Curious about how to start Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with shoulder and knee injuries?
You’re not alone. Many potential BJJ enthusiasts find themselves in a conundrum, eager to dive into the world of grappling yet held back by lingering injuries. It’s a tricky balance—how do you engage in such a physically demanding sport without exacerbating existing conditions? Fear not; here are some valuable insights on approaching your training safely and effectively, even with a few battle scars. Here’s a rundown of some practical advice to help you start rolling with confidence.
1. Communicate Before Every Roll: Make sure to inform your training partners about your injuries before each session. This way, they can avoid targeting your sensitive areas. No one should be attacking that bad leg or cranking kimuras on you if you have a bad shoulder.
2. Use a Braces: Invest in a high-quality knee brace for additional support to keep you from straining already fragile ligaments. A good brace can help stabilize your knee and reduce the risk of injury during training. Same goes for wrist, ankles and shoulders.
3. Yoga, Pilates, and Strength Training: Before diving into BJJ, consider building up your joint strength through yoga, pilates, or bodyweight training. These activities can help make your joints more resilient and help you heal all together. The facts are these are activities all BJJ athletes should be doing whether they are injured or not.
4. Rehabilitation: Whether you are trying out BJJ or not if you already have injured joints, you should be rehabbing them daily. This can be as simple as a hand massage, band exercises or hot cold therapy. The point is while injuries can happen in a second, they can take years to heal, and your body needs all the help it can get. Do your part and your body will thank you.
5. Supplementation: If you are putting your body and joints under additional stress, it is important to provide your body with the important building blocks to maintain your health. Joint supplements containing collagen are highly recommended as well as a quality multivitamin. This is not a time you want to bargain shop. You get what you pay for.
6. Realistic Expectations: Understand that injuries are a part of BJJ, even for those with healthy joints. If you plan to start training BJJ you will most likely get injured at some point—it’s a matter of how you handle these injuries that determines if you have what it takes to remain on the mats. Don’t let this persuade you from the art. Most people will experience injuries in life regardless of whether they pursue high impact activities or not. Do you want to have a cool story to tell about why your knee pops or do you want to tell people you threw your back out reaching for a sock?
7. Avoid Dangerous Rolls: This could be an entire post in itself. Even if you follow tip one and communicate injury some training partners should just be avoided all together. An untrained person may assume the most dangerous people on the mat are the black belts and while this may be true in a fight rolling is not fighting. The most dangerous training partners to roll with are by far the white belts. If you are trying to avoid injury, try to avoid rolling with high energy competitive white belt. There are many ways of doing but simply saying “I’m gonna sit this one out” or “I’m gonna role with someone else, you’re too good for me.” is often a sufficient way to avoid a roll without ruffling any feathers.
8. Putting Your Dreams on Hold: Real advice here. For those with severe injuries, it might be best to avoid BJJ altogether, at least until you can get a handle on your injuries. Even experienced practitioners sometimes struggle to protect their bodies. If someone can’t play golf without injuring their knee, activities like shrimping, bridging, or executing takedowns might be too risky.
Remember, every roll in BJJ test your joints just as much as it tests your ability to control your opponent. Proceed with caution and consider these tips to make your BJJ journey as safe and enjoyable as possible.
Edit: 11/8/2024
Bonus: After publishing I realized there is one important tip, I left out which is helpful for both injured and healthy grapplers alike. So here is, tip number 9.
9. Leaving Your Ego at the Door: There is a saying “You are your own worst enemy”. That could not be more true than in knowing when to take it easy. When you’re injured or trying to avoid injury it’s important to realized just because you probably could push yourself harder, to get the upper hand, doesn’t mean you should. Until you are confident in your ability to push yourself without injury it is best to swallow your pride and instead of giving it your 110%, give it what you can without tempting fate. Furthermore, a huge number of injuries can be avoided by simply knowing when it’s time to tap. It can be hard to admit when you’ve been beaten but it’s an invaluable skill to learn if you want to remain injury free. You cannot always rely on the restraint of your training partners to save your joints. If your partner has your arm extended don’t force them to crank your arm until you feel pain. It’s just asking for trouble, inevitably there will come a time when you think you can escape before it gets worse, and your tendon will tear before you know it. Additionally, not taping when you’ve been beaten will rub some training partners the wrong way. It’s always best to accept your defeat, congratulate your training partner and be thankful your mistake happened in training and not competition.