Training Injured

Cryozombie

Grandmaster
MTS Alumni
Joined
Feb 11, 2003
Messages
9,998
Reaction score
206
So, last Sunday I wrecked out on my bike. Walked away with a case of roadrash, a bruised face, and I have an AC separartion in my shoulder.

The last part is the only bad part, and its... painful, to say the least.

My instructor dropped me an email today suggesting I should come do light training with my injury, to learn how to move, well, i guess while injured.

I think its a good Idea, and I trust my instructor has my best interest in mind, but at the same time am worried about making the injury worse. I'm going back to the doctor for a follow up exam monday and I will talk to him about what is an acceptable level of activity, of course... but how many of you train when injured, or train with people who have injuries?

Is this a good idea? A bad idea? Is it normal for people to do this? Am I having anxiety about training like this for no reason?
 
I do it. But I make sure that everyone knows that I am injured if they work out with me. At any point you should be able to say that you will not do the technique or that you had better sit down and take a rest from training.

Hell, there is one guy in Japan here with a bad back. When it acts up I know I am going to get a call from him about going to training since he does not want to train with an unknown person who may try to body slam him.

So, train only in things you feel will not injure you, be willing to sit out training at any point and train only with people who you trust and know youare injured.
 
A guy in our class did the same sort of thing, him and his mates were towing each other on a bodyboard along the beach behind a car (real clever hey) when the eneivetable happened and he came off, he had one week off and came back telling everyone he was fine just a little sore and not to worry.
As it happened the next lesson was a sparring night and at his insistance he joined in. What we were doing was 1 guy in the middle of a circle and the other 5 guys all had a kick shield and the idea was that everyone had a different attack, 1 sheild had to be kicked, 1 punched, 1 elbowed etc. The guy in the middle is then rushed and you have to stop from being backed into a corner or overwhelmed, it can be pretty frantic as you can imagine. He had his turns on the pads and was asked if he wanted to go in the middle, he did and again you can guess the results. Even though we went easy on him he still felt that he needed to prove something I suppose or just got that rush of blood and really did some damage to the shoulder.
He has now missed 1 month and looks like needing an operation so is going to lose alot more simply by trying to come back too soon.
My advice is you only get 1 body dont risk permanent injury for short term gains.
 
What really sucks is I am missing the Luke Molitor Seminar today and tomorrow.

Most of our school went. I hope they bring good stuff back... :(
 
I have found you can work through sore muscles but not through injuries. I just made them worse. I had chronic shoulder pain which could have turned into a frozen shoulder-more permanent. Won't even get into the knee thing again. Sometimes we have to let our reason rule over passion. One body is right, so better to take care of it. I just wish we have a medical bay (can't remember now what that was called) like on Star Trek and have the doc heal it with a laser-like pulse. TW
 
TigerWoman said:
I just wish we have a medical bay (can't remember now what that was called) like on Star Trek and have the doc heal it with a laser-like pulse. TW
I think it was called "Sick Bay"
 
Technopunk said:
I think it was called "Sick Bay"
One think about Star Trek was that when Data got sick/injured, he always ended up in Sick Bay and not Engineering.

But on thread topic... I am at the moment waiting to go for a CT scan and to see a specialist at the hospital for my kidneys. The reason how this happened to me is unclear, but the doctor that originally seen me thinks it is down to budo. Another doctor thinks otherwise So either way, I am on a slight sickie. It does not bother me. The only time it will make me concerned is if they mention operation and stay in hospital. Apart from that, I am stil training and being myself.

But for your arm ETC, go train, but train light. Go through the motions working on your foot placement and how you should move. Also training one handed is fun to do. No hands is a right scream. Breaking balance is more interesting without arms.

Oh and get better as well. :D
 
i dont know about being that injured and training.but my wrist is real ****ed up and i train with the brace on
 
Always Always Always check with your doctor when dealing with post injuries and training. Throw all that testosteroned macho B.S. out the window and do your body right... listen to the doctor who knows the human body and it's workings better than you do.
 
Consulting a physical/athletic trainer too isn't a bad idea. But, you don't want to make it worse and really delay your training! A few weeks off now might save you a few months off later.
 
Technopunk said:
What really sucks is I am missing the Luke Molitor Seminar today and tomorrow.

Most of our school went. I hope they bring good stuff back... :(


Why didn't you at least go and watch?
 
Take this opportunity to watch and take good notes. Road rash is "whatever" but and AC seperation can only get worse. It's better to be out for a month and heal correctly than to exacerbate the injury and be out for a year (at the least).
 
It depends on the nature and severity of the injury, obviously, and getting a doctor's opinion is always a good idea. In any case, I feel the point is not to try to "work through" the injury but to find ways to "work around" it so that it doesn't become worse.

