Becoming Self-Smarted

Training has been kind of up and down lately as I’ve had to work around a few minor injuries, both of which were related to jiu-jitsu. First, I separated some ribs, which just took forever to heal. Then after a good two weeks back at jiu-jitsu, I managed to strain my shoulder on a cold morning in the gym. It’s been about four weeks now and I haven’t felt strong enough to go back just yet. At the moment, I have a real love-hate relationship with jiu-jitsu. I love going to the gym early in the morning and training with the folks over there. It’s such a great crew of people who all regularly work on improving and challenging themselves. The movement and strength involved with jiu-jitsu are also unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. The ground work and physicality is so brutal yet so fun and rewarding. It’s definitely something I’d like to do the rest of my life. I just need to figure out a way to continue lifting and training jiu-jitsu without injuring myself and missing time in the gym. I think when I go back to jiu-jitsu, hopefully next week, I’m going to start out just doing two days per week. This should allow me more recovery time from the mat and the weights. It will also let me avoid double duty days where I was rolling in the morning and then squatting heavy later on in the day. As much as I’d like to pretend that I could do it all, the reality is that it just hasn’t been working out too well for me.

I’ll be 38 in April, and while I certainly don’t feel old, little things like recovery and minor injuries are certainly more noticeable than when I was 28. The problem is that my mentality is still that of someone who’s 22 and bulletproof. I feel guilty when I back off or give myself a break, but I know that I need to start being a little more realistic about where I’m at in life and my overall purpose for training and staying physically strong. This is a marathon, not a sprint, so it's time for me to start training appropriately. Now this doesn’t mean I plan on training soft, but I need to stop pushing so hard when things aren’t feeling right. My natural instinct is to keep my head down and try to brute force my way through any issues that arise, but this is pretty much never the smart approach. My goal is to train for the rest of my life, which means finding a way to preserve myself over the long haul.