Hey guys, I just wanted your opinion on something. A good few years ago I used to do some serious weighliting and bodybuilding, but had to quit because of injuries to my wrists (nothing overly serious, just continuous swelling and inflammation of the wrist just below the palm putting pressure on the nerves causing pain and sometimes partial immobility of the hand). Ever since my wrists havent ever really fully recovered, as they feel quite tender when extended or when I have to lift heavy weights with a lot of tension on the wrists. Now, I'm looking to starting a MA..and what I'm really interested in is Judo, Jujutsu and Aikido. Unfortunately, I know that all 3 style utilize a lot of wrist locks. My question being: Will training and practicing with wrist locks as part of the syllabus help strengthen my wrists or would the cause more damage? One of the sensei's at a local dojo teaching jujutsu told me it would help strengthen my wrists....what do you guys think?
Depends, if the person you're training with knows exactly what they're doing, when to stop the lock, how not to put too much force into the lock, basically if they've mastered them then it wouldn't cause damage. If they haven't then yes, there's a high potential for damage.
Sure its a question of them knowing how far to take it, but in training there's gotto be that element of "reality" where you push it to a point where pain is induced and a tap ensues. Else how do you know that you are doing the technique correctly?
If there's pain, there'll be damage, its as simple as that. That's the problem with locks and grappling, with strikes you can hit a bag, or a shield, or a mitt, and know that the technique is powerful, but with grappling you need a partner, and you need to cause them at least some pain.
Do you not feel that repeated exposure to a wrist-lock would result in a stronger/more flexible wrist capable of withstanding it better? COnditioning of a sort?
It may do, but you've got the dilemma of which occurs first, damage or conditioning? Since condition is merely repeated damage in an attempt to get your body to adapt, and you've got injured wrists already, yes it may eventually improve, but it'll probably get worse first.
Hmmm, interesting!! You see, when someone demonstrates a technique on me, I like to feel the pain (no Im not a masochist) so I can feel what the technique does to a person, so I have an idea what sort of response I'll get when I apply it on an opponent.
Any form of conditioning is a result of some damage, as the body grows back stronger than previously (as in weightlifting), the question is how much damage? If it starts to be painful then you've gone to far, you should only aim to be in the discomfort zone. remember that you have to have recovery time between training sessions as well. Colin
Hi, erm, sloth You say "nothing overly serious" but this sounds fairly serious to me. Firstly I think its important to understand something of the background of your problem. You clearly have an overuse injury. Such injuries occur as a result of either: A. a traumatic event leading directly to damage to one or more tissues. Typically a tendon may be damaged, although there could be ligament involvement too. In your case it sounds as though this may be exacerbated by inflammation which is causing pressure on the nerve tunnel in the wrist. B: repetitive strain. These injuries are as a result of what frequently seem like innocuous activities that initially cause no more than mild discomfort. Repetitive strain can and does occur in the absence of pain. Take typists for example. It doesn't hurt to sit and type at a computer. But repeat the activity day in day out, year in year out and it can easily result in debilitating pain. So how does this happen? Basically, repeating the same movement or posture can cause micro-trauma not only to the soft tissues (muscle, tendon, ligament) but even to the bones too. Not ensuring sufficient rest between these movements/postures prevents proper healing of the micro-traumas. Again, understand that at this stage you may well have felt no pain at all. Eventually this will manifest in some discomfort and, if unchecked, ultimately results in pain. BY THE TIME YOU BEGIN TO FEEL PAIN THE DAMAGE HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE. It is quite common for any one case to be a combination of both these types of injury. Each will exacerbate the other. Why do some people get such injuries and others don't? Well there are a number of risk factors. Here are some of the main ones. 1. Congenital susceptibility. Typically this means you have hypermobile joints - the ligaments are just a little bit more elastic than they should be and allow a greater degree of flexibility than they should. Hence, when the joints are placed under strain or moved away from their neutral positions, the ligaments are unable to provide the necessary degree of support. 2. The type of movements/postures you are doing. The further a joint is taken away from its neutral position the more likely it is to be damaged. Placing the joint under load can also be damaging. Move the joint away from the neutral position AND place it under load - well, you're just asking for trouble. 3. Insufficient rest between episodes of micro-trauma. 4. Any supplementary activities that place the joint under strain. 5. Pre-existing damage. 6. Insufficient muscular strength to help support the joint. 