People who train MMA/BJJ - How often do you get injured?

CM24 · 24-03-2014 02:36PM #1

I'm a massive fan of MMA and have trained on and off for a few years now. However, within my first week or two of training I always seem to pick up some sort of niggly injury that keeps me out of action for a couple of weeks. I would say in the last two years I'v done about 30 classes. I know this is a very small amount but it's partly because I'v spent so much of my time recovering from injuries.

The striking classes are generally fine. But in the classes that involve grappling I always seem to injure something. I'v broken my baby finger, fractured my ring finger, done something to my wrist which still feels a bit dodgy, and got plenty of other niggly little injuries that require time off. Oftentimes the mats are really slippy because of sweat and i'v hurt my groin and lower back from sliding unexpectedly. Some of the time I'll be unaware of the injury until after the class finishes then it will flare up.

I'm currently dealing with a toe injury and would like to go back training when it recovers, however I'm considering taking up a different sport as I'm just so sick of being injured. I work as a Personal Trainer and am very fit and spend plenty of time working on my mobility and flexibility, so it's not me that's the problem. I take fish oils and have a good diet and all that. Also, while i'm reasonably competitive in sparring/rolling, I'm certainly not overly so.

Have I just been unlucky or does this happen to everyone?

I can understand why people speculate that the majority of top level guys are on PED's to help them through their training camps. I would eventually like to have a fight as I really enjoy the training and think I have some potential but I just can't seem to stay injury free. I'm 25 now and spent most of my life playing soccer and gaelic football and barely ever missed a game or training through injury.

MagicIRL · 24-03-2014 03:37PM

I've been in BJJ since January and have had no injuries. I've been doing ninjutsu for two/three years now and also I've had no major injuries. My only "injury" is that yesterday I pulled something in my shoulder during a technique and it's rather stiff at the moment.

Perhaps you're injuring yourself because you don't understand the technique correctly and, whatever way you're moving, is putting your body in danger as opposed to the "correct" way of executing the technique?

darced · 24-03-2014 04:08PM

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Blackthorn Fight School · 24-03-2014 05:32PM

I have to agree with darced you tend to pick up small injuries regularly after about 3 years of bjj and mma I have broken a few fingers and toes. I have oddly gotten more black eyes in bjj than striking.

Even with stick fighting I have only had a few cuts and some broken bones in my hands but never anything too severe.

Though i have found stretching almost daily did reduce a lot of the smaller pains and injuries I had been getting.

I have been lucky and never had any major injuries though have seen some. You just need to look after yourself.

Jimmy Bottlehead · 24-03-2014 05:35PM

Have to say, I trained consistently for 18 months as well as competing in the MMA League and never got anything worse than a tweaked muscle that kept me away for a week or two.

Maybe work on your break-falls and landings?

MrStuffins · 24-03-2014 06:06PM

I keep getting stupid little injuries but tonight i'll be training for the first time in about 5 weeks due to a bad wrist injury. It's still not 100% but there's only so much sitting around I can do! before this i'd gone through a really good run of classes. I'd made a decision to be more consistent in the New Year and hadn't missed a class until I hurt my wrist. I think i'm just unlucky though.

Mellor · 25-03-2014 12:02AM

I've had one or two stains or similar, but I keep training, so light and insta-tap in the affect area is attacked by a sub. Tap before it hurt the injury.
Small ligament tear in my right hand since june last year, still not 100% but I just tap it up and keep training.

Mr. CooL ICE · 25-03-2014 01:54AM

Only did BJJ for a month, but it was stupid stuff like mat burn on my knees and feet from constant guard pass drills and a bust lip from a bad rear naked choke. Also, throat was sore from getting caught in too many guillotines. I did this while training for a marathon and none of the injuries affected my training for it.

Gumbi · 25-03-2014 03:35AM

LordChessington wrote: »

Only did BJJ for a month, but it was stupid stuff like mat burn on my knees and feet from constant guard pass drills and a bust lip from a bad rear naked choke. Also, throat was sore from getting caught in too many guillotines. I did this while training for a marathon and none of the injuries affected my training for it.

Gotta get meself some long leggings for matburn. It's an absolute bitch when I'm tryharding belly crawls :P Burned my knees and feet very badly along contact points. Has happened somewhat severely teo or three times :P

Once you get more experienced in grappling you'll learn how to move in such a way that puts your body in safe positions. Training with equivalently experienced partners can help a lot too. Therr are very few times one should ve sparring/grappling 80 to 100% in training.

I'm training a lot fot my next amateur MMA fight right now and I'm getting tons of sparring in, most notably with the 6oz gloves half the time. So far I've only been going 50 - 60% with people and it's worked out fine. My body is bruised and I might have a sore leg fron kicks but I can deal with that. I don't want concussions is the main thing.

Mostly it comes down to training right, and with the right people. I think the chance of minimising injury in something like BJJ if you employ these principles is pretty high for the most part. The case is less so in MMA IMO but still possible for the most part.

As for competetion... You're almost guaranteed to injure something :P

Mellor · 25-03-2014 06:38AM

One cause of minor injury I see is people not tapping soon enough to submissions. Just being stubborn or hopefully trying to spin/explode/scramble out without any sort of plan. Even if you do get out, its not really a viable escape, so you achieved very little. The solution is to not get caught in the first place, the best way to work on that is to tap, reset, and figure where you went wrong.

Richy06 · 25-03-2014 10:20AM

Gumbi wrote: »

Once you get more experienced in grappling you'll learn how to move in such a way that puts your body in safe positions. Training with equivalently experienced partners can help a lot too. Therr are very few times one should ve sparring/grappling 80 to 100% in training.

This is the crux of it, for me. You'll always injure things, major and minor. It's a combat sport, not just a contact sport like GAA or Soccer whereby the goal isn't to elicit a tap from your opponent(s). So once you get passed the fact that yes, you will get injured at some point but you will get better, the next thing is ensuring things like your posture is correct in every position and learning how your body moves so that you don't move in such a way yourself that puts undue pressure on an area, leading to strains and tears. My neck and back are at me for the past while due to an old minor injury I didn't leave to heal which was occuring because I was doing thing like going over my neck too much and exerting too much pressure on it when inverting. I should have been moving shoulder to shoulder and not on my neck. But that's just one microcosm of an example.
Also, knowing when to stop struggling against a position that is already lost and knowing the right time to give up on it and retreat to the next defensive posture is huge. This is where you get back strains and the like.

Another thing to stop all the above is to look after your body more. Things like massages, foam rolling, yoga and a stretching routing before and after training all help to make your body more flexibly, supple and strong.

CM24 · 25-03-2014 02:42PM

Thanks for the advice guys. I do take decent care of myself when it comes to foam rolling and stretching and that. I think I'v realised that it's a combination of things leading to the injuries. I do probably rely on my strength and explosiveness to escape from submissions too much, rather than slowing down and trying to escape using technique. I need to swallow my ego and accept that tapping out in training isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Also, I lift heavy weights at least twice a week. This is fairly taxing on the body in itself. Also, in an effort to lose the bodyfat I put on whilst injured, I'll often restrict my calories to some extent. This would further hinder my recovery and probably leave me more susceptible to injuries. One more thing, I have skinny fingers! My dad grew up farming and working as a builder, and his hands and fingers are way thicker and stronger looking than mine. Hopefully they'll get stronger over time. Must start doing more grip work in the gym. If anyone else has any advice please share it!

chrisbag1986 · 25-03-2014 02:53PM

When I started watching MMA I tore my ACL playing soccer. Had operation 2 years later, done rehab etc. Started training MMA as I always wanted to try it when I was pending op.

11 months after my op I started to train MMA, everything grand, played soccer again. Passed a football and tore my other ACL and cartilage damage to meniscus on other leg.

Pending operation again for right knee.

So when I have the operation this year I am undecided to start MMA again or just leave sports training aside. From playing soccer, cricket and rugby from no age to being able to do nothing the past 4 years bar gym sessions, sucks eggs.

3rd time lucky tho?

Moral of the story - count yourself f'ing lucky guys

pablohoney87 · 25-03-2014 02:55PM

chrisbag1986 wrote: »

When I started watching MMA I tore my ACL playing soccer. Had operation 2 years later, done rehab etc. Started training MMA as I always wanted to try it when I was pending op.

11 months after my op I started to train MMA, everything grand, played soccer again. Passed a football and tore my other ACL and cartilage damage to meniscus on other leg.

Pending operation again for right knee.

Such a violent dangerous sport. Needs to be banned :pac:

chrisbag1986 · 25-03-2014 02:59PM

lol tbh, It was all me and no one else..

First one I planted my left leg to clear a ball.. knee buckled

second one was just a normal pass.

http://twicsy.com/i/MrJ2Fb

Clive · 25-03-2014 03:41PM

CM24 wrote: »

One more thing, I have skinny fingers! My dad grew up farming and working as a builder, and his hands and fingers are way thicker and stronger looking than mine. Hopefully they'll get stronger over time. Must start doing more grip work in the gym. If anyone else has any advice please share it!

If it seems that most of your injuries are to your fingers I'd be wary of patching over the cracks with more grip work. Often the people with the strongest grip have the most finger problems. They often keep a grip when one or two fingers are no longer secure and end up with the remaining gripping fingers injured.

Another issue is poor finger position (whether gripping or not). Are your four fingers always together? The only major hand injury I''ve had in 10+ years was as a result of lazy splayed fingers. Keeping them together stops pretty much all problems with the exception of a very unusual impact injury.

Dtp1979 · 25-03-2014 10:16PM

pablohoney87 wrote: »

Such a violent dangerous sport. Needs to be banned :pac:

Funnily enough I refuse to play soccer with my friends. I'd rather do mma and I tell them I honestly think soccer is more dangerous

MrStuffins · 25-03-2014 10:18PM

Dtp1979 wrote: »

Funnily enough I refuse to play soccer with my friends. I'd rather do mma and I tell them I honestly think soccer is more dangerous

Or your friends are d*cks! :P

CM24 · 26-03-2014 07:29AM

Clive wrote: »

If it seems that most of your injuries are to your fingers I'd be wary of patching over the cracks with more grip work. Often the people with the strongest grip have the most finger problems. They often keep a grip when one or two fingers are no longer secure and end up with the remaining gripping fingers injured.

Another issue is poor finger position (whether gripping or not). Are your four fingers always together? The only major hand injury I''ve had in 10+ years was as a result of lazy splayed fingers. Keeping them together stops pretty much all problems with the exception of a very unusual impact injury.

This would make sense actually. Seeing as I can deadlift 200kg I couldn't really have a weak grip. I probably do just try hold on for too long when I should concede the position.

Also, yes, the coach pointed out to me in one of my more recent classes to never interlock your fingers when doing the muay thai clinch, as this can lead to finger injuries. Seeing as I was making that mistake, it's likely I've been making other similar mistakes aswell.

Mr. CooL ICE · 26-03-2014 04:51PM

My BJJ coach said "always fight like you are wearing mittens"

Mouthalmighty · 27-03-2014 12:56PM

Most of my injuries came from 2 sources:
1. Me being stupid for example holding onto stuff too long and being stubbornand training "negatively", I was so worried about not getting tapped I was super tense & pulled more muscles etc.

2. Training with newbies who kept spazzing out & over committing to everything usually resulted in injury.

I now train in a more relaxed fashion (tap like crazy when i need to) and I am somewhat picky about my training partners so now thank God i am fairly injury free. Little niggly stuff is just par for the course in a combat sport.

People who train MMA/BJJ - How often do you get injured?

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