Barbell Shrugged - Episode 30 - Shoulder and Back Sport Injuries, MMA, and Olympic Weightlifting

Episode Date: October 17, 2012

Shoulder and Back Sport Injuries, MMA, and Olympic Weightlifting

This week on Barbell Shrug, we're going to talk about getting hurt while doing MMA, weightlifting, and how to prevent it. What's up guys, it's CTP and you're listening to Barbell Shrug. Make sure you check out our video versions of all these podcasts on our website, fitter.tv. In all of our video versions, we include Technique WOD, which is our series of technique instruction videos for CrossFitters, free previews of some of the seminars we put out, and then sometimes come out of the studio and have special video segments such as cooking in the kitchen with Brandy that one time and out in the pool with Lucas, and who knows what the next thing will do. So make sure you check out our website, fitter.tv,

and watch the videos as well. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Bledsoe here with Doug Larson and our guests Dave Ferguson and Corey Lonez. What's up? What's up? Hello. Let's get a little history on both of you guys. We're going to try to talk a little about injuries today. And I think everyone in this room has had quite a few injuries. Two of the most injury prone guys I know right here.

That's true. This is true. We got Dave Ferguson. You own Memphis BJJ. You want to give us a little bit of a little bit of history and things you've been injured on and all that kind of stuff yeah um well history wise as far as the uh the gym goes uh we've been in business nine years actually this month um started in a basement in midtown um just as more of a hobby having fun

doing it with uh you know all my my friends and competitors. And it's kind of turned into a business. And just to clarify, this is a MMA gym. Yeah, mixed martial arts gym. We do a lot of different things there. We do mixed martial arts, obviously, judo, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, submission wrestling, boxing, Muay Thai kickboxing. We have kids classes also, fitness kickboxing as well. So we do a wide variety of martial arts and fitness classes. Very cool. Yeah. And what about your training history? My training history? Well, I started off training in March of 96 with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Shortly thereafter, I started training Muay Thai kickboxing. I started to compete in mixed martial arts in late 97 and turned professional in 99 and

fought a bunch all over. You know, really, I've had a passion for martial arts for a long, long time, but I never really found the martial art that really fit me until I found Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. And that's where my real passion came in for martial arts was Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. And now I'm very blessed to be able to do what I love doing daily. Very cool. How did you find out about it? You kind of jumped on the Jiu-Jitsu bandwagon before it was very mainstream like it is today. Before it was a bandwagon.

That's right. Everyone knows what Jiu-Jitsu is. They might not know all the details of it, but they've heard of Jiu-Jitsu, even if you're just a lay person. My mom, even if I didn't do Jiu-Jitsu, probably still still would would hear about jujitsu in the media or just from random people on facebook or what have you but right but you you jumped in way before it was popular yeah i i did you know it's funny i guess it goes back to uh being a teenager you know when i was a teenager um a buddy of mine's uh grandfather used to box in the, and so he had a heavy bag in his garage and speed bag and stuff,

and so we used to work out a little bit, and he would teach us a couple of things. Never competed in boxing, but I was always fascinated by fighting and boxing. Truth be told, in high school I fought a lot. Oh, yeah? Yeah, because I was just a rough, stupid kid. So I've always been fascinated with fighting and kind of what works in fighting. And I remember in high school, I would wrestle with some of the wrestlers, and I thought, man, they're really good.

And I would knock around with some boxers, and man, they're really good. Okay, so what's the perfect combination here? Well, right after high school, the UFC came out. Of course, I'm dating myself there. I graduated in 93. So UFC came out, and a friend of mine actually said, i graduated 93 all right so ufc came out and uh and a friend of mine actually said hey you've got to come check this out man there is this show where these guys get in a cage from all different martial arts backgrounds and they fight

each other with no rules no gloves they can do anything and i'm like what what are you talking about is it pro wrestling he's no man you got to see this yeah i'm gonna order it on pay-per-view come over and see this because he had ordered the first three all right and he had talked about him a little bit but when it was usc4 he's like dude you've got to come see this and the guy who keeps winning is this little skinny guy he's like this mexican guy who wears a bathrobe and he's making these guys quit and i'm like i've got to see what he's talking about so i went over to his house and sure enough ho Gracie, who we know now was the first ultimate fighting champion, he was submitting these bigger, stronger guys using technique.

And I thought, this is unbelievable. Because I always thought the toughest guy, the toughest fighter, was the biggest guy, the strongest guy, the most athletic guy, the guy that hit the hardest. That was the guy that won fights, not some little skinny Brazilian guy on a gi wrestling and grappling with somebody and making them tap. So it was fascinating.

Like anybody, I think the first time anybody ever saw that, they were fascinated by it. So, of course, this is back in, you know, 94 when I first saw it. And then for the next year, year and a half, I kind of searched out Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I wanted to learn Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, okay? But, of course, nobody taught Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It was so rare the only places in the united states where it was taught uh was in new york city with henzo gracie had a school up there then and then the gracie academy in torrance california okay so i didn't know that so i

called i remember looking in the phone book okay this is prior to googling you know stuff look in the phone book the yellow pages yeah right exactly as yellow pages i looked in the yellow pages on my kitchen counter and i literally sat there all day calling every martial arts school going, hey, I want to learn jujitsu. Now, I didn't know one jujitsu from another. Now I know there's all kinds of different jujitsus. There's Aiki jujitsu as a form of Aikido and all kinds of different things like that. So I called all these places. I finally found this one Taekwondo school where the guy said, yeah, we got this guy on Saturdays that comes in and teaches Aiki Jiu-Jitsu. You should come check it out. Oh, I found it. I found it. Thank goodness. It was like the last one I called, you know. And so I went by and I did that class for about two or three

months every Saturday. And I came to find out real quick, it wasn't what I was looking for, because it was just a bunch of Aikido throws. No disrespect to Aikido, but it wasn't what I was looking for. And so I kind of got dis but it wasn't what I was looking for. So I kind of got disheartened, but I was still very interested. So I remember always looking in martial arts magazines. I'd go to Kroger or something like that, and I'd stop, and I'd look at Black Belt Magazine. And then one day, I picked up a Black Belt Magazine, and I saw a little quarter-page ad in there for the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Basic Video Series.

