Lang doing an ice bath after a hard day of training.

After recovering from a serious motorcycle accident in 2013, Professor Rafael Lang, from Octagon MMA, was able to write his own story of overcoming obstacles in life and in Jiu-Jitsu.

Although recovery was a delicate matter, the athlete did not let his resolve waver. He dedicated himself even more and earned titles in the meantime, including when he stepped on the podium twice in the Pan Jiu-Jitsu 2020 .

For this to be possible, the black belt followed a rigorous training and sent us the five tips that guided him through the most difficult moment of his career. Check out the lines below!

1. Accept that your plans are going to have to change, readjusting your goals will be necessary.

2. Discipline. Take your recovery as seriously as training for your fights.

3. Surround yourself with the right people, competent people who will assist you in your recovery, positive people and those who’ll cheer for you.

4. Invest in yourself, remember that your body and mind are the main tools for your success.

5. Respect the right time for your return, but always remain as active as possible, you can always do something, staying put is the worst decision.

The specific training of a fighter is already stressful enough and water training can complement and develop various physical qualities. In the water, you may use devices that can increase the intensity of the exercises through resistance, what works better because there are no impacts on the joints. It’s important to understand that exhausting workout routines and competition training can often overwhelm your body and change an outcome. This water training method was developed by Prof. Alvaro Romano who has for many years since the 1980s started to train athletes from various sports.

In the 1990s, Romano had the opportunity to work with the Physiotherapist Nilton Petrone, a reference in the area of physiotherapy in Brazil and many other countries, who developed a method of rehabilitation and prevention of injuries that is used and recognized by various areas of the human wellness movement. Along with the Physiotherapist, Alvaro Romano introduced the “Ginastica Natural” to the rehabilitation of several athletes with the most varied types of injuries resulting from sports. With this opportunity he could observe the importance of working in the water to the recovery of these athletes, so he incorporated and adapted the water training for the physical preparation of athletes and fighters of different modalities.

The preparation of a fighter is totally different from an American football, soccer, or tennis player. Therefore, knowledge and experience within the martial arts is very important to make this adaptation of training. This water training was created for athletes but can be used by anyone who wants to exercise, have a healthy lifestyle and stay fit, but at the same time far away from injuries.

Ideally, you should pick out an outfit that will offer resistance to your legs and arms.  For part of the training you may be using a palmar or surf gloves. You can also use something like a device that you can ” put in your hand ” like boxing gloves to increase resistance in the water.

Here is a basic water training that can be used once a week if you want to change a little bit your workout routine to recover:

Recovery exercises

1 – Walking with water at chest level, going forward, sideways, and finally flexing the knee at your chest. Then after, extending the legs forward, one leg at the time, and also stretching the back of your legs. Do these movements for approximately 10 minutes.

2 – Swimming Front Strokes for 250m

3 – With the surf glove, try to swim for 25m (or as far as you can) with your head in the water, and then come back breathing slowly. Go like this, back and forth, for 250m.

4 – Swim as far as you can under water and then swim back, Front Strokes, slowly. Do this until you complete 200m.

5 – Using resistance devices on your hands and legs (if you do not have the equipment you can do without it) reproduce the movements and sequences of punches with water up to your neck. Complete sets of 50 repetitions, then reproduce the movements of “Knee ups” alternating on average 10 times on each side.

6 – Immediately plunge and try to stay emerged under water holding your breath for as long as you can, coming back up when you feel you can’t hold it any longer. (Make sure you do this under supervision; it can be dangerous trying this alone).

7 – Repeat everything again for 3-4 rounds of 3-5 minutes total with a break of about 30 seconds to a minute between the sets.

Bow Pose

Feeling tired or overworked after Jiu-Jitsu?

Try this 4 Yoga poses to relax your body and get a better night of sleep.

Release any tension performing one set of the four moves after training or before going to bed:

Upward-facing dog with lion breath

Technique: Lie face down. Exhale as you press your hands into the floor by your site and straighten your arms. Allow the tops of your tights to lift, keeping your bottom relaxed. Inhale through your nose. Then, exhale through your mouth making a “ha” sound and opening your mouth wide. Inhale and relax your face, then exhale and release back down to the mat. Repeat this sequence of movements as many times as you feel is necessary.

