There were lots of exciting matchups, but THE fight of the night was the much-anticipated rematch between heavyweights Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira and Frank Mir.

This fight displayed the highest level grappling ever seen in the heavyweight division of the UFC!  As soon as the match ended I looked at my good friend and training partner Ritchie Yip and said ‘we’ve GOT to make a video breaking down this match for people.’

And that’s exactly what we did early Sunday morning.  Check out the video below for a blow-by-blow, and submission-by-submission analysis of Mir vs Nogueira at UFC 140, including the SHOCKING end of the fight.

Others think that it’s gross.

Some people can train for 20 years and still have perfectly shaped ears…

Others need to wear headgear all the time or their ears start getting lumpier and lumpier.

But regardless of which camp you fall into, you need to know what cauliflower ears are, how to recognize it and what to do about it if you think they may be starting.

The most important thing is to be on the lookout for that special feeling of soreness in your ears after training.

Once you feel this – beware!   Even if your ears aren’t actually swollen, that soreness means you’ve got to take it easy and wear protection for a little while or you probably WILL get a full blown
case of ear mangling.

There’s a ton more info about prevention and treatment of cauliflower ear in this article here.

Pass this article on for me, OK?  Everyone admire’s Randy Couture’s work ethic and warrior spirit, but not everyone wants his ears!!!

But whenever he had a fight coming up he’d go absolutely mental and grind himself down into an exhausted mess.

For example, he’d start training 3 or 4 times a day, which is already pretty hardcore.

But then he’d start doing even more.  Like adding a long-distance run from his home to the training facility.  And then training.  And then adding a second run AFTER training back to his home.  These runs added at least an extra hour and a half of exercise to his already excessive regime.

Not surprisingly he was continually injured.  And continually sick. And sometimes he’d lose fights to guys he could’ve easily murdered in the gym!

This was all because of something called ‘overtraining.’

Overtraining is basically breaking your body down faster than it can recover.

Because of these conversations I ended up doing a lot of research about overtraining.  I’m not sure that that any of this research ever helped changed this guy’s mind – as far as I could tell he continued with the status quo – but I certainly learned a lot for myself.

So I summed up my newfound knowledge in a couple of slightly egg-heady articles that I then published in ‘Ultimate Athlete’ magazine.  Unfortunately this magazine is now defunct, and I don’t think you can get back issues.  But you can still read both articles on my website…

Here’s how to figure out whether you’re overtraining or not, and how to organize your training so you don’t overtrain:

Part 1)  http://www.grapplearts.com/Overtraining-Article.htm

Part 2) Peaking and Tapering for MMA and Grappling Competition

Like the old saying goes: “take my advice, I’m not using it!”

He’s also my friend and a mentor.

Recently I asked my newsletter readers if there was something in particular you wanted to ask Erik.  (Hey, if you were signed up for the FREE Grappling Tips newsletter you’d have been able to ask questions too!).

Anyway, within 5 minutes the email floodgates opened and the deluge of questions started.  At last count there were more than 500 questions in the queue…

We just finished getting the interview ready for you!  Here’s just a bit of what Erik shares:

• What training with the Gracies in their ‘garage days’ was like
• How wrestling can improve your BJJ, and visa versa
• The theory of the jiu-jitsu wheel
• The strategic and tactical differences between catchwrestling and BJJ
• The key to rapid-fire submission attacks
• Erik’s philosophy on training with and without the gi
• What’s the best time to attack with leglocks
• Leglock safety tips
• How to develop a fighter’s gameplan
• Tips for defeating larger, stronger opponents
• What training with Brock Lesnar is like
• The best conditioning exercises for fighting and grappling
• A glaring weakness (and fantastic opportunity) in today’s MMA game

-

There’s at least three ways you can listen to this interview:

1) Hit play on the video below, and/or
2) Right click on this link and select ‘save as’  to download the mp3 file to your computer, and/or
3) Subscribe to the Grapplearts Podcast in iTunes.

Thanks and Merry Christmas!

You see, I’ve been working like mad on the Online Grappling Concepts course that I’m delivering at my new site, Grapplearts.tv. I’m really enjoying creating those lessons, but it takes a lot of time to write, film, edit and encode each weekly lesson. And the 15 to 25 page PDFs that accompanies each weekly lesson. And the occasional bonus video.

Anyway, that’s the reason I haven’t been posting quite as much recently. Thought you might want to know why!

But I HAVEN’T completely forgotten about you. That’s why I want to talk about an easy way to prevent injury.

This tip comes from my heart, because I learned this lesson first hand when I injured my first BJJ teacher (and friend) Pshemek Drabchinsky.

Once upon a time we were grappling. I was on top and things seemed to be going well (this was unusual at the time because he was way more skilled than I). However on this day I almost had him pinned! Pshemek is one of those Daddy Long Legs kind of grapplers, and he was trying to put me back into his guard using his long, flexible and agile legs.

He was pushing on my hip with his hand to make enough room to bring his legs into play.

To thwart his defense I twisted my hips: this is one good option, because changing the angle of your body this way often collapses your opponent’s arms.

Unfortunately this time I did it a little to abruptly and a little too fast.

The bottom man is stiff arming my hips
(over-exaggerated for clarity)…

…so I twist my hips to collapse his defense

There was pop!

And he gasped in pain.

His fingers had got caught on my body and when I twisted my hips he couldn’t get his hand out in time. In effect I had applied a hard, uncontrolled wristlock on my training partner without meaning to do so. His wrist took more than a year to heal completely, and I felt bad about it the whole time.

There are eight small bones, and a lot of ligaments and nerves in the wrist. Unfortunately if something is broken in there, then the fractures is often missed by a non-specialist looking at an X ray. (So if you or someone you know severely injures the wrist, or if a nagging wrist injury just won’t heal, then get hand specialist to take a look at you, and not just the regular ER doc…).

Anyway, I don’t mean to scare you you, but I hope I’ve made my point that wrist injuries are not to be taken lightly.

If someone is pushing your body then go ahead and use the body twist to neutralize his arms. Just don’t do it super-abruptly and with a lot of weight on his hands.

And if you’re pushing from the bottom then be aware of the dangers. Be aware of the angles and positioning of your wrists and hands, and be ready to collapse your arms in before you get inadvertently wristlocked. Better to live and fight another day from the bottom of sidemount than have your training cut short by a hyperextended wrist.

Train safe, because as BJJ black belt David Meyer says, “Injury is the enemy!”

The most common question by far, was “what about lifting the unconscious person’s legs up into the air to bring blood into their brain.”

I’ve have seen the legs-in-the-air technique used to resuscitate unconscious grapplers. In fact, it’s even been used on me (I was 12 years old and got knocked out by a Judo throw in the adult class. I awoke with my legs in the air and a whole bunch of very concerned faces looking down at me)!

But I didn’t talk about it in my last newsletter for a simple reason – I’ve never seen any sort of research about the safety or efficacy of this resuscitation technique.

It seems fairly obvious that it ‘should’ bring more blood to the brain, and that it ‘should’ help people wake up faster. But that kind of thinking can be dangerous. Medical history is littered with techniques, procedures and drugs that ‘should’ have helped people, but instead caused grievous bodily harm.

A forum participant called “BJJ Medic” finally helped me out. He told me about some research on the so-called Trendelenburg postion. This head down, legs up position was used during and after World War 1 to help manage shock.

Recent research, however, indicates that this position does nothing to help with shock, and increases the risk of choking on your own tongue (which is, by the way, the most common cause for blocked airways in unconscious people). Click here to read The Myth of the Trendelenburg Position for yourself.

So until someone actually does proper research on the legs-in-the-air position, specifically with regard to waking up unconscious people, I’m NOT going to use it. The ‘treatment’ at this point only has risks, and no proven benefits.

BUT I SHOULD HAVE MENTIONED THIS

If someone is unconscious from a choke you should check to see if they’re breathing. If they’re not breathing, then either move them to the recovery position (3/4 prone) OR start rescue breathing. You should also check for a pulse, and if they don’t have one, start CPR.

I think that every serious grappler or martial artist should have basic CPR and first aid training.

But even if you don’t have the training to do rescue breathing and CPR, it’s very important to be able to tell the 911 dispatcher “my buddy is unconscious but has a pulse and is breathing”.

It was many years ago at a local tournament. My friend was winning his match but got caught in a sneaky gi choke. He was (and still is) a stubborn bastard, so he refused to tap and passed out. He might have been out for about 10 seconds before anyone realized what was going on.

When the referee finally separated the two competitors, I could see my buddy lying flat on his back and he wasn’t moving. From my position in the stands I couldn’t even see if he was breathing.

But then it got even worse…

He started to snore REALLY loudly. We’re talking horrible-keep-you-awake-from-the-next-room-sleep-apnea kind of snoring. Everyone at the tournament could hear it. Then, just to make things even more dramatic, he started convulsing a little bit, like he was having a small epileptic seizure.

Finally – to my infinite relief – he woke up, sat up and looked around sheepishly. Objectively he’d probably only been out for a total of 15 to 20 seconds (including the snoring and convulsing) but it sure seemed a lot longer than that to me at the time!

In fact this is a fairly normal sequence for someone who has been choked out. The snoring is normal. The mini-convulsions are to be expected. And they’re going to be a bit light headed when they wake up.

Judo and BJJ coaches have different opions about what to do if someone gets choked out. The most common approach is to stand around and wait for the person to wake up. And this works just fine 99% of the time.