$250, order them off, cut it out, send a check in, order off this video series. And I said, Eureka, I found it. Eureka. All right. So I ordered off of this videotape series. The videotape series came in the mail. VHS. Yep. VHS. And, uh, it was a whole series of the Gracie Jiu Jitsu basics, which was with hoists and a Morion. And when I saw hoists, I said, this is legit. Okay. This is what I was looking for. So then I came to the mail, and the way I started training was actually real Jiu-Jitsu was on my living room floor in my apartment with my little brother. My little brother was a lot younger than me.

He was 16, 17. And I used to get him to come over by promising he and his buddies I'd buy them beer. That's how I got to train. Because after a while, my brother was like, man, I don't want to do this anymore. He didn't like it. I don't want to get choked and armbarred and all that. I said, look, man, I'll buy you all a 12-pack. All right, man, I'll come on over.

So that's how I started training. And so I started learning all these techniques. Well, anyway, to make a long story not so long, I finally found a gym, a martial arts school, where they started doing the same thing. They were training off the video series. Of course, there weren't any schools or information out there. You couldn't go to YouTube and find techniques.

So I started training with those guys. And that was Chad Chilcutt's school. And there was about four or five of us that trained together in a small group for about a year. And then more and more people started coming and adding on to the group. And I guess the rest is history. So that's how I got started. Very cool. Yep. I didn't know I got started. Very cool. Yep.

I didn't know most of that. Me neither. So what got you starting your own facility? At what point was that? How long were you training before you were like, well, I want to start my own thing? Yeah, well, you know, I was very interested in mixed martial arts. My interest from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu went from wanting to do just Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to, hey, I want to fight,

which I knew I needed to add striking to my curriculum. So I started going over to Jeff Mullen's school, which he was a world-renowned kickboxer, great kickboxer, and started learning Muay Thai. I was still teaching at another school, which was Chad's school, and I had been asking Chad for a long time to invest in some equipment for Muay Thai kickboxing because I wanted to be able to start bringing some guys up. I needed training partners, that sort of thing. Because I would find myself running from Chad's school and driving as fast as I could over to Jeff's

so I could get my sparring and Muay Thai. I wanted to be able to stay in just one place and do it and develop guys myself. Well, not to say anything bad about Chad. Chad mean chad's a great guy and i appreciate everything he's ever done for me but he just wasn't in the point where he was going to invest in the equipment needed to properly train muay thai kickboxing or bring people in or whatever so um you know i was very much into mixed martial arts and i was fighting then um i had actually just came back from denmark which is another story as well. I lived over there and trained Muay Thai extensively over there.

Got to fight over there. When I came back, I didn't want all this to go to waste. I learned so much great Muay Thai. I loved mixed martial arts. I had guys actually who wanted to do mixed martial arts, but it's hard to kind of train guys just a pair of mitts. You know what I mean? You need to have a facility set up for that kind of train guys just a pair of mitts you know what i mean you need to have a facility set up for that kind of training so um at that point joel gingery um and mike ostrowski uh he and the three

of us talked about a lot hey we need to really do something you know um and not just the muay thai aspect but we also were moving from place to place we went from one with sportsplex to bartlett recreation center so we were moving all the time so what, we started losing a lot of training partners too. Because let's say a guy stays out for a couple of months, he's not training, but he wants to come back to training. If you've moved somewhere and they can't find you, then you've just lost a training partner. And that happened repeatedly.

So we said we need a place that's stable, a place where we can grow, a place where we can keep training partners. And so we made the decision, let's start looking for a place to open up a to open up a school and, uh, made sense to call it Memphis judo and jujitsu because Mike was a judo black belt. Uh, you know, obviously Joel and I were into jujitsu and, uh, you know, we, I was a poor, uh, just fresh out of college student. And, uh, so I had no money for a lease or anything like that. So we found a basement below a karate school at poplar in highland and that's how we started we just threw a few mats on the floor started in this basement no marking no advertising no visibility nothing and uh yeah the rest is history man cool

yep so this is a strength conditioning podcast for the most part yep did you guys do any any strength training was that really on your mind at all as far as fighters you know 20 years ago or did you did you feel like it was just technique and you didn't have to worry about being strong anymore? Or did you guys still lift weights? No, man. Back then, I thought it was just technique because that was the mantra back then. You've got to think. The early days of mixed martial arts, here is Hoist Gracie, this skinny guy who obviously doesn't do a whole lot of strength and conditioning or didn't back then beating all these big strong tough guys and the mantra was technique technique technique and this

is why brazilian jitsu became such an interesting thing for a lot of the average person out there who maybe is not athletic or the person who doesn't think they can be tough or whatever they see this and they go you know what i can be tough too i can learn this stuff and learn to defend myself properly because look he did it. Okay? And so that was the whole thing was you don't have to do all the strength and conditioning and this and that and be on steroids or whatever the case to be an effective fighter or be able to effectively defend yourself. And so back then, no.

I mean, nobody really was big into strength and conditioning. But what you started to see happen in the sport of mixed martial arts as it evolved, it's a competitive sport like other competitive sports and you're always looking for an edge right so a lot of the smart guys which actually it was you know it was kind of uh pushed by the american competitors more than other competitors in brazil or something like that um hey let's start adding strength and conditioning to what we're currently doing all right in addition to adding other martial arts because it used to be where it was just pureness. You're,

you're a purist. You're a pure wrestler. Got in there and fought pure boxer, pure Brazilian. So a lot of guys started to add, not just martial arts, but strength and conditioning. And that's when you started to see the athlete start to win fights.

They could weather the storm. They could, they were conditioned enough to make it past the first or second round. And they started to win fights. So now you see, as the sport has evolved, strength and conditioning is so important, if not one of the most important things involved in the sport of mixed martial arts. This is the evolution. But yeah, to answer your question back in the day, 15, 20 years ago, no.

