When you’re a 41-year-old professional athlete, you don’t take any injury lightly. Fortunately for Vladimir Matyushenko (26-6 MMA, 4-2 UFC), his wasn’t nearly as bad as he originally thought.

“I was injured before I was supposed to fight last year with Matt Hamill,” Matyushenko told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “I pulled my calf muscle, but thank God it was just the muscle. I was thinking it was like a torn Achilles tendon, but the recovery was good. I just had to rehab the muscle. Tendons would have been surgery.”

Matyushenko has since turned 42 years old and hasn’t competed since a disappointing loss to Alexander Gustafsson in December 2011. He returns to action Saturday night against Ryan Bader on the FX-broadcast preliminary card of UFC on FOX 6, which takes place at Chicago’s United Center.

He lost a calendar year of competition during his recovery, but Matyushenko insists there were benefits to a little time on the sidelines, including an opportunity for him to consider adjusting his approach to training.

“If you’re a young fighter, up-and-coming, you need a lot of sparring just to learn and get into it and find your style and stuff like that,” Matyushenko said. “When you’re an already established fighter, you definitely can modify it to minimize injuries and stuff like that, especially when big fights are on the line. You don’t want to get hurt for nothing.

“You definitely have to be careful with what you’re doing and train smarter, not harder. That’s the transition I’ve been almost forced into. There are a lot of modifications you can make. I don’t want to give out my secrets, but you can actually set your training to be more intense but without the danger of heavy sparring.”

Matyushenko has done exactly that, and he believes his body has responded in fine fashion. The question then comes down to the dreaded cage-rust concern, where extended periods of time without fights sometimes leave competitors with a poor sense of timing.

“The Janitor” doesn’t believe that will be an issue, as he has remained active as a coach and cornerman for the fighters at his home gym of Dynamix Martial Arts in Santa Monica, Calif.

“It’s non-stop, 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Matyushenko said. “There’s no off-season like in other sports. It’s all year round. I don’t thing cage rust is something that applies anymore.

“Right now, I think the time off doesn’t matter. I think before I would have had a hard time, but now I’ve adjusted. Even if I’m not fighting, I’m coaching or cornering. As a cornerman, it’s sometimes even harder than being a fighter because you can’t really change anything. But I think it’s good mental training for fighters as they get older to prepare for a fight. Mentally, it’s pretty much the same thing.”

Even at 42 years old, Matyushenko remains relevant in the UFC’s light heavyweight division. He’s certainly struggled in bouts against Gustafsson and current champion Jon Jones, but Bader will not present him the same type of freakishly tall opponent.

“I think it’s a good matchup for me,” Matyushenko said. “I think he has been working on his striking. We’re both wrestlers, and I’m also working on my striking. I think last time, I had a hard time with Gustafsson because of his reach advantage. Ryan Bader is much more like my size and my reach, so I think it’s going to be a great match and a great fight.”

What comes next is anybody’s guess. Matyushenko is a former Soviet national wrestling champion, and he boasts a degree in Health Science. That background would seem to suit him well as a coach, but he’s not ready to hang up the gloves just yet. In facing a man 13 years his junior, Matyushenko is out to prove he still belongs inside the cage rather than in a corner.

“I’m just enjoying my time right now, and as long as there are fans that will keep watching and the UFC keeps calling me, I’ll be in,” Matyushenko said.

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