There are traditional judo resuscitation techniques (known as “kappo“). Kappo is an esoteric subject, and I don’t know much about it. But I’ll give you some guidance coming more from a western first aid point of view.

In first aid class I’ve been taught to roll unconscious people onto their side or into the 3/4 prone position (IMPORTANT: you only do this if you’re sure that there’s no neck or back injury). Being on the side helps drain fluids from the mouth and prevents the tongue from blocking the airway. And there are some Judo coaches who agree that this is a good idea.

I don’t want to scare you with all this talk about unconscious people. Most accounts of chokes gone bad involve cops trying to restrain someone high on PCP by squeezing their neck with a billy club. Hopefully that’s not happening at your club.

In fact, chokes and strangles are fairly safe.

The Kodokan, which is the central organizing body for Judo, has conducted studies on the safety of chokes (“shimewaza”). The results are encouraging: Judoka have been choking each other for more than 100 years without any reported fatalities.

Attacking the neck is part of submission grappling and BJJ. If you do this sport long enough then eventually someone will get choked out right in front of you. Now you know what to expect when that happens!

Well I got sloppy and ended up on the receiving end of this rather horrendous armlock/choke/neck crank technique that’s one of Marcus Soares’s signature moves.

So there I was, getting squished. I was in pain, but pride kept me from tapping out (which, is, of course the wrong thing to do). I squirmed this way and that, trying to find a way out.

I ended up escaping by the skin of my teeth. I literally had to I ‘walk’ his leg off of my face using my face muscles, alternately contorting my face into a frown, then a manic smile. Frown. Smile. Frown. Smile. Frown. Smile…

Fortunately the combination of luck, determination and desperation eventually paid off and I was out of the submission and out from under side mount.

Not surprisingly, though, my neck was pretty sore that evening. A bad kind of sore. That oh-boy-I’ve-done-it-again kind of sore.

That was yesterday. And today my neck is almost 100% again. So what did I do?

Nowadays almost everybody knows about using the R.I.C.E. formula to deal with sprains, strains, pulls or tears. This 4 step process consists of:

R = Rest (i.e. don’t make it any worse)
I = Ice (10 minutes on, 10 minutes off)
C = Compression (a not-too-tight ACE bandage, for example)
E = Elevation (lifting the injured body part above the level of the heart)

When it comes to neck and back injuries you’re kind of limited though – compression and elevation don’t apply.

You really don’t want to be found unconscious with some sort of band wrapped around your neck – the optics just aren’t good (honest mom, I hurt my neck…). And with regards to elevation it’s hard to elevate your neck above your heart more than it already is.

This leaves us with steps one and two: rest and ice. It’s funny: almost everyone will ice a sore elbow, but very few people apply ice to a sore neck. This is a mistake.

That evening I put a gel ice pack into a sleeve and tied it around my neck, 10 minutes on and 10 minutes off, all evening. The 10/10 rule is important, because it’s easily possible to give yourself frostbite by leaving ice or ice packs on too long.

I even ran an errand with that neoprene sleeve around my neck. Yes, I got some funny looks, but I’m 100% certain that the early and aggressive icing had a lot to do with my quick recovery.

The other tool in the R.I.C.E. formula for sore necks and backs is rest. Notice that it does NOT say ‘stretch’. If you’ve recently strained your neck or back then DO NOT STRETCH IT.

When you strain a muscle it’s typically been slightly torn or damaged. The pain and stiffness is a way for the muscle to protect itself. When you stretch it too early, you’re just aggravating it further.

The worst back pain I ever had is when I came home from work with a very sore lower back and tried to stretch it out. At the end of that (gentle) stretching session I was so seized up that I couldn’t get up off the ground. I lay in the same spot on the floor for 24 hours, wondering if I would ever walk again.

It’s usually OK to start gentle stretching AFTER the inflammation has gone down – typically 3 to 4 days in the case of a mild strain or sprain.

So to summarize: if you strain your back or neck, DO get ice on it right away, but DON’T try to stretch it out.

(For those of you who don’t know, this type of hernia is when your intestines start protruding through a weakness or tear in your abdominal wall and show up as a bulge on the outside of your belly. These hernias may become strangulated, painful and infected, and if untreated might even kill you!)

First of all, thank you very much to all those who got in touch with wishes of a speedy and complete recovery. I’m happy to say that I’m doing great – I’ve even had a couple of light sparring sessions which was a ton of fun after 6 weeks away from the mats!

I’ve also received some emails with questions about hernias. To my knowledge this subject has never been addressed in the context of BJJ or submission grappling. So long as everybody understands that I AM NOT A DOCTOR I’ll take a stab at answering some of these questions:

————————————————–

Q: How long does it take to recover from hernia surgery and get back to BJJ and grappling?