No. You could be just a guy off the street and come in and learn techniques and train your techniques, and you could do well. Okay? But the game's different now. I had a guy last night talking to me saying originally he just wanted to fight and he's talking about his very first fight ever uh this is a heart and he said he went out there against the kickboxer and was like i'm just gonna crush this guy and he said it went great for like the first minute and then after that having no no conditioning background for

fighting at all thinking that he was just gonna knock the guy out in the first round after like one minute was just like okay i don't want, I don't want to be out here anymore. And then he said that kickboxer started just peppering him with a bunch of jabs over and over again. That's a horrible spot to be in too, man. Way too tired to move. Hey, you want to talk about getting in touch with your fears? Try being like dead tired and the guy's in your face with punches.

That sucks. Yeah. He said he got kicked like right below the sternum where he couldn't breathe at all and fell on the ground and was just like i'm done not doing this anymore maybe i should get in shape yeah maybe yeah maybe and he has yet he has since then but he learned it the hard way the first time well you know strength and conditioning for all sports is important i mean obviously it's super important but in mixed martial arts i think it's even more important than other sports because you're not just going out there and competing and, oh, I lost a game of tennis or, oh, I lost a game of baseball or whatever.

You're getting your ass kicked in front of all your friends and family. You're getting your ass kicked. You know, that is an emotional gut check right there, you know. So strength and conditioning definitely is very, very important for it. Don't leave anything on the table there's no there's no point to like oh i don't need to do that over there because if you do you get your get your ass kicked get your ass kicked yeah not cool is this a pg podcast or can i say that you can say oh no you can totally say that all right yeah there's the explicit label on itunes we're never gonna get that off

yeah uh cory uh you we all used to weightlift together. That's how we met. We met in the basement of the field house. Yep. University of Memphis. You got her. Yep. The second most accident-prone guy in the room.

Yeah. I think my nickname weightlifting could have been Kamikaze, just the way I'd throw myself under bars that I probably had no business trying to catch. But, yeah, I guess I'll give my background a little bit. Kind of always grew up playing a bunch of different sports, never played any sports really at a really high competitive level. Hockey was probably the closest, played some junior hockey in college and stuff. You know, when I was like 13 years old, just kind of started training a lot,

you know, went to a yard sale and bought, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger's modern, you know, Encyclopedia started training a lot. Um, you know, went to a yard sale and bought, you know, uh, Arnold Schwarzenegger's modern, um, you know, encyclopedia of modern bodybuilding, kind of where I started. It got me interested in training, um, but never, you know, really knew what I was doing and whatnot. Um, but eventually realized that it was something that I was interested in enough to pursue it as a career for a while. Um, so I actually got my undergrad in kinesiology with a focus in, you know, exercise science and exercise physiology. And then that's where I met you guys. I went down to Memphis and did my master's in exercise, well, human movement science, I guess, some biomechanics,

some physiology, and then actually parlayed it more into kind of a clinical type of PhD, but still in that rehab exercise area at Washington University. So I got my PhD in human movement science again and actually have kind of transitioned away from this field from a career perspective. But certainly kind of still at heart, consider myself an exercise scientist, someone who still likes to practice it. Definitely try to, you know, stay in shape as much as I can and, um, be involved, you know, with you guys. And you're still competing weightlifting now, right? So I am. Yep. Um, was away from it for five years, um, due to some injuries and et cetera. Um, doing a PhD isn't very conducive to training two hours a day. Um, but yeah, recently, you know, with a new job at some time and, uh,

kind of get the spark again to start training, feeling good after getting over some of those injuries, and actually had my first meet last week, and it went well. So, yeah. What'd you total? 205 kilograms, so it's a place to start. Yeah.

What was the breakdown there? What'd you snatch and what'd you clean and jerk? Snatched 94, missed 98, and then I cleaned and jerked 111, which was far from what I could clean. Actually, it was really funny. Because of the shoulder injuries that I've been having recently, that's about all I can jerk right now, but I can clean quite a bit more. So I hit 111 on my second clean and jerk.

My coach was like, why don't you just walk up there and just clean 130 and just drop it? He goes, because I know you just walk up there and just clean 130 and just drop it? He goes, because I know you can clean it. So anyway, so that's what I totaled last week. So you snatched, you snatched 94, which is 207. And then you clean and jerked 111, which is 244. Exactly.

Right? Yeah. For those of you that don't think in kilos. Yeah, I'm terrible about thinking in pounds now, actually. Just with that weightlifting background, you're always doing kilos, at least in our gym anyway. I prefer kilos too, but if you're running a regular gym, most of your clients do not want to think in kilos.

It's just a hassle. We bought kilos originally for CrossFit Memphis, like when we opened up the gym originally. And I remember people were just extremely confused. So there was five of us that were like, yeah, whatever. That makes total sense. And then everyone that we were, I started coaching. It was like, they just got so confused.

I was like, all right, we'll just put those in the corner and buy a bunch of pounds. Well, yeah. We didn't put them in the corner though. We bought pounds plates and then we had pounds and kilos plates. It was worse. Yeah. There was a transition. They ended up in the corner eventually.

Yeah. So it's kind of fun when you are used to training in kilos and you look at colors and then you put two greens on, which you think is 22 pounds. And then it's actually more. So when I was down training a while ago, I was just going by colors, putting greens and yellows and blues and reds on. Yeah. And I couldn't understand why I couldn't snatch this weight that I was trying to snatch. Finally, I hit it. I'm like, man, I'm just really slow today.

And I got to thinking, I'm like, wait, that's like eight pounds more than I thought it was. So it was actually a PR that day, and I didn't even know it until I finally hit it. But anyway. Solid. So what injuries did you have that kept you out of the game for a while? Actually, it was pretty injury-free until when I was weightlifting at university of memphis um we had been competing i think for about a year or so and then you know i played hockey my entire life had a couple nicks and cuts and a couple stitches here and there but i mean i think i missed a total of maybe five

games my entire life yeah and then playing rec league hockey went feet first into the boards broke my fibula and tore the deltoid ligaments in my ankle, had to have a couple surgeries, a couple pins put through my ankle. So I actually was probably the strongest I've ever been at that point in my life. And then all of a sudden, I have to wear a boot for five months. So you know, lost a lot of strength, obviously lost a lot of muscle mass. But it was kind of neat, from another perspective, because I'd never done any type of gymnastics work so I think I was saying to you last night actually that was when I started actually doing you know muscle ups doing some ring work doing some you know parallel bar type of stuff and that

was actually really fun to do a type of training that I've never done before so that that was probably that's the biggest injury I've had along Along with that, which I wouldn't consider it an injury, but it was actually diagnosed with arthritis, a form of psoriatic arthritis, which at the time it presented in really actually almost immobilizing pain in my sacroiliac joint. There was a while, I mean, I was a 23-year-old. I couldn't get out of bed for like 10 minutes in the morning. Went to a lot of physical therapy, chiropractors, et cetera. Finally went to, for those people that don't know what a sacroiliac joint is. Oh, what is that?

