The Shintaro Higashi Show - Weight Lifting for Grappling

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

In this episode, Shintaro and Peter dive into the role of weight training for grapplers, especially when dealing with injuries. Shintaro shares his personal experiences managing knee and shoulder issues while maintaining a consistent lifting routine. They discuss modifications for common lifts, strategies for working around injuries, and the importance of balancing weight training with grappling practice. The conversation also covers Shintaro’s approach to dieting, his weight loss progress, and his ideas for future fitness content.(00:00:00) Introduction(00:00:34) Shintaro’s Knee and Shoulder Injuries(00:01:36) Adjusting Workouts for Injuries(00:03:42) Shintaro’s Full-Body Workout Routine(00:08:53) The Role of Diet in Weight Training(00:13:59) Fitness as Part of a Grappler’s Routine(00:15:48) Using Grappling for Fitness Training(00:16:55) Judo-Focused Fitness Class ConceptIf you're in business, then you have customer churn. Whether you're building a startup, growing a mom & pop shop, or operating in a fortune 500 powerhouse, Hakuin.ai measures, predicts, and improves your customer retention. https://hakuin.ai

how did you how do you know all these like uh more esoteric lifts that you do to get around your injuries like where'd you how do you get the ideas dude i've been lifting weights since i was like 13 years old i've never not lifted weights in of course, but I always wanted to be jacked Hello everyone, welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi show Peter you today talk a little about lifting I've been getting back into it. You know, I recently tweaked my knee. Oh Man, it's the whole thing. Yeah, so you boy you can still squat. No, I can't squat at all shit Yeah, and I haven't been able to squat for a very long time You know and you know people like all knees over toes guy my knees are way beyond that kind of a thing you know

So yeah between the osteoarthritis You know bone-on-bone the kneecap tracking to the side and then fragments in there, and I just recently tore out a meniscus, you know? It's not like that bad, you know, as it sounds, because it's very stable, right? All my ligaments are in tight, it's very solid, but it's just like grinding in certain positions and the things kind of get stuck, etc., etc. I kind of had that problem, I mean, like my knee will lock up time to time, so I have to like wiggle it out of you know That's it's sort of issue. So okay, so you're doing are you mostly doing upper body lifting then?

upper body well I do so or Right. So this is a great topic like how to work around injuries in the gym Yeah, you know, yeah, and I have a shoulder issues on the left side too. So I tore two of my Rotator cuffs maybe like two years ago and then I also have a frayed torn labrum in there so it's like not ideal with my left so I can't bench press anymore like I can't get down to that range you know yeah and then you know like I could shoot a take put cortisone shot in it it'll make it feel better enough for me to bench heavy but I feel like it'll do more damage you know I don't have the proper range of motion now because so much stuff is stuck in there scar to shoot cetera, et cetera

Yeah, and then I want to get gel shots in there But anyway, I do like sort of like inclined dumbbells now for the chest You know I see pushing motions and that's good for the anterior delts and the triceps I'll do that and then on the squat and the legs I can't really do heavy squats anymore used to be able to do 315 for 20 like to death like no problem But now it's like I can't so I'll do a lot of stiff-legged deadlifts, right? So it takes out sort of the knee flexion Yeah, yeah, yeah does that work the hamstrings I could do calf raises Can't do lunges. So I do what I can, you know

Man, man. Okay. Yeah, I do what I can, you know? Man, man, okay. Yeah. I do what I can. Right now. Yeah. And I'm not really doing like heavy push-pull legs, bodybuilder split, I'm not really doing that. I'm kind of just going in three times a week. I'm kind of getting back into it, you know, the last two months or so. You know, because now I can't do as much Judo and Jiu Jitsu because of my knee right now. Because I can't put my knee on the floor because of The way the meniscus is bulging out, you know Yeah, and then it's like for other certain things I could probably

