Grappling Tips Newsletter

Yesterday I was training my side mount escapes. My partner and I repeatedly started with me pinned, and then we worked until I got out or until someone tapped.

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.

Labels: chokes, Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

A few weeks ago I wrote about getting an inguinal hernia on New Year's Day and my subsequent surgery.

(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....

Labels: Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Coming back to training after a layoff is a tricky thing. There is a real danger that you jump back into full intensity training and re-injure yourself right off the bat (especially if you've been gone for a while and/or are coming back from an injury).

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!

Labels: drills, Injuries, overtraining, training

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Here's a question I received recently:

Q: "I'm 56 years old and in pretty good health except for a few old injuries. My question is whether it is it too late for me to start training in grappling without wrecking my body too badly? (I'm not interested in competition)."

A: I've actually addressed this topic quite often in the past few years (maybe that's because I'm turning 40 this summer).

In any case, my answer is a guarded 'Yes.' You can definitely start training and make progress, BUT it depends on a few critical factors:

• You HAVE to be careful
• You HAVE to go slow when you spar, and be ready to tap out when you get caught in submissions (or even awkward positions).
• You HAVE to watch out for overtraining (also known as under-recovery)
• You probably SHOULDN'T train at a school with a lot of young studs who all want to fight in the UFC
• You might want to consider taking BJJ, not submission grappling. There is often a lot of testosterone and explosive movement in submission grappling, which tends to lead to worse injuries than the more controlled and methodical sparring in BJJ.
  

And here is some more reading that you might want to do before you start:

• Jiu-jitsu for 'Seniors'
• The Aging Grappler
• The Elders Speak
  

To balance all this out, keep in mind that you're still younger than my teacher (and inspiration) Dan Inosanto when he started Brazilian jiu-jitsu. And now he's a very respectable BJJ black belt...

Good Luck!

Labels: Injuries, older grapplers, overtraining, teachers, training

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Back when I was mostly training in Judo I heard that there were some traditional dojos in Japan where tapping out to a choke was frowned upon - even in club sparring sessions you were supposed to fight the choke right to the bitter end, and your opponent would release the hold only AFTER you passed out. I thought that this was pretty hardcore, and felt lucky that the Judo club I trained at wasn't like that.

Towards the end of my Judo career, however, I came across something even more bizarre. A Jpanese collegiate Judo team on a North American tour came and trained at my club. Not only did these guys not tap out to chokes, they didn't tap out to jointlocks either, at least until something in the joint had popped a few times. This was in PRACTICE, not competition. The irony is that most of these guys actually weren't very good on the ground, and at the end of a training session a whole bunch of them would be sitting against the wall, nursing sore elbows.

I recently told this story to my BJJ coach, Marcus Soares. After he finished laughing and shaking his head, he told me that back in Brazil he'd done the exact opposite. If he had a submission locked in, and he was sure that could finish it, then he'd often stop that attack, release the grips and go on to hunt for another submission elsewhere.

Perhaps not coincidentally I've seen video of Marcelo Garcia, the best pound for pound grappler in the world, using this same 'Catch and Release' method in his training. By loosening up your submissions before they are finalized you can study your opponent's reactions and escape motions, and then work countering his counters to your initial attack.

This intelligent approach to training sure beats the meathead approach of putting your training partner out of commission for a few months until his arm heals up...

Finally, as I talked about in a previous tip, some submissions are just inherently more dangerous than others. Knowing how to train dangerous submissions is important: if you never, ever use them in sparring then you may develop a myopia towards them. Now you might not even recognize when people are setting them up on you, or know what to do if you're caught in one. Sometimes people even apply these submissions accidentally: they might not realize that a choke has turned into a neck crank, for example. Knowing a little bit about how to intentionally apply a neck crank will help you be aware of when you are doing them unintentionally, and also teach you how to defend against them better.

These were all considerations I had to weigh as I was writing the script for my High Percentage Leglocks DVD. I knew I wanted to show some safer yet still highly efficient material on that DVD, but I was concerned about revealing too much about the heel hook, on the off chance that someone would injure their training partner. In the end I decided that I would be doing a disservice to the grappling community by not showing the heel hook, and included a lot of different methods to train these efficient and effective submissions safely.

For a more detailed discussion of how NOT to blow out your training partner's knee while leglocking him I would like to refer you to the High Percentage Leglocks DVD itself.

So be like a fisherman, and occasionally practice Catch and Release!

Labels: Injuries, training

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Tapping out is sending a message to your opponent. The most common message is "OK, you got me with that submission. Now let me go"

Many grapplers don't realize that tapping out can also be used to send a different message, namely: "I don't know what's going on here - I might be in danger of getting injured, so let's stop for a second"

Recently I was sparring and had my opponent pinned in side mount. He wrapped my head at an awkward angle and bridged. To relieve pressure on my neck I decided to go with the it and roll to the bottom. Halfway during that roll we collided with some punching bags at the edge of the mat - I was now wedged into a corner, my neck at a strange angle, and my partner perched precariously on top of me.

It wasn't a submission per se - my neck didn't actually hurt - but I sure as hell didn't want to find out what would happen if either he or I tried to scramble from that position. I tapped out, he let go, and -for once - nothing went snap or pop.

As you become more experienced your knowledge of technique grows - that is a no-brainer. A less appreciated aspect of the grappling learning process is that your mental library of awkward positions also grows as you spend more time on the mats. You'll figure out when certain positions are merely uncomfortable, vs. actually being damaging. You might be willing to accept the discomfort of a guillotine choke for longer, because you'll know if it is going to damage your neck or your windpipe.

Even when you get to black belt level, however, you're still going to periodically end up in weird, contorted positions that might be uncomfortable but not be submissions per se. My advice is, that if you are unsure about the safety of a position, then swallow your pride, tap out and live to fight another day. The worst that will happen is that you will make the day of some junior guy at the club who just tapped out one of the big guns. Not such a big price to pay really, when you compare it to the alternative of not being able to train for many months due to some stupid, preventable injury!

Remember that the tap can be used to send two different messages.

Happy Tapping!

Additional Resources: an article about two things that will put a halt to your training.

Labels: Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

One of the worst organized MMA shows I ever saw was a small local show, back in 1996. Before I talk about that particular show though, I have to set the stage: UFC 9 had just happened. That UFC was 'special' because at the last minute the rules had been changed to ban punches with the closed fist to the face (more on the event and the backstory here).

Some of the fighters in that UFC ignored the no closed fist rule and merrily punched their opponents in the face (incurring minor financial fines along the road to victory). Other fighters apparently took that rule seriously and only slapped their opponents. Almost of the fans, myself include, were confused by what was going on.

So now let's get back to that particularly putrid local MMA show.

A friend of mine was coaching one of the fighters, so I was privy to the pre-fight rules meeting. I was interested to see what they would allow at these fights. This was before the athletic commissions got involved in regulating MMA so every event had a different set of rules governing the legality of headbutts, elbow strikes, knees on the ground, wearing of gloves, closed fist punching, etc.

Are you ready for the rules meeting? It was one sentence long: "OK, like it's total UFC rules".

That's it.

After that, the fights themselves were a gong show. Some guys were doing Pancrase-style open hand slapping. Other people were throwing repeat headbutts into their opponent's faces and trying to punch them in the balls. The referee, the same guy who had delivered the oh-so-concise rules meeting, seemed completely out of his depth as he tried to manage the mayhem.

The climax of the show occurred when one fighter knocked down his opponent near the ring ropes. He then grabbed the bottom rope, stood up and stepped on the neck of his opponent. With the full weight of his body and the tension of the bottom rope pressing down on his opponent's neck and pinning him there he started stomping his victim on the head.

And the ref did - nothing. He was useless anyhow, but this tactic so stunned him that he stood there and watched.

Finally the victim's corner stormed into the ring and bull rushed the aggressor off of their fighter. A near riot broke out, and eventually, after much yelling in about 3 different languages, the stomper was disqualified and the stompee, somewhat worse for wear, was declared the winner.

Of course this entire schmozzle was almost entirely the referee's fault (who was also the organizer and promoter, by the way). If I had been a politician, and this had been my introduction to MMA, I would have knelt down and made a vow that my life's mission would be the eradication of this brutal bloodsport. Not amateur MMA's proudest moment...

So what does that have to do with us today? MMA is much more regulated and standardized now, but jiu-jitsu and submission grappling tournaments still use widely varying rules. Some allow suplexing throws, others do not. Some allow certain leglocks, others do not. Some award points when you use the turtle position to reverse an opponent, others do not. Some allow neck cranks, others do not.

Even if you never compete, it's still worth clarifying the rules when you're about to spar with someone you've never rolled with before. If you're operating under the assumption that heel hooks are forbidden, but it's the bread and butter move at that other guy's home club, then things could go badly in a hurry. No matter whether you compete or not, make bloody clear that you know what the ground rules are; your ACLs will thank you for it.

Labels: Injuries, MMA

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

I trained with Denis Kang for the first five or six years of his MMA career. At some point during that time he became very, very difficult to sweep. Partially this was due to his increasing technical knowledge, but it was also more than that. He started refusing to accept getting swept, and would keep on scrambling and fighting the sweep from its initiation to its very end. Even when I managed to complete the first 90% of a sweep on him I could usually never finish the last 10%: at the very last instant he would bounce, twitch, roll and scramble, ending up back on his feet again.

Needless to say, this was VERY frustrating.

Refusing to concede a sweep has a lot of advantages. In MMA the bottom position is almost always a bad place to be, because your opponent can use gravity and land some very heavy blows. In BJJ and submission wrestling getting swept costs you points which could lose you the match.

Some grapplers, however, give up too easily when fighting a sweep. Often this is particularly noticeable for grapplers who love the guard position: they are almost relieved to be swept because it means that they can retreat to their comfort zone and start working their own guard game. Probably their jiu-jitsu would improve faster if they tried to keep the top position and worked on their guard passing skills.

Some people might argue that high-speed scrambling uses up too much energy, but think of it this way: if you do get swept and pinned then how much energy are you going to have to use to escape to a neutral position? It's probably a lot better to use some energy up front and prevent the sweep from getting finalized, rather than ending up in a bad position and having to settle in for a long, hard, and defensive fight.

Scrambling out of sweeps can be taught and trained. What you need is a training partner who will sweep you at 50% to 70% of regular speed, and then takes his time finalizing the sweep by coming to the top position rather slowly. He has to give you the time to scramble and get your legs back underneath you, rather than jumping on top of you and squishing you flat. It can be difficult to find someone who is willing to help you this way, but the results of this sort of training can be very valuable.

IMPORTANT CAVEAT: I don't want to end on a downer, but I have to point out that refusing the concede the sweep is not without its own dangers. If you're trying to stop a very high-energy sweep, or if your opponent is heavy (or heavier than you), then the consequences of posting an arm out could include a sprained wrist, a hyperextended elbow or even a broken bone in the arm. The basic rule here is that it is OK to scramble but it is NOT OK to post on the ground with a straight arm. Better to concede the sweep than end up with your arm in a cast for six weeks!

Not having your arm straight and posted on the mat was also discussed in this previous tip: www.grapplearts.com/2008/02/simplest-way-to-avoid-injury.htm

Finally, some people take the principle we're discussing a step further and apply it to their standup wrestling, which is to say that they refuse to concede the takedown even after all their technical counters have failed. This approach is valid and has won a lot of matches, but the danger level of doing this is very high. I know several people who have broken their arms or dislocated their shoulders posting on their hands while fighting a throw, and every decent size Judo tournament features multiple visits from ambulance crews to pick up and cart off yet another Judoka who was doing all sorts of silly things while trying not to get thrown. Do it if you want to, but consider yourself officially warned!

Labels: Injuries, MMA, positions, the guard

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Acquiring new skill sets and polishing your existing skills is the very essence of training. When everything is working properly and you're surfing up the learning curve it is an exhilarating process. The learning curve isn't always smooth, however, and sometimes you run into things called slumps and plateaus. These two phenomena have some similarities, but are different.

In a slump your skills and performance deteriorate. Suddenly you have no gas, no coordination, and are always a step behind in sparring. Those sparring partners you usually dominate start dominating you, tapping you out with ease.

Oftentimes there is an obvious reason for the slump (at least in retrospect). Maybe it was because you were overtrained, or fighting off a cold, or emotionally drained from work, or sleeping badly, or not training enough. In any case, you usually figure it out and your learning curve starts to go head in the right direction again. Most slumps are fairly short, on the scale of days to a few weeks. It's very frustrating while it's happening, but at least it's over quickly.

A plateau, on the other hand, happens when you stop making progress and get stuck at the same skill and performance level for a long time. You might be training just as hard as you always have, but you're just not getting any better.

Plateaus usually last longer than slumps, especially as you become more skilled. Plateaus typically last one to several months, and sometimes as long as half a year. To make matters worse, during this time your highly inconsiderate training partners insist on continuing to make progress, widening the gulf and leaving you in the dust.

Plateaus are usually more demoralizing than slumps. Anyone can handle having a bad day or two, but training hard and not seeing any obvious benefits or improvements from training is hard on the ego and can make anyone question themselves.

