Can't Lift Heavy

Training
1

So it seems lifting heavy, doing super sets, and trying to gain weight doesn’t work so well when you’re doing jui jitsu and muay thai as well. I only do 4 hrs or jits, and 2 of muay thai a week, so this surprises me. I’ve been trying to gain back a good amount of weight I lost at the beginning of summer, and it hasn’t been happening, because every time I lift my shoulders get achy, and my tendons/ligaments/something in my lower biceps/upper forearm starts killing me. Once this happens there seems to be little tolerance for jits. The pain and weakness gets so bad that I literally can’t hold anything at shoulder level, or squeeze hard enough to hold a cup of water.

So…

Can anyone point me towards some general concepts for creating a training program that won’t stress my ligaments and tendons? Training is priority 1, but i have too much time on my hands not to lift.

2

whats the rest of your schedule is like- are you a student? Do you have a job? Do you sleep enough?

I always found that when I was actively doing a martial art two or three times a week, I could only lift maybe once or twice without being blown out. You sound like either you’re seriously lacking in the nutritional realm or you’re overtraining the shit out of yourself.

I think that when you’re really pursuing a martial art (or two) and looking to really get good, it’s going to be damned near impossible to put on a lot of size if you’re already training six days a week. Something’s going to give one way or the other. You’ve got to make one or the other a priority.

And if you still want to lift, you can, but do a couple short, heavy full body workouts and call it a week.

3

Full time job 8-4, plus a part time 5-9 three times a week. I get 7 to 8 hours depending on the day. Taking my joint sups, fish oil, protein, and rhodiliola rosea. Other than the pain in my arms I feel fine.

I do jits weds and thurs for two hours a day, an hour or rolling each, and some muay thai work friday.

I hope I’m not over training! It’s not impossible, but I was doing lots of heavy lifts. I’ve put jits first, but I wouldn’t mind putting on a few lbs over the summer. I have upped my carbs, as they were seriously low until a week ago. Thoughts?

4

Keep it really short and simple- pick just one good exercise. Maybe one supplemental exercise. Experiment when it’s best, maybe right after jiujitsu class? Don’t go heavy if it hurts, don’t go unilateral. Many exercises can be done without pain with a different setup.

And check out your “thing”. If it’s real tendonitis or something similar (have you been curling?) you need to rest it and/or see a physical therapist.

5

Yeah I was curling and doing jits, which i believe killed it. Sounds good guys! Thanks for the advice, and insight. Will let you know how it plays out.

6

Don’t.
Curl.
Period.

You’re a fighter, you’re supposed to kick ass, not flex ass.

Also: most fighters I know have this disease which I call “morbus repitus”.

Again, it’s simple here: Don’t rep out if you’re training a lot of MA and have trouble getting stronger.
Low rep is good for you; don’t go above 5 or 6 reps.

They never believe me, they try to sneak in 50 pushups as “warmup” or do “one last flush set”.
It seems that for a fighter training somehow has to hurt.

We sure are a bunch of masochistic bitches.

7

Smells like Dan John one lift a day.
:slight_smile:

I have mixed feelings about high reps

if you are going for low volume there is nothing like good heavy triples

at my ‘advanced’ age I need to mix high rep work specifically to help my joints
I program higher rep work as assistance work or as a stand alone phase to
give the joints a break.
but is a high rep set or two - not several sets for this washed up meathead.

however like swarztfather says- its about total volume-
what are you doing on the mat, in the ring or weightroom- has to level out a bit.
you have to find a balance.

tendinitis
I have it badly first in one arm then another.
it can be very painful, I took a year off- no cleans, pullups etc
and I have to be very careful with that shit.
blue ice and liniment help so does eating cleaner and fishoil in 10,000mg range
MSM and curricumin500 work wonders.

Food-

lots of carbs- complex carbs will make any inflammation worse.
Protein, if your 1.5 grams of lean body weight go up to two
go up to 2.5 if need be this should help allot with recovery

again fish oil MSM and curricumen 500

recovery

the missing link its what your not doing- between work, training and weight room
recovery is about clean food and rest and being youthful sometimes its
just too natural to keep going.

8

Wait wait wait… are you guys telling me that being jacked and tan isn’t the key to being a good fighter?

OK in all seriousness. Thanks for the advice!

No curls? Breaks my heart, but can do.

I’ve got to start on my fish oil again. I’m currently taking very little, but I was taking tons.

KMC… all i eat is complex carbs! SERIOUSLY! Minus a cup of ramen i started when i figured I needed more carbs. Is this a problem? My carbs are oats, ezek bread, and the low carb tortillas. Will the ramen be good enough or should I nix the low carb tortillas for regular ones? I want to try some curricumen, but rent is stretched enough as is.

I was figuring on one heavy push, one heavy pull, and on heavy lower body movement x2 a week. Mixed with a few light high rep circuts. I want to keep the lower body to a min, as my legs are mostly what cramps.

9

Im not anti carb but I do notice when I take in more
any inflammations that I have get worse

10

Why are you trying to gain weight? With all that going on it will be relatively tough to do so, though it can be done.

For your lifting you need to ease into heavier weights to get your tendons used to it. Probably 1 month or so working your way from like 60% of your maxes to 80%.