Forward Fold

Technique: Sit on a mat with both legs stretched out in front of you. Inhale and reach your up overhead, lengthening your spine as you do so. Exhale and reach forward folding over your legs and resting your hands on your shins or toes. Breathe deeply and relax for at least a minute in this position.

Half Lord of the Fishes Pose

Technique: Sit on the floor with your legs straight out in front of you. Bend your knees, put your feet on the floor, then slide your left foot under your right leg to the outside of your right hip. Lay the outside of the left leg on the floor. Step the right foot over the left leg and stand it on the floor outside your left hip. The right knee will point directly up at the ceiling. Exhale and twist toward the inside of the right thigh. Press the right hand against the floor just behind your right buttock, and set your left upper arm on the outside of your right thigh near the knee. Pull your front torso and inner right thigh snugly together. Continue the twist of the torso by turning it to the right; or counter the twist of the torso by turning it left and looking over the left shoulder at the right foot. With every inhalation lengthening your spine a little more. Twist a little more with every exhalation. Stay for 30 seconds to 1 minute, then release with an exhalation, return to the starting position, and repeat to the left for the same length of time.

Child’s Pose

Technique: Kneel on the floor. Touch your big toes together and sit on your heels, then separate your knees about as wide as your hips. Exhale and lay your torso down between your thighs. Broaden your sacrum across the back of your pelvis and narrow your hip points toward the navel, so that they nestle down onto the inner thighs. Lengthen your tailbone away from the back of the pelvis while you lift the base of your skull away from the back of your neck. Lay your hands on the floor alongside your torso, palms up, and release the fronts of your shoulders toward the floor. Feel how the weight of the front shoulders pulls the shoulder blades wide across your back. Stay here for a few minutes.

Source:

http://www.yogajournal.com

Bruno Paulista in action at the 2015 Pan. Photo by John Cooper www.lineagephotos.com

With almost 3,000 athletes registered, it would be only natural that the 2015 Pan had a lot of stories taking place on each one of the 12 mats.

Here’s one of the most touching one of them.

Bruno Paulista, aka Mamute, is a black belt under Alexandre Souza, and the leader of Mamute Jiu-Jitsu, in Anaheim, California.

Up until 2010, he was an active competitor both in Jiu-Jitsu and MMA, but all that changed on April 23 of that year.

A slippery road on a evening in Florianopolis, Brazil, made Bruno’s car slip off and hit a light pole, which fell on his car and hit his head.

The injury to his skull was no joke, as Bruno recollected in a interview with GRACIEMAG, four months after the accident: “My first day, the doctors gave me a 30% chance of survival. My second day, they gave me a 50%, my third day, they gave me 70%, and on my fourth day, they gave me a 95% chance.”

Thanks to his strong health due to being so active and watching his diet carefully, Bruno was able to recover.

Little by little he returned to his normal life, first walking, then teaching classes and eventually training, but one thing was still missing – competing.

A no-gi world champion in 2007, Bruno knew that was one last thing he needed to do to have his whole life back just the way it was before April 23, 2010.

Saturday, March 14, 2015, was the day it all came together.

Jessica Schumacher, Bruno’s girlfriend, sent GRACIEMAG an email message sharing the emotions of that day.

“It has been almost 5 years since his horrible car accident, which was obviously life changing, so it is impossible for us to forget. For the past few months I have watched him start to get his body back in shape and back to training. I watched him struggle to get out of bed in the morning; both because he was sore and because it was early. I encouraged him when he limped around in pain and covered him with a blanket when he fell asleep sitting up in a chair talking to me. I stopped training as often as I normally do so he could come home to a meal I already made for him. I listened to his stories about how training went…what he had a hard time with, what was getting better. He trained, taught, ate and slept. That was it, we had no extra time.”

All that effort paid off when the moment came, as Jessica tells us: “It was all worth it when I watched him bow to step onto the mat. My nervousness went away when he swept his opponent with his beautiful guard. I was overwhelmed seeing all these awesome black belts taking the time to congratulate their friend on doing what it takes to get back on the mat after what he went through. He is not 100% back at the level he used to be but he is on his way and is focusing on getting ready for Worlds.”