The underlying cause for skill plateaus is hard to diagnose, and definitely harder than figuring out why someone is in a slump. Furthermore, without knowing the cause for a plateau it's hard to prescribe a cure, so often one is just left with a shotgun approach to solving the problem. Sometimes people have some success in ending a plateau by changing their techniques, training regimen, diet or the amount of sleep they get, but the fact of the matter is that most people's skills improve in little steps, not in a smooth line. You work and you work and you work and then, all of a sudden, BAM! Your game jumps up one or two levels overnight!

My advice for dealing with plateaus: maybe try shaking things up in your training or conditioning routine, but mainly try not to get too discouraged and remember that everyone goes through this at some point. Definitely hang in there: everyone gets better eventually!

Labels: Injuries, overtraining, the mental aspect

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

The stiff arm on the Heisman Trophy is an iconic posture in football, and it is used by players in every single game. In Brazilian jiu-jitsu, however, the stiff arm has a bit of a bad rap. One of the first lessons a grappler learns is to NOT push the chest with straight arms when trapped in the mount. This piece of wisdom is reinforced by training partners endlessly applying effortless armbars until the lesson is learned.

But there are many times and places to use the stiff arm correctly...

One good example is in guard pass prevention. I've written before about the importance of pushing the head to prevent the guard pass. If you manage to lock your arm straight when you do this it is much more efficient than using a bent arm: you can push your opponent further away AND it leaves you with more energy to think about what to do next.

Another example comes from offensive guard work. If you've seen my Butterfly and X Guard DVD then you know that transitioning from butterfly guard to X guard is one of my favorite techniques. This technique requires a stiff arm push to the ribs in order to keep your opponent's weight off of you. The most common error I observe when people try to do this technique is that they try to push with a bent arm, which usually just isn't strong enough to do the trick.

A final example is the backwards somersault mount escape. In this technique you bridge to get your opponent's weight forward, put your hands in his armpits, keep your arms straight and do a backwards somersault to escape the mount. If your arms are bent you just won't be able to pull off this escape.

A straight arm can hold much more weight than a bent arm, because the bones, not the muscles, are doing the work. Consider weightlifting: a person can usually hold (or 'lock out') at least a hundred pounds more than they can actually bench press. If the arm is bent then the triceps muscle has to actively work to push the weight away, and gets tired much more quickly.

Keep in mind that when you stiff arm your opponent in the middle of his chest you might be giving him the positioning and energy he needs to apply a quick armbar on you. On those occasions when I do stiff arm someone in the chest I am on ultra-high alert for the armbar. If you want to avoid the armbar danger, restrict your stiff arming to the head, hips or side of the ribcage.

Finally I need to say a few things about injury prevention. Intentionally stiff arming an opponent is very different from just sitting around on the mat with your arm locked out. It's also very different from putting your arm out straight to stop being thrown, which is a recipe for breaking your arm and/or dislocating your elbow. The general rule in jiu-jitsu is that you DON"T fully straighten your arms, and what I discussed today is an exception to that (very good) rule. Go ahead and stiff arm people, just be conscious about what you are doing and use it judiciously.

Labels: Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

We've added a lot of information on the care and feeding of cauliflower ears, a relatively common grappling injury. Read the whole article, Cauliflower Ears in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, here.

Labels: Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Quick: what's the most important meal of the day?

If you said "breakfast" then you're wrong, at least if you're a hard-training combat athlete. According to Martin Rooney, author of 'Training For Warriors, the Team Renzo Gracie Workout', the two most important meals of the day are your pre and post-workout meals. Furthermore, Mr. Rooney isn't alone in this belief: there is research on sports as diverse as endurance running and weightlifting showing very significant effects of preworkout, and especially postworkout, nutrition.

Getting some extra liquid, carbohydrates and protein into your body shortly BEFORE a workout allows you to train harder, longer, and minimizes muscle damage and compromise to your immune system during your workout.

Eating (or drinking) within 45 minutes AFTER exercise actually helps heal your body, builds new muscle, and replenishes your body's energy stores so that you'll feel fresh for your next workout. Lack of proper postworkout nutrition is a huge contributing factor in overtraining. If you often feel like a stumbling zombie for 24 hours after intense training then the first thing you should try is making sure that you get good nutrition into your body soon after the training stops. If you're doing multiple workouts in a day then then postworkout nutrition is often the only thing between you and total system breakdown.

It is important that your post-workout meal be consumed soon after your workout (within 45 minutes). After training your body experiences an 'anabolic window', during which the cells of your body are especially able to absorb and use nutrients. This window starts to close soon after you stop training, so it is better to get something into your belly fast rather than waiting and having the perfect meal two hours later.

OK, so what should these meals look like? Most people agree that the pre and post workout 'meals' should be in liquid form, both to provide you with liquid to replace lost sweat and to speed absorption of the nutrients. Basically we're talking about an athlete's version of the bodybuilder's shake.

THE PREWORKOUT MEAL (c. 10 minutes before exercise)
This is a chance to get some liquid, fuel (sugar and carbohydrates) and electrolytes into your body before your workout, giving it something to burn up and sweat out. The addition of a small amount of protein helps limit muscle breakdown. A typical preworkout meal might consist of:

• 12 oz of water
• 20 to 30 grams of carbohydrates (glucose, sucrose and/or maltodextrin)
• 5 to 10 grams of protein (e.g. whey protein)
• electrolytes (mostly sodium, potassium and magnesium)
  

THE POSTWORKOUT MEAL (within 45 minutes of finishing exercise)
This feeding gets nutrients into your body at a time when it needs them most and also when it is most receptive to them (the 'anabolic window' window again). A typical postworkout meal might look like this:

• Lots of water
• 20 to 30 grams protein
• 80 to 100 grams carbohydrate
• electrolytes (e.g. sodium, potassium, magnesium)
  

These formulations have a lot of carbohydrates, and that's not random or accidental. Many athletes are so fixated on protein that they overlook carbohydrates, but carbs help replenish your body's energy supplies AND have stimulate your body to build more muscle. If I had to choose between a postworkout meal consisting either of carbs or protein I'd go with the carbohydrates every time (but obviously having a mix of protein and carbohydrate is the best).

You can buy powdered shake mixes that purport to give you the exact right mixture of these ingredients, typically with the addition of some secret or proprietary compounds (exotics like black mamba venom, or fancy chemical names like 2,3-diethyl-dichloro-cancer-some-day). While these mixtures are convenient they are also very expensive.

A cheaper alternative is to buy bulk powdered sportsdrink (Gatorade, Powerade, etc), maltodextrin (an easily absorbed carbohydrate) and protein powder (whey, hemp, egg, etc.). Play mad scientist, mixing up different concoctions using water or diluted fruit juice as a base until you find a mixture with flavor and consistency that you like. Feel free to experiment: for example I eventually discovered that my body reacts quite badly to whey protein and now use a variety of other proteins instead.

I can't say that I follow these guidelines religiously, but the bottom line is to try and get something into your belly immediately before and immediately after exercise. If all you can get your hands on is a small bottle of Powerade or Gatorade then that is still way better than having nothing at all. Please note that I've skipped over a lot of chemistry and physiology in this article: if you want to know more about this topic check out just about any sports nutrition book ('Nutrient Timing' by Ivy and Portman is one of my favorites).

Train hard, recover smart!

Labels: conditioning, Injuries, overtraining

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

I recently had a great discussion with Dan and Caleb from TheFightwork's Podcast about the role of leglocks in Brazilian jiu- jitsu. We discussed a lot of things leglock, including how to train them safely, how to use them to help augment your guard passing game, and how their role has changed and evolved within the sport. Check the interview out on the site or download it to your iPod.

Labels: Injuries, leglocks

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Stephan's note: todays's tip is brought to you a guest columnist, my friend Don Whitefield (www.jiujitsulife.com). Not only does he offer good advice for older BJJ players, but if young punks were to adopt some of the advice I guarantee they'd get better faster..

I don't consider myself old at age fourty-two, but I know that my Jiu-Jitsu game differs a lot from the game of an eighteen year old. Anyone over thirty is considered either a Master or Senior in BJJ competition, and it is important for these students to understand the special rules that apply to them in order to make it to their black belt and beyond.

1. Rule: Roll Smart

Even if you feel like it don't take the young spaz by the horns and get tossed around. Give them a little space to protect yourself, even if it means giving up position. Another good strategy is to stay on the top for a while or keep them in your guard (if you can) and tire them out to equalize the playing field a bit.

The most important advice is to avoid unusual positions unless you are positive that you can trust your training partner to look out for you. Often injuries occur when senior students get into unfamiliar position and they and/or their partner make a wrong move in the heat of battle resulting in injury. You have to be able to completely rely on your partner before you can open up your game.

2. Rule: Protect your body

I see teens and kids in my BJJ classes sometimes bend their joints at angles that make me shiver, but after the initial squeal they usually are back on the mat within five minutes. Their tendons and bones are flexible, but we loose this luxury as we age. The problem is that this occurs slowly and unnoticed and we sometimes spar as if we were still teenagers.

We become only aware of our age when we have (painfully) gone beyond the flexibility of our body. Since our recovery time is a lot longer than five minutes try to follow this simple rule we have in my academy: "Tap today, train tomorrow". It reminds you to tap early even if you are not in a submission but just get caught awkwardly.

3. Rule: Recover smartly

It is sad that as teenagers we got away with 4 hours of sleep, eating only fried foods and sugary carbonated drinks. As you get older these sins will catch up with you, so change these habits if you still live that way. As a senior jiu-jitsu fighter you should get lots of sleep, water, protein, fruits, veggies and supplements; these will help you stay in the game (or get back into it if you get injured).

Be smart and recognize when you are injured: take the week off than have the injury turn chronic. Stretch every day to maintain your body's flexibility. It protects you while you roll and helps you to overcome injuries much faster. Once you return to the mats don't hesitate to point out your injury to your training partner so he can look out for you if necessary. Get medical advice early on if you get an unfamiliar injury, read up on it and educate yourself regarding recovery and prevention of these injuries.

Lastly, use your maturity and your ability to keep your cool as an advantage to prevent injuries, recover from them and protect yourself from future injuries. There is one good thing about not being a teenager anymore: You got a lot smarter since.

Labels: Injuries, older grapplers

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

We've been discussing injuries a lot recently, and it seems to have hit a chord with the Grapplearts readership. I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I wanted to discuss one more thing before we leave this topic.

One of the most dangerous times in a martial artist's career is AFTER a serious injury, especially if it involves a lengthy break from training. Far too often I've seen a hard-training competitor get injured and start to gain weight, sometimes a lot of weight. I've known fighters who originally fought at 185 shoot up to almost 250 pounds. Some of them eventually get back to pre-injury bodyweight, but it's always a long and tough road. Others never competed again: they blamed the injury of course, but I think that the specter of getting back in shape had more to do with their decision than they would like to admit.

Of course not all hard-training martial artists are going to react to injury in this way, but it is fairly common. In some ways, the more serious the martial artist is about his training, the more likely it is that this weight gain is going to happen.

Maybe this weight gain is because hard training requires a lot of calories, and injury stops the training but not the daily caloric intake. Maybe it's because fighters have to stay within 10 to 20 pounds of fighting weight and react to their injury layoff by saying "screw it, KFC and cold beer here I come" . Or maybe it is that many martial artists rely on regular hard training to stay on an even keel emotionally, and when they suddenly can't train they become depressed and thus prone to weight gain or loss.

If you do have a major injury, keeping an eye on your bodyweight and doing whatever you can to maintain some level of physical conditioning is definitely a good idea. Doing something, anything, will help keep you in shape and make your return to the mats a lot easier.

In addition your physical well-being, keep an eye on your state of mind post injury. I am NOT a psychologist, and I DON'T know what all the answers are, but just because you used to win all the local tournaments doesn't mean that you're invulnerable psychologically. Do whatever it takes to keep your mindset as positive as possible while you heal from your injury. A more full discussion of fighters and depression was published by Fighter's Only Magazine.

Labels: Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Several years ago I found myself waiting for a Jean Jacques Machado seminar to start: I was sitting on the mat, watching people train, and chatting with a friend . Jean Jacques, the jiu-jitsu superstar, strolled over to us and told me something that I think about almost every time I train. What was this nugget of wisdom? He corrected my sitting technique!

You see, I'd been sitting and propping my weight up with my arm which was posted on the mat behind me. My arm was straight and my elbow locked out. Jean Jacques told me never to sit like that on the jiu-jitsu mat. He pointed out that if someone behind me, absorbed in their sparring, rolled onto my arm then my elbow would be shattered. BJJ is such a casual martial art that sitting sprawled out on the mat seems like a 'normal' thing to do, but it's not the right thing to do and it's not the safe thing to do. Keep your arms where you can see them, and not locked out

This may seem like a minor detail to get hung up on, but the readership of this newsletter is huge. If I share this tip here then someone, somewhere in the world, will avoid a severely damaging arm injury. One less injury is a good thing, justifying the inclusion of this story in my newsletter.

