How many of us have put on some weight over the holidays. When the days are dark and long and we are constantly stuffing ourselves with food the weight piles on. Also many of us try to get away during the winter and spend a vacation in a warm tropical ALL INCLUSIVE vacation. Who hasn’t going to one of those places and drank and gorged ourselves on the beach.

Well Stephan Kesting has been away from the dojo and has come up with ways to stay fit for grappling on holiday. You don’t have to grappling or roll on the beach but Kesting has come up with some ways to stay fit during you vacation.

Enjoy

------------------------------------------------

How To Stay Fit for Grappling On Holiday

How many people do you know who gained 10 lbs or more over a relatively short trip to an all-inclusive resort, or a week of Christmas celebration? I bet it's a fair number.

Well I've just come back from 7 days in the sunny Caribbean and had to put this to the test. I thought I'd share some ideas about staying ready for returning to training, even while you're away from your regular training routine.

Here are my candidates for the four top factors creating the fitness implosions (and decrease in grappling skills) that often happen to both regular people and athletic types while they're away on holidays:

1 - Lack of general exercise
2 - Over-eating
3 - Over-drinking
4 - Lack of sports-specific training

1 - Lack of General Exercise

On a holiday it's often a struggle to get your exercise gear on and get sweaty. There are a lot of factors conspiring to keep you on the couch or on the poolside deck chair.

That's why you have to make getting some sort of exercise a priority. It doesn't need to be long or super intense - it just needs to be something.

Personally my goal when I'm on holidays is to get some sort of cardiovascular, muscular endurance or strength-based exercise every second day. Sometimes this gets stretched out a bit, and three days go by without an exercise session, but any more than that and I start to go off the deep end.

Exercising while you're traveling or visiting new locations ISN'T about improving your fitness level. You just don't want your body to forget what you're expecting it to do when you get back to your regular life and training routine.

It's great if you can find a gym, but that's not always possible. That's why I always bring my running shoes. You can almost always go for a quick run, and then find a place to do some pushups and pullups.

On this last seven day beach vacation I only got in three exercise
sessions:

1: a six kilometer jog. Foolishly I did this at the hottest part of a of a scorchingly hot day on the open asphalt road, so this was no time to push myself. After the run I spent a few minutes doing bodyweight calisthenics (pushups, pullups, etc.)

2: a seven kilometer run. This was after I had acclimatized to the heat a bit, and I also didn't go during the hottest part of the day, so I could push myself a little bit harder.

3: a short-and-easy bodyweight-only workout.

I know, it's not very impressive. Like I said earlier though - the goal at these times isn't to improve my fitness level with this relatively slack regimen. I just want to guard against being totally out of the fitness loop when I get back to my regular world.

2 - Over-Eating

Most people's day-to-day lives are busy, and that means that they don't have hours and hours to stuff their faces. Transplant these same people onto a cruise ship with an all-you-can-eat buffet and you'll often see some truly gluttonous behavior!

This is one of many reasons that I don't like staying at all-inclusive resorts, but it's also a problem if you're visiting people who think that hospitality means never having an empty bowl of chip dip.

So if you want to be ready to get back to the mats and not feel truly gross after the holiday is over, then you somehow have to keep the recreational eating and general gluttony under control.

Find something to amuse you on your holiday other than eating...

3 - Over-Drinking

Let's be honest - for a lot of people being on holiday means drinking. And drinking. And drinking...

Obviously bingeing on alcohol can have pretty serious health consequences. But even if you don't come down with cirrhosis of the liver then keep in mind that most alcoholic drinks have a LOT of calories.

For example, a 12 oz beer has around 150 quick-to-absorb calories. Given that most of our caloric requirements are somewhere in the 2000 to 3000 calorie per day range, it's easy to see how a few beers a day can significantly bump your total caloric intake.

The amount of calories in mixed drinks and cocktails are even worse.

(http://www.modern-wine-cellar.com/calories-in.html)

When it comes to advice in this area, you've really got to find your own way. I don't drink (at all), so I'm not the best person to offer advice in this area other than preaching moderation or abstinence.

More calories from alcohol, combined with overeating and lack of exercise means crappy performance on the mats.

4 - Lack of Sports Specific Training

The first three points are applicable to just about everyone who wants to avoid the holiday bulge.

However anyone doing BJJ or submission grappling also knows that grappling skills have a shelf life. If you stop training for a week or two then your timing, sensitivity and coordination also start heading south.

Part of the solution is to keep working your skills, even though you're away from your regular training environment. For some ideas you can check out what to do when schools and training partners are hard to find:

http://www.grapplearts.com/Training-Without-Partners.htm

On my last trip my plan was to watch a few BJJ instructional DVDs that I own but haven't had the time to watch yet.

I know that watching competition or instructional footage keeps my brain thinking about grappling. This in turn helps keep me sharp even when I can't physically train, and has even led to some technical breakthroughs for me.

(As a side note I should mention that it's been discovered that your body has neurons ("mirror neurons") that fire both when you DO an activity and when you WATCH an activity. So this suggests that there is some basis for getting better by watching BJJ, even if you can't do it)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron

Unfortunately my plan to use mirror neuron stimulation to achieve world grappling domination failed when my portable DVD player broke, but it was still a good idea...

There's an old joke that goes "take my advice - I'm not using it..."

Well in this case I actually followed my most of my own advice (other than the DVD watching)! Hopefully sharing my advice helps someone avoid the post-holiday grappling blues!

Stephan Kesting
www.grapplearts.com

Bet at SportInteraction for MMA and UFC Fighting Today