Returning to the BJJ Mat Post-Injury

As you may or may not already know, experiencing an injury on the mat during your Brazilian jiu-jitsu journey is not an “if”… it’s a “when.”

Accidents happen all the time. It doesn’t matter how strong or talented you are, or how much you prepare your body to withstand the rigors of BJJ training, you cannot avoid or anticipate everything. There are simply too many factors involved: the dynamic movements, your partner’s actions and reactions, other people rolling on the mat, and even how you might be feeling that day or how much sleep you got the night before. All of these contribute to the potential for injury. You might even sustain an injury off the mat that will force you to stop training for a while.

Yes, it sucks. What is worse, however, is returning to jiu-jitsu without a strategy to keep you from re-injuring yourself, thereby prolonging your time off the mat. Believe us, we've all been there.

So, if you find yourself among the club – welcome – here are some tips for your return to the mat:

Resist Returning Too Soon

FOMO is real, and it’s dangerous, both to your mental health as well as your physical health, especially if you’re recovering from an injury. Depending on the severity of your injury, you’ve probably experienced increasing levels of anxiety over being off the mat, missing out on all the instruction, and falling behind your teammates, especially that arch-nemesis (we know you have one, we all do).

However, it’s important to tamp down that toxic feeling and resist returning to the mat before you’re ready. Maybe your doctor – if you saw a doctor, ahem – gave you a timeline for recovery. While you might be tempted to believe that timeline is for the “average” person, whether or not that doctor is familiar with athletes, he or she knows a thing or two about healing. And hate to break it to you, your recovery time will be only modestly better than the average person, no matter how hard you carnivore diet.

Assess Your Limitations

Depending on your injury – bone break, ligament strain, tissue laceration, or all of the above – you’re not going to be 100 percent “back to normal” when you do begin training again. Things are going to feel tight, underutilized, and fragile.

Consider your injury and the limitations it might present for your game. Had an ACL tear? Maybe ease into those knee slices and that De La Riva guard. Strained your back? Put your inversions aside –  at least when you’re not rolling with a smaller person – and work on your top game for a while. And, obviously, try to avoid any and all stack passes. Tore your rotator cuff? Avoid aggressive grip fighting, wrestling, and lapel guards for a bit, as these can put a strain on your shoulder. Oh, and tap early to shoulder locks. I shouldn’t have to say that out loud, but here we are.  

If you’re a glass half-full kind of person, think of this as an opportunity to diversify your game. You can’t do certain movements – maybe those same movements that injured you in the first place – so practice and hone others… evolve.

Choose Your Partners Wisely

Gone are the days in which you are willing to roll with everyone and anyone. At least for a while. Honestly, you should have probably been choosing your partners wisely from the very beginning.

When you’re coming back from an injury, it’s incredibly important to only train with those you can trust. Trusting a person as a person and trusting a person as a training partner are two different things. You might have a friend that you would trust with your life, but on the mat, he might jump on a leg like a rabid dog. You might have another friend who’s a wonderful human being, but he’s just clunky, and might inadvertently re-injure you by being, well, clunky.

Not only is it important to choose your partners wisely, but it’s also important to communicate with them. Your training partner has his or her own life, and may not be aware, or even remember in the moment, that you only recently returned to the mat. Remind your training partners, repeatedly if needed, that you’re not quite ready for a final Worlds match.

Continue Your Rehab

Just because you’ve been released to return to the mat, doesn’t mean that you’re 100 percent back to normal. You may already be aware of that. But too often I see athletes stop physical therapy or neglect to continue with their own rehab, instead trusting jiu-jitsu training to “get them back.”

This is unwise, and will only further delay your complete return to pre-injury performance. For one, jiu-jitsu training does not offer the same balanced, structure approach that your body needs to rebuild strength, flexibility, and range of motion in the area you injured. In fact, many of us – and by “many” I mean nearly all of us – are very unilateral in our training. We do certain sweeps, passes, takedowns, etc. largely on one side, and very rarely on the other. This has a tendency to create imbalances that are detrimental, even to a completely healthy athlete.

Continue with your rehab, even beyond the time you think you need it any longer. By then, you can consider it “prehab,” helping to prevent further injuries in the future.

Listen to Your Body

Most importantly, listen to your body. You will be tempted to make up for lost time by training even more than you did pre-injury. That’s FOMO’s twin sibling: MULT.

Rest when you need to, so that you don’t re-injure yourself and set your recovery back weeks, if not months. When I say rest, I don’t just mean a rest round. When you’re feeling overworked – either mentally or physically – take a day off, two even, or an entire week. I usually gauge my rest days by whether I feel anxiety or dread about training with anyone I know will be on that mat that day. If so, I will not be performing at the best – or my current best – and I will be risking myself unnecessarily.

Remember: the mat will always be there.

Train safe, recover smart, my friends.