Combat Athletes & Sports Health

Toes, and especially your big toe are equally prone to getting injured as your fingers are. It does not matter whether you are striking, grappling or doing both, getting your toe caught on someone’s shin, elbow, Gi or simply a gap in the mat can quickly turn into an annoying little injury. Once the toe’s …

Continue reading »

One summer a few years back, I started complaining to my girlfriend about my excessively itchy scalp. After inspecting it and coming to the conclusion that I had a fungal infection of the skin, she dryly commented: “I guess that’s what happens when you roll around with all those sweaty guys on those nasty mats”. …

Continue reading »

Most often, muscle strain type injuries can be grouped in with all the other hugely annoying but otherwise non-threatening injuries that keep you from training at full capacity. As with all of these annoying injuries, it is key to treat it immediately to minimize its impact on your training. At the same time, it is …

Continue reading »

Even though I was not fully convinced of the benefit of carbohydrate loading for Combat Athletes, I previously promised a quick guideline of how it is done right. Without further ado:

  Carbohydrate loading is a well studied and much discussed dietary method many athletes use to gain a competitive edge over their competition. While many athletes focus on the “how” of carbohydrate loading to make sure they do it right (and even here a lot of errors are still made) few question whether or not …

Continue reading »