Just started going straight from boxing to MMA and I’m occasionally finding time to fit in some No-Gi grappling on the side. Any recovery tips besides “eat, and sleep” that have worked well. I’ve probably heard them, but I’m looking for individual experiences and opinions.
I personally set a lot of stock in active recovery. I feel like garbage for a while if I just lay around waiting to feel better.
High doses of fish oil and BCAAs are recommended by some of the T-Nation authors.
I tell you, as hokey as it sounds (and to me it did sound hokey) contrast showers have helped me quite a bit. They seem to work best if I take one fairly soon after my workout. I just do 3 min or so hot water and 1-1.5 min cold. The important factor is the temp difference between hot and cold…bigger the difference you can stand the better. That has helped me a lot.
Contrast showers can also be done in rather quick rep fashion, which I like way more.
for instance:
wash body 1-2 minutes ,then
[10 sec barely warm, 10 sec cold] x 10.
Very important: Learn to relax in the cold water!
Don’t feel like a pussy if you have to start with “fairly warm” + “not so cold”, but work up to “lukewarm” + “coldest possible”.
Also, talking a 30 to 45 min nap is my secret technique. The key is getting used to it. The body must know that he’s not going to bed earlier but that it’s a pure brief recreational period. Works both pre or post training.
[quote]danew wrote:
I tell you, as hokey as it sounds (and to me it did sound hokey) contrast showers have helped me quite a bit. They seem to work best if I take one fairly soon after my workout. I just do 3 min or so hot water and 1-1.5 min cold. The important factor is the temp difference between hot and cold…bigger the difference you can stand the better. That has helped me a lot.[/quote]
I thought I was the only person who did this! I usually count to 20 or 30 then switch from hot to cold.
For me one of the best recover secrets is knowing which days to take it easy. I try to train BJJ 5-6 days a week and lift 3 days, but this means some days in BJJ I just have to roll very light with some small white belts.
Ice treatment: ice bath, ice shower, ice massage. just go ice age on that shit
followed by warm therapy/treatment- imo i actually avoid this unless i know exactly whats wrong because it can sometimes increase swelling if something is inflamed.
epsom salt baths
massages (self/foam, or by a practitioner) the best is by a practitioner preferably an ART person.
Do not underestimate simply getting in a nap. read something about cuban o-lifters who took naps right after training and could repeat the same weights and often beat them in their 2nd workout of the day.
naptime is super-fuckin-anabolic.
citrulline malate
beta alanine
L-Tyrosine (or just use Power Drive, imo)
stretching, so underrated its silly.
fish oil- you know what that pain in your muscles and joint happens to be? inflammation. Guess what fishoil does…thats right…reduces inflamation.
If you don’t know about BCAA’s by now just quit.
GPP: seems counter intuitive but feeder workouts really do work if you can reduce your GO FOR THE KILL mindset (which is my problem). if i start training its hard to not go balls out. But if you can really just do enough to get the blood flowing… Especially after you take a boatload of bcaa’s and protein, carbs, etc… you’ll feed your muscles faster and therefore recover faster. keep in mind how light these needs to be just a little ‘pump’ which you can induce with some light isometrics on your door frame in 10-15s. you don’t need to push your suburban around the block.
Thanks for the responses, I’ll give those a shot. I’ll try them a few at a time so I can see the effect of each.
Xen how much effect do you see from beta alanine? Are you just following the studies or can you feel an effect in your training?
I was also interested in Beta Alanine, and reckon I’ll just go out and grab some early next week. Am already stretching (for the win!) and taking BCAA’s and oil-o-fish, but training every weekday is a new thing for me and I’m feeling it.
- Joint mobility:
http://www.maxwellsc.com/article-daily-dozen
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walking
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+1 anabolic napping, especially in a low-pressure tanning bed
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cold water bucket treatments, or contrast showers
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SLEEP!
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meditation CDs played through headphones
[quote]Xen Nova wrote:
epsom salt baths
I love these and they’re super cheap. Probably will help with any cut and scrapes as well.