Uh, the sacroiliac joint is where, um, your sacrum, um, which is basically the bottom of your spine is right below your bottom vertebrae attaches to your pelvis. Um, it's a, it's a joint that really doesn't move a whole lot. So point to it. Oh. It's like right there. Right here, right above your buttocks. There you go.

Pretty much. Yeah, you can feel it. There's a little bony prominence there. So it's not a joint that articulates a whole lot, but it's very load-bearing. I mean, that's where your legs attach to your spine. Basically, that's the joint that come you know brings those two body parts together yeah which are pretty important body

parts sure um so yeah so actually it took a while for us to finally get me to a point where we knew what it was so i went to a rheumatologist got diagnosed with it um actually went on a medication which is an anti-inflammatory medication. Phenomenal. So because of the ankle injury and that, I actually didn't lift weights or do any training for two years at all just because I wasn't motivated whatsoever to do it. It just hurt all the time. So I got that taken care of. So you didn't even bench press on occasion? You didn't do anything?

Every once in a while yeah but um you know it because i lost so much strength it was almost like just demoralizing even going to gym and just like try to do something because you're not even remotely close to where you used to be yeah um and then you know i was doing the phd at the time a lot of excuses sure you know so um um but yeah finally got that rehabbed um and you know since then it's been it's been nice it's kind of been refreshing to feel. I felt like a 50-year-old man there for a little while. And actually back feeling pretty good and able to train again. That's nasty.

Yeah, now I get some shoulder issues, which we can talk about as well. Yeah. I know you had a pretty nasty back injury that put you out for a couple years. And it probably still isn't what it used to be. a little bit about the what happened to your back yeah well you know i've always was pretty lucky um as a competitor when i was uh fighting and competing and competition and stuff and muay thai um i never really suffered any serious injuries there was nothing that just like happened i tore tore my pec one time and, but nothing too serious. Right. Um, but over time, uh, my back started to hurt a little bit and, uh, I didn't really know what it was. I was just like, Oh, just some muscles are kind of whatever. So I went to a

massage therapist and, um, I would get sports massages and that felt really great, but my back still hurt. Um, then I started going to a chiropractor and he'd crack me up and all fine and good. It releases the endorphins. You feel good afterwards. And, but my back still hurt, but I continued to compete and I continued to train. And over time it just got worse and worse. And, um, you know, I was just, I will say this, uh, it's taught me a huge lesson. It's a lesson that I share with a lot of people if you start to have back pain take it serious don't think that it's going to go away because it just gets worse because in my case what it was eventually came to find out was i had a a disc issue all right and uh it had gotten so bad i'd let it go so long it no longer was just bulging, but it had ruptured also.

And when it ruptured is when I had just debilitating pain. Like I had to stop training right then and there. Um, and it was just really, really bad. I mean, I had a hard time walking too far. It was sitting right on the sciatic nerve. And, uh, I, uh, of course went to, uh, um, uh, a doctor and they of course do the whole contingent you know what they don't want you to do I got a local shot and hey here's some physical therapy and I tried that it still was just horrible pain and and I think they knew that too I mean it had ruptured they were gonna have to do something so I basically elected to get what's called a disectomy where they go in and they fix the the disc I don't know if y'all heard of that procedure before, but at the time when I got it done, it was fairly new. And it was good that I didn't

have to get fused. And the reason I didn't want to get fused is because I wanted to get back to competing again. And I wanted to have a complete mobility still, you know? So they did this, this operation and you know, I felt a lot better afterwards. I had to do a lot of physical therapy, but I've never been the same since I still have back pain and a lot of different theories, you know, I've heard, oh, well, it's just some scar tissue, but you know, it's been four and a half years since my surgery. So I would think that the scar tissue would dissipate by now, but, uh, I still have a little bit of back pain, but not so bad that I can't, you know, get back to training. So I'm, I'm currently getting back in shape. Now I've dropped about 15 pounds. I feel good that i'm here lately and and um i'm about to actually amp my

train up ramp my train up a lot next week i want to go to denmark and start really trying to push it hard yeah this will be my first time really pushing it hard and sparring and stuff like that and i want to see how my back's going to do i think it's going to do pretty well um i feel pretty confident about it do better with kickboxing than it does with grappling yes yeah it does a lot better because with grappling and and actually i think that that jujitsu is i don't want to blame on jujitsu but i think that jujitsu was the big cause of my back pain but i would say uh again i don't want to put all the blame on jujitsu it's just i didn't properly condition myself for training bottom line i wasn't doing a lot of specific core work and stuff like that that i should have done or strengthening my back in addition to my training

so my core was weak okay relative to the work i was doing and the training i was doing and you know in jiu-jitsu you get folded up in all kinds of different positions and stuff like that yeah and and and i know tons of guys who have done jiu-jitsu for years who complain about their backs. Imagine that. So I take this as a lesson, and I tell all the young guys now, hey, you need to really be doing a lot of core work. You need to really be strong in your core, because you can do jiu-jitsu all you want, but you're going to pay the price later if you don't get strong.

That's the truth of the matter. I think you bring up a good point, too. You talked about if your back's bothering bothering you don't take it lightly yeah what i want to what i want to say about that is that you're something is going on and usually like back pain is not due to your back is hurt it's usually symptomatic something else going on so if you feel back pain there's probably something else going on it's causing that a lot of times times people are like, oh, my back is hurting. How can I stretch my back? It's like, no, don't stretch your back.

