Monday, January 30, 2017

I Have Never Been So Sore In My Entire Life

I am 32-years-old. Now that's not old by any stretch, but athletically, it's tough to make an argument that I'm not past my prime. Is that a tough thing to reconcile? Eh, it just kind of is what it is. Although I don't have same athleticism, I can sometimes make up for it with experience and savvy. Basically what I'm saying is that although I'd lose in a race, maybe I could trip the person early on to overcome their speed advantage. So, yeah, I ain't as good as I once was.

This hit me incredibly hard when I made my triumphant moderately successful return to training in grappling. I had taken about nine months off, partially due to my shoulder being so sore I could barely throw a ball for my dog, me not being able to straighten my leg without knee pain, and a job that meant that I wouldn't have as much time to devote to getting my ass kicked. It was the triple threat of excuses. But over time, my body healed up, my work schedule lightened, and I was ready to scratch that itch. Most importantly, Iowa wrestled like shit against Oklahoma State, and I was so mad that I needed a Wrestling class so I could prepare to go back to college to avenge their loss.

So I took advantage of ClassPass and signed up for a wrestling class at my old gym. Everyone I have ever talked to agrees that wrestling is more physically taxing than any other martial art. So there was a mix of anticipation and fear about how my body would react to this class. I have to say that things went fairly smooth while warming up at the beginning of class, and I was starting to feel alright about my cardio. We went through some drills for the rest of the hour, and my body actually held up pretty well, especially since I was drilling with guys who had 20-30 pounds on me.

After wrestling class, the jiu jitsu coach asked me whether I was going to stick around for his class or wait to let my body ease back into things. Well, I ain't no punk ass bitch, so I certainly wasn't going to ease into anything. I would not say that this was an intelligent decision, but as a stupid person, I rarely make intelligent decisions, so this basically followed my M.O. Wrestling was exhasuting, and jiu jitsu was an absolute core killer that night. Then I ended it with back-to-back five-minute grappling rounds against people who were in far better jiu jitsu shape than me.

At the end of it all, I felt great. I put out a good performance from beginning all the way through the 2.5 hours I was there. I knew I was tired, and I knew I'd be sore, but I had so much adrenaline pumping through me that I really couldn't feel much of anything at the moment.

I drove home, took a shower, slammed a protein shake and got ready for bed when all of that adrenaline finally faded away, and I felt pain. It wasn't close to the worst pain ever, but it was enough to keep me waking up throughout the night and any sort of movement definitely hurt quite a bit. I would say my abs hurt the most, followed by neck, my back (and let's not finish that phrase), my legs, my arms, my fingers, my shoulders, my feet, my throat, my knees, and my butt. Basically, the only thing htat didn't hurt was my face, and even then I got lucky, because I could definitely feel the blood filling up my ear at the end of practice, but luckily it naturally drained away.

Basically, everything hurt which made moving my body suck. In fact, staying still wasn't all that great either, as I could not get comfortable. by the second day, it got a little better, and by the third day, it was really just my abs and neck that were bothering me. I'm a big believer in listening to your body to guide exercise, but I will admit it's much harder to listen to your body when it's telling you things you don't want to hear. Still, it would take a total idiot to not listen to his message which came across loud and clear.

I'll be back next week to do it all over again.

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