Labels: Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Several tips ago I gave some advice to a reader who had suffered a rather terrible string of orthopedic injuries while training in MMA . I also opened up the conversation to other readers of this newsletter and invited comments on several martial arts forums. Thanks to everyone who wrote in, and here is what they had to say:

• "I have realized I was getting injured when I was was gassing. With better cardio, I stayed more out of trouble."
• "Nutrition plays a huge role in injury prevention. Bones and ligaments, like muscles, need fuel to regenerate. Fish oil helps for inflammation (I use Carlson's fish oil.)"
• "Being fat is an invitation for an injury. Your body isn't as balanced, and you're carrying around more weight than you should."
• "The biggest thing to prevent injuries and especially reoccuring injuries is to understand what cause them, meaning the ANGLES your body is in, and where the PRESSURE is being applied to you and don't let it get in that position again even if you have to tap for no apparent reason. I have stopped sparring matches on many occasions and my partner was like "what happened?", I just tell them the situation and let them have to closest position with them being in advantage and restart. I have never had someone complain about me doing that."
• "Find a sports medicine doctor not a primary care...makes a world of difference!!!"
• "Warm up properly. Nearly every injury I've received in judo has been from going hard early in the session before I'm warm and loosened up."
• "I find (as a 60 year old fighter) that my injuries come from rolling with guys that weigh 50, 75 100 or more pounds heavier than me.... At my age i would like to work with more guys in my weight class. It would be easier and i would develop quicker if i could just work with someone in my weight class."
• "Sometimes it is important to turn it up a notch and escalate your sparring. Recently I sparred with some MMA guys who outweighed me and all went 110% in their sparring. When I took it easy I found myself in potentially dangerous situations (e.g. stacked on the back of my neck), but when I went all out and got to the top position I was alright for the rest of the match. It's important to be aware of your training partners' tendencies, but it's also really important to know yourself too.
• "There's a big difference between being 25 and being 37 or 40. I am now going to a traditional BJJ class that focuses on technique. That's what I need to do to improve. Rolling with a bunch of testosterone junkies isn't going to make me better. My goals are to (1) not get hurt, (2) have fun, and (3) improve my BJJ. In that order, since they all depend on #1."
  

Labels: Injuries, overtraining, training

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Q: "I'm in my forties and and started MMA training a few years ago. Since then I have had many injuries including a shattered elbow, a torn knee, separations in both shoulders, and many, many more minor injuries. A sane person would stop training MMA, but i just can't give it up. I try to minimize injuries by warming up and stretching and doing some light weight training, but even now, just rolling with other guys, I get injured. Is it possible that my body just isn't cut out for this stuff? What should I do?"

A: It sounds like you have had a very bad string of injuries. There is definitely a problem, but without knowing you personally it is really, really hard to diagnose what is going on. This rate of injury is NOT normal, even for most MMA clubs. In addition to the pain of injury and the consequences for your body down the road, being injured all the time really cuts into your training and prevents you from reaching your full potential.

An obvious possibility is that you are training at a club full of very aggressive people, for whom every sparring session is a battle to the death. An alternative possibility is that it is YOU who is going way too hard in sparring, refusing to tap, etc. Either way, a simple way to diagnose whether you are in a hyperaggressive environment is to think about the other MMA and grappling clubs in your town: if you think that they are all way too mellow and laid back then it could actually be indicating that YOU are in the dysfunctional and counterproductive training environment.

You might be overtrained which could also lead to more injuries. Many people misunderstand overtraining - "but I'm not training that hard" they say. Overtraining isn't just about training too hard, it's also about under-recovering. You can overtrain doing only moderate amounts of training if your diet, sleep or stress management is inadequate. All this becomes even more important as you age - you just can't neglect your recovery the way that the average 20 year old punk can.

Finally consider that you are training in MMA, and that injury rates in MMA tend to be higher than in submission grappling (which in turn are higher than in BJJ). It's not always true, but as a rule MMA tends to attract younger, testosterone-fueled, ego-driven competitive types, and they can often make very dangerous training partners. In addition, MMA is a no-gi sport and that means that you have a faster, more explosive pace in sparring. By contrast, the gi in BJJ slows things down and makes it more of a mental game with strong aerobic and muscular endurance challenges without as strong a focus on explosiveness.

That being said, I'll share some ideas of where to go from here. Not all these suggestions necessarily apply in your case, and only you can figure which are relevant to your situation.

1. Make a mental commitment to tap out early and often when caught in bad positions.
2. Ask yourself it your training partners are concerned about your physical well being; are they trying to preserve their training partners?
3. Visit other clubs and try a class: maybe you've just taken up with a bunch of psychopaths at your current school. I'm not telling you to change schools, but the experience of training at another school (or even just watching a class there) can be quite informative.
4. Try BJJ with the gi, rather than MMA. You may find that the challenge of BJJ satisfies the same needs as your current MMA training but that the slower, more technical pace leads to less injuries. There are a lot of old, torn up Judo players in Japan who can't do much standing Judo anymore but still tear things up in newaza (ground grappling).
5. Find a sane, laidback training partner and do most of your sparring with him
6. Do more technique drilling and less sparring
7. Find out about overtraining and try to figure out if your rest and nutrition is providing the recovery you need.
   

Good luck with your situation - I really hope that you figure it out!

Stephan Kesting
www.grapplearts.com

Labels: Injuries, overtraining, training

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Physical attributes are things like balance, neck strength, limb length, explosiveness, leg flexibility, and percent body fat. Your physical attributes are the foundation of what you can do with your body, and are influenced by genetics, training, age and injuries

Some instructors teach as if everyone, regardless of age, build and flexibility, can use the same techniques. Well I'm here to tell you it's not true: physical attributes do strongly affect which techniques you'll be able to use against a struggling opponent. How your body is put together is an important factor to consider when you build your game.

The rest of this article will take a look at some concrete examples of how physical attributes aid, or hinder, the performance of specific techniques.

• Explosiveness and endurance are prerequisites for a 'mobility' game. If you don't have these attributes then you're still left with the option of a slow crushing 'positional' game.
• Different throws require different attributes. Great balance is critical for some throws like Uchi Mata, but others like Seionage require explosiveness. Timing is great to have for most throws, but some throws like footsweeps just won't work without it.
• People who regularly apply successful collar chokes tend to have killer grip strength (which can be improved by exercise)
• Standing guard passes require more balance and leg strength than do kneeling guard passes
• Longer legs are great for applying triangle chokes, and short-legged grapplers definitely need to make some adjustments in order to finish this submission
• Leg length is important for some, but not all, footlocks. The most leg-length-dependent footlock is probably the straight ankle lock (but Andre Arlovski proved me wrong by ankle locking giant Tim Sylvia in the Octagon). Leg length is a bit of an asset for heel hooks, but less so than for the ankle lock. On the other hand, leg length doesn't have much to do with successfully executing most kneebars, hip locks and calf cranks
• If you want to master the rubber guard (example shown here) then flexibility is very important; at a minimum you probably need to be able to put one foot behind your head and touch both knees to the ground when doing the 'butterfly' stretch.
• Strong arms can make some submissions more effective, including most guillotines, the Brabo choke, and the Kimura. Arm strength isn't as important for performing the armbar, but it is very helpful when it comes to defending the armbar.
• Leg length amplifies the effectiveness of the spider guard, but is relatively unimportant when it comes to using the half guard and X Guard
  

Keep in mind that every grappler who has ever set foot on a mat has had one or more 'weaker' attributes. You can compensate for weak attributes in several ways.

First of all, many attributes can be changed: flexibility, strength, endurance, speed, and balance can all be improved with training and conditioning.

Secondly, you can build your 'A game' around your strong attributes and figure out how to avoid depending on your weaker attributes.

Third, there may be technical answers to your problems. Talk to your instructor, ask your training partners and look on the internet for ideas. For examples of how the internet can help I'll point you towards three threads discussing adaptations to help short legged people develop effective triangle chokes: thread 1, thread 2 and thread 3.

In closing, let me emphasize that you should still spend some time learning and practicing techniques that aren't well suited for your body. Doing this will tighten up your defense: by practicing techniques, even ones that don't fit your body, you sensitize your spider sense to tingle when people are getting ready to try those technique on you. Also keep in mind that you may end up teaching some day, and you want to have techniques to show people who are physically dissimilar from yourself.

Labels: conditioning, Injuries, physical attributes, techniques, training

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

A few weeks ago I was doing some standing pummeling; both my partner and I were fighting to get underhook positions in the clinch (some things you can do from an underhook). On my way to class I'd thought up a new way to get the underhook and now I wanted to try it out on someone in the flesh. As we were tussling back and forth I tried my new technique and felt a slight 'pop' in my shoulder followed by some sharp pain.

At first I was confused, since we weren't going particularly hard and my opponent hadn't cranked me or used a dirty trick. As I rubbed my sore shoulder I figured out what had happened: my new method for inserting the underhook involved turning my body to the left and reaching my right arm out to the right. My arm was cocked out to the side of my body like a hitchhiker on the side of the highway, instead of being in front of my body (like holding a mirror up to my face). This sideways arm position took my shoulder close to the limits of its flexibility where it needed only a very small amount of clockwise rotation to get tweaked.

I then realized that I should have known all this already from my whitewater canoeing and kayaking days. Informed paddlers are usually quite conscious to keep their arms inside the so-called paddler's box, which Bruce Lessels defines as "...an imaginary box in front of your chest. The sides of the box are the planes that hold your arms. The front of the box if your fingertips. The back of the box is your chest, and the box moves as your rotate your torso left or right."

Paddlers use this concept because it helps keep their strokes efficient, and also because it helps keep their shoulders safe from being dislocated, which is unfortunately a fairly common in the whitewater paddling community (see the fifth point).

If you are a grappler you won't always be able to keep your arms in this imaginary box. Arm and body positions in grappling are a lot more variable than in kayaking, and also there are people actively trying to force your arm into a compromised position. You should be aware, however, that your arms are strongest, and your shoulders the safest, when your arms are in this imaginary box, and try to keep your arms within the box whenever you can. Think of the common shoulder locks like americanas, Kimuras and omo platas - they all rely on forcing the arm out to the side of the body, out of the relative safety of the box.

Should your arms drift from the box (or be forced from the box) and your shoulder get injured, paddlers also have a lot of good information on shoulder rehabilitation (see this previous tip for more info). My shoulder feels 100% again, so I don't have to use this information this time, but it's nice to know that it's there if I need it.

Labels: Injuries, techniques

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

If you are a longtime reader of this newsletter you know that I think very highly of running as a conditioning method. Long runs, sprints, hill runs - as you can see from the following articles I think that they are all great.

• My Default Cardio Workout
  
• All Else Being Equal, Work On Your Endurance
• There Can Be Only One: Running vs. Swimming
• A HIIT of LSD
• Some Sample Anaerobic Routines
  

What you might not know is that I used to have a love-hate relationship with running, and I had a long list of excuses to prevent me from just doing it.

Excuse #1: "I'm not fast". I used this excuse up until I graduated from high school. If you sent me around a track with a bunch of my peers I usually ended up towards the rear of the pack. What I didn't realize at the time is that your relative speed is completely, utterly beside the point if your primary goal is martial arts conditioning. What matters is getting your heart rate high, your lungs burning and your legs fatigued. Even though I don't possess enough fast twitch muscle to ever come close to a 4 minute mile, any running I do will improve my cardio and that will improve my performance on the mats.

Excuse #2: "It hurts too much". In my late teens, inspired by Bruce Lee's ardent advocacy of cardiovascular training, I decided to give running a second try. I didn't like it this time either. My lungs hurt, my legs hurt, and when my knees started to ache after a few weeks of regular running I decided that I just wasn't built for running. "I don't want to blow out my knees", I thought, and my running program ground to a halt.

In retrospect I probably tried to go too far too fast - had I started with a walk-run program and been properly fitted for running shoes to compensate for tendency of my feet to pronate (roll inward) then I probably would have been able to continue pain-free.

Excuse #3: "It's boring". Ten years later, in my late twenties, I suddenly had two very good reasons to start running again. Firstly I had just started this intense new activity called Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and it was obvious that better cardio would equal better BJJ sparring and competition performance. Secondly I had set my sights on becoming a full-time firefighter, and just about every department I was applying to had some sort of timed run, 1.5 miles in less than 12 minutes typically being the minimum requirement, but added points being awarded for faster times.

This time when I started running again I was equipped with more knowledge and professionally dispensed running shoes. My problem wasn't pain, but rather boredom, especially on runs longer than 15 or 20 minutes. I tried to compensate for this by listening to music on my shockproof Walkman (this was pre-iPod) and by running in scenic locations. As I persevered for month after month, driven by the goal of becoming a firefighter, a curious transformation occurred: the boredom started to fade away and really started enjoying my runs. I'm not exactly sure how or why this change occurred - perhaps it had to do with my cardiovascular system becoming conditioned enough so that my mind could focus on things other than pain and discomfort - but it was a very welcome change nonetheless. Although I still sought out scenic running trails I no longer needed (or wanted) music very often - I began to appreciate the sound of my breathing and the slap of my shoes on the dirt.