[quote]No-Gi wrote:
Thanks for the responses, I’ll give those a shot. I’ll try them a few at a time so I can see the effect of each.
Xen how much effect do you see from beta alanine? Are you just following the studies or can you feel an effect in your training?[/quote]
muscular endurance shot up quite a bit, even with less of a workload.
not sure if its the citurlline malate or the beta alanine
after next week ill take one of the two out of the equation and i’ll let you know for sure which one it is causing the effect.
[quote]downwardog wrote:
- meditation CDs played through headphones
[/quote]
great reccomendation. i have “gold medal mental workout: for combat sports”
This is all good advice, contrasts baths did a lot of help my back heal when I hurt it. Took 1, 20 minute ice bath, took about an hour break took a burning hot bath for about 20 minutes, took about 30 minute break took another ice bath for 20 minutes.
For recovery I find meditation to be extremely valuable.
[quote]No-Gi wrote:
Xen how much effect do you see from beta alanine? Are you just following the studies or can you feel an effect in your training?[/quote]
No-gi, I’m not a fighter, so take this with a grain of salt, but I like beta-alanine. I’m not big on supps, but beta-alanine - from the two times I’ve tried it - worked well for me. I’d say it’s my #3 supp, behind protein and bcaa’s. Yes, I like it better than creatine (for me personally, but I’m weird, because some brands of creatine I find very effective, some I dont.)
Anyway, if you have teh money, give it a shot, but make sure you’ve got enough $$ for a two month supply, because you’ve really gotta give it more than a month to be fair. If you dont have teh cash tho, just spend it on protein and bcaa’s
i’m with KBC creatine doesnt do much for me… but im going to try Biotest’s this month when I re-up. so we’ll see how that goes.
and yea B.A. takes about 6wks to really ‘kick in’ Thats my judge with just about any supplement. I love people who “feel it” on their first use. Placebo effect guys come on now.
Very few things work like they’re aspirin, and even that takes 30-60min to kick in.
i get a kick out of people who have a couple sips of an energy drink then act like they’re on meth.
Id love to slip a Spike Shooter into their kool aid just to fuck with them.
Massage always works well for me. Deep tissue massage feels like shit when you’re getting it done(ahhhhh my IT band!!haha) but you can really feel a difference afterwards. Also some active recovery like light shadow boxing/skipping and a good stretch helps a lot.
[quote]JonnyTMT wrote:
Massage always works well for me. Deep tissue massage feels like shit when you’re getting it done(ahhhhh my IT band!!haha) but you can really feel a difference afterwards. Also some active recovery like light shadow boxing/skipping and a good stretch helps a lot.[/quote]
Problem, I’m cheap, massages done by a professional are pretty expensive, no? I’d rather spend that money on more chow and lessons. What does a pro massage run?
whats why you find a woman who is a certified massuse or you send her to fuckin massage school.
</end chauvinism>
[quote]No-Gi wrote:
JonnyTMT wrote:
Massage always works well for me. Deep tissue massage feels like shit when you’re getting it done(ahhhhh my IT band!!haha) but you can really feel a difference afterwards. Also some active recovery like light shadow boxing/skipping and a good stretch helps a lot.
Problem, I’m cheap, massages done by a professional are pretty expensive, no? I’d rather spend that money on more chow and lessons. What does a pro massage run?[/quote]
You know, i just thought, we’ve had the obligatory foam roller reference, but I’m actually a big fan of The Stick. I find it more useful as a warmup tool - sort of workign out the knots, getting a little blood flow when I first get to the gym - but if I’m feeling DOMs especially bad I’ll use it in between sessions for recovery. And there are plenty who use it exclusively for that.
Also, I always forget, I have a little e-stim device, I think they’re selling it for $70 or soemthing? It’s over at hi-dow.com I’d be hesitant to spend that much but I got mine at a street stand so they tried it out on me and I was hooked, I woulda paid 100. i will say this tho: GREAT for injuries, not so special for just general soreness or “im tense I need to relax”
i’ll second the stick…
some more info on the e-stim shit though please…