Karate and injuries - hard to get back into training
Last year, I “broke” my leg due to stupidity. Stress fracture + sprained IT Band + quad muscle atrophy = 1 year of physical therapy, and some insults to injury. Most people relax by watching TV, playing video games, reading a book, or whatever it is that normal people do. I relax by either going to the beach to soak up sunlight in the warm weather (thanks Seattle!) or exercising, in that order of preference.
I love doing karate, as it is the only sport that I’m exhausted after training. For example, I had to hire a personal trainer at the gym to “tame” me, because I’ll just keep going and going, never getting tired. And to my complete surprise, I’ll get injured.
Tonight was my first karate practice that my knee didn’t hurt at all. Maybe it was an easy practice, but I’ll take it nonetheless. I tried to get back into karate earlier in the summer (before writing the book), but my knee was killing me. Then the book started, so practice went on hold until after the summer was over. Maybe it was fate’s way of getting me to write the book.
Anyways, I started hot yoga this summer. I wasn’t a fan at the beginning. It’s hard to do 90 minutes worth of stretching to never punch or kick anything. I was pretty reluctant at first, only going when friends would go. But after watching the Olympics where that one US Gymnastics guy had an injury and used hot yoga to recover, I found myself having respect for it. In fact, I’m seeing night and day improvements by going, and I’m even becoming exhausted from doing it.
Anyways, the one tip I want to share, because I cannot blog anymore without sharing a tip, is that if you’re ever going to take a punch, always, always, always exhale. If you get hit hard, you’ll won’t have the wind knocked out of you. Reflex says to tense and brace for the hit, but you don’t want to be grasping for air if you’re in a real world scenario. Anytime I have a partner, I practice exhaling, even if they are in complete control of their punches. It’s all about muscle memory.
I hope to continue posting karate stuff from time to time. Maybe it’ll be another motivator to get me going. Recovering from a serious injury is really hard emotionally.