Excuse #4: "I'm injured". In 2001 I sustained a serious foot injury while doing Judo. At first I thought my running career was over. Several surgeries later I was back on the trails, gratefully plodding away.

One year later a severe case of ITB (Iliotibial band) syndrome, resulting in severe pain on the outside of my knee, stopped my comeback dead in its tracks. This time the solution was going to orthotics, custom footbeds to correct your foot's rolling and twisting on the ground. These were 'silver bullet' solutions - my ITB pain went away the day I put them into my shoes and returned only when I took them out.

A note about orthotics: these devices DO work for a lot of people, alleviating foot, knee and back pain while running or walking. You could try an over-the-counter insert first: two popular brands are Sole and Superfeet inserts, available at most running shoe stores. If the generic inserts don't work and you want to upgrade to custom orthotics I strongly recommend that you go to a qualified podiatrist to get them: orthotics are dispensed by lots of doctors, massage therapists, chiropractors and running shoe stores, but only podiatrists spend 100% of their time dealing with feet, and the depth of understanding they bring to the table isn't matched by anyone else. Be prepared though - custom orthotics are EXPENSIVE! Be prepared to pay $300 to $500 for your first set.

Labels: conditioning, Injuries, the mental aspect

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Q: You've previously discussed dangerous submissions. Do you think that the twister spine lock is a dangerous submission? How dangerous is the twister compared to other submissions, say something like a toehold.

Stephan's note: Just in case readers aren't familiar with these techniques you can see the twister used by Eddie Bravo many times here and the toehold taught by Chris Leben here.

A: The quick answer is that both submissions (the toehold and the twister) are dangerous.

If you were to collect injury statistics, you would probably find that more people have been hurt by toeholds than by the twister, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the twister is safer. The twister is a great submission - I use it myself whenever I get the chance - but it hasn't really hit the grappling mainstream yet. As such it is less commonly used and it's not surprising that injuries from this submission are still fairly rare.

The thing to remember about a twister is that it is a spine lock, just like other neck cranks, and that the spine, particularly the cervical spine which is targeted by this lock, is a delicate and unforgiving-once-injured body part.

One significant difference between the two techniques is the level of control necessary to apply the submission. The twister requires the victim to be pretty much immobilized and controlled, whereas the toehold can be applied with widely varying amounts of control (depending on the exact entry).

A common toehold injury scenario goes like this: one person applies a toehold on another person, but refrains from cranking it on because he knows that it can be a dangerous submission. The guy caught in the toehold decides to spin out - which is one of the correct counters - but spins in the wrong direction. Before the first person can let go something in the second person's leg goes snap, crackle, pop, and the toehold has claimed another victim.

When caught in the twister, on the other hand, it's very hard for your opponent to move this spastically. People still have egos, and it is very common for people to try and tough their way through a neck crank, only tapping after injury occurs.

I speak from personal and collective experience - neck injuries are no joke! I know a number of grapplers who have had their competitive careers cut short by neck injuries, and others who have quit the sport altogether. Severe neck injuries (or a series of less severe ones) can lead to herniated cervical disks, osteoarthritis, spondylosis, spondylitis, spondylolysis and many other nasty multi-syllabic conditions.

I use both submissions, but I treat them both with a lot of respect. If a person starts thrashing or refusing to tap I try to let go and move on to something else before they injure themselves and deprive me of a training partner.

Labels: Injuries, leglocks, unorthodox strategies

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

I've received lots of feedback about a previous tip discussing how some methods of neck conditioning can be problematical for some people.

Grapplearts newsletter reader Kevin shared his favorite method of neck training with us:

"A neck exercise I use (because I have the same issue with compressiing my neck) is to use a swiss ball. Place the 45cm ball on a wall at ear height - this should be done in correct spinal alignment so that when you press into the ball your neck goes to neutral alignment. Then force against the back using the front, side, back, and side of your head, and then inward rotation. This is done 30sec each for a static hold. You can then build up. Use the Paul Chek (CHEK Institute) golf biomechanics manual for a reference. Proper neck alignment and stabilization is crucial for all athletic performance."

Another reader, Dylan, talked about his own neck training apparatus:

"One thing i do for my neck is to tie my belt in a loose loop (just like it goes around my waist) through the handles of an elastic exercise cable. I then place the loop around my forehead and do front back and side to side movements. This seems to work well for me."

'Matt' commented that

"In regards to neck harnesses, one of the best pieces of equipment I've ever bought is Lifeline USA's neck harness. Because it uses elastic resistance instead of weight plates, you're able to change the angle of the resistance much more easily, plus there's no momentum. I actually recall seeing footage of Rickson Gracie training with something much similar (although also much more crude...basically just rubber tube attached to a pole with some tape around it)."

ALSO: several readers enquired about where to get neck harnesses that you can load with weight plates or dumbells. They are available at various places online, but if I was to get a new one I would check out the neck harness at Hatashita.com.

Labels: conditioning, Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Neck bridging is an exercise that is unique to the grappling arts. It is also controversial.

Broadly speaking, there are two main ways of bridging: the backwards neck bridge (as in the picture) or a forwards neck bridge (where you are belly-down to the mat). Most grapplers who bridge do both forward and backward bridging.

First the pro of bridging: it is a great way to strengthen the neck in sport specific positions. If you grapple you are eventually going to end up using your head to post on the mat or to push your opponent. You will also occasionally have your head introduced to the mat with velocity and force by your opponent. Either way, if your neck is strong and conditioned to bearing your weight, then you will be less likely to get injured when your head is bearing the entire weight of your body.

The major con of neck bridging is that some people's necks can't take it - my own included. My neck is strong enough to do at least one hundred front and back bridges, BUT if I do more than about 20 of either type I'm guaranteed a neck-ache that will last for days and require several trips to the chiropractor. Something about the compressive force on the vertebrae makes my neck very unhappy, and the resultant discomfort makes the benefits of bridging not worth it. I'm not alone here either - while there are some people who claim that bridging actually cured their neck problems I think the reverse (bridging causing problems) is much more common.

So given that a strong neck is important to prevent injuries, resist submissions, manipulate opponents, and make your clinch more effective, what are your options if you don't want to bridge? Here are just a few:

1. Lie flat on your back and lift your head off the ground a bit. Now repeatedly and reasonably rapidly move your head up and down, bringing your chin towards your chest and then away again. Start with a set of 20 or 30. You can add a bit of resistance to your forehead by pushing on your forehead with your fingers.
2. Lie on your back on an exercise bench, your head off the end of the bench. Now place a folded towel on your forehead and hold a 25, 35 or 45 lb plate on top of that with both hands. Now bob your head up and down just as in the previous exercise, but for fewer repetetitions.
3. Lie flat as in the first exercise, but now turn your head from side to side, looking towards one shoulder then the other. Start with 10 repetitions (10 times to the right, 10 times to the left). I like alternating this exercise with the first one in this list.
4. Neck harnesses, available at various wrestling and boxing suppliers, can be used to strengthen the erector muscles at the back of the neck. Think about resisting someone pulling your head down in a Thai clinch and you'll get a pretty good idea of what exercising with a neck harness feels like. Even though using a harness does compress the neck vertebrae somewhat, I find that it doesn't bother my neck if I don't overdo the weight or repetition.
   

The above list is only the tip of the iceberg: there are many other exercises and pieces of equipment that can be used to strengthen the neck. In general I would caution against extreme measures as the neck isn't really a body part you want to take to failure very often!

Labels: Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

There's one at almost every club. The guy who can't lose. The guy who always goes 100%. The guy who applies every submission with speed and power. The guy who fights as if his life depends on it. One sure indicator that someone is a grappling berserker is that he is always injuring his training partners and/or himself.

A favorite trick of a berserker is to say something like "I'm feeling tired (or sick, or injured) today, let's just go 50% and flow". Usually it takes less than 10 seconds of sparring for them to go into turbocharged berserker mode. Now you've got to make a decision to get crushed or to play his game and match his intensity.

There's nothing wrong with hard-fought, high intensity rolling, especially if you have competitive aspirations. Making EVERY sparring match a battle to the death, however, is suboptimal for several reasons:

First of all, the chances of injury increase, both for you and your opponents.

Secondly, since everything is tense, tight and explosive it limits the development of that elusive attribute 'flow'.

Thirdly, it limits your pool of training partners. People will start avoiding you on the mats, either because they don't want to get injured or simply because they aren't in the mood for an all-out dogfight.

Finally, it can stop you from becoming well rounded, because if winning every sparring match is the only thing that counts then you probably won't willingly put yourself into bad situations or positions you need to improve at.

If you have a berserker at your club I'm not saying that you shouldn't spar with him; in fact they can be very useful training partners depending on what aspect of your game you are working on. The main thing is that you have to know what you are getting into and be prepared for a battle every single time. Don't get sucked into starting out light and easy and then, without warning, having the intensity escalated on you.

Labels: Injuries, the mental aspect, training

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

The easy answer to how one should train dangerous submissions is "slowly, gently, and with control". Everybody knows this already, though, and people still get hurt, so obviously more explanation is required.

Below are some solutions used by different schools to solve the problem. None of them are perfect, but they should provide some food for thought.

-Use With Caution-

Many schools simply tell you to "be careful" when you are using dangerous submissions. What this means exactly is rarely clear in advance, but the implication is that you should moderate how hard and fast you apply your submission, which is certainly better than the applying them full force.

For this approach to work students need to be well informed about which submissions are dangerous. It's not always obvious how damaging certain submissions can be.

Ego is the enemy in this training method: ego makes you apply dangerous submissions a little too fast, or makes you tap out a little too slow when you're caught in them yourself. If there is someone in your club who just can't handle losing or tapping out then this is NOT the method of choice.

Finally, keep in mind that the level of force you might consider to be safe could be quite different from what the class spaz thinks is safe, so pick your sparring partners carefully if you are playing under these rules.

-The Complete Ban-

Another valid approach is to just to ban dangerous submissions - many clubs, for example, forbid heel hooks and neck cranks outright. This approach requires the instructor to make the ground rules clear to all new students and visitors so that there are no misunderstandings.

The problem with this approach is that you really only learn to be aware of, and defend, submissions when you are attacked with them in sparring. If you're never attacked with wristlocks, for example, then your ability to defend wristlocks will be weak. This is a particular problem if you're a competitor: if you want to compete successfully then the competition rules must be reflected in your sparring.

-The Rank-Dependent Ban-

Some schools ban certain submissions for students below a given rank or belt level. For example, you might have to be at least a purple belts to attack with, or be attacked by, neck cranks.

This approach assumes that higher ranks have greater control, awareness and discipline, which, for the most part, is true. The other assumption is that the higher belts are better able to recognize when they are caught in a dangerous submission and tap out earlier. A beginner doesn't differentiate between tapping to a triangle choke and a toehold, but the consequences of refusing to tap are very different: one results in unconsciousness, the other in torn ligaments, muscles and broken bones.

-Catch and Release-

Another approach is to use the 'catch and release' method when attacking with dangerous submissions. Here you apply the technique but don't finalize it - no pressure is actually applied against the joint. As soon as you have the submission positioned you let go and continue with your sparring.

The problem with this approach is that it could result in an argument that goes like this:

"I got you"
"No you didn't, I would have escaped"
"Yes I did get you - I was blocking your counter"
"Whatever, but my dad is still stronger than your dad"

I guess we're lucky that everyone we train with is a LOT more emotionally mature than this...

-10 Second Rule-

A variation of the catch and release method used by some schools is to have a '10 second rule', which means that holding a submission position for 10 seconds (but not actually applying it) is considered to be a successful attack. You might end up putting your opponent into a heel hook but not applying any pressure against the joint. For the next 10 seconds your opponent tries to get out while you use your arms and legs to prevent and block his escape attempts.

This method does require some emotional maturity, because initially you are going to 'tap' less people when you train like this - 10 seconds is a long time for people to work their way out of a submission. You also have to be on the lookout for somebody inadvertently cranking the the submission on tighter while they are wildly twisting around, trying to escape.

This method can actually IMPROVE your submissions, because you will learn how to control an opponent and counter his escape attempts, rather than relying on speed to obtain a quick tapout. This way of applying a submission is basically what Jean-Jacques Machado did to me the one time we ever sparred.

-The Bottom Line-

Regardless of the rules and restrictions placed around certain submissions, it all comes down to preserving your training partners. The ethic of applying submissions carefully comes from the top down. If the instructor and senior students at a school take the time to explain the dangers of certain submissions to everyone then they've just help make the training environment a whole lot safer.

It is critical that everybody is on the same page. I'd rather be sparring under anything-goes rules than be in a scenario where my opponent and I have differing assumptions about which submissions are legal. I remember one sparring session where I spun to attack my opponent's feet, secured a toehold and then stopped (basically I was using a 10 second rule). Instead of trying a technical escape my opponent applied his own vicious toehold with all his strength. I screamed in pain, yelling out "Why the hell did you do that?", "I had to", he replied, "it was the only way I could get out". Our differing assumptions resulted in my injury.