Yeah, you're going to make it worse. Yeah, like, you know, there's probably even, well, Doug can talk more about this than me, but there's mobility issues a lot of times. You may feel like you're really flexible. Like, I know that I've got really good flexibility on external rotation of my hips. But, like, if I go, but my internal rotation is not fantastic. Every once in a while, I'll be squatting. Once every six months, I'll get some really bad back pain.

I know exactly why. It's because I have bad internal rotation of my hips. But it's not something that I'm going to spot. You're not going to look at someone and go, oh, you've got bad internal rotation of your hips. That's something you're going to to like look at someone and go, oh, you got bad internal rotation in your hips. Like that's something you're going to have to like test. And that's like one of my issues, and it causes back pain. So a lot of times, you know, if you get back pain,

it's not because a lot of times it's not like, oh, your back, there's just something wrong with your back. It might be something else wrong in your body that has nothing to do with your back. And so that's why a lot of times people wait for their back to get better. They get back into training, and it gets hurt again because they didn't fix what was causing the back problem. When you have an issue on part of your body, oftentimes that's not where the pain is going to develop.

It's actually the weak link is going to take on, you know, be more mobile than it should be because another part of your body isn't as mobile, and oftentimes that's your back, you know. You know, I learned, I learned a lot from, from talking to Doug, you know, after my, my, my back problem stuff, you know, one thing that Doug impressed upon me, and I thank you for it a lot, man, and you might not realize it, but you talked to me a lot about how all the muscles that tie in, you know, the glutes, the hamstrings, all these kinds of things have to be strengthened and you need to be mobile and flexible in all these areas.

And so because my thinking was always prior to that, it's localized. It's the back. It's a lower back, lower back, lower back. But that's just part of the equation. It's everything else that ties into it that really makes a big difference. And I tell people that all the time who might be having some issues or trouble. Like Nathan Pang had some back pain. I said, man, you need to strengthen your glutes and your hamstrings.

I don't know if he came and saw you, but I told him to go see you or talk to you. I haven't talked to him, no. Yeah, well, you know. Calling you out, Nathan. Calling you out right now. Go see Doug. Yeah, but anyway, you know, it's one of those things where, man, education is a big thing, you know. Educating these guys and letting them know. Because a lot of the young guys, it's like any of us, until we have pain,

we don't take the necessary steps to prevent it in the future. Whereas if we did stuff to prevent it on the front end, we wouldn't have any issues. Yeah, I'll be fine. Yeah, yeah. I'm young, I'm tough. I never do any mobility work until I get hurt. I'm like, shit, I should be doing more stretching during my warm-ups or after I work out. I need to really focus on that.

And then I'll focus on it until I start feeling good, and I'll focus for a couple more weeks, and then trails off. The comment you made about stretching your low back, yeah, I get that one. I get that all the time. People have a little bit of a back issue, and it's intuitive to think, well, maybe I need to stretch more because more flexibility.

People tend to accept that that means that you're less likely to get hurt in the future. But with your low back, for the most part, getting too much low back range of motion is what causes injury, which is why jiu-jitsu is so much more problematic than something like Muay Thai because you're not getting max flexion or max extension of your low back because

you're for the most part just standing the whole time yeah um yet oftentimes you're getting forced into those positions too sure with weight being stacked on top of you and you know what i mean that that's yeah yeah yeah when you're someone trying to pass your guard and they're folding they're folding your your hips all the way into your face and you're like you're just all crumbled over yeah that's that's probably when people get the majority of their problems and every time i'm in that position i'm like oh shit like i hope i hope i don't fucking throw my back out right now we know what joel told me is you know and i know that's where the problem was for me because again i was not strong in my core and i and the kind of guard that i played if i was on my back i played more of an open guard

that was the kind of guard i played was an open guard which sometimes you can get stacked like that you know um where joel told me is look man when you get back to training jiu-jitsu you need to change your game up completely don't ever play open guard better let the guy just pass yeah then get stacked up like that and risk injury again yeah so you know joel's been talking to me about you know playing more half guard when i get back back to it, play more half, play on my side. Play on my side more. Don't play here where my legs can get, you know, all the way to my face, you know, basically.

I think that's a great idea. Yeah. So when I do decide to get back to jiu-jitsu, which that day is going to come, I'm going to just completely retool my game in jiu-jitsu, you know, to prevent injury. I think that's a great idea. Yeah.

Yeah, we could also look at your mobility. The more range of motion you can get out of your hips and out of your upper back the less your lower back the kind of the joint that's sandwiched in between has to move so if you can get more range of motion above and below then right in between can can stay more stable okay which if you do get stacked you just your lumbar spine will get sort of all the Instead of all the pressure being in one place, you mean? Yeah, with slipping a disc, you have two discs sitting on top of each other like this, and then usually what happens is when your back goes into flexion,

it pushes all pressure on one side, and it squeezes that centerpiece out. And so if you get stacked and it just goes like that instead of like this, then the pressure is still relatively even at that disc it's it's when the two ends get put together by by rounding your back a lot yeah that causes the problem that makes perfect sense so if you get more range of motion out of your hips and they won't get to end range as soon then your back won't get pulled into that position where the two sides come together that makes perfect sense it's kind of hard to demo without like getting on

the ground and showing it right right, right, right, right. But the more range of motion you can get out of your hips, the better. Okay. So that's why guys like BJ Penn, everyone always talks about his crazy hip mobility because he can do all kinds of great stuff. But it's also probably why

he doesn't have any back issues. I don't know if he does or not. I'm totally projecting. But the more flexible your hips are, the better. Okay, okay. We can test all that, though. Yeah, well, I think it's great because you talked the other day

about how your main focus right now, you really like to to study on is training specifically for mixed martial arts physical training or whatever i mean and you say you've been writing some stuff and putting some stuff down i guess about it and i put together a whole mma program uh i did a presentation years ago that we that we recorded and then uh put together some programs and we haven't actually posted that online. Me and Alex, one of your coaches, and Tyler, another one of your coaches, have been using that program lately

with great results. Actually, Hannah's been training with us too. She's gotten a lot stronger over the last couple months. Good. Is flexibility and mobility a big part of that program as well? We don't do a whole lot of stretching while they're there, but it's all full range of motion type stuff and if ever if i ever see them get to end range and they start to move their low back for example then uh with them i

for the most part just change the movement so they're going through a full range of motion but they're not destabilizing their stable joints like like their back right um like hana can't can't front squat very well you know she ends up pitching over and dropping her elbows down that hurts her wrist so we just modified it and gave her a different type of squat and so i just kind of switched the movements in and out for for each one of their individual um you know body types or or range motion issues and then if they have any flexibility issues, then, you know, they have a few stretches. But, like, Alex can't.

