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Last week I was my first "real" comeback on the mat after being out for close to six months with my back injury. I must have done well with the rehab, because I actually managed to train six days out of seven, only resting on sundays. My back feels pretty strong and I am optimistic about the next four weeks of preparations.
Last time I competed was at the Europeans in January, so with the long lay-off without training and competition, I don't have high expectations for the results. My goal so far is to complete the five weeks of preparation and be able to step on the mat with as healthy a body as possible. It will also be my debut in the black belt division, but I am not really thinking much about that. There will be guys I can beat and guys I definitely cannot beat, so I can do nothing but to just lean back, enjoy the ride and see what will happen.
I know this blog is pretty fucking boring at the moment, since I am still injured and doesn't train at all. I'll still do a few posts for my own record, so I can keep track of my injury periods along the years.
I have been staying really strict with my disc injury rehab training, and I think it is starting to pay off. I am upping the intensity of the exercises and don't really feel any pain down my leg, so I guess that is a good sign.
My shoulder injury is still bugging me, and I was hoping for it to improve during this rest period rehabbing my back. Nothing has really happened, so today I got an ultrasound scan, revealing a "quite substantial inflammation", as the doctor said. No wonder, it has been hurting for ten months now (I wrote this post about taking care of my shoulder in FEBRUARY). Guess I'll remember to warm up before a hard surfing session next time. Anyways, I got a adrenal cortex hormone shot right into the shoulder, and that should hopefully fix it. It would be quite a luxury to be able to lift weights again soon, hasn't really been able to do it since before I left on my trip in February 2011 :(
Through out my career of training, many people have told me, that the injuries usually starts to show themselves when you pass 30. I turned 30 two months ago, and I actually haven't really trained since! I know injuries are a part of training for a living, but they never seem to be convenient, when they finally come around.
It is really frustrating to just sit around on the mat everyday and watch the training without being able to join in. I have big plans of trying my luck against black belts in competition in the fall, and would like to start getting somehow in shape for that.
Good thing is, that I am spending every free minute of my day, doing the last editing on my book. It should be ready preeeetty soon :)
Crossed
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!
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
- Sparring only three days a week
- 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 :)
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 :)
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 :)
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.
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!
I filmed a bit more sparring last week, before I hurt my back. Instead of waiting for more footage to add, I thought I'd just throw this up on it's own. Going to take a little while before I can roll again, anyways.
Had a bad day of training when it was filmed. Felt a bit stressed out that day and couldn't really concentrate on the sparring. It was pretty good practice though, since my training partners were very good and tough, so I had to try and push myself in a situation, where my mental state was against me.
After having been in the bed all weekend with back pain, I feel considerably better now. I am actually able to stand up and walk, more than I could saturday. I bit more optimistic, but will probably be out of sparring for a while.
I have been training martial arts basically my entire life. When I was a kid, I didn't even know about the concept of recovery. I was never tired. Even when I was in my teens and early twenties, I could train as much and hard as I wanted, combined with only little sleep and drinking alcohol every weekend, and still not be get tired from it. At that time, many people told me "oooh, you just wait till you get to your thirties, then you'll start feeling it!".
I think I have been cheated. It is still a good six months till I turn thirty and my body feels like a wreck at the moment!
When I was younger, injuries was something I had for days or weeks. Now, they seem to last for months or years instead. When I have had a hard night of training, I wake up the next day and feel like I have been hit by a truck.
The knee injury I got in competition last summer is still nagging me, so is the shoulder problem from August. To make things worse, I hurt my lower back pretty bad friday. I got a herniated disc there about six years ago, which had started to heal up pretty well. When rolling, I was twisted or pushed or something, I am not sure what happened, but I felt a slight pain exactly in my disc injury. The result was, that I was in my bed the entire day yesterday, not being able to stand up or walk.
Despite having gotten much better today, I am seriously worried about this back injury, as it could potentially sideline me for a long time. And I don't like breaks from training. At all :(
Anyways, I am crossing my fingers, staying away from sparring, seeing my doctor and starting rehab training tomorrow. I hope it is not bad enough to keep me from competing at the Europeans in two months, but we'll see.
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