Higher reps is also a debatable issue in itself, as you could be doing 3x10, or 10x3, theres still 30 reps thoguh possibly a different tonnage. The tonnage is the important part. I did some advanced 5x5 cycles and believe me, training martial arts during that was very very trying. It had me lifting heavy 3x a week and doing a shit ton of volume and then lower the volume but hitting new prs. I was able to train 1-2 times a week total in MA. However now im back to alot more MA and cardio training and pretty much still have the strength gains that i aquired. it was well worth it.

This really comes down to periodization. If gaining strength is a serious goal of yours I would highly recommend taking 2 months or so and pursuing the weightroom as priority number one. Do 1-2 martial arts workouts a week and cardiac output style cardio for endurance. It is possible to make both endurance and strength gains as well.

11

I’m trying to gain weight because I have being 165 lbs, when a few months ago I was 185 at the same body fat. This is what happens when you don’t eat enough and you don’t focus on lifting.

12

i say up the cals. i lost a shitload of weight when i started training 9hours a week again, it caught me by surprise with a shitty diet to match.

beef saves me. eat at least a pound a day plus other protein sources, you’ll see the muscles come back, keep your carbs around training times and have a huge shake in the morning.

13

you prolly need to take some time off. I rest a full week after say 3-4 months of training hard. It’s ok. It wont hurt you. You wont lose anything in a week. If you dont wanna miss out on techniques and stuff, no one says you cant go and watch. When I broke my ribs, watching class opened my eyes to a few mistakes I was making and later corrected.

14

I had to take a couple months off of judo and lifting after a couple bad armbars in a tourney. I focused solely on squats for that time period and did a 12 week Smolov cycle. Put half an inch on my arms, an inch on my thighs, and gained 10 pounds. I also added 45 to my squat, and when I got back to benching I’d actually gotten stronger there too.

Take some time off while you have the choice instead of being forced to the sidelines. Unless you compete, there’s no reason to train through injuries of this nature.

15

When in doubt go back to basics…

Take some time off, stay away from the weight room. Don’t read T-Nation. Don’t watch 300. Stay out of Sport Chalet. Don’t drink a protein shake. Don’t count your calories. Just detox from the weight room for a week.

Now when you’re ready to lift again change shit up to a very basic plan just 2, MAYBE 3 days a week, low rep, 3-5x3-8 reps just kick back and basically deload, and slowly (every week or 2) add in some more stuff. Meanwhile you can work on prehabbing any injuries and increase your time spent on actual combat.

Just a 4 week cycle of this would be fine.

Stay away from the curls, you’re building up a shitload of volume on our elbows already from MMA, very much less pullups, rows, curls, extensions, presses, etc… You have to eliminate all the unnecessary shit so that you can have higher quality actual combat sessions. The LESS work you do in the weight room, the MORE you can recover from training.

WHATEVER training system you use (531, westside, crossfit, etc) you need to be keeping track of are a couple indicator lifts that are working the athletic attributes that you want to improve (leg strength= squat, pull strength= weighted Chinups) and make sure that you’re improving them EVERY microcycle. After 4 weeks there’s no reason you can’t put 5lbs on your upperbody lifts and 10lbs on your lowerbody lifts… Also whatever indicators for the energy systems you’re training as well (Rounds of bagwork or circuits) should be attuned specifically to the time frame of the event your training for (3x5min rounds, or a 5round fight, or 3min rounds like in muay thai) but just keep track of something. You can get as detailed as you want (counting punch/kick volume by videotaping your bagwork sessions) just make sure that you are keeping track and PROGRESSIVELY improving.

As far as choosing assistance exercises… this is probably incorrect somehow but the analogy helps me- think of the exercises like prehab or ‘activation’ exercises. So like for glute activation exercises you’re doing your best to tense the muscle as hard as possible and activate as many fibers as you can so that you’re starting to recruit your glutes in all your movements instead of them being shut down by stronger muscle groups… In my mind assistance exercises are exactly the same except used just progressed farther along, so these are the weighted versions basically. So if I’m doing dumbbell presses I need to be HYPERAWARE of my muscle groups and tensing whatever I want to be activating and CONSCIOUSLY applying as much force as possible not just walking through the movement. Don’t just throw up the weight, pay close attention to your form and getting as much tension out of the muscle groups as you can while applying maximal force & velocity to the bar/implement. With this mindset when you train your CNS during your maximal lifts you’ll be recruiting more muscle fibers and (if your diet is good) have muscle fibers with larger cross sectional area.

As far as your diet, it sounds like you need WAY more carbs and a hell of a lot more calories. Especially if you’re attempting to gain weight. You probably don’t realize how many calories you’re actually burning through a day. Keep track of what you normally eat as much as possible and just keep adding 3500 calories per week (500 calories a day) till you start to gain a lb a week. You can then balance your diet by a couple hundred calories a day as long as you know your equilibrium. I eat like Dan John preaches, meat leaves and berries. As close to a caveman as possible. I have a thing for chocolate milk so that’s my only ‘sin’ but otherwise I get all my carbs from veggies and fruit. I actually make a lot of vegan/raw food type meals. Use a vitamix blender and make soups, juices, etc.

The reason I eat this way is because what not a lot of people talk about is that if you train multiple times a day then you usually don’t want to eat after training really hard or you’re about to train again so you don’t want a full stomach. Then you end up in a caloric deficit, or not energized for training sessions. Raw food diet, I end up getting a ton of carbs from juices, shakes, and stuff plus all the good part of veggies & fruit (antioxidants, vitamins, etc) but it’s also really easy on my stomach so I don’t feel bloated or stuffed or anything.

16

5-3-1 2 days a week, I wrestle and fight. Along with that work fulltime.