYSICAL FACTORS:

BJJ is a physical sport, and so it should come as no surprise that physical factors have a strong effect on your performance. These physical factors include strength, power, flexibility, aerobic / anaerobic endurance, muscular endurance, coordination and balance. The trouble is that when you stop training your performance in all these areas drop off...

Some of the first things to go are aerobic and anaerobic endurance - for the sake of this lesson I'll lump them together as 'cardio.' When someone has been off the mat for a month or two and then come back to training they often do OK in the first few minutes of sparring. 

 As they get a little deeper into the sparring match, however, things start to go wrong.  They're suddenly exhausted and their grappling level drops precipitously. That's because when you get tired you're not strong.  When you get tired you're not fast.  When you get tired you're not even smart.

So cardio is critical!!!

There's a lot of research on endurance, and it turns out that a simple concept like 'endurance' isn't actually very simple.  To dig into this research you have to become comfortable with terms like VO2 max, exercise stroke volume, respiratory exchange ratio and ventricular wall thickness...

The bottom line is that if you stop training your endurance will start going down within a week or two.  At first the effects might be relatively small, but in a close match a few percentage points of VO2 Max can sure make a difference.

You also lose strength, power, explosiveness and muscular endurance, but usually this takes a little longer than the relatively rapid decline in cardio. So when a layoff is inevitable try not to become a complete couch potato (or desk jockey). Try your best to stay active and do something physical.  If you have a choice, then give priority to activities that get you out of breath. Even it's only a 20 minute jog, every little bit of cardio helps.  You can look at it as crosstraining. 

 

 Anything is better than doing nothing.  Running.  Lifting.  Climbing.  Swimming.  Soccer.  Yoga.  Biking.  Boxercise.  Hiking.  Skiing.  Rollerblading.  Pushups.  Crunches.  Pull-ups. Once you start training again you'll start regaining what you've lost.  If you took 2 months off of training then it will take at least 2 months to get back into the shape you were in before you stopped.

One final thing to consider: if you just don't have the time for physical activities, or if you're injured, then pay attention to your diet and don't let that slip too! It's hard enough to get your heart and lungs back into shape without having to lose an additional 20 lbs of bad body weight...

MENTAL FACTORS

In BJJ the mental game is at least as important as the physical game (that's why small BJJ black belts eat larger, stronger opponents for breakfast). Mental factors include creativity, sensitivity, perception skills, the ability to remember techniques, the ability to make quick decisions, willpower, self discipline and mental toughness. All of these factors are important, and all of them decline with detraining.

However the ability to make quick decisions is one of the first things to go when you stop training. Here's an example. When you're sparring after a long layoff you still know what you should be doing and how you should be reacting to your opponent. The problem is that your thoughts move like molasses. 

Your opponent does something, and it's up to you to pick the correct response.  But you're like the ship's computer in the old Star Trek series: "... processing ... processing ... processing..." You haven't forgotten all the BJJ you ever knew.  It's just taking you longer to make decisions.

Back at your peak you could choose the right technique in the blink of an eye.  Now the same decision takes three or four seconds, by which  time your opponent has moved again and the situation has already changed.Your old sparring partners are now one or two steps ahead of you all the time. So what can you do about this?

I'm not going to go into the actual research here, but there's a ton of evidence that VISUALIZING activities and WATCHING activities then helps you PERFORM those same activities. So the bottom line is that anything you do to keep your brain actively thinking about BJJ will keep your mental skills sharp.

Go drop by class and watch your friends spar.  Watch some instructional DVDs.  Study how a high level player competes by watching youtube.  Read a book.  Visualize using your favorite techniques.  Daydream about new techniques. All these things help.

And finally I have to point out that ALL your mental processes get slower when you're fatigued. So work on your brain and your body, and you WILL see the effects of it when you get back to the mat.

Stephan Kesting