Example: A couple of years ago as I was teaching, I did something involving a sort of osoto nage takedown on a student. I was NOT moving quickly or forcefully, just took a walking step placing my right leg behind my unbalanced uke, and as I stepped I felt a sort of "PING" in the back of my left thigh. . .almost like a blow. Either a muscle or the hamstring tendon in the back of my thigh had just suffered a spontaneous partial rupture.

By the time my uke was back on his feet, I'd already (through subtly shifting my weight) determined what I could and couldn't get away with in terms of further movement. I just changed to doing different kinds of things from that point on, and I finished out the class with no one having any idea I was injured.

Next day I was using a cane to walk. I didn't really need it to walk, but if I tried to move at more than a very moderate walking pace the leg seized up viciously and I'd have to lean on the cane for a bit. I was fine again in a couple of weeks, and while I wasrecovering I continued to train and teach -- just moved in ways and did techniques which didn't make the injury worse.

(Slight digression: A few months before that, my wife Teri had suffered an achilles tendon rupture near her right heel. How'd it happen, you may ask? She was at home, and saw a tailfeather our parrot had dropped on the floor, and she knelt down on one knee -- with good form and structural alignment -- to pick it up, and WHAM! Thinking at first she'd been shot through the window by someone outside the apartment, she rolled under the living room table, then checked herself and realized it was nothing external.

Neither of us had ever had anything like this happen to us before, and I asked our family physician -- who used to train with us -- about it. He said these kinds of spontaneous ruptures are really not that uncommon; and that when they do occur, the victim is usually doing nothing more strenuous than walking across the room. Actually, now that I think of it, he had an achilles rupture himself a year or so before Ter's -- which required surgery and 6 months or so of rehabilitation -- while playing around with his young son outside their church.)
 
Technopunk said:
My instructor dropped me an email today suggesting I should come do light training with my injury, to learn how to move, well, i guess while injured.

I think its a good Idea, and I trust my instructor has my best interest in mind, but at the same time am worried about making the injury worse. I'm going back to the doctor for a follow up exam monday and I will talk to him about what is an acceptable level of activity, of course... but how many of you train when injured, or train with people who have injuries?

Is this a good idea? A bad idea? Is it normal for people to do this? Am I having anxiety about training like this for no reason?
I think you need to feel this out for yourself. AC separations are not fun to deal with and easy to injure further. When my ACL was out, I trained with my brace on after a few months of physical therapy. I mainly worked out on upper body, and slowly worked my way through techniques and forms, modifying them for the injury.

From a s/d position, I think your sensei has a point - the bad guys don't care if you're injured, in fact they rather like it.

But I wouldn't do any falls or anything like that.
 
Jmh7331 said:
Unless your Instructor is a Dr., I would get a 2nd opinion.
I know this is off-topic, but who gave me bad rep for this comment and why? Not that it changes the price of tea in China but I think you should be required to put your name on a bad rep report and a reason why. Ok, I'm 5 days into a 6 day work week (12.5/night) so I guess I am getting a little grumpy! :)
 
Techno, show up for class. The way we train injured is to avoid all use of the injured limb, so you will learn to position yourself so as to not expose the area........it really is more about avoiding the area and protecting it as opposed to "light training".

Shawn Grey, Shiela Haddad and Ed Martin did a demonstration of this in Sweden recently. training with the actual injury will make you more aware of it as opposed to "pretending" you have an injury.

you will learn how to do your techniques without the use of one arm...and how to position yourself so it is not readily available to your attacker.

I hope your feeling better, I was at Vics shortly after your accident....and as soon as I heard you were ok I was thinking about that awesome flame paint job on your tank............dare I ask?

Markk Bush
 
Tengu6 said:
Techno, show up for class. The way we train injured is to avoid all use of the injured limb, so you will learn to position yourself so as to not expose the area........it really is more about avoiding the area and protecting it as opposed to "light training".

Shawn Grey, Shiela Haddad and Ed Martin did a demonstration of this in Sweden recently. training with the actual injury will make you more aware of it as opposed to "pretending" you have an injury.

you will learn how to do your techniques without the use of one arm...and how to position yourself so it is not readily available to your attacker.

I hope your feeling better, I was at Vics shortly after your accident....and as soon as I heard you were ok I was thinking about that awesome flame paint job on your tank............dare I ask?

Markk Bush
I would love to show up for class... I cant get there right now... No car, and I cant ride with my arm in the sling.

The tank got pretty trashed. Need to replace it.
 
I really have to agree with Dale that you could try working around your injury! Currently I have a tear in my anterior/superior labrum in my shoulder that I received while putting one of my kids into his car seat! The pain had been excruciating but now after a couple of months it is feeling great! During that time I just worked around it doing movements that did not seem to bother it and focused on some aspects of training that I had been neglecting! Now that I am almost injury free my skills in those certain areas have improved dramaticly and I have made some great progress! Maybe I should get injured more often! However, with whatever you do make sure that you get your physicians opinion!

Brian R. VanCise
 
Back
Top