Jiu jitsu and back pain
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What are some things you can do when you have back pain and train jiu jitsu?
First see a healthcare professional to properly assess your deficits to rehab the injured tissue.
Second know how to avoid re-injuring or aggravating your back. An important aspect of rehabilitation is activity modification and how to avoid aggravating the injury while performing your activity. .
Jiu jitsu players with back pain are more likely to be flexion intolerant, which means bending forward hurts. A healthcare professional can assess and confirm your pain trigger.
The most common way this affects a jiu jitsu player is when using attacking from the closed guard. Often the oppponent will try to stack to pass or to counter submission attacks which specifically loads the injured back in the exact way that causes pain.
1️⃣Armbar strategies: instead of clamping your legs on their shoulder, clamp on the head. This limits their ability to stack.
2️⃣Triangle strategies: Put a leg in the opponent’s hip while being heavy with the triangle leg. This limits the opponent’s ability to posture up and drive forward. When their movement ends you can transition to the finish.
3️⃣Stack pass defense strategies: When an opponent attempts to pass with one leg on their shoulder you need to make your leg heavy. This is done by thrusting your hips up. Instead of just lifting your leg this forces your opponent to lift your whole body, limiting their stack.
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While many martial arts may benefit from taking time off, others may be able to work around their injury if they train with the correct partners. This is the benefit of training with a rehabilitation specialist who understands the demands of the martial art.
@mmaleech