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Stay Healthy On The Mats After 50 – This Is How

Stay Healthy On The Mats After 50 – This Is How

So you want to keep training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for a long time… Even after you turn 50? Or maybe you’re already 50+ years old and are wondering how to keep rolling into older age?
If you want to stay healthy after 50, then here are a couple of tips from Scott Georgaklis, a therapist and strength & conditioning coach who works with the U.S. national judo team.

 

STAYING HEALTHY ON THE MATS AFTER 50

Georgaklis emphasizes that the most important thing you can do after turning 50 is creating daily habits that will keep you healthy. That is to say, just doing things sporadically (as you’ve, likely, been doing them so far) won’t take you far anymore. From now on, start believing in the saying “if you don’t use it, you lose it” – because it truly will be like that.

But what will you “lose”? It will be your health; whose place will take chronic pain and stiffness. So, to stay on top of your health (and your BJJ), Georgaklis makes a point that you have to introduce daily exercising. 7 days a week, 2 times per day.
Doing them every morning is a must, as this makes most sense from the physiological point of view.

And these can’t just be any exercises. Focus on breathing and isometric exercises; there’s no need to focus (too much) on mobility, as your BJJ training has already taken care of that one.
Scott Georgaklis goes more in detail on staying healthy for the mats after 50 on the video below, with Bernardo Faria: