If you’re old enough to understand anything in this sentence, then it is very likely that you have been injured at some point in your life. It’s an unavoidable part of life: we all make mistakes, we can’t control everything around us, and entropy exists, so inevitably something will fall apart or something unexpected will happen and we will get injured. I’m not even talking about serious, life-altering injuries; even the smallest nicks, cuts or bruises can be incredibly annoying and cause setbacks in our training. A sore muscle can throw off our technique in some surprising ways, so I figured I would write a few tidbits on how to train with the minor inconveniences of life without it becoming a detriment to our training.
Raechel has written a couple articles about overcoming serious injury, so I’ll try my best not to overlap too much. The main difference is that while she wrote about recovering and the physical and mental steps to take to get back to training shape, this article will assume you are still in good (relatively speaking) shape and not held back from getting on the mat. Perhaps you are still sore from the prior class, or your arm got tweaked just a bit too much by your partner. Another possible scenario is that you rolled your ankle on the sidewalk or on the carpet at work, and now you need to baby it during class. Whatever the injury or setback is, here are a few ways to work around it and still have a productive class.
- Train the uninjured side – If you are unable to do a skill on one side of your body, this doesn’t mean you neglect to do it completely. If you can’t kick with the right leg, kick with you left leg! Training unilaterally with the healthy limb can still lead to improvements on the injured side. There have been several studies that show training the uninjured side will lead to similar improvements to the injured side, and rather than having a deficiency on one side once it is healed, both sides are equally strong.
- Take it slow, and then adjust from there – As martial artists, we tend to want to do a technique as quickly and as efficiently as possible. If we have an injury, however, this isn’t necessarily the best way to train if we don’t want to aggravate anything. As hard as it may sound, we need to take a step back and slow down our movement. Listen to your body and take your time as you move to avoid any sharp pain (some discomfort is part of training!), and take stock of what worsens the injury vs. what you can train with. Once your body is warmed up, then you can begin to ramp the intensity and see where the limit is, taking care not to push it too much. That can be difficult to ascertain at the start, so don’t go from 10% straight to 100%; maybe go to 60% at the most.
- Clearly communicate any injuries to your partner – Many times injuries happen because of partner work, and most of the time this is due to miscommunication. Talk to your partner (don’t give them the whole history of how it happened; class time is precious!) and let them know what to do and (more importantly) what not to do and repeat this as often as you need to. If there’s a technique that you can’t do at all (such as taking a fall), then bring in another partner that is able to do what you are unable to. Prioritizing your health is more important than letting your partner do their skill at the expense of your body.
- Key through and visualize the result – Tied to the point above, if you are unable to do the technique fully, key through (i.e. don’t follow through or complete the whole technique) and visualize the end result of your technique. The more you train your mind for success, the better training experience you will have and more confidence you will build. Think of how you would do a technique if you were healthy and go to the point where your injury limits you, and then develop a mental image of where you continue to the finish. This can be hard to do the more complex or demanding the technique may be (such as jump spinning techniques or joint locks), but it is no different than doing forms and visualizing the applications.
I hope some of these tips help, and this is by no means an exhaustive list. What advice do you have for training with an injury?
References
Madsen, Booth, Volz, Docherty, Using Normative Data and Unilateral Hopping Tests to Reduce Ambiguity in Return-to-Play Decisions, 2020. https://meridian.allenpress.com/jat/article/55/7/699/436932/Using-Normative-Data-and-Unilateral-Hopping-Tests
Cuyul-Vásquez, I., Álvarez, E., Riquelme, A., Zimmermann, R., & Araya-Quintanilla, F. via Tice, Tyler (2022). Effectiveness of unilateral training of the uninjured limb on muscle strength and knee function of patients with Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction: A systematic review and meta-analysis of cross-education. Journal of Sport Rehabilitation, 31(5), 605–616. https://doi.org/10.1123/jsr.2021-0204 https://physicaltherapyfirst.com/blog/2024/01/24/effectiveness-of-unilateral-training-of-the-uninjured-limb-on-muscle-strength-and-knee-function-of-patients-with-anterior-cruciate-ligament-reconstruction-a-systematic-review-and-meta-analysis-of-cro/