7. Other lifestyle factors, eg. poor diet, lack of sleep. Look at the risk factors above and judge for yourself. You already have pre-existing damage. Its impossible to judge from your post, but you may have a congenital susceptibility (which might have contributed to you incurring such damage in the first place). Now take up an art focussing on wrist locks. Wrist locks by their very nature are designed to move a joint, under load, away from its neutral position. This is a BIG risk factor for you. Since your existing symptoms seem to indicate permanent pre-existing damage (given that the initial trauma was "some years ago") I think you would be setting yourself up for further damage. How could practising wrist-locks 'strengthen' your wrists as this sensei implies? Wrist-locks can make your wrists more flexible, possibly even hypermobile. Typically, this is just what you don't want. A certain amount of flexibility is great but too much? Just ask any ageing olympic gymnast or ballet dancer about how thier joints are doing now. It may be that your wrist are very flexible at moving in one direction but very inflexible in another. Wrist-lock training might have some minor benefit in 'freeing up' the inflexible aspects of the joint. However, the only significant benefit I can see from martial training is in building up strength. Seems like you know how to do this in the gym already. When you're getting advice on this issue, bear in mind who you are getting it from. The sensei down the street is unlikely to have studied anatomy, physiology or pathology. Just because someone's got a black belt doesn't make them expert in such matters. So why then take notice of what I'm saying? I'm a physical therapist. I have studied this issue and indeed I have suffered from overuse injury myself, directly as a result of my work as a therapist. But don't just listen to me, get some advice from a suitably qualified medical practitioner too. If all this seems rather negative, it doesn't necessarily have to be. Like I said I have suffered an overuse injury, but I've pretty much gotten over it. What did I do? I stopped doing the things that directly caused it, I found other ways to achieve the same ends. I gave myself time to rest. Also, I found that the main problems for me were hyperextension of the wrist (bending the hand back) and direct pressure using the tips or pads of the thumbs. So I could, for example, still engage in wrist-locks of the types that didn't hyperextend my wrist. I can also hit a punchbag as hard as I like, because the strain then is directly through the joint when it is in the neutral position, so it does not exacerbate my injury. So you might be wise to consider an art that emphasises striking rather than grappling. Its up to you to find what you can do without further damaging yourself. It also handy to have a sensei who is understanding of any such health problems you have and who will not force you to do damaging things, just so that you can fit in with everyone else in the class. Hope this ramble is of some use. Mike
I would say build up the strength in your wrists and forearms through other excercises first, then go into grappling. I injured my shoulder last year by dislocating it. I weight trained for about 6 months then went into MA. I still grapple and find that my shoulder has gotten stronger and I have no problems with it other than it moving a bit funny sometimes. I think that, I am moving it sub-conciously though to avoid the pain I used to recieve putting it in simillar positions. Any martial artist that has never recieved pain is a rare breed and one I don't think I would want to become, pain is part of training, simple as that. You shouldn't experience a lot but you should know what the moves feel like. Pain is also a good teacher, and you will learn to avoid certain positions, moves ect that deal a lot of it. I know I have! Last time I checked strike sparring was done against opponents too, not just bags and mitts. Those devices might offer some feedback to how hard you are kicking or punching ect., but they won't absorb a kick or deflect and counter as an opponent will. Training on just bags and mitts will lull you into a false sense of security. Then when you actually have to use the skills you have practiced you will not be used to fighting a real person ( I have never personally been jumped by a 6 foot tall punching bag before, altought I am sure it's a frightning experience ).
That's what protective mitts are for, not all styles believe that you need to injure yourself or other people in order to learn. When one of your punches can knock someone back three feet after the shock travels through three inches of compressed foam, you can feel fairly sure that the technique will work. Remember that with the shields there are people standing behind them, holding them. The shields are there to lessen the impact and avoid injury to your target. Unlike sparring where you're fighting against someone practicing the same style as you, training to the same methods. Of course, simply learning to hit a target repeatedly as it moves around pretty much at random won't train you to hit a target on the street repeatedly as it moves around at random. We also use protective mitts in order to practice blocking, but we don't get people to hit each other, all of us know what our techniques are capable of, so why use them on each other when there's no need?
You seem to have these inherent Idealisms that ones body can't heal and you have to cause pain whilst grappling. If I stretch my leg to the point of discomfort, I don't have to stretch it anymore to find out if it will be painful, same goes for chokes/joint locks, ect. If I spar and get conditioned I will be able to take more kicks and punches than someone who doesn't. If I am conditioned fairly well and we both take the same blow, I will be less affected by it since my body is stronger than yours which is not (this is hypathetical I don't know if you condition. I assume you don't due to the fact you seem to veer away from any amount of pain in training). Not only will I learn to block better and be able to take more forceful blows but my body will heal stronger than it was before (just like the idea behind body building). It's just the way things work. I don't think to many people here will disagree with me when I say that. Can anyone back me up here on conditioning here CKD how long have you been grappling for? I did if for about 7 years and I never got taught how to grapple a mit or a matt. Grappling is done with other people, that's how it is applied and that is how it's practiced. I am gonna take a wild guess here and say you've never seriously grappled for any prolonged period of time (which would give you no experience on the subject). It would probably be a good idea then to stop telling new people what is wrong with it since your really have no experience in the art, correct . I don't go around spouting off information on CKD because I have never practiced it, I would appreciate it if you left grappling advice to the grapplers, OK We wouldn't want any new people on the board getting uneducated opinions, that would be bad.