Alex, if you put Alex on the wall, he can't touch his elbows to the wall. He's like this. Really? Like, he has, like, no range of motion into flexion or external rotation. Like, he, like, can't touch his hands to the wall at all. So he's got some issues there

that we've been working on pretty aggressively. So he could end up having, what, shoulder issues, I guess, or something like that if it's yeah oh yeah absolutely yeah like he can't he can't back squat or or press a bar overhead correctly like he can't grab the bar like behind his back like that and he can't press overhead because he gets to here alex's shoulders are super immobile wow so that's going to cause him shoulder issues down the line or it's going to cause him low back issues down the line so back issues okay yeah if you can't if you can't reach overhead if you can only get to here and you can't bring your arms back like that to do like an overhead press for example test myself real quick yeah am

i good i'm okay yeah you probably are fine really actually okay but i'll also get to here and then he'll hyper extend his low back in order to get his arm vertical and then a lot of guys get hyperextension injuries as a result kind of the opposite of what you had so that's interesting to know that something like that can affect the lower back yeah so much yeah it's all it's all compensation for a lack of mobility what's funny it's like everybody everybody at some point it sounds like has lower back pain like oh what what's one of your issues oh low back pain it's like it's over and over and over again and a lot of times it's and a lot of times it's you know a lot of times it's something different for you know different people you know one person

it's shoulders next person it's hips next person it could be ankles you know one thing that i keep thinking about is like how do we i guess uh teach these guys that are coming up now about this kind of stuff and get them to number one believe it number two do it you know i mean and stick with it i mean i'd love to see the dream of mine would be because of my experiences to see a lot of these young guys coming up whether they'd be some of our mma fighters or jitsu guys or whatever um start to incorporate this into their regular routine as a prevention before they get injured you know how do you how do we go forward with that and make it to where it's easy for them to understand? It's something that's part of the program. Just like when you get on the mat and do our warm-ups.

Hey, shrimp drills. We're going to do these rolls. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Whatever it is. Armbar drills. Hey, this is one of the drills. Is this exercise for this reason? I'd like to see that happen.

That would be great. Convin convincing late teens early 20s guys good luck right you want to fight that's right hey you're gonna need to do this little mobility drill here what i want to punch somebody in the face yeah i mean unfortunately you learn you know through your own mistakes after a while i i mean even to this day i hate doing any mobility stuff but i do it because like, I now know after a few injuries, like it, it catches up with you. Um, but yeah, it takes a long time to learn that lesson. And, uh, yeah. So whether it's actually making them do it, I don't know what it will take,

but it's, you know, it's tough cause I can relate. That's where I was. But you know, now listening, even something just popped in my head now when you were talking about how your shoulder can affect your back. Now that I've had these back issues, I've been pretty cognizant of keeping up my mobility. And actually, that's why I'm kind of dedicated to continuing to weightlift, even though some people might say, you know, is that really the best sport you should be doing? But I actually think it's great because I've never been as mobile as I am when I'm weightlifting in terms of my hips. I've always had terrible shoulder mobility, and as bad as it still is, I think it's better than it would be if I wasn't weightlifting.

But then with that bad shoulder mobility, you were just talking about how it may transition to a back problem. And I've had pretty healthy back now that I've rehabbed it and got it back to where it needs to be. But I hadn't thought about that. I've been having shoulder issues and rehabbing my shoulder lately for the sake of the shoulder issue. But that's another thing to consider. Yeah. You have what I was just talking about.

Your overhead reach range of motion, your shoulder flexion isn't as good as it needs to be if you want to be a competitive weightlifter. Exactly. We'll say that. It's not bad. It's not real bad but if you're going to compete in that sport where you're overhead all the time then you absolutely have to have more range of motion yeah and i mean obviously it is an issue because i am symptomatic um and it hasn't caused back issues but i uh i can see where it might you know yeah yeah your your biggest thing at the moment we were talking about this yesterday

is that you lack internal rotation yep at your. And so what happens in that case is if you're doing cleans where you're pulling up like this and you can't get your hand this low, then you're going to roll your shoulder forward like that. You're going to destabilize your scapula. And then as a result, this bone here and the top of your upper arm are going to get really close together and you're going to start smashing those tissues in between and then you're going to end up with shoulder pain as a result as it happened and that's what's that's part of what's going on with your shoulder at the moment yeah but uh yeah i could see if i don't excuse me if i don't rehab that you know

start having some back issues and stuff because when you're overhead and you can't get your shoulders to that position guess guess how you get there get into a little bit more extension in your low back, right? 19.10 Exactly right. 19.10 Actually, I feel that sometimes. If I actually hit a good jerk and get a good overhead position from a shoulder perspective, I feel it in my... Actually, one of my sacroiliac joints will feel it because I'm actually probably doing a lot more lumbar extension than I really

should be in in that position to get my hands overhead in a position to actually catch a heavy bar. That's you. You been injured lately? No. Wait. Psychologically. Psychologically. Emotionally. Emotionally wounded. That's right.

Man, I don't know. Sometimes I'm like, oh yeah, I haven't had any injuries lately. And then I start talking to someone. I've had like three this year. You better knock on wood over there, man, I don't know. Sometimes I'm like, Oh yeah, I have had any injuries lately. And then I started like talking to someone and it's like, I've had like three this year, you know, knock on wood over there, man. No, I've probably been hurt a few times this year. I just, it's like, I'm just so used to being hurt all the time. And it's just, I'm always used to like working around injuries. Like I don't, I don't even think about it. It's like, it's normal to be injured or something. I've got an awful, I've got an awful wall question and I don't even think about it. It's like it's normal to be injured or something. I've got an awful wall question.

And I don't know if it's even pertains, but I've heard before that nutrition can play a big role in injury. I don't mean from a standpoint of being healthy or whatever, but just like it can break down bone. It can hurt your muscles or your tissues or your connective joints or whatever. Having improper nutrition. Is that? That's a really good point.

Really good question. But we're not going to answer it today. No, I'm just kidding. Thanks a lot, Mike. Yeah, I mean, your nutrition and the amount of sleep you get are the two things that influence your recovery from anything, whether it's intentional muscle breakdown that you did from training and you're just sore and you're trying to build muscle mass, or when you strain a muscle and you kind of just get a little tear in it and it hurts,

it still has to build that tissue back. And you do that by providing new tissue from which to build from, which is food. And if you don't have enough of that, then it's going to happen slower. So it's going to take longer to recover. And then, like I said, sleep's the other big one. If you're not getting enough sleep, which when you're sleeping, you're recovering at a faster rate than you would when you're up moving around. So if you don't get enough food and you don't sleep enough,

then yeah, it'll take a little bit longer. But as far as causing an injury, no, probably not. If you eat really, really, really bad as opposed to really, really, really good, if you're on the far ends of the spectrum, yeah. But for the most part, I really don't think about nutrition. When someone gets hurt, I'm not like, well, your diet's bad. Well, one of the things I've heard before is like, oh, if you drink sodas, it's going to break down your joints and bones and this kind of thing.

It's going to make you weaker. There's phosphoric acid in a lot of sodas and that you know people talk about it leaching calcium out of your bones and stuff but uh if you just if you just suck down tons of coke all day long and you never do any strength training and your bone density is terrible and you're and you're an elderly woman on and on and on then maybe you could blame it on the soda, but I think that's an extreme case. I think a lot of times people want to focus on that one little thing, and really what you want to look at is total inflammation. So there's a lot of foods that cause inflammation,

and there's foods that are anti-inflammatory, and I think everyone's familiar with foods that you know are anti-inflammatory as being healthy right so if if you're eating a diet that causes a lot of inflammation then you're gonna end up more act or uh injury prone because you aren't recovering as fast so if you have a if you have a previous injury like myself a back injury i should probably yeah there's there's certain things not eat foods that are inflammatory right so. So what can end up happening is if your body is not able to recover as fast and you keep on putting that stress on it, then it can make that injury happen sooner.

Also, as far as joint pain goes in general, there's a lot of stuff to show that just systemic inflammation will cause all your joints to be more likely to be injured or hurt more. So things like, uh, taking anti-inflammatory, uh, fish oil, you know, just something as simple as that. People reported like take fish oil. That's, that's a nutrient really. Um, it's, it's something that you would that you could eat in your food but you're going to put in a pill instead you take that and joints feel better

and they're healthier and stuff like that and a lot of that is just lowering your entire systemic inflammation in the body um the other thing too is like there's certain things you can eat that are like gut irritants so they can cause gut irritation. And what can happen there also is like gluten is one of these things for a lot of people. That's why kind of nutrition is different for everybody. Not everyone, most people should probably be avoiding wheat at all costs, because as gluten and most people are developing some kind of gluten intolerance, it causes gut irritation, then all the really healthy food you eat all the good food you eat, you're not really absorbing that into the body. So say, say most people, calcium is not the issue. You know, uh, it's probably that they're just not loading their bones. Like your body will adapt, but, um,

but say, say you're eating a lot of stuff that caused gut irritation. You eat a lot of vegetables, say has calcium, but you may not be absorbing that calcium because you have so much gut irritation. You eat a lot of vegetables, say it has calcium, but you may not be absorbing that calcium because you have so much gut irritation. And so someone who's pounding wheat in every meal, they're eating bread, they're eating, you know, wheat pasta or something like that. They may not, they may be putting good nutrients in their mouth, but it's not getting into their body. And so that's another thing that cause, you know, and it's just all, all nutrition is, is for recovery. And so if you're putting things in your body that isn't good for recovery, then you'll get injured sooner. You just won't be able to train as hard as frequently either.

If you eat really well and get enough sleep, you can train really hard. That's why steroids work. They help people recover faster. It's not because they actually make you stronger. They just allow you to recover sooner so you can keep training. So, I mean, if steroids give you competitive edge, so does eating a really, really good food. So, I mean, my general rule for people who want to recover faster and stuff like that and feel better is eat one gram of protein

for every pound of body weight and at least 10 servings of vegetables a day. It's hard to eat the stuff that causes inflammation if you're doing that you're too full off the good food to worry about exactly hungry for bad food yeah once if i'm eating 200 grams of protein a day from meat or eggs and i've eaten 10 servings of vegetables i don't even want to eat the other stuff because eating is a chore at that point exactly maybe a beer but you know whatever there you go all right uh let's take a quick break real quick watch the technique one and we'll get back all right welcome back barbell shrug uh first i just want to give a shout out to illy that's the coffee we drink now i was like who good yeah so go to amazon.com and buy some Illy coffee.

I was drinking a bunch of Starbucks. Now Illy is where it's at. And then French press it. Don't ruin it. Don't ruin it. Don't ruin it with your drip coffee or your cream and sugar. Get off your high horse. Use your barbell shrug mug. That's right. Go to the website.

Buy a barbell shrug mug. Use that to drink your Illy coffee out of like us at some point we're gonna have to get our own barbell shrug mugs we sell them and we don't even have any until like during the show to drink out of we have that would be nice don't put them yeah not very good at washing dishes me neither so i use like all paper plates that is true for us too i do we do the same thing yep yep yep where it's at man i i actively promote that in the upcoming nutrition seminar to use paper plates listen we guests come over

we break out the plates plates right and glasses glasses but not at home with my wife and i sorry it's funny i've actually never considered that and it's a genius idea dude it's a it saves me so much time like paper plates paper bowls plastic she's plastic forks and silverware that's plastic where i guess is lifesaver he's been talking about this for years and i just can't do it like i feel like i'm wasting and that's just me. Time is money. I don't think rinsing my plate off and sticking it in the dishwasher is very hard. Sometimes you have to scrub it off.

