I have been wanting to write about this topic for a long time, especially since I turned 40 on March 31st. As a martial artist myself, practicing now for over 9 years, I have had to come up with my own nutrition and fitness program to keep me in the game. I have learned through my own fitness experience, teaching and training others that as a general rule, after age 35 most go through a physical change in which we seem to lose strength, take longer to heal, have posture problems, alignment issues and lose flexibility.
I started to first notice this at age 33 when I first started as a personal trainer. I noticed that I was feeling more sore after workouts and I would reflect about how I could go all day and night while I was in the military. I was also studying 3 different martial arts along with my NASM workout routine, the OPT. At this time I relied on supplementation for the majority of my nutrition and my macro-nutrient percentages were 20% protein, 20% fat, and 60% carbohydrates. This is basically the Apex nurtition program 2004-2007, I do not know if the use the same percentages. Now I have evolved more into what I call a superfoods/lower carb-higher protein diet. When I was on the higher carb diet many people who were low carbers would freak out over 60% carbs. In defense of Apex, their rational was that we needed the higher carb percetages in order to have the energy to work out hard and fire up the metabolism for fat burning. This worked well for a while. My supplement list back then was creatine, amino acids, various protein drinks, glutamine, multi-vitamin, and eventually fish oil or flax seed oil. That also worked well, especially for muscle building but I was also prety slow and lacked mobility.
By 2007, I had suffered 2 lower back injuries from martial arts, a shoulder and elbow injury trying to learn kettlebells and a hip injury that happened over time from an old Army foot/ankle surgery that did not rehab correctly. I started to follow some of Paul Cheks nutritional advice from his audio lectures from PT on the Net and then bought his book “How to Eat Move and be Healthy”. His ideas were very different than what I had learned at 24 Hour Fitness, Apex Fitness and NASM. He was big in protein and organics but allot of his ideas were a little extreme and weird. He was the first person who got me into organics and he also recommended a book called “Metabolic Typing” which said we generally need to follow a diet more like our ancestors. It made sense that we all have our own individual dietary needs, which explained why a diet would work for one person and not another. Also in the book there is a test which says whether the person is a protein eater, carb eater, or a mixed or combination of both. So I believe that what each martial artist or fighter will have to work also on individualizing their own macro-nutrient combinations.
Steve Maxwell is another person who gave me the idea about reducing inflamation through diet. He is famous for his joint mobility and body weight exercises with the focus of injury prevention and longevity. At this time, I had been reading allot of books on nurtition and superfoods. I was interested in finding foods that would help me recover faster, good for strength, and joint health. I had stayed away from almost all supplements after I left 24 Hour Fitness in December 2007 except for fish oil. In 2008, I started to eat mostly organic but due to it’s expensive, I had to modify. By 2009, turning 39, I pretty much came up with a solid routine. I will stick with general tips since we are all different.
Here are some of my basics:
1. Eat 3 meals, protein at every meal
2. 3-6 24 oz bottles of water
3. Greens almost daily spinach, arugula, brocoli
4. Fish oil, flax seed oil
5. Alvacado, coconuts, peanut butter, almond butter and other healthy fats
6. Amost no fast foods, trans-fats, and other processed foods.
7.Fish such as salmon, tuna, sardines, ahi, shrimp.
8, Vitamins, vitamin D, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin B and an anti-oxident multi-vitamin
9.Free Range chicken, grass fed beef, and grass fed lamb.
10. Blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, oranges, apples and try juicing.
All of these tips that I have listed have come from my own research and experimentation. This works well for me and since everyone has there own likes and needs focus on trying a few. Here is my rational for this list:
1. Be strong for my martial art or combat strength.
2. Be as injury proof as possible
3.Minamise inflamation and use nutrition to help heal lingering injured tight areas.
4. Be fast, loose, and flexible.
5. Joint Health
6. Longevity, eating with the focus on preventing digenerative diseases.
7.Eat to reduce stress and maximise mental focus and clarity
8. Increase lean muscle and decrease body fat. Low body is important for the aging martial atrist.
9. Eat in order to be strong and quick without getting over bound with bulky muscle.
10. Have a strong heart and healthy organs.
Last but not least. I have experiment with 2 liquid diet cleanses. I will hit on this in the future.