Get away with it, right? But right now I'm kind of like trying to heal it while I get these shots While I determine, you know, some of these doctors are telling me I need a knee replacement, you know, I'm 40 So it's like I don't want to do that. Yeah. Yeah Yeah I don't think you can grapple out with a... I don't think so yes I'm not gonna do it you know. Yeah so it's way too young for that. Yeah so now I'm like in the gym more consistently you know and I'm doing a full body workout and you know I thought this would be a great time to talk about lifting regimen and things like that. Yeah yeah so you So you're doing more, you said you full body workout. Are you doing more body weight stuff

or still like lifting with dumbbells and weights? Oh, weights, I'm doing weights. Yeah. Okay, okay, I see. So- Yeah, so I'll do like a full body split. So I'll be like, I'll do like a pushing motion for my chest, incline dumbbell press most of the time.

Sometimes I use the machine, you know? And then I do like a rolling motion. You know, sometimes the bent over roll, sometimes the dumbbell roll, sometimes like a seated chest supported T-bar roll, that kind of a thing. So now I have push and pull there. And then I'll do like shoulder exercises. Like sometimes like a military overhead pressing motion

with the dumbbell, things like that. Sometimes the Arnold press where I swing the arms in and out and then I do arms and then I do legs, you know like hamstrings. Mostly like I told you like stiff leg dancing and things like this. How did you know all these more esoteric lifts that you do to get around your injuries? Like where did you... How do you get the ideas? Dude, I've been lifting weights since I was like 13 years old. I've never not lifted weights in my whole life.

I've always wanted to be jacked. That was like my first love. Like I love judo, yeah, of course, but I always wanted to be jacked, you know? And then so I would do bulking phases, I would read bodybuilding magazines. I used to have muscle and fitness, you know, like all of it, you know, like all of it.

You know, I was an avid consumer of all this stuff. So it's like, I know a lot about lifting weights. I see, I see. So what if, what would you suggest to people who are not as well versed as you? I mean, majority of the advice is like, stick to compound movements, you know? Compound movements. But it's very, very difficult to give advice without actually knowing the person, you know

So that's why I feel like all these all these little exercises need to do these little exercises I think that's it's usually like bad advice. I feel like you know, I'm not trying to take on the whole fitness industry But majority of it. Yes, you know squats are great deadlifts are great The major you know compound lifts are awesome, but a lot of people have limitations, you know, squats are great, deadlifts are great, the major compound lifts are awesome, but a lot of people have limitations. What are your goals? If you're trying to do judo four days, five days a week, then you have to work around that. You have to work around injuries, you have to work around goals. What is your diet like? It's just so many moving factors. Right, right. I see. And see and then well more than that like

where can they get information about this like YouTube it's a magazine YouTube yeah YouTube Reddit the internet really there's just so much so many resources you know and it's kind of hard to you got to find the right youtuber kind of person to follow yeah yeah you know and I kind of want to go into a little bit more like fitness content you know I'm trying to get lean right now. Okay. And I'm on track. I see I see so what kind of content are you talking about like more like the what to do like lifting sessions? Everything just fitness content it's like you know ten times a hundred times bigger than the grappling

community so maybe if I want a million subscribers you know that right then it's like I have to go that route you know that's a start peppering in some like a workout session workout me here the five exercises for every single person on the planet yeah yeah you can pull ups great for your back, pulling, biceps, chest, bench press, best compound movement for your chest, squats, deadlift, done. Maybe you can show these special exercises, I don't even know what that straight leg. It's a Romanian deadlift. You do a deadlift with your legs straight.

Another one Jefferson curl that you can do, it's like you round your back, you know, to load your spine on the flexion. You know what I mean? There's a pall-off press, which is good for the core. So you keep the cable, you know, coming in at 90 degree and you push the thing this way and it's kind of creating sort of rotational torque on your core.

