BJJ rib injuries

**beardedtaco** · Posted On: 2/24/2011 2:18am

Go to a good Sports Physician. I can't tell you how many crazy injuries my physio has helped me through. They won't just help you get better, they can teach you exercises to help strengthen the weak area to help prevent further injuries in the future.

**Prince Vlad** · Posted On: 2/24/2011 4:38am

Sound advice, I'll go get it looked at by a sports physio and report back.

**Goju - Joe** · Posted On: 2/24/2011 7:49am

This was a timely thread for me, After Saturday rolling y ribs were sore for a few days, I went to class last night feeling OK but during the warm up I could feel tightness in my ribs so I skipped the rolling at the end, hearing JNP's advice in my head.

It's definitely hard to not jump in but I did the right thing.

**Mo_Fo** · Posted On: 2/25/2011 1:17pm

I'm pretty frustrated right now with my ribs. I jacked up my right rib (I believe it was the lower "floating" rib (?) a few months ago so I tried to be smart and took some time off rolling & even skipped the technical classes. Taking the time off, I sat through classes on the side of the mat, watched, and took notes, kept eating right, kept stretching, kept a heating pad on my ribs while chilling around the house at night, and basically tried to do everything right.

A month or so goes by and I feel that it's strong again so I take a couple weeks of just fundamental & technical classes (no sparring) to get my feel back and then started rolling again about 3 weeks ago. Well, I guess that I have been overcompensating for my right side out of fear of re-injuring my right side and now have strained the hell out of my left side. I was rolling last Wed night (after 2 previous nights back to back of sparring so I was getting fatigued) and when I got stacked I heard & felt a "POP!"
I thought I felt my floating rib on my left side pop out of where it was suppose to be. I tapped my partner and he knew something was up when I just laid there on the mat, focusing on my breathing and the pain... then I thought I felt it what was it popping back into place when I stood up. Even more pain.

I know I need to see a doc and see what's up. I'm just very frustrated because the Pan games are in one month exactly. The timing could not have been worse.

I’ve been going over this again & again in my mind. I’m wondering if I am crunching my upper body down to much instead of bringing my legs to my chest? Does that make sense? Either way, I’m bummed that I can’t train tonight. Maybe not even till next week. This sucks.

Has anybody here ever rolled with one of those chest compression devices on? How did it affect your game? Thanks in advance.

**Geras** · Posted On: 2/26/2011 4:00pm

Originally Posted by Mo_Fo

I was rolling last Wed night (after 2 previous nights back to back of sparring so I was getting fatigued) and when I got stacked I heard & felt a "POP!"
I thought I felt my floating rib on my left side pop out of where it was suppose to be. I tapped my partner and he knew something was up when I just laid there on the mat, focusing on my breathing and the pain... then I thought I felt it what was it popping back into place when I stood up. Even more pain.

I know I need to see a doc and see what's up.

I hate to sound negative, but if the end of the rib separated from the cartilage, it might not "seat" back where it should be but rather might bobble around until it slowly begins to fuse whererever it settles. Hope it turns out not to be the case as it can take a long time to heal.

By the way, did you by any chance do a lot of ribcage-intensive warmup exercises prior to the injuries?

**beardedtaco** · Posted On: 2/26/2011 4:25pm

Go to the doc. Someone with experience treating combat athletes and/or full contact sports players is best.

When he clears you to grapple again, you can try to work out why you are getting these injuries in the first place. Maybe there is a way you are moving in some situations that is causing some strain.
It's good to tough through the pain, but when you're injured you gotta be smart. Make sure that if you grapple in a big comp, you are not putting yourself at risk to make this into a major injury that puts you out for a long time. There will always be more comps but you only get one body.

**Mo_Fo** · Posted On: 2/28/2011 10:48am

Originally Posted by Geras

I hate to sound negative, but if the end of the rib separated from the cartilage, it might not "seat" back where it should be but rather might bobble around until it slowly begins to fuse whererever it settles. Hope it turns out not to be the case as it can take a long time to heal.

Originally Posted by Geras

By the way, did you by any chance do a lot of ribcage-intensive warmup exercises prior to the injuries?

Well... Thursday through Saturday it hurt like hell. Constant lingering dull pain that reminded me every time I coughed, sneezed, or laughed too hard. But then yesterday the pain seemed to have subsided a bit. It still doesn't "feel good" yet but it still feels a hell of a lot better. I will still go to a doc early this week but I'm not as bummed as I was last week. I think that if I rest all this week and maybe take another week training without sparing more than 20 to 30 percent (basically going through the motions), I might be ok. Obviously if the doc says otherwise, I will listen to him or her. But I do feel far less devastated about this than I originally thought. It doesn't seem to have hurt as much as when I hurt my right side. Far less pain, in fact.

Geras... these "ribcage-intensive warm-up exercises" you speak of... what kind of warm ups are you talking about? I think it's something I should incorporate more into my warm up for sure... obviously, lol. Any insight here would be greatly appreciated.

I think I might need to also do more "core" work. Work on my lower back and abs and strengthen them. I also think I need to focus on bringing my legs in more than “bending down”, which could be a flexibility issue in being able to bring my knees to my chest better.

**Geras** · Posted On: 2/28/2011 3:16pm

Originally Posted by Mo_Fo

Obviously if the doc says otherwise, I will listen to him or her.

Absolutely!

Geras... these "ribcage-intensive warm-up exercises" you speak of... what kind of warm ups are you talking about? I think it's something I should incorporate more into my warm up for sure.

Actually what I was getting at was whether this could be a contributing factor to the injury if done to excess. After a long layoff, I started a stint of training at a place that did a whole lot of "Hindu pushups" and torso-stretching moves in the warmup. During a light rolling session with heavy set newby, he clutched his side, got up, and left with a rib separation injury. At a subsequent class, again during a rolling session, my own rib separated. It made me wonder if maybe we had thrown ourselves into the ribcage-stretching warmups with a little too much gusto and weakened the cartilage which later popped during the rolling. I might be totally wrong here, but I just wanted to compare notes.

Here's hoping you get healed up as quickly as medically possible.

**lokerola** · Posted On: 9/14/2012 11:19am

Prince Vlad and Mo Fo - what ever happened to your ribs? Did you get healed up? If so, how long did it take? What did you do? I'm suffering the same thing (bruised ribs). I'm off to the ortho next week to have them checked out. I banged them up 3 weeks ago, they seem to feel better, but then 1 gentle roll and they're hurting puppies again.

Thanks!