I’ve injured myself in martial arts more than I’d like to admit.
Some of them minor like the typical tweak and strain here and there. A couple of them major like when I had my shoulder torn out during a competition in Judo.
Fun times.
I’m sure you’ve been there too in your own martial art. Everything was going great until it wasn’t. This could have been due to an intense scuffle or an accumulation of years on the mat.
It happens.
So what to do about it?
If it’s a major injury then you need to of course get it checked out by a medical professional. Figure out what’s up and do what they tell you.
The majority of the time it’ll most likely be a minor tweak here and there. We must work to prevent these small issues from escalating into something worse.
It’s your responsibility to take care of yourself OFF of the mat so that you can stay ON the mat as long as possible.
Here’s how we do that.
The AAA Framework
To build a stronger body, you need to know what to do. If you lack this knowledge, you won’t know where to start. And this is where GMB Fitness comes in.
Full disclosure: I’m going to be promoting my company GMB Fitness in this article and upcoming articles as well. It’s helped thousands of people and I know it’ll help you too.
To improve your body, you must understand how things work. Over the years, we’ve written tons of articles in GMB about specific parts of the body. These articles will help you understand what’s going on so you can start to get better.
Take this information and put it to use.
Don’t worry. In this article I’m going to help you in how to do that. And the first order of business is to get an understanding of the AA Framework.
In a nutshell, the AAA Framework is where we;
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- Assess the situation
- Address the issue
- Apply the necessary protocol
The full GMB Method includes quite a bit more info. You can read all about it here.
Let’s say that your neck is sore from your grappling sessions. After some thought through assessing the situation, you realize the reason for your neck being sore.
You always end up getting caught in guillotines while attempting the single leg.
First off, it sounds like you need to work on better posture when going for that single leg. As for your neck, we could address this on a deeper level by looking at exactly what needs to happen in order to make it feel better.
This is where we could use simple neck circles to see in which directions it is causing you trouble.
Finally, you can apply one or two movements from the GMB neck routine and perform those every day for a few weeks. This will help ease the soreness in your neck and also strengthen it. Very helpful while you learn how not to get caught in those guillotines. 😉
The process and solution is actually quite simple and it should be. That’s because the easier you can make it, the more you’ll actually do the things that will help you. That is the key:
Keep things simple so you can simply do the things.
In other words, if you don’t do the things necessary to help you, you’ll never get better.
The System
Let’s take a look at the process for which you can put this into action.
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- Assess – Where are you sore? Neck, shoulder, knee, ankle, etc
- Address – Read the related article and check out the videos.
- Apply – Choose a total of 2 movements and do them every day.
Yes, you’ll need to do some homework. This is good in that you will learn more about the body and how to build a better you.
These are the articles for you to reference. Choose one body part that you’re having an issue with and get to reading.
For example, because you have a sore neck you would go to this article and choose 2 movements. Let’s say:
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- Rotations
- Chin to Chest with Rotation
Do these two movements every single day for at least a week. If you’re feeling better, keep doing them for another week.
After one week if you’re not feeling better, Assess again and go back to the article to swap out ONE of the movements. For example maybe you take out Rotations and replace it with:
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- Upper Cervical Flexion
- Chin to Chest with Rotation
Do those two movements for one week. If you’re feeling good, great!
That’s it. Simple.
What’s Next?
Once you’re feeling good and back to normal, I would suggest continuing with your mobility. One easy way to do that is with one of these full body mobility routines.
4 Minute Minimal Morning Mobility Routine
Or if you have more time and want a more in-depth routine you could use this 23 Minute Full-Body Joint Mobility Routine.
Injury prevention should be a part of conditioning for your martial art. But sometimes injuries happen.
Keep the recovery process simple by using the AAA Framework and focusing on only a few movements. Do that and it’ll help keep you on the mat forever.