18.03.2008

The high road

At 40 years of age, Gigi Paiva has the recipe for making you – and your Jiu-Jitsu – ever more vigorous

First published GRACIE #126

Middleweight champion of the senior 1 category at the International Masters’ and Seniors’ competition this year, it is redundant to say Alexandre “Gigi” Paiva, 40, is a competitor. But the real problem with this definition is that it may convey an incomplete idea of Gigi. The most impressive thing about his Jiu-Jitsu career is that, even with his younger years behind him, he is always becoming even more unpalatable as an adversary, a common complaint from his foes.

“As we get older, we become lazier. To do an activity for the pleasure of it is the best way to finding your physical well-being”

Gigi is a competitor, but not just in Jiu-Jitsu. “Nowadays I can consider myself more of an athlete than I used to,” reveals the master from Alliance. “I do a mountain bike course every week and train. I go up the mountains here in Rio, the Tijuca Forest, Boa Vista Heights, even to the Christ [statue recently elected a wonder of the world] sometimes. Even though I don’t stand out in competition, it is extra motivation to get in shape. I also participated in some Hawaiian canoe competitions. I was the masters’ champion there too.”

A Jiu-Jitsu fighter for the last 23 years, Gigi only became an actual athlete – in his own words – much later. “I’ve been mountain-biking for about four, five years now, and Hawaiian-canoeing for about two years,” he says. But where does all this vitality come from after having reached maturity? For Gigi, the secret to shaking up your life style is in the pleasure. “My whole life I did everything indoors – the gym, training. It’s just that these days I train outdoors. Working out pleasurably is something else. If you start rowing at daybreak, seeing all those colors in the sky, it makes your day,” he preaches. “As we get older, we become lazier. To do an activity for the pleasure of it is the best way to finding your physical well-being.”

And here are some more tips:

* If you think Gigi made it to where he is without eating right, you are wrong all around. Even when he wasn’t competing much, the black belt always watched what he ate. “I watch my nutrition and my weight, and I have kept the same weight for 14 years, between 78 and 80 kg,” he reveals.

* For competition season, Gigi does not recommend a change of diet, but to supplement it. “Products like creatine help you to have better muscular performance. At times like these, you need to work on raising the creatine level to feel better physically,” he says.

*Among Gigi’s regular activities there is also kenpo, yoga and water aerobics, which he has practiced for 15 years with Orlando Cani. “These things take time to yield results, but they are important for getting to know your body better, and to improve your breathing,” he comments.

* Whether he is fighting to finish the monstrous 80km Iron Biker course, in the hilly town of Ouro Preto, or going for the gold in a Hawaiian canoeing race, Alexandre Paiva never uses the excuse that he is too old for these things. Much to the contrary, he is finally old enough for them. So, if your training regimen seems repetitive sometimes and without much purpose after so many years, remember that it is not the only way to train, and look for something that makes you happy and healthy.