A: Well, predictably the answer is “it depends.” As far as I can figure out, it depends on a number of factors, including

• what type of hernia you have (inguinal, femoral, umbilical, etc.) and how bad it is,
• what type of surgery you had to repair it (synthetic mesh, internal stitches, etc.),
• what your fitness level was prior to the injury,
• whether there were any complications during or after surgery (hemorrhage, infection, etc.)
• etc.

And sometimes you get conflicting information. For example, when I checked out of the hospital a nurse handed me a pamphlet with instructions not to lift more than 10 pounds for 4 to 6 weeks!

I was very surprised, therefore, when I visited the surgeon for a followup visit and told me that I could get back to FULL activity even though only 2 weeks had gone by since the surgery. He said that the 4 to 6 week rest period recommended by the pamphet was based on old surgical techniques.

So the bottom line is that recovery times seem to be getting a lot shorter (especially for mesh-based surgeries), but YOU REALLY NEED TO TALK TO YOUR DOCTOR OR SURGEON before getting back to training of any kind!

————————————————–

Q: What was your post-surgery workout and rehab schedule like?

A: Here’s my rough schedule so far:

1. For the first two weeks after surgery I did absolutely NOTHING.
2. After two weeks I got the OK to ‘get back to everything’ from my surgeon. Frankly this sounded a bit over-optimistic, and I decided on a gradual back-to-grappling program.
3. For the next week I only did light bodyweight exercises and light BJJ technique drilling with a considerate partner.
4. Then I did a week of light circuit training with weights (i.e. no heavy squats or deadlifts) and continued with the light partner drilling
5. A month post-surgery I’m in a phase of doing slightly heavier weight training (still no squatting with more than 245 lbs though), a bit of running, and some easy sparring with people at least 10 lbs lighter than me

As I’ve said before, I’m determined NOT to get re-injured (or get a different injury) during this post-surgery comeback, so I’m actually being pretty disciplined about not doing too much, too soon.

————————————————–

Q: If a fit guy like you can get a hernia, what about the rest of us? How can we prevent hernias?

A: Well there are a lot of different types of hernias. As I understand it, prevention depends on the exact type of hernia that you’re talking about.

I had what is known as a direct inguinal hernia, which has a strong genetic component. A family history of this condition means that you’re more likely to get it too (and, in fact, my Dad had a hernia surgery a couple of years ago).

It’s clear that picking the right parents is probably the best way to avoid these types of hernias.

On the other hand, some other types of hernias are more related to excessive body weight and/or lack of muscle tone. Staying fit, avoiding obesity and keeping your abdominal wall strong through exercise is probably your best bet to avoid these types of ‘lifestyle’ hernias.

I’m just so very very glad that I had the mostly-genetic type of hernia, because of the saving face factor. I know I’d never live it down if I’d come down with an optional lifestyle hernia….

No, you need to ease back into training. Give your body some time to ‘remember’ what it used to do and ramp up your intensity slowly.

I actually have some authority to dispense advice here, because I’m coming back from a training layoff myself.

Three months ago, in November, I was working like crazy on some new grappling instructional products. Filming, producing, editing, writing and quality control took up almost all my time. I trained, but not very much.

Two months ago I injured my chest. This interfered with most aspects of my training, and so I was only on the mats once or twice a week in December.

One and a half months ago – on New Year’s Day no less – I was shocked to find out that I had a hernia (a direct inguinal hernia, to be precise). It didn’t hurt, but I really didn’t want to make it worse, and so I stopped ALL training and ALL conditioning until my surgery.

Three weeks ago I had surgery, during which they lined my abdominal wall with a prolene mesh. The recovery has gone well, and I’ve just been cleared to get back to strenuous physical actiivity

So I didn’t train much for a couple of months, and then not at all for the last 6 weeks. I’m recovering from two injuries and one surgery. Should I just jump back into class and start training, hell bent for leather?

Obviously not.

I really, really want to get back to training, but I’ll have to make haste slowly. It would really suck to have my repaired hernia explode again (or to injure myself somewhere else).

My back-to-the-mats program has consisted of two things so far:

1. Easy bodyweight exercises: pushups, pullups, squats, shrimping, hip heists, etc. Nothing too strenuous and certainly nothing to failure.
2. Non-competitive partner flow drills for repetition of basic grappling techniques. And I’m only using sane, in-control, and relatively light partners for this drilling.

I feel like a bit of a wimp going so light and easy, but there are three things I’m trying to do with this program. I’m trying to:

1. Get my body used to the physical strain of exercising again.
2. To recover a bit of timing and help my body to remember how to move like a grappler.
3. To test things out in a nice controlled environment. If either injury flares up again, I want that to happen in a controlled setting, and not with some bozo doing a flying knee-on-belly technique on me in sparring.

In another couple of days I’ll start with some (light) sparring. And here I’m going to pick and choose my partners very carefully: lighter guys with self control only, thank you very much.

For once I’m taking my own advice, and it feels weird!