Who said it was neccessary to injure each other? Some choose to and they learn more becuase of it. Others take it to the point of discomfort. I've been hit. kicked, twisted and yanked in all sorts of ways. Very few times has it resulted in injury. Hitting mits can only take you so far. If you want to go further you have to hit at a moving person who is trying to hit you. The level of intensity depends on who's doing it. The harder you go the better you'll be for it, but to hard and you risk long term damage. That proves that you can knock back someone holding a shield. Not that you can land an effective blow on a real person. Baseball players can hit a ball pretty well. Does that make them expert stickfighters? (and hitting a fast moving ball is a lot harder then a fairly stationary shield) Why do you always have to fight someone of the same style? Everyone will have their own style, you just agree to the same rules. Look at any combat sport and you will see different fighters with different styles. The more you allow under those rules the more apparant those differences become. When you spar you learn to do what works and to avoid getting hit/locked/thrown/etc. You learn to attack at angles which are hard to defend and learn to defend against them as well. If haymaker punches where effective and hard to defend they'd show up in sparring. They aren't and they don't. But you will see things come from a similar angle, just more refined and harder to stop. So if you train regularly with trained people trying to exploit your weaknesses it should give you a significant head start against a untrained person with unrefined technique. If you've never actually been hit, it will likely shock you the first time. This isn't something you want to go through for the first time when it really matters. But to not spar, and to not ever train against each other is a lost cause. You keep lashing out against traditional styles, this is the weakness of many "traditional" styles, a attachment to what they think "should" work without ever doing anything to figure out what "does" work. Of course their are limits, We can't really allow eyegouges, well we could wear safety goggles, but never really do it for "real". But we can be fairly certain that jamming your fingers into an eye will have a negative effect on that person. But if you can't land a close fisted jab, an eye gouge won't happen either no matter how many times you hit a target with it.
Do you think that wrapping my wrist heavily up in bandage (say like a boxer) would help protect them by preventing hyper-extension??
To some degree yes, but only because the bandage will provide some resistance to the movement. If somebody wanted to crank it on, they still could (the bandage won't completely prevent the movement taking place), although they would be being extremely churlish to do such a thing to someone with bandaged wrists. I have met martial artists who would take pleasure in doing something like that though When I talk about hyperextension I'm using the term very specifically. It may not be hyperextension that is the problem for you. It might be hyper-flexion (curling your wrist over as if to try to touch the inner aspect of your forearm) or ulnar deviation (bending the whole hand (at the wrist) in the direction of the little finger, or radial deviation (bending the whole hand in the direction of the thumb), or even rotational movements of the hand and forearm. You could have problems with any combination (or all) of the above. I can't tell from what you've written already. Depending on your exact condition some wrist locks might be fine for you, others might be very dangerous. Are there specific exercises in weight lifting that cause you trouble? Mike
Any excercise in which a heavy weight is placed on the wrist in a palm-up orientation eg. bicep curls, bench press. So basically any stress forcing the back of the hand towards the forearm. And also if you move the hand sideways from thumb to pinky. But it must be noted that I had to quit training as a result, this was almost 5 years ago. The doc suggested it was a carpal-tunnel like condition, and actually informed that if I wanted to carry on training, I'd have to have an op, in wich they surgically removed a section of cartilage band overlying/surrounding the nerves in the nerve tunnel leading into the hand. I quit. Didint help, still have the problem today...sometimes wonder if my wrists are just weak now cause I shield them too much? What you think Mike?
Yep, hyper-extension, or just extension under load. Which sounded likely given the numbness, ie. likely to be compression of one of the nerves passing through the wrist. Ulnar deviation. This means that there are several types of wrist lock that would almost certainly be damaging for you, ie. the ones that move your hands in these directions. These would include all the variations on kote-gaeshi (wrist reversal), nikyo (s-lock), and palm-turns. That's a significant portion of the wrist-locking curriculum. Its possible, though I can't say for certain one way or the other, that other locks involving rotation (eg. sankyo) or flexion might also be harmful, but probably less so. I realise that you're probably not familiar with these names but at least you can now look them up in Aikido / Ju-jitsu texts. I don't know what the success rate of surgery is for this sort of problem. But it might be worth looking into. Even after surgery I still think it would be risky to indulge in joint-locking, after all surgery wouldn't remove the cause of the problem, merely one of the symptoms. But it might give you improved quality of life. Understood, that's easy to do. It seems safe to say you have a permanent injury. You probably need to find a balance between protecting the wrists and maintaining sufficient strength in the forearms. That's not something I can easily advise about by email, nor do I feel well qualified to. I'd consult a doctor, possibly with an eye on being referred to a physiotherapist. One ray of hope though, you may still be able to use striking techniques. A linear compression of the wrist (ie. when punching) may not cause you problems. Notice though that I'm saying 'may' rather than 'will', I can't say this for certain. Mike
hey Martialsloth i think u should find good Tai Chi intructor... i hav heard some ppl talkin that they hav recovered some joints injuries... one live example is a guy "David" in Cyberkwoon, he had permanent probs wiht his knees n after lots of taiji practice his living improved lots... and for a timebeing u shouldn't think about grappling styles... i dunno wat thing they'll remove in surgury but one thing is for sure if it's in ur body then removing would be stupidity(if it's not deadly)cause u can put it back there... start out lookin for qigong routines for starters... i hope that helps try out for Chinese Medicine Doctors... i m suggesting cus they too in many cases avoid surgury(me being skeptics with surgury) -TkdWarrior-