And then you're just kind of like moving it back and forth. That's a great one for athletes, for core stability. You should make, you should do those very like esoteric stuff. It's been done a million times. When I teach judo and I talk about sort of the nuances of like finishing Ochi to a 45 vs a cutback. That stuff isn't explicitly said majority of the time. So it's truly unique, truly special to some people. you know. And then me doing fitness content, am I an expert in the gym and the best of the best? No. So it's like,

I would only be doing it for the views and the subscribers. I mean, that's wrong with that, I guess. Start a supplement. Yeah. Got it. I see. I see. So I think the key idea here is that you don't have to completely rest or let go of everything just because you're injured. You always talk about like, oh if you're injured, upper body, you can work out your legs, but vice versa. You can get around it. I think it helps to be active while you're injured Of course, you don't want to you know health man You are usually I get fat, you know during when I get hurt I usually do but I'm so locked into my diet right now. I've been on it for maybe I've lost about Almost 23 pounds it nice. Nice. You can't great. Yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, wait, I'm about a buck 97 right now

Do you got to go down to a more native that you remember when I'm gonna get shredded man? Yeah, usually I get locked in for two to three months And then I get pretty lean and then I kind of just fall off the wagon and I wall Bouncing back just be a little careful because you don't want to you want to stay in The man's weight not a child's weight They're gonna come after you. You know what's working for me more than anything What what is having a partner count my calories and protein for me? Oh, I saw the videos on I'm not messing around dude. She's like

volunteered for this position Go for her. That's a man. She was like she just kind of like making fun of me all those like you're fat You're getting fat. I'm just gonna say, you know, you're gross. Why are you gonna lose weight or what? I'm like, I'll lose weight. I'll lose weight. This is how I do it. This is how I've done it She's like won't get on it, you know, and then that's good. Yeah, she's yeah keeping accountable Yeah, then I was like, all right, you're gonna help me? And she's like, sure, what do you need? And I was like, all right, this has never happened before. You know, I've demanded it before in past relationships.

Hey, you need to serve me portion controlled, 500 calorie, 50 grams of protein meals. I could eat 2000 calories a day. You know, keep a certain range of calories and protein. And every single one of these girlfriends that I've ever had was like yo go... She's a keeper. She's a keeper.

And you know what else man? Now it's like if I go to the dojo I do my thing in the morning or something and I'm like alright I'm gonna eat lunch. I come back and she's like 600 calories 47 grams of protein. I just log that, you know, I Have a snack dinner. She's like, all right, you have this many calories Just many protein in you know, and then I'll give you if you're not full. I'll give you some strawberries Yeah, and then so I think buying in from your partner

Make a huge difference. It's like a support system also Make a huge difference. It's like a support system also a thing a person to keep you accountable Yeah, they yeah, it's it's it's all about that. Yeah, would you ever right if your wife served you a dish? like honey calories protein River what do you mean like what's that calorie? What's the calorie ever demand that from her? Well, if you have an agreement like you guys do, I guess. There's never been an agreement. She volunteered it and I was like, oh, I'll look for you to help me. And then I'm very grateful. Very grateful.

Yeah. I don't think I would like demand. I would like be like, oh, hey, I'm trying to lose weight. Can you help me? And then she do it. I think so. Really? But I don't know. Maybe not. This woman has a notebook. Oh, wow. That's like she's the test yeah now we know which one's good which one's not good I was like I didn't like this one I like this one yesterday she made tofu chicken not fake chicken but like actual ground chicken and tofu and then cooked into a patty in the air fryer with tomato sauce and cheese Oh my god. Yeah, that doesn't sound on the side, right? It doesn't sound that complicated either. It sounds great

