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

Rickson Gracie

Usually people breathe only puffing their chest and using only the upper part of the lungs. Doing this, you are leading the air only to the apex of the lungs without exercising the diaphragm. Therefore, the lower part of the lungs reduces the amplitude of respiratory movements and consequently diminishes our vital capacity that it is the average global capacity of a person to inhale and exhale.

In diaphragmatic breathing, or commonly known as belly breathing, when you inspire, the abdomen tracks the movement of the air inlet dilating gently; and when you expire, it contracts so slow and gently while the air outlet. Ideally, you should try to make this work using only the nose and breathing calmly. Move only your abdomen. Chest stays still.

You can use this technique to start and end your workouts and before the competitions. It is also a form of meditation because from the moment that we are always thinking about something, when you focus on your breathing, you will stop thinking about your problems. Try to observe that when the breath is calmed the mind also becomes calm, reducing anxiety, and giving you a sense of well being and relaxation.

This interestingly shows the effectiveness of this breathing technique, but only with continued practice you may notice changes in your daily lives and also in your performance on the mat by improving your physical conditioning, combating anxiety before competition and speeding up recovery both during and after training or competition. This technique will help you physically and mentally, being an important factor in health and quality of life.

By Prof. Alvaro Romano

Alvaro Romano teaching Ginástica Natural in New York / Photo: Cristian Buitron

A physical conditioning coach to the MMA stars, Jiu-Jitsu black belt and Ginástica Natural expert,  Alvaro Romano has dropped out of Vitor Belfort’s team and will not be training him for his showdown with Wanderlei Silva next June at UFC Brazil.

“I won’t be coaching Vitor anymore. I’m off his team, after having worked with him for his last two fights, two victories. Now I have some offers to work on producing new athletes,” Romano told GRACIEMAG.com. “My idea is to set up and execute a plan alongside professionals from all the areas of training. That’s the right way to do things. That’s how I always did it, and the results have been 100% victorious in the UFC  so far. I want to spearhead the evolution of conditioning for MMA.”

“I LEAVE THE TEAM WITH HIM VICTORIOUS”

A GRACIEMAG columnist, Romano denies any falling out with Belfort, but he does say he is open to work with other MMA stars.

“I want to deal more with the planning, while my son Raphael would work more directly with the UFC and MMA stars in their training camps,” he elucidates.

The Rolls Gracie student remembers how he took up Belfort’s training at a difficult moment, when the two first struck up their partnership.

“Fifteen years ago, I started training him after he lost to Randy Couture at UFC 15, in 1997. After another unfortunate incident, his loss to Anderson Silva in 2011, we started working together again. Now I leave the team with him victorious and at a good point in his career. I have other offers, and I want to devote myself to new plans for Ginástica Natural and training athletes,” Alvaro added.

Check out a bit of what Ginástica Natural is all about, in the following video produced by Alvaro and his son Raphael.