In closing, remember that, no fool-proof system of dealing with dangerous submissions is proof against a sufficiently talented fool. Even if your school bans a certain lock DON'T get complacent about it, or leave yourself vulnerable to it, or refuse to tap to it. Maybe it will be a newbie who just doesn't know, maybe it will be a visitor who just doesn't care, or maybe it will be your friend who just applied it by accident, but dangerous submissions DO get used at every school. Protect yourself at all times, and remember that protecting yourself includes tapping out early and often, whether the submission is 'legal' in your school or not.

Labels: Injuries, leglocks

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Not all submissions are created equal: some cause pain, some put you to sleep, and some do a lot of damage. Today I want to talk about the latter category, those submissions most likely to send you to the orthopedic surgeon. Knowing which locks are dangerous is important for at least two reasons: first, you need to know which submissions to tap out early to if you are caught in one yourself, and second, it helps you preserve your training partners.

Many dangerous submissions have a narrow margin between the onset of pain and the onset of damage. When you get caught in a straight armbar (which is a relatively safe submission) you initially feel pain, then more pain, then a whole lot of pain and then something goes 'pop' in your arm; in other words you have lots of warning to tap out before major damage occurs. For a Kimura, on the other hand, the situation is a bit different: pain and damage come much closer together, and the margin for error is smaller. An even more extreme example is the heel hook, where you sometimes get damage BEFORE the onset of pain, especially if the recipient is all hyped up on adrenaline. It goes something like this: the lock is applied, something goes 'pop', and then the pain starts.

So which submissions are dangerous exactly?

As I mentioned above, the Kimura isn't the safest armlock in the world, but other arm manipulations have an even higher injury rate. The two worst offenders are bicep slicers (aka bicep compression locks) and wristlocks.

Among the leglocks, anytime there is rotation or twisting to apply the lock it becomes a lot more dangerous. Twisting leglocks include heel hooks, reverse heel hooks, toeholds and steering wheel footlocks: all are very effective and efficient submissions, but they have destroyed the ligaments in many grappler's feet, ankles and knees.

When it comes to attacking the neck, most chokes and strangles are relatively safe given that you release the technique the moment the person taps out or loses consciousness. There is a slight tendancy for chokes, which attack the windpipe rather than the side of the neck, to cause bruising in the throat if applied vigorously. Neck cranks, however, are in an entirely different category. If you are not very careful and/or if they don't tap out, a neck crank can very easily damage the ligaments, muscles, nerves and/or joints of the neck. This can end someone's jiu-jitsu career, not to mention making pain-free life a distant memory.

The above is NOT an exhaustive list of all dangerous submissions, but it's a good start. I just wanted to highlight the submissions that, in my experience, have the highest percent-injury rates. Also (and this should be obvious) you can severely damage an opponent with just about any lock if you apply it irresponsibly, so don't go crazy with your armbars and ankle locks just because I consider them safer than neck cranks!

Next time I'll address how to train these dangerous submissions in a realistic way without crippling everybody in your club.

Labels: Injuries, leglocks

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Concussions are an ever-present possibility in grappling, especially if you do a lot of takedowns or striking. This article on post-concussion syndrome is well worth a quick read just in case you, or someone you know, suffers from headaches, dizziness and trouble concentrating after a blow to the head.

Labels: Injuries, MMA

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Q: How can I still train if I have an injured hand, wrist, arm or shoulder?

A: One great drill to do (whether you are injured or not) is the 'Two Legs, One Arm Drill". Start with a partner. Both you and your partner grab your own belts (or waistband of your shorts) with one hand, effectively taking one arm out of play. Now you start with one person in the open guard trying to pass: he can stand or kneel as he wishes. The other person defends using one arm, both legs and hip movement; if he can pull off a sweep, so much the better! If one person passes the guard both people stop, go back into the guard, and start again.

I have used this drill while injured on a number of occasions, and every time the leg agility and open guard defense have improved noticeably. The hard part is not letting go of your belt while scrambling, but this is critical to the drill.

In addition to this drill, I would suggest that you do whatever you can on the conditioning front. Can you still run? Go on the stairmaster? Weight train your legs and core? It will all pay off when your injury heals and you are ready to go 100% on the mats again.

Labels: Injuries, training

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Most instructors, motivators and 'experts' will tell you to train, train, train. Today I am going to tell you the exact opposite: there are some days when you shouldn't go within a hundred yards of a mat. The trick is figuring out which days those are.

Let me start with silly story time: a few years ago I got invited to a sparring session with a couple professional MMA fighters (don't ask me their names - I won't tell). I had had a really crappy night's sleep, but accepted the invitation anyhow. During my trip the gym, however, I had this feeling of doom: it wasn't nervousness per se, I was just not happy about the upcoming sparring session and was sure that something was going to go wrong.

As we were lacing up the MMA gloves I mentioned that I wasn't really well rested and that I had a premonition that I was going to get injured. Both fighters laughed and told me they'd been out partying the night before so they had probably had less sleep than I.

The sparring went OK at first: I was getting hit a lot, but sort of holding my own. In the fifth round my opponent tried to kick me: I caught his leg and charged forward, knocking him down. I followed him down to the ground in order to stabilize the position, and planted my nose directly on his knee: CRACK!

As the blood trickled out of my broken nose and down my face I told myself: "I knew I was going to get injured!"

As it turns out, the broken nose was actually the LESSER of two injuries. A few minutes later I went to the washroom and was surprised to see the toilet bowl turn red: at some point I had gotten punched, kicked or kneed so hard in the kidneys that I was actually peeing blood. Lovely!

Since that day there have been several times when I was about to go to training but didn't because I had the same feeling. On these days my unconscious mind took stock of my physical and mental condition, the training environment and my likely training partners and came to the conclusion that training was not the right thing to do. I'll never be able to prove that taking a break on those days prevented disaster - perhaps I could have trained and been perfectly OK. On the other hand, if I can avoid an unnecessary injury then I will get more, not less, mat time in the long run.

Learn to recognize and respect your spider sense telling you that something isn't right.

Labels: Injuries, the mental aspect

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

I'd like to wish you all a Merry Christmas (or Happy Chanukah, etc) and a Happy New Year. I'd like to thank you for your support in 2006 and hope that 2007 has good things in store for you, your family and your friends. May you have an injury-free and breakthrough-filled year of training.

Sincerely
Stephan Kesting
www.grapplearts.com

Labels: Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Q: "What are the true dangers of neck cranks?"

A: It is funny how many clubs ban leg locks but allow neck cranks. Necks are under a lot of stress in grappling, even under 'normal' conditions: throw in a couple of uncontrolled neck cranks and you are looking at herniated disks, osteoarthritis, spinal stenosis and a whole host of other painful degenerative conditions.

A lot of things can go wrong with a neck crank. First the person applying it can be just plain malicious. Or uncontrolled. Or he can slip. Or the person caught in it might not tap early enough. I'm not saying ban them outright (although you could make a strong case for doing just that), but treat these submissions very carefully: they can easily end someone's grappling career.

Part of what makes neck cranks dangerous is that nobody ever taps when they are just lightly applied. It's always like this: say you're caught in a neck crank - it only hurts a little bit - you suffer through the pain, hoping to find a way out - your partner applies it harder - you resist - your partner applies it harder still - you finally tap out. Subsequently, surprise surprise, you find out that your neck is injured!

If you tear ligaments in your knee, your ACL for example, you can get it fixed with surgery. It is a painful procedure with a long recovery time, but it can be done. If someone slams a neck crank onto you, however, your surgical options are much more scary.

Until the day when surgeons routinely do full neck replacement surgeries (don't hold your breath) APPLY THOSE NECK CRANKS LIGHTLY, TAP EARLY AND DON'T BE A HERO. If you can't do these things then don't play with neck cranks at all.

Labels: Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Injuries suck. They hurt, they take a long time to heal, and most importantly, they prevent you from training. Knowing how to train around injuries is an important part of getting better at any sport, and this is especially true in grappling.

In the past I have often used tape, braces and other gear to protect minor injuries and stop them from turning into major ones (as discussed here, for example).

Major injuries are more tricky, because your number one priority should be not to make that injury worse. However, often there is still some limited training you can do. For hand, arm and shoulder injuries, for example, you can tuck that arm into your belt (or grab your waistband) and work your open guard using just your legs and one arm. If your opponent passes your guard then STOP, let your opponent go back into your guard, and then start again. I have done this exercise safely with a cast on a fractured arm, and when that cast came off I found that I had really improved my open guard game.

As you may know, I recently injured my neck. A pinched nerve root at the base of the cervical spine has resulted in weakness and numbness down my left arm. A neurologist tells me that these injuries typically take 3 to 6 months to heal. Furthermore I'm not supposed to do any grappling nor lift any heavy weights until it heals.

Now being stubborn and foolish I'm going to partially ignore my doctors. I intend to continue grappling until this heals, albeit with several important caveats:

1. I'm only going to do light rolling
2. I'm only going to roll with people who have good physical (and emotional) control.
3. I'm going to avoid any and all positions or techniques that put strain on my neck
4. It's going to be ridiculously easy to tap me out: just grab my head or neck and I'm going to tap right away
   

I also intend to do a lot of aerobic and anaerobic conditioning during my recovery, since running on flats, hills and stairs doesn't seem to irritate the injury at this point. I'm going to do some light weights, just to maintain some muscle tone in my upper body, but definitely nothing heavy or extreme. Finally I have used this injury as an excuse to buy a couple of jiu-jitsu books and DVDs that I've been wanting to look at for a while now.

When I heal up I'll still be in the grappling mindset, have great cardio, and be ready to go!

Labels: Injuries, training

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Grapplers are a tough bunch, and generally tend to ignore injuries unless broken bones are actually protruding from a wound. I want to temper this tendency by using the Grapplearts pulpit to discuss a very serious category of orthopedic injury: strains and sprains of the lowly foot.

About 5 years ago in Judo I tried to take down a large opponent and got caught in an awkward position. There was an audible 'pop' and I collapsed in pain, holding my foot; it felt like someone had driven a spike right through it. Regular X-Rays at the local ER didn't show anything, and over several days the pain gradually decreased, all of which seemed like good news.

An extensive google search got me worried though: it seemed that there were certain types of foot injuries that were often misdiagnosed and went through a brief period of 'improvement' before getting much, much worse. There were references to fusing bones and foot amputation. Therefore, despite the assurances of the ER doctors, I pulled some strings to see my sports medicine doctor, and things started to happen.

Within the hour I had new X-Rays, weight-bearing X-Rays this time. Later that day I was in the office of a foot surgeon. One week later I was in the operating theatre and under the knife. 9 weeks later I returned to work and (light) training.

It turned out that I had suffered something called a Lisfranc injury, where certain important ligaments are torn. The foot looks and feels OK at first, but every time that foot bears weight it pancakes out to the side, there being no ligaments to hold it together. Things that shouldn't rub or move end up rubbing and moving, and before long a crippling form of arthritis sets in. Caught early - one to two weeks after injury - the prognosis is good. Untreated this injury rarely ever heals well.

So the take-home message is that if your foot ever goes 'pop' you have no choice: go see a specialist. All foot injuries are serious until proven otherwise, and most serious foot injuries are also time sensitive: early diagnosis and treatment might just save your grappling career. Hell, it might save your walking career!

Labels: Injuries, leglocks

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

While I'm referring readers to interesting articles, let me also direct you to another piece which analyzes injuries and injury rate in MMA competition. It seems to confirm a suspicion I have long held that MMA competition is pretty dangerous when it comes to injuries, although your chance of dying is quite small.

Labels: Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

My newsletter last week about grappling with an aging body generated a fair bit of feedback. Some respondents thanked me for the article (you're welcome). Others called me a candy-ass and that I should work harder and complain less (they were joking, I think). A few shared their own experiences and lessons learned, and I think it worthwhile to share these insights with the Grapplearts readership. In particular I encourage 'younger' readers (ie under 35) to pay attention to this stuff: first of all Father Time will catch up with you too, and secondly, most of this advice will make you a better grappler regardless of how old you are.

------------------------------------

Martin W. shares 6 secrets he uses to remain competitive in his fourties:

1. I fight differently than I used to. New guys waste a lot of energy. I can get someone in my guard quickly and they will expend far more energy trying to pass than I will keeping them in.
2. I am extremely cautious in allowing myself to get in a compromised position and having to work extra hard to get out. I will scramble hard to prevent someone from getting side control or mount. I fight really hard during the scramble, then lower my rpm's at different points in the fight.
3. I close my eyes a lot when I fight. There are many times during a 6 minute sparring session where I am extremely relaxed and keeping my eyes closed makes me very relaxed. It is something I just shut off and on. During a fast, short and tough scramble for position, I am 110% going hard with my eyes open. But when we are tied up, and we are both fighting for minute, tiny advantages my eyes are closed. I fight kind of on and off the whole time. It is also unnerving to an opponent. They don't know if you are tired, or playing possum, or on drugs. :)
4. My strategy is different. I have found that a lot of guys work hard to get the mount, then they don't really know what to do once they get there. Or they can't keep it very well, or their armbar attempts are lousy. Sometimes I won't worry that much about an aggressive guy fight for the mount. He fights like the mount is the ultimate goal. I let him get it, then reverse him. The guy works really hard to get the mount and uses all hisenergy.
5. You are right about sleep. It is crucial. I try not to overtrain. I try to train 3 times a week, jog and lift a little once or twice a week and take off once or twice a week according to how I feel.
6. Stretching. I stretch every morning and every night. Many times during the day also when I am working on the computer. I find that stretching the legs and hips are the most beneficial. I am constantly working to try and do the splits, some days are really close, then other days, not so close. It's funny, all animals naturally stretch, but a lot of people don't. It helps circulation, flexibility, makes wrestling easier, and can really help prevent injury.

