I got this while doing MMA training at the college’s club my junior year. I hurt my neck pretty bad sparring. Got kicked in the head and it just hurt for several weeks and frequently the pain would travel down into my right bicep. I was prescribed heavy doses of ibuprofen and neck exercises which sucked all around. Constantly hurting wrists and tendons in my hands due to heavybag work, problems with the carpel tunnel they told me. My nervous system was damaged before starting and had my neurologist tell me not to do MMA but I did it to experience it. The high intensity was what killed me and gave me migraines.
I was completely fine with BJJ though and did a NAGA tournament and wouldn’t mind training in BJJ only at a good gym sometime when I start working. The rest of it I’m just not cut out for anymore. There’s plenty of cool opportunities regardless of your choices.
I’d say the biggest things are…
Body awarness, just kind of “getting it” like you just understand where your body should be. Kind of like being a good scrambler, a lot of crazy scramblers go in crazy dangerouse looking positions but get hurt less then anyone else.
Also back off on your training and get back in the mode. For years I trained six or even seven days a week super hard I basically never got hurt. But got some injuries that kept me out for ahwile, then kept coming back full swing right away and get hurt all the time. Not terrible things, just stuff that keeps training inconsistent.
It can take months or years to really get used to it. When your training six days a week for a year straight with no days off aside from the planned sunday, sat whatever off. you honestly don’t ever feel banged up and don’t get hurt. Your body is just totally adjusted.
Also stop training when you feel a little something starting to bother you, and tap EARLIER then you need to. Since implementing those two I haven’t missed one trainng session. It’s as simple as skipping one last round of rolling.
Also judo blows, it’s by FAR the most injury prone sport there is. mma, bjj, boxing, mt. not even close. Your partner does one slightly off placed foot when throwing you your knees are shot. But thats where the body awarness comes in. Being in shit(dangerouse) positions and at the last moment adjusting some tiny thing that saves you. If your a scrambler type you’ll get good at this. But when you get too tired is when you lose that again the stopping just a few minutes early is when you save yourself.
Genetics may also play apart. Like fighting irish says. The seriouse injuries I got weren’t ultra seriouse but kept me out for 4-6 weeks each and were the result of competition against people double my size not tapping to totally locked in submissions even with poppping noise nothing was torn just a slow to heal sprain.
Then it was coming back to hard and getting sick and a few minor pains but nothing thats kept me out. I always look like I’m going to get hurt in crazy positions but rarely do. Flexibility definetly helps.