2024 - 06 - 24

Two weeks post-injury and I’m doing ADLs fine, and starting to walk more; which is good, because my overall activity is in the gutter, only being able to manage about 15-30 minutes of either laughably light jiu jitsu drilling or rehab mobility each day.

Summary:

Two weeks into my recovery process I’m able to take a more active approach. I’m still surprised at my rate of recovery given how close I was to a major career ending catastrophe and literally not being able to walk two weeks ago.

With that said, my overall activity is still very light as I rebuild. I’m trying to intelligently push the envelope, so while I can’t drill (and certainly can’t roll) or lift or run yet, I’m still showing up to practice and walking my dogs a little more to try and prevent atrophy.

The premium training logs below would be bland if I just posted screenshots of the same mobility routine every day, so instead I’ve included videos of the jiu jitsu matches and instructionals I’ve been studying this week. The same will continue until my training gets more — “creative” again.

Training Distribution (Hours):

Overview:

• 6-Month Goal: Compete as a black belt in 2024.
• 8-Week Objective: Rehabilitate right knee.
• Weekly Intention: Keep showing up, work what fitness (upper body) and drilling I can.

Assessment:

Habit Tracker: Average 80%

• Dry Fire Practice: 57%
• Film Study - Instructional: 86%
• Film Study - Competition: 86%
• Bed Before 11:00 pm: 71%
• Breath Work: 100%

Performance Metrics: (this week / last week)

Subjective scale 1-5, higher is better. Sleep and stress from Garmin.

• Sleep (avg hours): 8.43 / 8.5
• Stress: 28 / 32
• Mood: 3 / 4
• Technical: 3 / 2
• Tactical: 2 / 2
• Fitness: 1 / 1

Reflection:

What worked well:

While I’ve been injured, I’ve been doubling down on film study — both competition footage and instructionals. I’m also trying to stay diligent with rehab mobility and tuning up my upper body while I’m at it.

I’m also trying to walk as much as I can since my overall activity level has been nerfed; for a couple months actually since I’ve been working from home.

Where do I need to improve:

It’s hard to argue with being super tactically or technically sound when, for the first time in my grappling career I sustained a fairly serious injury. Tactics and timing, will of course be slow to shake the rust off of once I get back on the mat proper.

Lessons learned:

You may not that I dropped the drinking limit from my “habits.” This still needs to be kept in check, obviously. However, I want to focus on do-ing things rather than avoiding things.

On the other end of the behavioral spectrum, wanting to get to the gun range once per quarter is infrequent enough to feel like a chore and not particularly practical. Hence, one of the biggest time hurdles with self-defense shooting is clearing your clothes and presentation.

Injury / Illness / PR:

This is week 2 of my knee rehab. The diagnosis is a torn meniscus and severe sprain to the MCL. I’m able to do most daily activities without issue, but still can’t squat to full depth and obviously any internal or rotating pressure causes a lot of pain.

Session Details:

Monday: 6/24/24

Tuesday: 6/25/24

Wednesday: 6/26/24

Thursday: 6/27/24

Saturday: 6/29/24