How to Push Past the Pain, as the Champions Do

I have done a fair amount of MA training and I think the best way to think about pain is recovery time. If I do this it will take my body less than two days to recover and it hurts but, that's reasonable if I want to progress. The next level of pain takes longer than that to recover from and should be avoided at all [1] costs. Fast recovery pain still has its downsides if you needed to escape from a burning building or run from a tiger right after a serious workout you would be slower and have a higher risk of injury etc. But, the modern world is fairly safe so it’s reasonably safe to ignore that kind of pain.

Unfortunately recovering from injury takes longer as we age so reasonable habits for a 19 year old can get a 35 year old into serious trouble. Also, you tend to get a mix of short and long term dammage so repeating low level pain can still be a sign your doing significant long term dammage.

[1] People are often willing to do longer term damage in major contests and fights. How reasonable this is depends on your personal goals.

If you want to do it, you haven't thought it through.

I have been using drugs when I was young as well as being a distance runner and, well, runner's high is very similar to artificial intoxication. In fact, nothing I've ever tried has given me the same level of intoxication and euphoria as a run over 70 minutes long. There are studies that show similarities between a runner's high and opioid intoxication but I never tried opioids so I can't tell anything about it from experience.

The problem was that I quickly became addicted to running, I would feel extreme depression if I didn't run in the morning and I would often go for a second run as I was craving the pleasure. During my two years of distance running I fantasized about becoming a social outcast who does nothing but runs. Which is what I was, actually. I didn't have many activities aside from running.. I was eventually kicked out of the job I had because I had to go for a team workout in the middle of the day, which screwed up my job performance. Friday nights, Saturday nights, and Sunday nights were spent pounding the pavement.

And I wasn't skinny either, 40-50mpw with workouts sky-rocketed my appetite so I would go on a "Runner's diet": eating everything that was edible. I have lost a lot of weight since I stopped running :)

This might be a controversial view but I do think that running can lead to addiction and even though it's more socially acceptable (not to mention cheaper) than, say, heroin, like any addiction it has its downsides.

That's funny, the picture that you are using for a GPS receiver is a Magellan Explorist 210, it's the GPS that I've been using for biking for the last few years.

But I don't think that it's compatible with your service.

Ditto to everything maxawaytoolong posted

TLDR: Mostly lost water weight. I'd done it enough to really know how my body worked. I knew the exercise techniques that worked particularly well for me, and I ate a super-clean diet.

This wasn't a Jared Fogel style "I lost x lbs." He lost fat/tissue. For wrestlers, it's mostly a water cut. In sports like wrestling, boxing, or anything with a weight division you may need to lose water weight to get down to the cap of your division. I was 171 in HS and 197-184 in college. You have to be below the division cap (any over 171 in this case would get you DQ'ed).

Water weight isn't too hard to lose when you start. In your sleep, we all lose from 1-3 lbs, then we use the restroom when we wake up (.3-.6 lbs). If you start with a workout in the morning (1-2 lbs depending on the workout), you can walk 2-3 more lbs off throughout the day. Of course, normal people eat and drink in the course of the day to "refill." Over time, you get to the point where you know how to master this cycle, with extra workouts to boost it, and control your diet to engage the metabolic systems. It's a delicate balance.

In college, I wasn't a starter who had to weight in weekly, so I wasn't always close to weight. Even though we'd work out 2-3 hours a day, we have our bodies to the point where an extra push is required to get down to size. Typically, someone my size and structure should never have been more than 5-10 lbs overweight at most. I just came in one Monday weighing a great deal, and I was also tapped to start for that match to give our starter a rest. Since my resting/homeostasis weight was 5-10 lbs over, losing the first 10 lb chunk was easy. The next portion was a little rougher, but I'd been doing this for 7 years (HS + college), so I knew how to do it.

As for the techniques, I would run, jump rope, and wrestle wearing sweats. Wrestling has a higher caloric exertion rate than boxing, which is already way higher than running or jumping rope alone. Our college facilites also had a steam room, so I would clock time there to keep my sweat up after finishing a workout.

As for diet, I'd start each meal with a couple big glasses of water, so I wasn't quite as hungry and wouldn't binge. I'd then eat nutrient-dense vegetables (spinach salad, bell peppers, seeds, berries). Then eat lean protein (chicken breast, fish, no beef). To end I'd either drink a V8 or a yogurt shake. After all of that water and nutrient dense food, you feel stuffed.

All this being said, you'd have to be completely moronic to try to rapidly that much lose water weight without having done so before. Do. Not. Try. This. At. Home. Trained athletes have died doing this wrong