Yeah, like diced up garlic sauteed it and put it in there and then it came with a little bit of the side of a rice And soup dude if she was like, it's 540 calories soup. Dude, she was like, it's 540 calories. Does she come up with these recipes? So she came up with that one based on a video that she saw before. But sometimes I'll send her recipes. Like I saw like this braised beef banh mi. Yeah. That was like 600 calories, also like 50 grams of protein. I was like, can you make this? She's like, yes. Right. So she has a notebook full of these things. And then, you know, I'm like, yes, I love this. I love this. I love this. I was like, yes. So she has a notebook full of these things and then I'm like,

yes, I love this, I love this, I love this. I'm like, yeah, this one's not so good, maybe not make this one anymore. That kind of a thing. And now... Dude, you're good. That's such a valuable... I would love to see the notebook, but I'm afraid to even ask because there's so much effort going into it. It's amazing. I was like wow this person is just Be nice to her man got a chopper. Yeah, you got a lot better down. Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing right that helps man Tremendously of course tremendously because now it's like I don't have to You know with my mom she's like bang fried chicken here. It is Why aren't you

eating you know did you work out hard you know have some and i'm like yeah i have no clue how many calories i'm eating yeah god knows what kind of oil she uses and then like i i walk away and i'm like wow i just ate you know 2,300 calories in one sitting i see i see and then if there's ice cream in the freezer it's like all, what more harm can this do? Yeah, you already ate that much anyway. Yeah, I've already been, you know, so. Try to get shredded. So it's not just, yeah, I think this,

it's not just about weightlifting, this is more about the fitness journey right now. The fitness journey, but I'm doing everything with the goal of getting as lean as possible right now. Yeah. In the right way in the right way the right way. Yeah, because if you lose too much Muscle, you know, it's not good, you know, that's why you're keeping the 50 grams of protein per meal per meal Yeah, I want to go 150 to 200 grams of protein per day And then that goes hand in hand with the lifting you can't lift and not eat protein or you just make any gains, right?

Right, you're just putting unnecessary tax on your body for no reason. If a guy at the dojo is lifting like a maniac, he loves his lifting progression, has a notebook and everything. It's like, what did you eat today? He's like, I haven't eaten anything today. I feel like I feel really weak. I'm like, bro, you went to the gym today. You blasted yourself in the back. Deadlift is heavy. and you didn't eat broke you didn't have anything afterwards like you didn't eat anything like that's dumb you know and then he's like oh I'm also sleep deprived I'm like oh dude

what is the point what do you even do it? I see I see. So it's like you kind of have to do all these things kind of together. Yeah you know. So I think that the title of this episode would be fitness while Fitness while injured. No, I did make a video. Yeah on youtube about like being fit using grappling Yeah, we had an episode too. I think yeah back at day Yeah, and then I talk about like calorie burn and things like this and if your goal is fitness and your training methodology has to change. Yeah. You know that's when the ecological approach would be good. Right because you can kind of control the intensity level. Yeah

because all you want to be doing is moving the whole time that training that's your goal. If you're sitting around listening to the guy talk about a certain technique this you go like this you get the other hook and blah blah you sit there you're not burning any calories right right if your goal is fitness you want to burn calories you want to burn the right type of calories not like in a very intense way that triggers a hunger response but you want to do steady low intensity steady state you know so playing these like passing games doing Uchi Komi drills and stuff like that in like a low intensity

pace like that's probably the best thing for you to just burn calories period you know. Kind of like fitness boxing. Exactly dude. Like I went to an equinox boxing class once. It was no boxing. It was like boxing but the lady wasn't a boxer. Yeah I've been to those classes. It was like dance boxing and let me tell you

something man I moved from the yeah first minute that I was in there till the last minute for 60 minutes straight me and 47 hot older women just like punch punch punch uppercut uppercut uppercut cross do a squat cross and it's like they'll work you yeah 800 calories or something burned yeah crazy you know they'll work you they'll work you yeah yeah you could do that yeah with grappling too you say you can do that with grappling yeah judo fit it's my dream to have a class like that how do you with I guess you need a partner though I think they'll be a partner you know part if you

if you could find a scalable way to implement that, that would be... Okay guys, grab a partner! Ochi, right, Ochi, left, Osoro, right, Osoro, left, stop! Oh, you gotta do both sides, man. You make some great Judo fighters. Yeah, that's... Jet Squats, go! Maybe you should actually try that out. Maybe

that'll work. Ukemi Itchi, Ukemi Knee. That tires you out. Ukemi's doing, you know, standing up and down. Ukemi's great exercise, man. And you learn to, you know, fall correctly, not hurt yourself, and yeah.

