I ran a small workshop for the Women’s Grappling Camp this morning. Although the topic was on dynamic warm-ups for competition performance, we spent some time discussing how to deal with injuries in a competition environment. This could have been run as a separate workshop, but we went over some points that I’d like to share with you.
First of all, we’re talking about Brazilian jiu jitsu. While some of this can be extrapolated to other sports (MMA in particular), this is particular to BJJ because of the sheer variety of potential movements.
I’m going to borrow one of Stuart McGill’s terms: capacity. Although Dr. McGill uses this in the context of those with back injuries, we can really apply this to anything. Some people have a high capacity and can use standard training practices. Others have a low capacity and must severely restrict what they do. Regardless, capacity refers to what we can perform pain-free.
To rehab an injury, we must – among other things – push the boundaries of capacity and then allow recovery to take place. This cycle of controlled perturbation and regeneration is markedly different from the cycle of over-use and under-use that most athletes default to.
One of the things that makes BJJ unique is the sheer variety of movement possibilities. Anyone who’s been training long enough has worked in a gi, without a gi, with eyes closed, with one arm, one leg, only used specific attacks or defenses and so on and so on. Within this broad framework, there is plenty of room to take a shoulder, knee or wrist out of the equation. Not only is this possible, it’s necessary to do for a few reasons:
1. At some point in competition, you will likely have to work around an injury. In the movies, this usually involves being blinded by a cheating foe and then flashing back to blindfolded training with your sensei. In the real world, this usually involves not using an injured limb. Less dramatic but equally important.
2. You need to be comfortable taking something out of the equation. Injured knee? Limit your stand-ups, guard work, etc. to what you can do with power and without pain. Injured wrist? Don’t base on it or use submissions that depend on it. There are a million possible examples.
3. Put your ego aside. You will improve if you do this – even if it means diminished performance in the short-term (and when no one is keeping score). An unwillingness to put yourself at a disadvantage when training usually translates into poor competition performance.
4. This is an opportunity to strengthen other parts of your game.
5. The more you incorporate this strategy with minor tweaks, the less you’ll have to incorporate it in a competition setting.
GG