That's it. That's my two cents.

-Martin Walker

------------------------------------

Eric G. talks about preventing joint problems:

I am 43 years old and have been involved in martial arts for over 21 years - the past 10 in BJJ. I have developed arthritis in my right hip due to injuries that I didn't take care of, and until recently I sparred hard every training session (3x a week). I have lost a great deal of flexibility and comfort in my right hip, so, I am re-learning BJJ with a handicap. The hip problem not only effects my injured hip but my other hip and back. Putting my socks on in the morning is a challenge now. It's not something I wish on anyone.

I did karate for ten years which involved a lot of leg work, so, my muscles around my hip stayed strong. My only workout for the past several years has been BJJ (and I have been stuck in desk job) and I use to think that BJJ was a great workout, but it has some problems on maintaining overall muscle development. I am learning this the hard way.

For hip therapy, I am seeing a chiropractor once a week for PT and a doctor every three weeks for Prolotherapy. As result of the therapy, I have come to realize that I have allowed some muscles to atrophy to the point that the joints have become loose which in turn allowed the hip joint injury which lead to the arthritic problems.

Some things I would recommend to all martial art practitioners, of any age, to ward off joint problems are:

1. Warm up and stretch lightly before each practice or exercise session.
2. Do some kind of strength training that keeps all the muscles strongalong with your training.
3. Do a complete and thorough stretch immediately following practice or exercise.
4. Don't overtrain.
5. If it hurts, don't work it out and seek the advice of a trainedhealth professional.

To the young guys, I say injuries are cumulative, so, don't let being young lull you into thinking you won't have problems later if you injure something now. The neglect you show today will haunt you tomorrow.

Eric G.

Labels: Injuries, older grapplers

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

The following question was submitted by a subscriber of the Grapplearts newsletter.

Q: What are your views on the 'aging grappler' who tries to keep rolling into his thirties and forties? What are some limitations and injuries to watch out for?

A: As an 'aging grappler' myself (at thirty seven years old) this is a topic near to my heart. I have found that I can work out just as hard as when I was young, but that it takes longer to recover from a tough workout. Recovery is heavily affected by hormones, and an older grappler just doesn't have as high levels of testosterone, growth hormone and other hormonal factors to recover as fast as some twenty-year-old punk.

So what is a thirty, forty or fifty-something grappler to do? As I prepare to rattle off some suggestions I am reminded of the old joke which goes: "take my advice, I'm not using it". If I followed my own advice rigorously then I'd be in bed right now preparing for tomorrow's training session rather than typing this newsletter...

1 - Don't train hard every class, especially if you are training often. If each sparring session is a battle to the death then you won't recover in time for your next class. If you are always compounding incomplete recovery with more incomplete recovery, then overtraining, injury and illness become certainties, not possibilities.

2 - Pay attention to recovery, especially after harder training sessions. One reason that pro fighters and other young whelps can train so much is that they usually have the luxury of sleeping in, as well as taking naps during the day. This added sleep is a surefire way to recovering faster from workouts.

Now I realize that people with full time jobs and/or family obligations are unlikely to be able to sleep 9+ hours a night, and take naps whenever they are tired. At the very least try to get somewhere around 8 hours of sleep when you are training hard.

Pre and post exercise nutrition is also a huge factor in muscle recovery. A sportsdrink right before you work out, and a protein-carb drink immediately afterwards, willhelp you recover faster.

3 - Accept that you are in it for the long haul, and that there will be good days and bad days, hard days and easy days. The performance of older athletes isn't determined by how hard they train on a given day, but rather by the cumulative results of years of training.

4 - Consider doing some weight training once or twice a week, IF you can do it without overtraining. Careful weightlifting can help prevent injuries by strengthening muscles, ligaments and bones, and less injuries mean faster improvement on the mat.

5 - Take inspiration from the athletes who have performed at incredibly high levels at age 40+. Randy Couture is an obvious example, becoming the UFC's Light-Heavyweight Champion at age 40. Fred Hatfield was the first man to squat a mind-boggling 1000 pounds, and he did it at fourty-five years of age!

6 - Remember that strength and endurance are finite, but that there is no end to technique. High levels of technique CAN overcome youthful energy and enthusiasm, so ask questions, analyze deeply and study hard.

Labels: Injuries, older grapplers

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

The following question was submitted by a subscriber of the Grapplearts newsletter.

Q: For self defense would it be better to study the grappling arts or the striking arts?

A: Obviously it is best to have a background in both striking and grappling, but if you could only study one type of art then I believe that the grappling arts are superior for self defense. Rorion Gracie said it best: most real fights end up on the ground. For women the situation is even more extreme, as virtually 100% of rapes end up on the ground.

Another advantage of grappling is that it allows people to spar at close-to-full intensity with a relatively minimal chance of injury. This gives the average grappling practitioner a chance to apply his or her techniques under adrenal stress on a daily basis. To do the same thing with striking would be difficult and unappealing to most people. The average recreational striker doesn't want to getting blasted in the face with a full power right cross, or heave up their lunch after getting kneed in the ribs, as a regular part of their training.

Labels: Injuries, MMA

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

There was lots of reader feedback about last week's tip, and everyone who wrote in wanted to emphasize an additional reason for not training while sick: not making everyone else at the club sick too! While I didn't mention this point myself last week I am in complete agreement with watching out for your training partner's health and welfare.

One reader summed it up by saying:
"A sickness or an injury that prevents us from doing something we enjoyand makes us feel great can be extremely frustrating particularly as we get older and a break from training can really make it a lot harder to get back up to full fitness.

Another very important consideration is that of the health of others in the dojo. Turning up to train and having your partner sniffle,cough or worse still tell you "my throat is on fire" while grappling is unpleasant and a recipe for spreading the ilness to other training partners. Yeah I know it's not an old school way of thinking but training time for me is precious (as thefamily has to come first) so having someone in the dojo keep me out of action by bringing along a cold or flu is inconsiderate.

Don't get me wrong, after a sickness or injury I am champing at the bit to get back at it but like you, this old dog has found that taking just a little extra time to rest and heal generally means the illness does not prolong and that others are not put at risk"

This phenomenon seems worst around competition time: everyone is training hard and a little worn down, and nobody wants to take a break from training. I can't count the number of times I have seen a sick person 'helping' a serious competitor by training with them right before the competition. I have seen this happen to high-level Brazilian jiu-jitsu, submission grappling, and high-level mixed martial arts competitors, so no one is immune.

This is GRAPPLING folks, and your flu germ will quickly become your partner's flu germs.

Labels: Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

It is said that lessons repeat themselves until learned. If this is true then there is one particular lesson that has been really hard for me to learn, and I have had to repeat it time after time after time. That lesson is: if you feel sick, don't train.

My usual pattern goes like this: I feel under the weather, perhaps with my nose congested and my energy low. I decide to go train anyhow, telling myself "I'll just go light". Then I head off and do jiu-jitsu (or go for a run, or lift weights) and usually go a little harder than I had planned on. After training I feel proud of myself: " I didn't let those sniffles stop me!". I go to bed, and wake up the next morning sick as a dog.

When I was young and impressionable an 'expert' told me that if the sickness was above the neck (i.e. in the throat, nose or sinuses) then it was OK to train. Supposedly you were only supposed to stop training if the sickness was below the neck, in the chest or stomach. Well many years later (and after many colds and flus) I realize that the best way to bring an illness from above the neck to below the neck is to go and work out.

I'm better now - at least 75% of the time when I'm feeling under the weather I back off and do nothing. As a result I'm not sick as often and also lose a lot less training time. I end up feeling like a slug, but at least I'm a smart slug. Better to take a day off and go hard the next day, than to tough it out and lose a whole week of training.

Now you can't say that nobody ever told you...

Labels: Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Last week I listed the treatments used, and practitioners consulted, in my quest for a pain-free lower back. What I want to highlight this week are the actual treatments that made a difference.

I mention that there were a lot of treatments I tried that work well for other people but didn’t work for me. For example acupuncture, although it has helped several people that I know, has never worked for me. Does that mean that you shouldn’t try acupuncture? Of course not! It didn’t help me, but it might be exactly what your aching back needs.

Not getting thrown (as often): as I hinted last week, I eventually figured out that Judo was bad for my back. Every time I got thrown in Judo my lower back pain increased. Unfortunately it is very difficult to improve in Judo if you aren’t willing to be thrown, so I made the difficult decision to stop doing Judo and concentrate almost entirely on groundfighting.

As a side note, I found that most freestyle wrestling takedowns didn’t irritate my back nearly as much, so now when I do train standup my takedowns look like a weird hybrid of Judo and wrestling.

Ice and anti-inflammatories: Whenever my back got really bad I headed for the freezer first and then the medicine cabinet. The underlying reasoning was the same for both destinations: I wanted to reduce the inflammation. Many people use icepacks when they have a sore arm or leg, but using cold on the back is less common for some reason. The ice reduces inflammation, and thus the pain.

Conversely, while a hot bath or Jacuzzi feels nice when my back was just a little bit sore, I avoided it when it was really bad, because the last thing I wanted was more swelling and inflammation in the afflicted area.

Over the counter and prescription anti-inflammatories can also be very useful, especially if you take them right after injuring your back. I found that one or two days of antiflammatory treatment early in the injury probably cut a week off my recovery time. You don’t want to take them regularly or too often, however, because of potential kidney and/or liver damage!

Chiropractic and massage: I found that chiropractors and massage therapists were useful resources in managing back pain. They weren’t as useful when I was in extreme pain, but they could often provide me with some measure of relief when my back was moderately painful. This relief was never permanent, but it was relief nonetheless. I still use both today.

Stretching and Yoga: Many people have sore backs because their hamstrings and lower back muscles are chronically tight. These people often find that increasing their lower back and leg flexibility helps with back pain. By contrast I have always had a relatively flexible lower back and hamstrings, so many of the ‘classic’ stretches for lower back pain didn’t help me at all.

What I did find useful, however, were the backward bending stretches in Yoga, such as the ‘Cobra’ and ‘Upward Dog’ position. One doctor told me that this backward bending helped me because I had a posterior disk herniation, and these stretches were easing the bulging disk back into place. I’m not sure if his diagnosis and proposed mechanism were correct, but these stretches and postures did seem to help at certain times in my recovery.

It is important to realize that if you think that you might have torn or strained a muscle or ligament in your back DO NOT STRETCH IT RIGHT AWAY!! You have damaged something in your back and the tightness is your body’s way of protecting itself. If you stretch it (and potentially strain those same tissues further) your body will react with increased spasm and pain, making the situation much worse. Wait a week or two before beginning to stretch the sprained area; I speak from painful first hand experience here!

Another factor that may have helped were the many Yoga postures which strengthened the core and spinal erectors (see the next point).

Strengthening: Through trial and error I found that if I did back extensions (also known as ‘back hyperextensions’) once or twice a week that my back was much less likely to go into spasm and ‘lock up’. This is probably because it helped stabilize an unstable area of my body.

Nowadays I normally conclude every gym session with about 30 bodyweight repetitions of this exercise, or a lesser number while holding dumbbells with my hands cocked at my shoulders.

You can see a detailed description of this exercise here: www.rice.edu/~jenky/sports/back.extension.html, and here: www.global-fitness.com/exercises/exercise033.html, as well as in the bonus section of my Dynamic Kneebars DVD (www.grapplearts.com/Kneebar-Info.htm). Back extensions are a great injury prevention exercise, as well as a very functional grappling exercise (which is why it made it into my video in the first place).

Pelvic Alignment: My most recent progress has to do with ensuring that my pelvis is correctly aligned, and not rotated, tilted or flared. I have used a book (The Malalignment Syndrome), as well as workshops and sessions with the author (Dr. Schamberger) to learn how to self diagnose and correct the most common pelvic misalignments myself. I am currently doing this twice a day, and it has made a significant difference to my back. You can find out more at www.malalignmentsyndrome.com (and no, I’m not collecting any sort of royalties or fees from them).

I should probably warn you that although the book IS very good, it is not an easy read and is actually quite a technical document. A background in physiotherapy, massage, anatomy or a related field would definitely help understanding the mechanisms, diagnostic techniques and treatments therein.