That would be hilarious. I might do that. I'm really trying to make an effort to make my YouTube videos more fun. You know those all those like you're talking about all these like fitness class videos during the pandemic right? That everyone's doing in the living room. Yeah it's gonna be... you know why I want to make my YouTube more fun? Because the thing that I was doing with YouTube is like one shot, one video, easy edits, the most sustainable, easy, efficient. That was the goal.

It wasn't even to like, you know, just pump out as much as I can, teach as much as I can, get that information out. It wasn't really view counts and stuff like that matter, but it's not my primary source of income. So it's really a hobby channel almost right? Yeah, but recently I'm like, you know, it'd be really cool to get more creative think about it put together scenes and kind of like storyboard something It makes something really Consumable by like, you know, not just lean in content where you're trying to learn something

But just like lean back and watch this fun thing, you know So judo fit class I might get like 10 volunteers from the dojo and then you know. Yeah it's like an aerobic like the 80s. There are people behind you doing the same thing as you. Yeah we'll put some cool lights. I'll have like a headset in. Dude listen they you have you taken a Peloton class? Yeah. Dude or like any spinning class right? yes it's amazing, like my wife does it you know yeah, i don't like it that much yeah

i'm talking, i hate it, i don't do it anymore like she wanted me to do more but i'm just like it's but the way they teach and it's like so motivating you have to work on your like they always talk about like life and how you should be kind to yourself and stuff like that. You gotta do that though. You didn't need to tell you.

That's the selling point though. It's like yes you're working out but you're also getting motivational speech. I was at yoga one time and this lady was like you guys are better than everyone because you care about yourself. yourself touch your head touch your chest. You know namaste Yeah, I love you. Do you love you and I'm like, oh my god Let me just stretch my hamstrings lady like But you I feel like I hate that little bit. I hate a little bit though I hate I'll love to see you do that. I'm doing downward dog And she's like you're carrying a lot of tension in your middle back. It's something wrong is everything okay?

That's funny yeah, thank you, man. I'm like what is It's amazing how they come up with all this like little speeches. I was just amazed Yeah, like always little martial arts all the time. You know oh, yeah little speeches I little some mace yeah like always martial arts all the time you know oh yeah oh my god I've been to those yeah show me the goddamn technique dude well comment down below what you guys want from Shintaro's fitness videos guys do you want some inspirational speeches or you want you just want the workout yeah I bet people want some inspiration from those speeches. When I was a little boy, when you were a little boy, you dreamed of being fit, you know, looked up to Sylvester Stallone, now look at you.

Now, but you can be, if you work out with me, you can do it. Love yourself, be kind to yourself. You made it here, you know, don't give up. I can. Make my body great again. It doesn't really flow because it's MBGA. That's true. You can't really say that, you gotta come with the... Make ass great again. Oh gosh.

Do some squats. Uchi Mata with that. I think it has to be a mission. Make your ass great again. My God, my my my my my Aga. Yeah. And yeah, lifting really good stuff, you know, and diet. And it kind of shows how important the diet is in this journey.

Right. Yeah. Judo fitness. The thing is. Guys, do I get fit to do judo do I do judo to get fit? You know it could be either or could be both. Yeah, you know how do I do it you got to kind of? Plan it out really you know yeah It's got a fit a roll all of it. Thank you guys to

All my sponsors by the way, how queen.ai business churn thank you drew for sponsoring the podcast thank you Jason thank you Levan judoTV.com discount coach Shintaro thank you Peter thank you Shintaro and yeah your brand Shintaro you guys your brand you know you guys brand.com and all that stuff yeah all right thanks guys hope you guys enjoyed this episode and we'll see you guys in

the next episode. Yep, bye.