Category Archives: Training

Posting specifically related to the area of training

A New Training Attitude

A New View of Discipline

My ACDF surgery really made me rethink my training. This wasn’t a knee or shoulder this was my cervical spine, if something happened here I could have lost my ability to walk, move my arms, etc. So I started to rethink the way I was training and rethink how I viewed discipline as related to Physical training. I now have come to view discipline in a new way.

Discipline in Training

Discipline is a very necessary thing when trainning for any sport and for life in general. To me a good general definition for discipline would be:

Discipline is doing what needs to be done in any given situation as opposed to what is desired, convenient or what a person may want to do.

Personally I think this is a good general definition of discipline and one which I try to apply in my daily life. However I now realize I probably wasn’t applying this in my sports training, especially the wants vs needs.

Application to Training

Now applying this to my Krav Maga training for example: I don’t want to get up at five o clock in the morning to train, but I need to train then because I can’t train at six o clock in the evening due to other commitments. In this case a more specific definition of discipline would be as follows:

Training when I don’t want to train.

However, as I age and continue to train I have come to see another side of discipline pertaining to sports and fitness which missed my attention before. Applying discipline in a different frame of reference than would have crossed my mind earlier, this frame would be:

Not training when I want to train.

This is different for me because previously I always pushed myself to train even when I didn’t want train; I would push my body. But as I age this may not be what’s best. What may be best is I rest and don’t train. The body can only handle so much stress. I remember an interview with a famous body builder who expressed the following sentiment:

You shouldn’t worry about over training; rather you should worry about training too often and not getting enough rest. 

At first the above statement may sound a bit redundant but I apply it to two aspects of training. The workout aspect and the rest aspect. The first part is related to the workout: don’t be as concerned about doing too much during your workout; rather your concern should be to make sure you give your body enough time to repair itself before your next workout, the rest aspect.
Taking this sentiment into account we can incorporate the previous two statements on discipline into the following statement:

Training when I need to train.

In the first two iteration of discipline, as related to training, I used the word want: but in the last one I used the word need.Which agrees with the more general definition of discipline fist given.

Change of Training Perspective: Wants vs Needs

There is an old statement you may have heard which goes as follows:

What you want and what you need may be two different things.

I think that is the area were I need to focus my training;  I need to focus on what I need to do to continue my progress in Krav Maga, or in anything in general, as opposed to what I want to do.
 
My recent ACDF surgery really changed my perspective and opened my eyes. Up to that point I always would go 110 percent into whatever I did. I didn’t think anything of it. But this surgery showed me that I am not invincible.

In addition, my body does not recover as fast as it use to and although my injury wasn’t totally related to my Krav Maga training, I had some older injuries from car wrecks and basically 56 years of living and playing; the extra stress from Krav Maga was the straw which broke the camels back, as per say.
So now the objective is to train in such a way as to accomplish my goals and be able to continue training for 50 plus years. So I think the following statement makes sense:

Training what and how I need to train when I need to train.

As mentioned in my previous post I started doing Yoga instead of cross fit training. You can’t believe some of the comments I have received at the gym and from my friends about doing Yoga. Although I don’t get the cardio workout with Yoga I did with cross fit; what I get from Yoga at this time is helping me attain my goals more then cross fit. This is an example of training what and how I need to train and will be the subject of my next post.

 

 

Training After ACDF Surgery

Life After Surgery

This is my first post about my recovery  from my ACDF surgery. (See My Story section on About Me page) First of all I had a great doctor, Dr.  James C. Pingree at Wasatch Neurosurgery and Spine Associates. Dr. Pingree was very progressive in his treatment. He had me move my neck as much as possible the day after surgery, he didn’t recommend a neck brace and he encouraged me to start walking as soon as possible. However,  I couldn’t lift any more the 10 lbs. My wife was great, she got me up and we started walking the next day. Then we walked twice the following day. Walking was about all I could do for the first few weeks. After a few weeks I started walking by myself and then I worked up to walking for over an hour.  After my four week check up I was able to start driving again and lift up to 20 lbs. Up to this point I think I only rode in the car about twice, and one of those was to see the doctor.

Back To Work

After the four week checkup I was able to start working from home, as most of my work is on a computer  I could telecommute; however, Dr. Pingree mentioned working behind a computer puts a lot of stress on the neck and I could feel it. I worked for half days the first week then full days the next week. Working from home allowed me to work for awhile then rest. In the sixth week I started to drive to the office and started working full days.  I still would have soreness at the end of the day, but this went away in a few weeks. After about eight weeks I was able to work a full day,  which sometimes is 10+ hours, without any soreness. I was still restricted to what I could do. I Couldn’t lift anything over 20 lbs or do anything to jar my neck. I had to wait for the three month check up before all restrictions would be lifted.

Back To Working Out

In the fifth week I drop by my gym. My gym isn’t the typical gym, I train at Krav Maga Utah in Sandy, Utah. The head inductor is Joesph Gleed who is a Wingate certified 2nd degree black belt. If you are not familiar with Krav Maga watch this video. I started training after about the sixth week; although I didn’t go all out as I was waiting for the three month check up. I couldn’t do a lot of the drills or exercises, but I did what I could do and as I was in the instructor training program I was able to help out during class.

Before the surgery I would train in the early AM. So, I  started to get up early and started walking. But I didn’t just walk. I did power walking with weights. I started with  1 lbs. dumb bells and moved up to 5 lbs. I would walk for about an hour punching, doing curls, shrugs,  etc. I did however stay away from overhead moves. I had an app on my phone which would track my distance, speed and time walking; it was a great tool which I use to measure my progress. It is the standard Google tracks app.

After Three Months

At the three month check up the doctor removed all restrictions, but said the bones wouldn’t be fully healed for six months. At this point I started going to the 6:00 AM Krav class. And I would go to the evening  Level 1 classes and assist with the training when needed. Since I was already getting up early for walking it was easy to start going to class again. Still, I didn’t want to do too much until the six month period was up. Before the surgery my routine was; Krav Tuesday and Thursday and cross fit Monday, Wednesday and Friday: Saturday was fight class followed by an hour of sparring. But cross fit would have been too stressful at three months, so I decided to do Yoga instead. Just a note I didn’t start sparring until after six plus months.

Past Six Months with a Different Training Attitude

I am now in the eight month and doing most of what I was doing before. However, because of my experience I have changed my training, my attitude and my perspective which is the subject of my next post.