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Hey, just wanted to get a second opinion from people who train in combat sports and possibly experienced a lot of recurrent injuries.
So 3 years ago I decided to whip myself into shape and got a muay thai membership, morning after 10th class i woke up with slight pain in left achilless tendon, which I ignored (big mistake) went to a pretty intense yoga class, and basically limped for 2 months, and did 4 months of eccentric heel drops for like 30-40 min total twice a day until the problem went away. Lucky me, since I've met a couple people who could never cure their Achilles tendon.
Knowing about my Achilles's heel, haha, i decided to take up running, building up to 15km runs over couple years, even running through winter once a week, just to keep my achilless strong.
Get rotator cuff injury in yoga class jumping into handstand, my mistake for overdoing it, but didn't hurt at the time but as with most tendon injuries it's the next day I felt the pain, buncha physio, a year later still feel slight pangs of it but can do pretty much anything.
Took up Krav about a year ago, 4-5 classes a week, 15 min warm up, 45 striking, which my body could handle better than muay thai, that's 45min warm up and 45 striking. Really liked striking classes (mostly western boxing, very little focus on kicks) long hand combos. After about a year of krav, ate a kick in the knee during light sparring (my fault went to check the kick too late so got caught in a weird moment place), which I made the mistake of ignoring, kept running, then did a squat during warm up and felt sharp pain, same mistake as achilless tendon, should've learned to take time off as soon as it happens. about 3 months of eccentric single legs squats on bad knee, i can fully lower myself to perpendicular almost pain free, huge improvement over when i could bend my knee maybe 45 degrees with sharp pain, another few months and it'll clear up i think.
So figured during time off I can do a bit of weightlifting and heavy bag work, throw a right cross that's a bit too hard and don't adjust my position due to bad knee, and hyperextend (my fault again) rookie mistake. Couple months off still have mild pain in tricep from hyperextension when I do a push day at the gym which i stopped doing, can do pull exercises fine, but avoiding pull ups until elbow is 100%.
So go back to sparring class in Krav, since my knee is almost good, everything's fine, no knee pain after class, didn't hypextend my elbow (taped it up to avoid being able to hyperextend it). Pretty happy I can train at a moderate pace and work around my injuries.
Wake up next day with mild achilless tendon pain on same side as I used to have 3 years ago, guessing from all the bursty movements during sparring. And it's just annoying to me since I could run 10 miles on it pain free, but taking a few months off seems to have made a problem i thought i cured for good come back.
TLDR;
Sorry for long post, but I just don't know if my body is not cut out for athleticism, or if i don't have enough muscles to protect my tendons from over use injuries, and taking time off combat sports and focusing on weight training for maybe 6 months or so is something to consider? I'm 35, 6'3" 170lb, don't really care for muscle, and would rather spend the time on technique development, but the injuries are just killing my training. Am I too old for this or what do you guys think?
ps. take 1500mg epa/dha fish oil a day, good vitamin c, Glucosamine & Chondroitin, and alfalfa supplement all of which should help with tendon injuries but i still get hurt like a mofo. drink 2L of water a day.
pps. I feel like i've seen every doctor (advice of doing nothing, which current research into tendon injuries says that's teh worst thing you could do), have been using up all my physio benefits in work package for past 3 years, gone to osteopath, and gonna try kineseologist next.
any insight from injury prone people would be apreciated, i do realize a lot of the injuries are from overuse, but at the same time i don't notice them until a day after of going too hard, and then it's months and months of rehab.
So 3 years ago I decided to whip myself into shape and got a muay thai membership, morning after 10th class i woke up with slight pain in left achilless tendon, which I ignored (big mistake) went to a pretty intense yoga class, and basically limped for 2 months, and did 4 months of eccentric heel drops for like 30-40 min total twice a day until the problem went away. Lucky me, since I've met a couple people who could never cure their Achilles tendon.
Knowing about my Achilles's heel, haha, i decided to take up running, building up to 15km runs over couple years, even running through winter once a week, just to keep my achilless strong.
Get rotator cuff injury in yoga class jumping into handstand, my mistake for overdoing it, but didn't hurt at the time but as with most tendon injuries it's the next day I felt the pain, buncha physio, a year later still feel slight pangs of it but can do pretty much anything.
Took up Krav about a year ago, 4-5 classes a week, 15 min warm up, 45 striking, which my body could handle better than muay thai, that's 45min warm up and 45 striking. Really liked striking classes (mostly western boxing, very little focus on kicks) long hand combos. After about a year of krav, ate a kick in the knee during light sparring (my fault went to check the kick too late so got caught in a weird moment place), which I made the mistake of ignoring, kept running, then did a squat during warm up and felt sharp pain, same mistake as achilless tendon, should've learned to take time off as soon as it happens. about 3 months of eccentric single legs squats on bad knee, i can fully lower myself to perpendicular almost pain free, huge improvement over when i could bend my knee maybe 45 degrees with sharp pain, another few months and it'll clear up i think.
So figured during time off I can do a bit of weightlifting and heavy bag work, throw a right cross that's a bit too hard and don't adjust my position due to bad knee, and hyperextend (my fault again) rookie mistake. Couple months off still have mild pain in tricep from hyperextension when I do a push day at the gym which i stopped doing, can do pull exercises fine, but avoiding pull ups until elbow is 100%.
So go back to sparring class in Krav, since my knee is almost good, everything's fine, no knee pain after class, didn't hypextend my elbow (taped it up to avoid being able to hyperextend it). Pretty happy I can train at a moderate pace and work around my injuries.
Wake up next day with mild achilless tendon pain on same side as I used to have 3 years ago, guessing from all the bursty movements during sparring. And it's just annoying to me since I could run 10 miles on it pain free, but taking a few months off seems to have made a problem i thought i cured for good come back.
TLDR;
Sorry for long post, but I just don't know if my body is not cut out for athleticism, or if i don't have enough muscles to protect my tendons from over use injuries, and taking time off combat sports and focusing on weight training for maybe 6 months or so is something to consider? I'm 35, 6'3" 170lb, don't really care for muscle, and would rather spend the time on technique development, but the injuries are just killing my training. Am I too old for this or what do you guys think?
ps. take 1500mg epa/dha fish oil a day, good vitamin c, Glucosamine & Chondroitin, and alfalfa supplement all of which should help with tendon injuries but i still get hurt like a mofo. drink 2L of water a day.
pps. I feel like i've seen every doctor (advice of doing nothing, which current research into tendon injuries says that's teh worst thing you could do), have been using up all my physio benefits in work package for past 3 years, gone to osteopath, and gonna try kineseologist next.
any insight from injury prone people would be apreciated, i do realize a lot of the injuries are from overuse, but at the same time i don't notice them until a day after of going too hard, and then it's months and months of rehab.
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