Training Martial Arts With Injuries
Training with or around injuries is a very common thing for sport fighters such as boxers, Kickboxers, wrestlers, and UFC fighters. Their intensity is so high in training that well over 90% of any fight cards you see is injured to some degree or another. So basically, the next time you watch the UFC, realize that 90% of the fighters you are watching have some type of injury.
Since we all know that pain is very subjective some people might consider a sprained baby toe and injury, but I remember a boxing match in the 1980s that was stopped midway through the fight because the referee realized oh one of the fighters actually had a gunshot wound to his lower torso. He got shot the day of the fight and had an argument in his neighborhood; he tried to bandage it and hide it because he needed the money from the fight that evening. He went and took the fight, but somewhere after the third round the bandage started leaking, And the blood was staining his shorts.
Muhammad Ali got his job broken in the first round against Joe Frazier, the flight lasted 14 more rounds. That's right, he fought 14 rounds against one of the hardest left hookers ever getting hit over and over on that broken jaw, but he wouldn't say a thing.
I had a torn tendon on one of my knuckles, that I got in a fight hitting someone on the top of their head, not a good choice, but I had a few of them, bad choices, I mean. I got taken to a very high-end orthopedic surgeon, because I was boxing professionally at the time. The doctor that did the surgery told me that I would never be able to punch anything again and definitely not fight anymore. He said it would never heal right and always hurt. That was 1980. Oh, after the surgery I probably rested my hand for about one month, but I don't think your day has gone by when I didn't punch something really hard 44 years later. And I have absolutely zero pain on that knuckle.
Oh, I gave some extreme examples, but the daily training with injuries is a lot more subtle. Maybe you have a minor strain on your knee, so you can't pedal the bike as much, or do as many jumping squats. The injury on the other hand might be much more severe. Say you've had shoulder surgery, or a hip replacement. Well, in that case with the shoulder surgery, you should probably only do things with your lower body such as squats, riding a stationary bike, or performing kicks. A total hip replacement on the other hand is a little more serious, so you're working out would be much more modified, but you could sit in a chair and use small weights, or even the pedals of a bicycle with your hands. You could get in a wheelchair and I get a great work out. If you had a knee injury, you could get creative and use some upper body workouts for strength and aerobic workout.
The main thing you have to have in working out with injuries is discipline and creativity. The discipline of working out with an injury, depending greatly on the severity and pain, and a mobility of the injury, will always be more difficult than workingout with out and injury. But depending on many factors, mainly discipline and creativity.
The discipline comes in because inertia says that a body and rest always wants to stay a rest, and in this case, a body in pain wants to not workout. Discipline is largely responsible for you doing things you don't want to do for your overall good. Discipline makes you do things that you should do even if you don't want to, like working out. Whether you have an injury or not, the lack of discipline would keep you from working out because of discomfort, and if you have a lot of discipline, you will workout with or without an injury. And a person without discipline won't.
Creativity comes into play because of the pain and mobility associated with injuries makes normal working out difficult or even impossible. If someone has a bad knee, since upper body cardio workouts aren't as popular somebody came up with putting a stationary bicycle on a table and paddling with your hands. That to creativity. Or if you have a torn rotator cuff, and you are training to be a boxer, you would have to get creative with your training. I'm experiencing that firsthand now just being so old I have to get very creative to keep my training up to any kind of level, and I am injury free. Getting creative means thinking outside the box in ways where you can practice a certain technique, or keep your cardio up when your mobility is impaired, and movement hurts. The more of these blogs I've been writing, the more "creativity" comes up in different scenarios. Creativity is a much bigger part of martial arts than I used to give it credit for.
I so basically, I'm saying that you have to keep moving to stay healthy, and sometimes that's easier said than done. And if you have an injury or a condition, that is inhibiting your movement, your mobility, and causing pain, you can't just stop altogether and be sedentary. You have to get creative, and keep moving, and it won't be easy, so you will need extra doses of discipline.