In closing, if you suffer from low back pain I wish you good luck in your search for relief. If you’ve never had a bad back then feel free to send the permanent link of this tip (www.grapplearts.com/2006/03/fixing-bad-backs.htm) to someone who might benefit from it.

Labels: Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

I have met many people, both on and off the mats, who seem to take their injuries with resignation. They say things like: "I just have bad shoulders", or "I'm going to have to live with this bad back for the rest of my life", and are content to live a less rich life. My reaction to injuries has always been to try to educate myself, and then to tackle them head-on.

To illustrate, let me talk about my lower back. I first injured my lower back getting thrown onto a wooden floor back in my Kajukenbo Karate days. I then further aggravated it by getting into high-level whitewater canoeing, where you are exerting a tremendous amount of unilateral twisting strain on your spine and torso. It got so bad that, when I was doing Judo, even with proper breakfalling it only took 3 or 4 times getting thrown onto my back for my lumbar spine to sieze up completely.

Most of the time I just experienced a dull discomfort in my left lower back, but when it flared up (after a Judo class, or weightlifting with bad form) it was really, really BAD! The worst time it was so bad that I was trapped on the floor of my study for almost 24 hours because I simply couldn't walk, crawl, or be dragged to my bedroom.

All this time I was actively pursuing various treatments and therapies. Over a period of about 1o years I tried doing the following things to cure my back problems:

1. stopping Judo and concentrated almost 100% on groundfighting
2. switching from whitewater canoeing to whitewater kayaking
   
3. consulting 'Western medicine' (i.e. family doctors,visits to the ER, back specialists, etc.)
   
4. going to physiotherapy, developed and used my own routine
   
5. using anti-inflammatories (3 or 4 different types)
   
6. trying herbal and vitamin treatment
7. applying Chinese tinctures and ointments
8. doing Yoga
   
9. acupuncture (from at least 3 different practitioners)
10. having frequent professional massages (from at least 4 different massage therapists)
11. trying deep tissue massage / Rolfing
12. taking hot baths and jacuzzis
13. applying ice packs and cryotherapy
14. consulting a pelvic malalingment expert
15. going to 'normal' chiropractic therapy (from at least 6 different chiropractors)
16. trying 'no-touch' chiropractic therapy
    
17. buying and using several traction and inversion devices
18. having cranial-sacral therapy

Various experts (and 'experts') diagnosed the problem as being herniated disk(s), rotated disks, facet syndrome, misalinged pelvic bones, excessive scar tissue, tight muscles, loose ligaments, torn ligaments, cervical problems creating low back pain, lumbar problems creating cervical misalingments, etc. etc. etc. Naturally there tended to be a correlation between the diagnosis of a given expert, and the services they offered; very few diagnosed me with something that they supposedly couldn't cure with their services!

As you can see I tried about everything except short of putting a pyramid under my bed and having surgery! Now this was time-intensive and finacially-expensive process, and I was very fortunate that many of these treatments were partially or fully covered by a combination of the public health plan (I live in Canada) and my health plan through work. I realize that unemployed (or underemployed) people will have difficulty pursuing as many treatment options as I did, BUT some of these options are low cost or no cost.

My point isn't to talk specifically about back injuries and treatments per se, but rather to illustrate the lengths I went to in order to live a healthy and energetic life. My bad back cut into my training, my family time and my general enjoyment of life, and I wasn't about to accept it as part of the definition of who I am.

Next week I'll talk about some of the treatments that actually helped me make progress with my back problems.

Labels: Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Over the last couple of months I have written about various pieces of training gear, ranging from wrestling shoes to mouthguards. Looking over these tips I realized I had left out the single most important, completely indispensable training gear of all: your partner!

Grappling is a contact sport where we struggle to apply techniques to our sparring partners while these same people are doing their very best to resist and apply similar techniques to us. The training of techniques against partial or full resistance is the central pillar of our training method, and it relies absolutely on having sparring partners. No sparring partners equals no sparring equals no improvement of skills.

So given that this is true, then why do some people take such poor care of their sparring partners? Why do some people think it is acceptable to crank armbars, or apply full force toeholds? At best that person will stop sparring with them, at worst they may sustain serious injury requiring surgery. Either way, the person without control loses a sparring partner and makes it more difficult for himself to improve his skills.

Preserve your training partners - it's the only way to get better!

Labels: Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

An old judo coach once tried to help me with an injury by saying: "there are internal ligaments in the body, but there are also external ligaments that are available to you" as he handed me the roll of white athletic tape. I often think of his "external ligaments" comment as I tape up the small injuries that plague me since I am no longer in my twenties.

Applying tape correctly accomplishes two things: 1 - it limits the mobility of a joint and providing stability, and 2 - it provides compression. Both of these actions can be useful when trying to train with an injury, and prevent re-injury of a weakened area.

Taping techniques can be very simple, such as wrapping your finger to provide protection to a hyperextended digit, or very complicated, such as trying to provide protection and support to a damaged shoulder. There are books, courses, and internet resources available on the subject of athletic taping, and if you use tape for anything more complicated than wrapping your fingers you might want to to track them down.

One golden rule of taping is that it MUST NOT IMPAIR CIRCULATION. Getting your taping job tight enough to offer support, but not so tight as to cut off blood flow, can be a tricky balance at first; don't be afraid to unwrap your taping job and start again if it is too tight.

I would also caution you against using tape each and every session, because you may be weakening the joint in question by making it reliant on the additional support. Tape is only part of the solution, not the whole solution. If you have a joint that is so unstable that it always requires tape then perhaps what you really need is some skilled physiotherapy instead.

Buy tape in large quantities (it's cheaper that way) and take it to every class. Ed Beneville, author of The Guard and Passing the Guard, contributes: "I am a fan of duct tape. Athletic tape is great but the prices are ridiculous. Duct tape does the job almost as well but at a fraction of the price." Regardless of the type of tape I am using, I try to always have some tape in my gym bag, because even if I don't need it, someone else surely will.

Labels: Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Shoulder injuries are fairly common in grappling. Most often they are the result of an overzealous Kimura (chicken wing) or Americana (V arm lock) attack, but shoulders can also get damaged by other techniques, such as throws and sweeps. While it is entirely possible that you may never have a shoulder injury, the odds of someone in your training group getting injured this way are fairly high.

Another sport that has similar injuries to the shoulder is kayaking. In kayaking, especially whitewater kayaking, the arm is often placed into positions that closely resemble the two above-mentioned bent arm locks; these compromised positions can result in both chronic and acute shoulder injuries. The reason I bring up this up is because there are some excellent shoulder rehabilitation resources available for kayaking, perhaps because it is an Olympic sport. Most of this information can be applied directly to rehabilitating grappling shoulder injuries.

The best online layman's resource for shoulder anatomy and rehabilitation I have found is www.kayaksport.net/docs/USACKshoulder.pdf. Do yourself a favor and save a copy of this document to your hard drive. Hopefully your grappling career will be injury free, but information like this is always useful to have on hand, either for your own use or to forward on to an injured training partner.

Labels: Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Wrestlers are no stranger to wearing shoes while training, but I think that shoes can also be useful for jiu-jitsu and submission grappling practitioners under certain circumstances.

Wrestling shoes have two major advantages: increased traction and injury prevention.

The traction benefits of wrestling shoes compared to slippery bare feet are undeniable. You will be able to grip the ground much better when driving for a takedown or jockeying for position on your feet. It is for this reason that my former teammate Denis Kang elects to wear wrestling shoes in the majority of his MMA fights.

The injury prevention potential of wrestling shoes is often overlooked. They stop your foot and ankle from going to extreme ranges of motion, and thus prevent, or reduce the severity of, strained ankles, twisted toes and other foot injuries. It is for this reason, more-so than increased traction, that I usually wear wrestling shoes if I am going to be doing a lot of standup grappling, because I have had my share of major foot and ankle injuries.

Wrestling shoes are also a useful splint for the whole foot when you are nursing a preexisting injury to the foot, ankle or toes. Twisted toes, for example, can be very difficult to protect with athletic tape, but if you put a shoe on it keeps all your toes together and somewhat protected.

There definitely are a few DISADVANTAGES to wearing shoes while grappling on the ground. They make it harder to escape footlocks, and they make your legwork in the open guard a little more difficult, especially if you aren't used to it. Also at 100+ dollars for a pair they are not cheap accessories. Finally if you are training at a new club you might want to check with the instructor before stepping onto the mat in wrestling shoes - some clubs have a strict 'no footwear' policy whereas others are considerably more relaxed about this issue.

Labels: Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

This week I am will continue talking about protective gear for grappling, moving on from mouthguards to earguards.

The vast majority of submission grapplers and Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioners do NOT wear earguards, and neither did I for a long time. I thought I was immune to ear trauma, until after a tournament I found my ears tender and swollen (my attempts at home ear-draining might some day form the basis for another tip of the week). When ears are subjected to impact, grinding and crushing (i.e. your average day on the mats) they sometimes take offense and become swollen. If the swelling is particularly bad, or if it sticks around for a long time, so-called 'cauliflower' ears can develop.

Cauliflower ears are badges of pride to some people in judo, wrestling, and rugby, and if that's your thing then more power to you. Personally I'd rather avoid mangled ears: I am ugly enough as it is, and have rather large ears, so I can only imagine what I'd look like with lumps of mangled flesh on either side of my noggin.

So nowadays I usually (80% of the time) wear ear guards while sparring. They make it a little more difficult to slip out of headlocks, but I think the tradeoff is worthwhile. Even if you don't want to wear them all the time you might still want to own a set for when your ears are sore from a previous workout. If they are sore but not swollen then the ear guards might just be the thing you need to stop them from going to the next stage.

I wear lightweight, flexible ear guards, the type without the rigid plastic cups over the ears. I find that these lightweight ear guards provide sufficient protection for me, but someone with ultra-sensitive ears might want to get the full-on competitive wrestling headgear with hard shell protection and more straps than a B&D outfit.

Labels: Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

If I could only choose one piece of protective gear to wear on the mat it would be the humble mouthguard. Grappler’s faces are always getting banged up, even if they don’t practice mixed martial arts. Whenever there is a scramble to pass the guard, to escape a bad position or to apply a submission there is always the possibility of getting hit in the head by an errant leg, head or arm. I have trained both with, and without, a mouthguard and have learned my lesson repeatedly. Nowadays I spar with one in at least 95% of the time.

Mouthguards protect you in many ways: they stop your teeth from chipping or getting knocked out, they reduce the likelihood and severity of biting your own tongue, and help prevent concussion. By offering you something to bite down into it also makes it harder to break or dislocate the jaw, should something hit you really hard.

If you decide to wear one you should try to wear it all the time while sparring. If you only put one in for competition you may find that it interferes with your breathing. If you become used to it in ‘regular’ sparring you will find that it bothers you much less when you’re really going hard. Not that I’m recommending this, but keep in mind that some boxers do their roadwork while wearing their mouthguard, just to become accustomed to breathing hard with it in.

The basic “boil and bite” mouthguard is usually available for about $5. Although there are mouthguards that protect both the upper and lower teeth, I recommend starting with the style that mounts only on the upper teeth. If you can afford it (or if you have a good medical plan) custom-made mouthguards are way to go. Your dentist can take a mould of your teeth and have a sports-mouthguard made that will fit you perfectly. This is not a cheap option: I have heard of dentists charging anywhere from $50 to $150 to do this, but once you’ve tried these mouthguards you’ll never want to go back.

Labels: Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

In twenty-four years of martial arts training I have had more than my share of injuries and surgeries. Recently, however, I had an interesting encounter with the medical establishment that I’d like to share with you. Given the abundance of injuries in combative sports I think it might have some value for the readers of this newsletter.

About 6 months ago I was diagnosed with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (TOS), which basically means that the Ulnar nerve is compressed as it goes through your shoulder on its way down to the rest of your arm. Functionally it means that you might experience some weakness, numbness and tingling in your arm and hand, especially when your arm is raised above your head. TOS didn’t really bother me very much, but I thought that I should do something about it nonetheless.

Eventually my doctor suggested that I see a surgeon to find out what the surgical options were. After a brief examination the surgeon concluded that I could probably benefit from surgery. “What type of surgery”, I ask. “A re-section of the first rib” he says – and then I find out that that basically means cutting the rib in half and removing several inches in each direction.

Needless to say I left the office determined NOT to have my rib resected; the cost-benefit analysis of a relatively invasive, and essentially optional, operation just didn’t seem worth it to me.

Several days later I visited a friend who is a massage therapist. “Let me have a look at that shoulder” he says. He spent about 5 minutes doing somewhat painful work on the muscles of my neck and shoulder (the Scalenes, Subclavius, and Pectoralis minor). Afterwards I got up and went though some of the tests that are used to diagnose TOS: I was amazed to find that my symptoms had completely disappeared.

Since this ‘miracle cure’ I have been using massage therapy, chiropractic care and physiotherapy to keep the condition in check. As far as I can tell it is completely gone, and my doctor agrees that it seems to have dissapeared as well.

As I write this story I am reminded of the old adage that goes something like this: if all you have is a hammer, then the whole world looks like a nail. Surgeons want to do surgery, massage therapists want to do massage, physiotherapists want to play with rubber tubing and chiropractors want to adjust vertebrae. Each treatment modality is (sometimes) valuable and (sometimes) appropriate for different conditions.

