Monday, 29 January 2018

UAEJJF National Pro Jiu-Jitsu Champion

January 29, 2018

Nathan Waters - Total Health Performance

We just want to say a massive congratulations to Igor Almeida for winning gold yesterday down in Melbourne at the UAEJJF National Pro. It has been a long road back from some big injuries to his back and then a shoulder reconstruction, but he has put in a lot of work and showed that he is ready to reach his potential.
A lot of people see the success but not many get to see what actually happens behind the scenes with the enormous ups and downs you go through when injured and then the amount of hard work and discipline it takes to get back to the level you were at and ultimately, past it.
Injuries suck but they do teach you a lot of things. You are never done, you might have bad days but if you just keep working hard and persisting and being grateful for what you do have you will get through it.
Igor has done this and I know he is very focused for up coming comps.
Well done mate. So proud of you.

Professor Bruno Alves was also happy with the performance posting the following.

"Well boys!!
Double gold today☝️
Inspired by Igor Almeida 6 months ago Igor had reconstructed shoulder and now is back on the mats winning a category above his division and beating a World Class Brown belt in the finals👊
Never give up, hard times always will come but not to stay👊"

Igor was weighing 64.7kg on Thursday and competed in the 77kg class on Sunday. It was his first comp at brown belt and he came up against a guy who finished second at the worlds last year so it was a great test.

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Friday, 26 January 2018

A Quick Way To Monitor Overtraining

January 26, 2018

Nathan Waters - Total Health Performance

There are many ways to monitor overtraining but for me the simplest way is to take my morning body weight and monitor that. It is simple, quick, and effective.

This is something I learnt from Charles Poliquinmany years ago and I still use it now. If your body weight drops 1.8kg or more, cut training for the day. I applied this at the beginning of the week. On Monday morning I weighed 86.6kg. I done my regular weights session and then got back into some Jiu-Jitsu training. I haven’t trained jiu-jitsu for a few months because of an injury before Pan Pacs in October last year and I done a double session so it was quite a big day. Tuesday morning I weighed 84.7kg, down 1.9kg overnight. So, I knew not to train Tuesday. I just ate and recovered. Wednesday morning I was back to 85.9kg, didn’t feel fully recovered but still felt good enough to lift so I did. By Wednesday morning I was back to 86.4kg.

Not knowing this I may have just pushed through and trained Tuesday but I would more than likely have had a poor session and from experience set myself up for injury. Now, it may not have happened on that day but continually pushing through days when I am down that much in body weight has definitely contributed to many of my injuries I have had throughout my life. As a young rugby league player this was normal and you just got the work done. It’s not all bad as it helps mentally but over the long run you are going to break down. So for me I have to be smarter with what I am doing now and pull back at times. I struggle with this the most. For a lot of people I see, this won’t apply. They don’t push hard enough and I believe it would actually be good for them to reach this point to know they will not die.

When using this as a tool to monitor overtraining I am not talking about measuring fluid loss. A lot of the time body weight is used before and after a session to monitor the amount of fluid lost. On Monday I replenished and was back to my 86.6kg in the afternoon but Tuesday morning was down to 84.7kg as mentioned above. So there is more to it. I felt drained, like a deep central nervous system fatigue.

So take your morning body weight, record it consistently and you can use it as a guide to determine how hard to push in your training and when it may be time to back off a bit.

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