A Cauliflower Ear - Some photos

Someone asked me the other day what a cauliflower ear is. Many people get a cauliflower ear from the constant hitting and rubbing on the ear from doing judo, bjj, wrestling or sticking your head in a rugby scrum.

A Cauliflower ear is simply a bruise (or hematoma) that doesn't heal. Your ear is made up of cartilage and when you get a hit or knock to the ear blood enters you ear and becomes stuck in between the cartilage. If the blood cannot drain and get out of the ear then it will set and go hard.

As the blood in the ear starts going hard the cartilage will start to shrivel and fold a little bit which is why the ear looks similar to a cauliflower. The pic below is before i got my ear drained by a syringe.

The doctor will put a local anesthetic on your ear and then stick a syringe in and suck out all the blood that's stuck in there. If you do this straight away before the cartilage is damaged then your ear will remain the same. If you don't drain is straight away the blood will go hard, once this happens you are unable to drain the blood out and the only way to fix it is to get an operation.

Many people believe that you get a cauliflower from 1 hit, but that is very rare. M,ost players get their caulis from training 6 days a week and the ears are constantly getting hit and bumped, hence why the more experienced and serious judo players get caulis while the recreational stay happy as larry.

You can wear some headgear called cauli stoppers to prevent a cauli ear (but who wants to wear headgear forever?)
http://www.grapplingstore.com/contents/en-uk/d273.html

The headgear is great but in the end if you train all the time at a high intensity you will probably get a cauli somewhere on your ear.



Here is my ear after it was drained a few times but because i kept on training my ear kept refilling with blood and was getting semi hard. The Dr said that he couldn't pierce my ear with the syringe so you can see where he cut it with a knife to remove the blood.



If you look at the above picture and then the picture below you can see how the ear has kind of shrivelled a little bit and has a weird shape about it. That's what happens when the cartilage dies.



So my ears are a little strange and mostly i they don't really get noticed by people very often which is ok but if i go into primary schools or do a few tours at the AIS kids notice straight away because if they don't know you they study everything about you and pick up on it pretty quick.

Article- Bones in the Body

Bones have so many different roles within the human body. So what are their roles and are they really that important?

Structure:
The bones in our body provide us with structure determining our body shape. Some people have narrow shoulders, others wide. All of this depends on the structure and shape of our bones. This is very important for sportsman (weightlifting, rugby etc) that need to cater certain techniques or movements to how they are built. For eg if you have a long neck you don’t play hooker in case the scrum collapses and you injure your neck.
The structure of a male body and female body is similar but the main difference is in the size and strength of the pelvis. The pelvis is structured differently because they need a larger, stronger pelvis for child bearing.

Support:
Bones support the human body by allowing muscles, ligaments and tendons attach to them. For eg the biceps muscles attach to the lateral epicondyle of the humorous. Ligaments attach bones to bones and tendons attach muscles to bones. Without bones our ligaments, muscles and tendons would have nowhere to connect.
Where muscles attach in bodybuilding is very important. For example if the biceps attach higher up the humerus then this will result in a rather small but high bicep apposed to a lower attachment resulting in a longer but smaller peak on the bicep.
Steroids as well as some conditions like Osteo-arthritis actually weaken the ligaments and tendons that attach to the bones. Resulting in muscles being easily torn off the bone.

Protection:
One of the many important roles bones play in the human body is protection. For example the ribcage protects all the important organs underneath like the heart and lungs or the skull, which protects the brain, then we wouldn’t be able to participate in any contact sports. Protection is very important to our vital organs that is why it is very important to have efficient calcium in your diet to keep your protective bones strong.
Conditions like Osteo-porosis is the result of a calcium deficiency and affects the bones by making them very brittle and prone breakage. Osteo porosis mainly affects the elderly because their diet is usually not nutritionally sound. Osteo-porosis also affects individuals with a very sedentary lifestyle.

Production:
When growing up children run around jump and twist and actually weaken their bones. Bones do something very similar to how muscles repair micro tears with protein. When a bone is weakened from continuos running and jumping it produces small molecules called Osteo-blasts. These Osteo-blasts travel to where the bone is weak and strengthens it.
Studies now show that children, at an early age, that don’t participate in regular exercise have slightly weaker bones when they are older due to the fact that they didn’t receive consistent Osteo blasts in the weakened part of the bone.
If you see your children running around be glad to know that there are so many benefits to them exercising and strong bones is one of them. Also remember that strong bones means a lot more than ‘I’ll never break a leg.’ It means that you will hopefully delay the onset of Osteo-porosis.

Bone is also where you can find the very important Bone Marrow. Bone marrow is one of the most important aspects of bone; this is where white blood cells are made. White blood cells are used to fight off the bad bacteria within the body.
You may have heard of people needing bone marrow transplants that is because either their bone marrow doesn’t produce enough white blood cells to help the immune system fights bad bacteria or their marrow doesn’t produce white blood cells at all. This is very fatal because if the body has no defences to disease then death is imminent.

The good thing is calcium can be found in many every day foods, Milk, cheese and all dairy products. Combine exercise with the right amount of calcium and you are doing all the right steps to have good, strong healthy bones.


Matt D’Aquino
8/11/2006

New program = new motivation

Since being back from Samoa i have enjoyed a good rest and indulgence of food. Ive been spending the last few weeks hanging out with family and friends and have been busy nearly every night of the week since being back. It almost got to the point where i just want to have a day at home in my lounge room so i can just sit and do nothing.

I recently went out to the ACT academy of Sport and Dean down there has written me another gym program leading up to the bash for cash and the ACT Open next year. Im already looking forward to competing again and training really hard. My new gym program is pretty sweet and involves everything i need for judo but it includes sand bags, cleans and chins as well as a few power band exercises that are pretty good fun. Now all i need to do is start doing some ropes again.

Everyday this week i have been up early and ready to just attack the day. I'm keen as to train and train people and just enjoy the summer holidays.

I love Christmas its so much fun to hang out in the afternoon sun and relax and listen to music and chat to Sam or whoever else is around at the time. Its also awesome to go for a drive and check out the Christmas lights.

This week i went back to Judo and had a pretty good session. In was keen on just getting a sweat up and not doing too much but i ended up fighting Callaway and Tom which was good because they push me (in other words bash me) and throw me around so that's pretty good.

After watching my fights a few times I'm keen to correct the stuff that needs correcting and especially after seeing the Chinese guy who beat me win the Chinese Grand Prix last weekend makes me once again realise that I'm so close to matching it with these guys that its so frustrating.

On return from Samoa i had a few msgs on my voice mail regarding doing a speech at the Year 10 Graduation at Melrose high school. Its an honour that people regard me as someone who can inspire others especially the younger generations when I'm just me.even though i guess i have a pretty unique story to me its just who i am but to others it may be interesting in gues. But anyway, I'm at the moment writing a speech that is going to be funny, yet inspirational with a hint of 'life wisdom' (from a 24 year old.) But the main message i will be conveying to the students is my favourite saying that i saw long ago, "There is no shortcut to any place worth going." I love that quote. it applies to absolutely everything in life.

so anyway i may get someone to film it and then i will chuck it up here so people can have a listen. I will be doing my speech in the Beijing Opening ceremony jacket which is a such a unique and nice jacket. Samantha and i always joke that if they house was burning down the only thing we will grab is the opening ceremony jacket.

Anyway that's it for me i have attached footage of Oren and i doing a judo demo at a local high school at Asian Week, its a bit theatrical but still as long as the kids liked it thats the main thing.

Video promoting judo before Beijing

http://www.abc.net.au/news/btn/story/s2316663.htm

Here is a great video done by behind the news on judo.

Pic of the week - Halil Mutlu

Halili Mutlu from Turkey is one of the greatest Olympians of all time.
He has won 3 Olympic Gold medals at the -56kg weight division. He won gold in Atlanta 96 Sydney 2000 and Athens 04, he has also won 5 world championships and 9 European Championships.
His biggest lift in the -56kg weight division for the Snatch (and still current world record) is 138.5kg and his power clean and jerk is 305kg and is also the current world record.
Many people in Australia don't fathom the significance of winning 3 gold medals in 3 consecutive games. In weightlifting you can only win 1 medal per Olympics, therefore Halil dominated for the span of around 12 years. Compare that to many swimmers won win 4 medals in 1 games, that's potentially only 1 or 2 years of good form, this guy dominated for 12 years.
Its awesome and very inspirational.

More Aussies are top 30

An increased number of Australian Judo players have improved their
International Judo Federation (IJF) World rankings following the team's success
at the recent Oceania Judo Union World Cup in Samoa. Australia now has a
record number of 28 competitors in the World Ranking List.

NSW competitor Kylie Koenig's ranking at 22 (up 17 places from 39) in the U/63Kg
division caps off a very successful year in international competition and continues
her position as Australia's highest internationally ranked competitor. Kylie's key
international achievements in 2009 have been; 2nd at the World Cup in Samoa,
top 16 at the World Championships, 3rd at PAC RIM in Taiwan and 1st in the
International Tournament Glaspalast in Germany.

Mark Anthony (VIC) has moved up 16 places to be ranked 24 in the U/90Kg
consolidating his status as a rising star. This follows winning Gold at Samoa, a
top 16 finish at the World Championships in Rotterdam in September 2009 and a
Silver medal at the Pacific RIM Championships in Taiwan.

Highlights among the new entrants to break into top 30 positions following their
Gold medals at Samoa are Tasmanian, Stephanie Grant ranked 27 in the U/78Kg
division, Janelle Shepherd from NSW in the women’s over 78kg category, ranked
28, and Jake Andrewartha from SA ranked 29 in the Over 100+ division. The other
World Cup Gold medalist, Emily Bensted (VIC) ranked 31 narrowly missed the top
30.

World ranking points are currently used to seed the top players in the draws, so a
number of Australians are now better placed for their next international
competitions as a result of their performances here. From May 2010 WRL points
will be used for Olympic Selection for London 2012.

Further Enquiries
Phil McDermott 0412 440 499
John Buckley 0411 484 527