Sometimes surgery is incredibly helpful; sometimes it is even the only sensible option. Without surgery I wouldn’t be grappling (and probably not even walking properly). My point is simply that ultimately YOU are responsible for managing your body and your injuries, NOT some other person who doesn’t have nearly as much at stake. Taking responsibility means spending time, reading books, doing research, and consulting different experts to sort out valid information from the flood of propaganda and unsubstantiated advertising. It’s your body, and you’re hopefully going to be stuck with it for a long time, so take care of it.

Labels: Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

This week I’d like to talk about the half guard. This position is one where you are lying on your back or side with one of your opponent’s legs between your own. In the last 10 years an increasing number of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and submission grappling matches feature one fighter aggressively trying to sweep or submit their opponent from the half guard position, which was basically unheard of previously.

The half guard may be hot now, but it had a humble beginning. Initially the half guard was just one step short of having your guard fully passed: your only real options were thought to be regaining full guard or to hanging on and stalling. In fact this position was often referred to as being caught in the “half mount”, a term which is much less common today.

A major player in reconfiguring the half guard into an offensive position was Roberto "Gordo" Correa, a jiu-jitsu black belt from Brazil. After a knee injury he found that regular guard work was too difficult and painful, and he started experimenting with the half guard instead. He discovered that by getting on his side, fighting for grips, and connecting a series of sweeps he could keep his opponents on the run. Significant competition victories soon followed for him.

It wasn’t very long until other grapplers realized that “Gordo” might be onto something, and a whole new game was born. Many other sweeps, submission setups and positional variations were developed, both in Brazil and elsewhere. Some specialists are so confident in their game that in competition they will jump into half guard rather than full guard. Modern half guard techniques are even occasionally seen in MMA competition, but this is still relatively rare.

An interesting development is the evolution of specialized anti-half-guard submissions, specifically designed to counter the offensive half guard. Marcio Feitosa shared four of his favorites in an interview I did with him, so you may want to check out www.grapplearts.com/Marcio-Feitosa.htm. As with all techniques, a lot depends on timing: if you try these submissions too late you are going to get swept.

This new role for an old position, and the development of counters to this new role, is fascinating. It’s all part of the evolution occurring on the mats of the world every day.

Labels: Injuries, the guard

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

If you practice chokes and strangles long enough you will eventually choke someone partially or fully unconscious – because some strangles are not very painful people can even go unconscious without realizing it. This is not an inherently dangerous situation so long as you follow a few safety precautions.

The first time I saw someone strangled fully unconscious it was frightening. A competitor at a local tournament was being strangled and resisted tapping a little bit too long. At first he just lay there unresponsive. Then he emitted a very loud snoring/gurgling sound. Then he started to shake and quiver as if he was having a ‘gentle’ epileptic seizure. Finally he awoke, looking somewhat sheepish and embarrassed. The whole thing took about 10 seconds, but seemed a lot longer to me.

Now not everyone who gets strangled out will respond the same way – a lot depends on how deeply unconscious the person is and how long the strangle is held. Sometimes they’ll snore and sometimes they won’t. Sometimes they’ll shake uncontrollably and sometimes they won’t. People can even lose bladder control if the choke/strangle is held too long (fortunately this is a fairly rare occurrence).

If you DO throttle someone fully out then here are some safety precautions you should know about:

1. Be aware of your opponent’s level of consciousness. People don’t always know they’re about to pass out, and some people won’t tap to chokes. This is especially true if you ever use a choke in self-defense: with all the chaos and adrenaline you might hold the strangle for a lot longer than necessary.
2. Release the hold as soon as possible. Continuing a strangle after someone is unconscious is very dangerous.
3. Roll the person onto their side (unless you also suspect spinal injury). By placing them onto their side you are ensuring that their airway remains open - many people die when they lie unconscious flat on their backs.
4. if they remain unconscious for more than 20 SECONDS call for medical help and initiate artificial respiration and/or CPR
   

I know that this is all scary stuff, but keeping these safety precautions in mind helps keep choking amd strangling relatively safe. Hundreds of thousands of chokes have been applied in Judo and Jiu-jitsu for centuries with very few resultant injuries.

Labels: chokes, Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Jiu-jitsu and submission grappling offer techniques to attack almost every major joint in the body. Attacks on the elbow, shoulder, neck, knees, feet, and ankles are all fairly common and have many high-percentage techniques associated with them. These should be your bread and butter submissions because they have a long, proven track record of effectiveness.

I think a bit of variety is a good thing, however, so let’s talk about a not-so-common attack: wristlocks. In my opinion the wrist is the most under-attacked joint in grappling. Just about every time you are attacking the arm you have access to the wrist as well. If your opponent is really good at defending the armlock, for example, you may be able to switch to a quick wristlock and get a submission that way.

There are lots of ways to compress, extend and twist the wrist. Just watch an aikido class or read a book and traditional Japanese Ju-jutsu. Typically these wristlocks start with both combatants in a standing or kneeling position, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t also work on the ground. In fact I think that a lot of them are easier to do on a pinned opponent than on a more mobile standing opponent.

I am not alone in my respect for the wristlock in grappling. Fernando 'Terere' and Fredson Paixao are just 2 of many BJJ players who have used the wristlock at the highest levels of competition. One the home front, one of my main training partners is a master of sneak wristlock attack. When we spar I constantly have to watch where I put my hands or he is going to trap a hand and lock the wrist.

Now for an important safety announcement: APPLY WRISTLOCKS SLOWLY!! Here is why:

1. the wrist is a small joint and thus susceptible to injury in the first place;
2. because they are relatively easy to counter the temptation is to slam them on quickly;
3. if you slam them on quickly you WILL injure your training partners.
   

The good news is that usually failing at a wristlock submission doesn't put you in a bad position, so you have nothing to lose by applying them in a slow, controlled manner.

Labels: armlocks, Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

I thought I was done with last week's topic ("Isn’t Stretching Supposed to Prevent Injuries?") but I recently had an interesting conversation on the topic with Charles Brown. Not only has Charles been a fitness trainer and competitive endurance athlete for over 20 years, but he also subscribes to the Grapplearts.com newsletter!

Below I am posting what Charles said - I think it is a valuable contribution to the discussion of stretching, grappling and martial arts:

"I noted with interest your recent comments about stretching. The recent proliferation of articles about the dangers of pre-event stretching cite nothing new. The true risks and benefits of stretching have not changed in decades. What the recent research achieves is to highlight the misunderstanding about how and when to stretch, which have existed for decades."

"The importance of stretching lies in its proven ability to prevent injury by maintaining range of motion, not as a quick-fix approach to preventing acute injury during an event. Stretching cold muscles (the typical pre-event stretch) has always had a tendency to increase injury. The problem with pre-event stretching lies not in the stretching itself, but in the failure to warm-up adequately."

"A solid warm-up requires a minimum of 8-10 minutes. There is no shortcut. Think about the last time you started running at a very easy pace. At some point, early in the run, you probably noticed a sudden onrush of perspiration. I'd be willing to bet that event occurred about 8-10 minutes into your run. That is when you were warmed up. Stretching after that point, done sensibly, would represent absolutely no risk of injury. In fact, the warm-up itself will do more to prevent acute injury than any stretching."

"The role stretching plays in preventing chronic and acute injury lies in its increasing (or preventing the decrease of) range of motion of a particular joint or series of joints. In order to accomplish this, however, stretches must be conducted with thoroughly warmed-up muscles, and must be held for 30-60 seconds. The typical 15-20 second stretch has absolutely no benefit in improving, or even maintaining, flexibility. In other words, stretching need not occur in direct proximity to your event in order to prevent injury."

"So, what can athletes, including martial artists, gain from all this?

1. Warm-up all working muscles thoroughly before training or competition with at least 8-10 minutes of continuous, very low intensity activity.
2. Engage in a regular routine of static stretches held for 30-60 seconds.
3. Stretch before or after an event, but ALWAYS after a warm-up."
   

Thanks to Charles for his thoughts and insights!

Labels: conditioning, Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Stretching has recently gotten some bad press. Various studies and articles looking at runners, army recruits and soccer players have come to light suggesting that stretching doesn’t actually prevent injuries. If you want to read summaries of some of these articles check out www.runnersworld.com/article/0,5033,s6-197-200-0-7001,00.html and www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0852.htm.

So does that mean that we all should stop stretching? Not at all! These studies were mostly conducted on running athletes. Running has quite a small range of motion, and very few people find flexibility to be the limiting factor in how far or fast they can run.

Martial artists in general spend much more time at the limits of their range of motion. Just think about how much more flexibility is required for high kicks compared to running down the street. Grapplers in particular end up in all sorts of contorted positions on the mat: they need strength and flexibility in their whole body. Even if your game doesn't require flexibility you may not have control over what positions you end up in: an over-eager opponent might tie you in a pretzel, and without flexibility you are just cruising for an injury.

These studies make fascinating reading for those interested in exercise science. They come to some surprising conclusions, but I think it would be premature to stop stretching if you are also challenging your body with the rigors of grappling.

Labels: conditioning, Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

I get asked fairly often when someone should incorporate anaerobic training into his or her conditioning regimen.

By "anaerobic" training I basically mean sprints and interval training – where you go hard and fast for a relatively short period of time. Going for a 40 minute jog is NOT anaerobic training – running up stairs as fast as you can IS anaerobic training.

So when should you incorporate sprints and intervals into your conditioning regimen? Well it depends on several factors. Here are some of the things I like to consider when trying to answer this question for someone:

1 – General fitness: has this person just rolled off the couch or have they been training consistently for a period of time. If they have been sedentary then sprints and interval training will probably lead to injury very quickly.

2 – Aerobic base: I believe that it is impossible to develop a good aerobic structure on an inferior anaerobic base. If you can’t jog for 40 minutes then you shouldn’t be doing repeated 400-meter sprints.

3 – Timing: when do you want to reach your peak fitness? The closer you get to your peaking time, (e.g. a competition) the more aerobic training should dominate your conditioning

In the next few weeks I will give you some concrete examples of anaerobic routines that you can use.

(For more background on cardio training go to
www.grapplearts.com/Martial-Arts-Cardio.htm )

Labels: conditioning, Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

At the risk of stating the obvious, getting sick or injured is the best way to bring your training progression to a screeching halt. Fortunately most illnesses and injuries are preventable.

Avoiding ego-driven training can prevent many injuries. If your sparring partner catches you in a submission, don’t be a hero - just tap out. If an injury starts bothering you when you are doing an exercise, stop or modify the exercise.

The important thing to remember is that you are training, not fighting, and that the purpose of training is to learn. There is no better way to prevent learning than sitting on the sidelines nursing an injury.

The best way not to get sick very often is to avoid overtraining. Overtraining occurs when the amount and quality of recovery time is insufficient to fully recover from the stresses of training. In other words you are putting too much strain on your body for it to recover properly.

Overtraining can be remedied in two ways: less stress and/or more recovery. The first cure for overtraining is to cut back on the stresses on your body. This might mean not training as much, not working as hard at your day job, going for easy jogs instead of hard runs, etc. The trick is to train hard enough, but not too hard, for your current level of fitness. This is a difficult, but worthwhile, balance to achieve.

The second cure for overtraining is to improve the amount and quality of recovery time. Sleep more. Relax more. Do more yoga and massage. Improve your nutrition. Sleep is probably the most neglected element here: there is a lot of research suggesting that most athletes need a lot more than 8 hours of sleep a night for optimal recovery.

Read my article on
overtraining in grappling and mixed martial arts

Labels: Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Many grapplers and martial artists lift weights to make them stronger, faster,
and more explosive. It is widely accepted that weight training complements and
improves good technique. Being stronger, faster, and more explosive is a good
thing, but the best reason to pump iron is to increase resistance to injury.

So much training time is lost to injury that anything you can do to cut down
on injury time will have a dramatic effect on your skill level. Lifting weights
strengthens the muscles, bones and connective tissue. This makes your joints
much more injury resistant.

Some people worry about lifting weights because they don’t want to get bigger
and ‘muscle-bound’. Don’t worry about this. Really. For 99% of people getting
significantly bigger requires a remarkable amount of work. From 1998 to 2000
I went through a phase of trying to ‘bulk up’, and eventually put on about 20
extra pounds of muscle. It was a lot of work: 4 or 5 days a week of weightlifting
and eating a tremendous amount of food every day. Rest assured that lifting
weights once or twice a week isn’t going to turn you into a bodybuilder from
the pages of Muscle and Fitness anytime soon.

I still weight train now, but my approach and my goals are different. I pump
iron one or two times a week to maintain strength and prevent injuries that
would prevent me from training. It’s interesting that people are more willing
to do physiotherapy AFTER an injury than preventive strengthening BEFORE an
injury. Isn’t it best to avoid the injury in the first place, not to mention
all the other benefits of weight training?

Read my article on basic weight training for martial arts and grappling

Labels: conditioning, Injuries

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon