Recovering from injuries
Part of any athletic endeavor is dealing with injuries. It doesn’t matter how good you become injuries will always come up and usually when you least expect them to.
Luckily, there are many ways to preemptively deal with such injuries through adding a strength and conditioning program, maintaining mobility, and adding other healthy habits can go a long way in keeping your body running smoothly.
Jiu Jitsu especially attracts a lot of injuries with its small movements and awkward positions versus more traditional sports.
You put your body in all these weird positions and there’s no surprise when something gets tweaked or strained.
Even the act of going for submissions puts some damage on you or your opponents bodies. And even trying to escape a submission could add even more damage.
For instance, your opponent goes for an arm bar on you puts a lot of strain on your elbow. So you could possibly tap or decide to try to fight the submission which is what most people do. If you do everything right you might still end up popping your elbow even if you escape. It’s just the nature of this sport.
But the best approach is to be smart and pinpoint the areas that give you trouble. For many competitors that would be the shoulders, knees, elbows, hands and ankles.
So preemptively strengthening these body parts will do a lot too lower your recovery time necessary if they do get injured. Strengthening these body parts will also make them less prone to injury.
That said, you also need to know when to seek help from qualified professionals especially if an injury is not getting better or you feel a loss of mobility or strength in the body part. The worst thing you can do is keep pushing through certain injuries because this can cause even more damage and more recovery time.
Which no one really wants. Because the more time you spend dealing with injuries the less time you can train.
When you’re younger it’s very easy to take your body for granted and push through injuries — especially small nagging injuries — but as you get older you realize that those small nagging injuries are magnets for larger injuries that don’t go away and start to accumulate and lead to bigger injuries.
If an injury is serious, it’s better to take the time off early on and recover than to keep pushing through it. It’s as simple as that.
One thing that you can do while injured is still go to your academy and watch the classes.
Watching the techniques and rolling, you will still be able to learn even though you might not physically be able to do the technique. Just the simple act of being in that familiar environment and focusing on the technique will help you and your recovery versus staying at home and watching TV. The more you keep your mind engaged the better you will feel.
Even if you can’t make it to your academy you can still study through watching competition video. You can have discussions about techniques with your Jiu jitsu friends. Do everything in your power to keep your mind engaged in positive thoughts and having something to look forward to i.e. looking forward to being able to step back on the mats with no pain and doing something that you love.
Comments