I don't have a dishwasher. Ashley put it in. My wife is doing it, so that's probably why I don't. That's right. I think there's a cost to anything that you do. Whether you're throwing away paper products or you're using more water or more power or whatever by running a dishwasher, there's a cost to everything. In this case, it's saving me a ton of time and I'm not that worried about it. It's pretty cheap.

I save like a half an hour or an hour every day. I know if I were to reason it out, it wouldn't matter. Do they make disposable pots and pans? I wish. Because that's where I spend most of my time cleaning. Paper pots and pans. Well, if you get a really good pot and pan, it's easy to clean. It just practically rinses out if you spend enough money on one.

Speaking of which, your nutrition seminar, so I'm going to give you a plug, starts tomorrow, right? It does. So it started this week, I guess. It starts tomorrow, but this episode won't post for a few days. So it's probably already started if you're watching this episode. But yeah, it's going to be Monday through Thursday from noon until 1, eight total sessions. So if you're watching this episode right when we posted it,

it probably started a few days ago. So at a minimum, you can catch it next week. The dates are going to be October 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th, Monday through Thursday. And then again the following week, it'll be the 22nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th from noon until 1. And that's totally free. We're going to sell that nutrition course for $200 on Fitter.TV in the shop. So if you want to watch it for free for the very first time, it'll be from noon until 1 on thoseter.tv in the shop. So if you want to watch it for free for the very first time, it'll be from noon until 1 on those dates.

So if you haven't opted in for that newsletter list yet, go right below the newsletter opt-in on the main page of fitter.tv, and there'll be a little banner ad that has some fruit and vegetables in the background. It'll say Free Nutrition Course. Just click on that, and then you can put your name and email in. That way, before the next session, I'll send you the link so you can opt into the live webinar and you can watch that product for free as a one-time show yeah i've blocked off noon to one on my calendar for the next two weeks yeah good i'm looking forward to it yeah i'm expecting a very large showing we've had we've had hundreds if not thousands of people opt in to watch that, that seminar right now, the software only holds a hundred people.

So if, if on the first day, if we just blow right past that a hundred people, then we're gonna have to upgrade to the next best option, which I think is 500 people. Doug is famous. I don't know about to be famous. Look at that.

Whoa. Deserves to be, deserves to be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're,

you're welcome. Come watch it too. I don't know. Did I send you an email telling you about it? I think you did, yeah. I want to say I did. I think you did, yeah. Okay.

Tell the MMA guys about it, man. I will, for sure. Trying to get those guys to eat better and not get injured. Hence what we're talking about right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll have to remind Alex about it too. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, I'll be in Denmark all next week.

That's right, that's right. I can log in and check it out. Excellent. All right, guys. I think think we're gonna call it a day um let's go around and promote our stuff there you go doug already did it with his nutrition that was my plug you got you got your gym yeah a little bit about it memphis judo and jiu-jitsu uh you can check it out at memphisbjjcom. It's a fantastic school here in Memphis. A lot of great guys. We have world champions, Pan Am champions, professional mixed martial arts fighters,

great fitness classes as well. Beautiful 24,000 square foot facility. Definitely a great place to check out. Also, MemphisFitnessKitBoxing.com. Check that out as well. We've got some cool things in the works coming up very soon, which I won't announce here, but some very cool stuff coming up. Okay.

In regards to that, yeah, that's pretty much about it, man. Really one of the most successful MMA gyms in the Mid-South, if not damn country. Very, very, very successful. I appreciate that. We're getting there. We're getting there. Square footage-wise, it is the largest.

24,000 square feet. Largest in the country, North America. We want it to be the most prestigious one day, though, too. We're working towards that goal. A lot of good people behind us and great coaches and great students. One day, I hope to reach that goal. Yeah. Really, really good coaches.

It's actually funny. I know these guys on a personal basis. I've known them for years. It's weird to think about them being world champions yeah you know i mean because they just seem like regular guys but they just happen to be really really good at this one thing it's crazy grappling it's crazy you know and the guys are dedicated man and you know that's the great thing about our school uh you know we've got that competitive side where you know we go to the world championships and pan ams and a lot of our guys travel the world and compete and uh and that's great but it's i don't want people to get confused you don't have to be a

competitor to train at our gym you don't have to compete you can do it for fun fitness self-defense it's a gym that's that's geared towards anybody of any fitness level geared towards anybody of any competitive level or non-competitive um so it's really a place for for just about anybody but i will say this you know being around the top level competitors, even if you're doing it for just recreation, sort of inspires you to train harder and do more

and really get into it more. So positive breeds positive, man. So no one's going to punch you in the face unless you ask them to. Unless you ask them to. Right. You don't have to ask them nicely. They'll do it.

But they'll happily do it. Yeah. All right. So if you're in the Memphis area and you want to train some mixed martial arts or just get in shape, MemphisBJDay.com. Thanks. Thanks. have to ask them nicely they'll do it but yeah all right so if you're in the Memphis area and you want to train some mixed martial arts or just get in shape MemphisBJDay.com thanks thanks and this has been a great experience guys by the way y'all have an awesome thing going here really do and and for those who are watching this man these guys are uh are awesome I've known Doug and Mike

for a long long time and man they're very time you know very uh selfless with their time um anytime I ever have any questions these guys about nutrition or working out or training or whatever. Same for our guys at our gym. These guys always, you know, deliver. So awesome job guys. Keep it up.

Yeah. Appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. You got anything on plug cord? Nothing. No, I keep everything,

you know, to myself. I don't share too many ideas. You have the Corey Lonez blog.com. No, I don't. We talk about life, love and relationships.

Not yet. Keep it very close. No, I got nothing. All right. life, love and relationships. Not yet. Keep it very close. No, I got nothing. All right. Thanks for having me though. I really appreciate it. You bet.

You bet. Uh, go to fitter.tv. Sign up for the newsletter so we can keep you updated on everything we got going on and I'll see you next time. All right. Thanks guys.