Prehab and Strength Training for Judo - An Interview with Eugene - The Shintaro Higashi Show

In this special episode, Shintaro's cousin Eugene sits down to share his expertise as a doctor of physical therapy. He shares tips on prehab, injury prevention, proper training methodologies and many other areas!
0:45 What Is Prehab
2:10 Prehab for Grapplers
3:30 Lifting before training
4:20 Preventing injury for office worker/grappler
5:50 A Shintaro specific program example
7:45 basic exercises for a beginner should do
11:30 broadening explosivity
12:50 asymmetry leading to injury
16:00 most common imbalances in judo/grappling
Find More Episodes on Spotify!
open.spotify.com/show/343IXJD...
Join our Discord server and start chatting with us and other grapplers by supporting us on Patreon: / shintaro_higashi_show . Any amount helps!

[@andrews1621]

@kneesovertoesguy absolutely saved my knees! I sprained my MCL in september last year and after about 4 months I was back on the mat, with stronger knees than I have had in years. I am a firm believer that every judoka needs to do VMO Squats. Tendon training has also repaired my shoulder and hip issues and I feel more resilient than ever. Great video thank you Eugene!!!!

[@sorearm]

Could do with some examples : cuts to examples of exercises, this seemed a bit directionless

[@ajeon12]

Love the format! Looking forward to hearing about knee rehab!

[@dimitrisk.875]

Very nice format, ideal for conversation videos with no movement action, really enjoyed all the info offered, thank you both!

[@chriss4959]

Eugene is pretty informative, u should have him on the show more often.

[@schloemerluke22]

Heavy club swinging and mace swinging are very beneficial for grappling. Building that rotational strength and strengthening the shoulder in through mobility. I try to do strength training that focuses on asymmetrical load as well as symmetrical to make sure there’s less imbalance between my dominant and non-dominant side.

[@monteverita7777]

Thx now I have everything to become a champion

[@Yupppi]

I had very asymmetric back, my hips were just in funny angle causing/caused by other stuff like slightly one-sided abs. However judo has fixed a lot of it. Especially after hip throw practice and newaza all the places that I'd try to hit at the gym have been on fire. Weightlifting and powerlifting also helped some, bringing the base level higher and eventually allowing to hit those weak spots when I got better at the technique and body noticed it's strong enough to handle those positions. Early on it was always compensation, slightly odd angles that I wouldn't notice myself or the exercises felt just awkward and I struggled to hit the spots I wanted. For example left lower back and abs felt like really difficult to hit. But aside weightlifting/gym building up the basic level, judo has everything. You need to twist and control weight in every direction and into every direction. Even when it's one-sided, it's a lot of movement for all the joints. And as a student it's still a lot of practicing both sides, for a black belt it probably gets much more one-sided trying to emphasize your strengths. I don't know which I can attribute more and what. I was less asymmetric when I started 10 years ago and built a lot of muscle, 10 years later more asymmetrical but stronger for lifting before coming back to judo, but now judo helping with the asymmetry more and faster than gym (I tried all kinds of physio stuff as well and that did very little after the initial small nudge). It's been just really difficult to get to fitness levels that allow lifting with judo, so far I've had to give up on lifting for judo.

[@CameronCanFLY]

Cool format❤ the video was cut a little short at the end

[@henryn6671]

Eugene!!!!

[@justinwallace269]

Swimming, bro! Lots of swimming! Cardio, strength, and mobility all at once. Calisthenics and gymnastics are fantastic for grapplers. 👍🏻 Weight lifting is alright, but it doesn't teach the muscles groups to work together in an organic way. Functional training like calisthenics and old-school Judo workouts is the way to go in my opinion.

[@ryssen339]

Would appreciate examples of exercises you can do at the gym that would be useful in Judo. Like I hear towel pullups and olympic lifts be mentioned but would be nice to hear about their effectiveness from a professional

[@Yupppi]

Towel pullups are an example of misunderstood specificity for sports. Do grip training, hanging from the gi separate from your strength training at the gym, because it compromises your ability to express strength. It's the same foundation as in any sport or any gym routine: powerlift big 3 - squat, bench press, deadlift. For athletes, since they need explosiveness, olympic cleans. Power cleans or proper deep cleans (I think judokas might benefit from going deep, for example throwers do fine with power cleans). You can do snatches too, it's lighter weight but demands high mobility positions and helps build them, and demands and builds a ton of power because you need to be able to pull yourself under the bar very fast. For olympic lifts preferrably have someone coach for the technique to get it right to get the benefits. Then you have the other basic stuff like pullups and rows. Seal rows are quite favoured due to focusing it on the back with big weight, taxing the whole system less. Like bent row might be quite taxing due to the postural demands and also limit your output for the back. You can do pushups of course. For power work stuff like box jumps and depth jumps and other variations are great, why not ladder dashes or whatever they are called (laying down ladder ropes and doing the tiptoeing fast). For cardio running in stairs. For hypertrophy (growing muscles) you can pretty much choose. Traditionally for strength you do lower rep training like around 5 reps for multiple sets and not to failure, you want to keep the movement crisp and express the strength. For hypertrophy you might do more reps, possibly anywhere from 8 to +20 is common (depending on the exercise and your preference for example what feels better to the joints) 0 to 3 reps shy of failure. And strength work still builds muscle so don't take it as two completely different things, the ranges are spectrum of more optimal. For judo it might be beneficial to not do more hypertrophy work than necessary so you don't grow outside your weight class unintentionally while training smaller muscles that don't benefit you much (for hypertrophy part you can address some smaller or bigger muscles that are a weakness of yours, for phyisiotherapy reasons as well). Something like bulgarian split squat or lunges are great for unilateral work to ensure your ability to keep stability on one leg and strengthen it. Due to the specificity idea overhead press is not included, judokas rarely need that pattern of movement. The order of exercises is also good to consider: sports science guides to choose technique exercises first, then power exercises, then strength exercises, then hypertrophy exercises and lastly cardio. If you're doing them in order. Preferrably you have them separated: judo technique in one session, gym work in another session and cardio in yet another session. But the order allows you to get the best out of each if you try to do everything in a single session, basically it just implies which systems take the biggest hit from training and require the most sharpness to be effective. Lastly: don't just take my words as true, I've just studied a lot on my own. You better check out something like Shohei Ono's training that is regarded as the best example of good, smart and reasonable training for grapplers. Or Sika Strength who have studied sports science, are weightlifters and do bjj, have done other sports as well and coach athletes. They regularly do reviews of athletes's training footage and give their two cents why what they see is good or not so good for the specific athlete (including Shohei Ono). Then there's also channels like Renaissance Periodization (Mike Israetel is a PhD in sports science, former powerlifter and has practiced bjj for a long time) that has a lot of material like strength training made simple or hypertrophy made simple, building your own program, balancing weight training and bjj etc, some foundational knowledge for gym training. And doesn't hurt to check out something like Stronger By Science's Greg Nuckols' (PhD in sports science, former powerlifting wr holder) free strength program for squats, bench and deadlift for samples how you might do it in isolation from grappling (it's one way from beginner to advanced, there's also the classic starting strength's 5x5 and 5-3-1 etc systems). Of course for grappling you need to build it grappling first to not compromise your recovery and ability to perform. For weightlifting information there are multiple places like Gabriel Sincraian and Oleksiy Torokhtiy (both olympic medalists now coaching), Juggernaut Training Systems and Catalyst Athletics to name a couple of good resources.

[@J3LYA]

Not sure if my eyes are just sensitive to it, but I found the camera re-focusing over and over to be distracting. Overall great video though! Love your content as always

[@nikolanesic2736]

Informative if you are ready to experiment. Otherwise, the best thing is to go to physioterapist. Not that I have done it. I just squat, deadlift and do kettbell swings

[@SpodyOdy]

👍😎

[@kerem7546]

i would be interested in learning some exercises that strengthen the ribs muscles (intercostals). this is my most common injury in judo, usually happens during ne waza.

[@Shr3w]

Try some sort of pullover variation. Wide grip pullups mights also be good to some extent.

[@kerem7546]

thank you for the suggestion!@@Shr3w

[@chriss4959]

is a bulgarian bag suitable for strength training?

[@AjaychinuShah]

Smart BMM even to a VW passed.