Jiu-jitsu, or any martial art for that matter, is very physical. It’s not unusual for people to get minor joint strains or muscle pulls from time to time. Sometimes they last for a day or two. Sometimes they last longer, particularly when no action is taken to care for them.

People often ask me for suggestions for taking care of such injuries. So I’ll share here what I normally do. The most important thing to do is take care of the injury as soon as it occurs. People often tend to let it go and train through it when it’s something minor. This is a mistake because the onset of an injury sets the tone for your recovery.

As soon as the injury occurs, you should follow R.I.C.E. (Rest, Immobilization, Cold, Elevation). I also like to use anti-inflammatory agents to reduce pain and swelling. I use either ibuprofen (Advil) and a topical anti-inflammatory or both. The topical anti-inflammatory is a great trick of the trade. If it’s only a very minor strain, sometimes I’ll just smear some on the site of the injury then wait until after class to do cold therapy. If it’s a more serious injury, I apply it along with the cold therapy right at the onset of the injury.

There are a couple of options for topical inflammatory agents. The one I’ve used most is arnica gel. I always keep a tube of this stuff in my dojo first aid kit. Many of my students have tried it and found it to be effective. Some even bought their own to carry in their training bags. Another similar treatment is the Escents Aromatherapy Arthritis, Muscle & Joint Treatment gel. It has arnica in it as well as essential oils that are thought to help promote healing. I tried it a couple of times on minor joint strains and found it to be effective.

For ongoing injury care, don’t skimp on the cold therapy. I know it’s time consuming, but it’s very important for reducing your recovery time. You should apply cold to your injury regularly for the first 48 hours of your injury. Be sure to follow the rule of 15 minutes on, 15 minutes off so as not to irritate the surrounding tissues. That combined with anti-inflammatory agents (ingested or topical) will promote faster healing.

You should also go see a doctor to find out the extent of your injury and whether or not you should get ongoing care like physical therapy. After the first 48 hours, R.I.C.E. usually becomes M.I.C.E. (Movement, Immobilization, Compression, Elevation). “Movement” is often recommended to increase blood flow to the injury site to promote healing and to strengthen surrounding muscles to protect the joint. For example, my doctor recommended doing lots of cycling to help with my knee injury.

Of course, I need to point out that the contents of this blog post are not intended as medical advice. It’s just what I’ve had recommended to me and have found works well as a recovery strategy from experience. Every case is different, so you should always consult a doctor about your own specific injury.

Tags: joint injury | muscle strain

Many of you know that I’ve been coping with a pulled hip flexor for the past couple of weeks. My MMA coach didn’t believe that I would do what was necessary to recover from my injury. He said, “Fighters don’t know when or how to take it easy.” He’s wrong about me though. My dojo depends on me too much for me to be laid up by an injury. So I’m on a strict recovery program set out by my Jiu-jitsu student who is a doctor.

Conventional wisdom when it came to muscle and joint recovery used to be RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation). But recently it has been found that immobilizing an injury (unless it’s a fracture, torn muscle or your doctor advises you to) shuts the muscle down and restricts blood flow. Instead, modern medical research is suggesting that moving the muscle and encouraging blood flow to oxygenate the area and flush out metabolic waste helps you heal faster. Now many doctors are saying that RICE should be used only for the first 24-48 hours of the injury after which MICE should be used. In this acronym, “movement” replaces “rest.”

In my case, my student/ doctor recommended that I bike 20-40 minutes a day. I also did some gentle strengthening and stretching exercises specific to the hip flexor. Biking replaced my morning yoga work-outs since I didn’t want to accidentally do any stretches that would aggravate my injury. Then after the whole routine, I would ice my hip flexor. I was also told to avoid grappling, breakfalls and any other high-risk activities. My coach focused my training on other skills and strengthening exercises like boxing, and a variety of upper strength development drills (i.e. hand stands, push-ups, neck raises, etc).

Now, after two weeks I’m not feeling pain any more, though I still have to be careful. This is when the injury is most likely to be re-injured, because it feels fine, even though it’s still in a weakened state. So still no grappling, etc. but I’m going to try going for a gentle walk-run work-out on Sunday.

I’ll be so happy when the injury is fully recovered and I can go back to my usual training regime.

Tags: joint injury | M.I.C.E | R.I.C.E