Armbar details question

**PoleFighter** · Posted On: 12/18/2004 6:17pm

Classes are shut down for the holidays, so you guys are going to have to answer this one.

Every time I do a "classic" straight armbar, my nuts hurt like hell when I'm arching my back and raising my hips. If my opponent were to really struggle, I'm not sure how long I'd be able to keep that up, or how much pressure I would be able to apply. Any tips on how to avoid the pain?

**Te No Kage!** · Posted On: 12/18/2004 6:59pm

Originally Posted by PoleFighter

Classes are shut down for the holidays, so you guys are going to have to answer this one.

Every time I do a "classic" straight armbar, my nuts hurt like hell when I'm arching my back and raising my hips. If my opponent were to really struggle, I'm not sure how long I'd be able to keep that up, or how much pressure I would be able to apply. Any tips on how to avoid the pain?

get closer so that his elbow is on your stomach and not in your crotch

or wear a cup

but if he's one of those freaks of nature that can bend their arm backwards then work on another technique on him

**PoleFighter** · Posted On: 12/18/2004 7:28pm

There was one guy who came in to try out our school two months ago. When we rolled, I first put him in a paintbrush, and cranked and cranked and cranked... but no tap. I released the hold for fear of hurting him and did an arm bar on his other arm instead, but he never tapped from that either, and I released that too for fear of hurting his elbow. In the end I elected to choke him and got the tap. Asked him about his arm later, and he basically told me that yes, he was a freak with super flexible joints. I hope I never have to face anybody like that in a comp.

**gr81disp** · Posted On: 12/19/2004 7:22am

The reason you keep the thumb up is because it is harder for your opponent to escape because of how the muscles work. One of the most basic escapes is to rotate your body so that your elbow is bending with the armbar. It is harder to turn your arm a full 180 degrees then ninety and you are not as flexible in this position. Try this.

Place your arm straight out to your side with your thumb facing forward, like you are being armbarred with your thumb pointed up. Now, raise your hand as high as you can straight up, keeping your thumb pointed forward. After you reach the apex, rotate your hand so that the thumb is vertical and try raising your hand farther. It should give you an extra thirty degrees or so.

**AFS** · Posted On: 12/19/2004 8:23am

radius and ulna are the forearm

Thanks for telling me.
The picture I posted didn't make it clear...

not only will the elbow dislocate but radius will snap easier laying on top of the ulna.

This sentence is weird.

The radius hasn't really got a joint with the humerus. At it's distal end is the radio-ulnar joint.
It's the joint between ulnar and humerus which get's overstretched in an armbar.

I don't think that it is the radius position, which makes the 'thumbs up' armbar more effective.

Personnly, I will always try to keep the partner's wrist bend - that takes away power of his arm

**Te No Kage!** · Posted On: 12/19/2004 2:37pm

I always thought that it also had to do with leverage created by stacking the radius and ulna

**Arm Triangle** · Posted On: 12/19/2004 7:27pm

........just pull opposite the thumb.....wherever it is pointing.

This way you are going against the elbow regardless of positioning. If an opponent turns his arm (and thumb) to the side you can armbar across your leg instead of with your hips.

**Spunky** · Posted On: 12/19/2004 7:42pm

Interesting factoid, a correct armbar done with your hips under the elbow is not breaking your arm, it's dislocating your elbow.

Well, the arm isn't a bone, it's an anatomical system. Dislocating the elbow--which disables one major function of the arm--effectively renders that system ineffective. Thus completing an arm bar is (in a way) "breaking the arm."