Bruno himself wrote about the experiences of that day on his Facebook page: “Saturday was a very special day for me. I didn’t win the Pan Ams but I won in my life. It was a big victory to be back competing after my car accident and I am really proud to have amazing family and friends. I wouldn’t be able to do it without my girlfriend Jessica Schumacher, my mom Angela Paulista, my brother Hugo Paulista, and Jeff Rohn. I want to thank everyone that helped me to get ready: all my students, and the black belts Magno Almeida, Ricardo Testai, Renato Sobral, and Jorginho Closel.”

Follow our coverage at www.gplus.to/GRACIEMAG

Abmar Barbosa in action at 2010 Worlds: not a sure-thing for 2012 yet / Photo: John Lamonica/GRACIEMAG.com

Middleweight competitor Abmar Barbosa appeared to be making a dash for the top of the ranks of sport Jiu-Jitsu. He was a finalist at the 2010 Pan, won the Asian Open and the Honolulu Open on the same year. Starting last year, though, this native of Rio Claro, a town in São Paulo State, and black belt under Robert Drysdale got mired in a string of back-to-back injuries. What does a professional Jiu-Jitsu player do while recovering? What lessons does the champ have to teach us about motivation, physiotherapy and the art of not give up on training? Abmar Barbosa fills us in.

What was this spate of injuries like, Abmar?

Well, last year I injured my pubis, the exact same injury Guga [Gustavo] Kuerten suffered in tennis. I made a full recovery, returned to training three times a day and was feeling fine, but I had to stop for three months last year to do intensive physiotherapy to avoid aggravating the problem. This year I returned to competition, managed to place third at the Abu Dhabi Trials and even entered the Pan, where I didn’t do too well. I was training for and focused on competing at the Worlds but, and I don’t even know how, I had to stop to get an appendectomy.

How are your body and mind doing? What have you been up to?

Now it’s been four weeks since the operation, but I’m back to training normally. I feel really great and, even though I’m not 100% yet, I can compete at the Worlds and come up with a good result. I’m still not sure if I’m going to compete, though, because being four weeks post-op I can’t yet exert much force—imagine the force I’d have to exert at a Jiu-Jitsu World Championship. I feel the toughest part right now is minding the injury, the recovery. If you spend your whole day at the academy, it’s almost not humanly possible to watch everyone training and not train yourself. In my case, what helped me was to distract myself with a different activity. I decided to take a three-month helicopter piloting course here in the USA. That will keep my body and mind busy for three months and only leave me time to get tempted by Jiu-Jitsu at night. I feel that this way I’ll make a 100% recovery.

(Watch Ambar in action at the NY leg of the Abu Dhabi WPJJC tryouts.)

Did you think of quitting?

Truth is, a movie went running through my head. I did think about quitting, since I’d never been injured to the point of not competing before—and that’s over ten years doing Jiu-Jitsu. All this was new to me. But I got my head on straight, since as they say, every great athlete always has a great injury. It’s not that I’m a great athlete or anything, but I try to be. These days I don’t see quitting Jiu-Jitsu as being possible anymore. And the more everybody thinks I won’t be back as good as I was, the more strength it gives me to return.

What about your students, how are they?

At least I made the most of the time out of competition to train my students better. I paid a lot of attention to them, and I also helped Joe Louzan train for the UFC—he’ll be fighting on August 4 [probably against Terry Etim, at UFC on Fox 4).

* This article was the suggestion of a reader of ours on our Facebook page. Get on and send us in any ideas for articles or interviews you might have!

Georges St.Pierre at Renzo Gracie's New York academy prior to injury / Photo: Luca Atalla/GRACIEMAG.

“The treadmill takes the pressure off the legs, as though you were on the moon. It’s great for recuperating after knee surgery,” explains Ótono Filho, the physiotherapist at team Nova União Ceará, who works with the likes of Caio Magalhães, Eduardo Cachorrão, Carlos Índio and other Jiu-Jitsu black belts.

Watch GSP in action as he returns to activity. What do you think is the most important part of getting back in the saddle, gentle reader? Expert help, modern resources, or a strong mind that doesn’t let you get discouraged? Share your experience with the other Jiu-Jitsu practitioners on GRACIEMAG.com.