Jun 24, 2024

2024 - 06 - 17

Mobility and Injuries

Austin Haedicke

711 Words | Read Time: 3 Minutes, 13 Seconds

2024-06-24 11:38 -0700

I’ve been fortunate throughout most of my climbing and fighting career to avoid major injury. Of course, there have been moderate stingers – bruised ribs, sprains, etc – that have sidelined me for a few weeks. But this week my black belt anniversary was celebrated with partial tears to my MCL and me meniscus.

July 1, 2011

Training Intention:

Keep BJJ the focus (70%) of training, support with mobility (15%).

Summary:

I’m still working on a training journal template for BJJ that also includes strength and conditioning. There are a lot of apps that just don’t quite do it for me. At the same time I’m trying to not re-invent the wheel and double-log or make things more complicated.
I started the week continuing to be mindful of my training time and re-centering on grappling while supporting that training with mobility. Unfortunately I had a freak accident (described below) that resulted in a partially torn meniscus and MCL on 6/17 — it wasn’t even a leg lock!
The remainder of the week left me in a bit of a funk because I couldn’t walk at all on 6/19 and while I’m at least ambulatory now, it will be a while before I’m rolling live again.
Most of this week’s training then was rehab / mobility at home, dressing for BJJ practice, and a little coaching and very, very minor drilling (which wasn’t even particularly effective given my movement limitation).

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Discussion:

What went well?

Having to rehab my right knee and not wanting to develop deficits in my left leg, I’ve been doing my rehab routine on both sides. This has actually been really useful in telling me where I’m right, deficient, and immobile all the way around.

Where do I need to improve?

If I had to pick a deficit in my game, it would be guard passing, or closed (or gi-style) guard play. I also want to re-develop O2 and Recoverability (capacity) fitness after my knee is healed.

Lessons learned:

See habits below.

Injury / Illness / PR:

6/17: Partially torn MCL and meniscus in right knee. See details in session notes.

Habits / Accountability:

Reflecting on this week’s habit log, a few things stand out to me; one is the slippery slope of drugs (alcohol), and the other is the difference between goals and habits.

For the former, it doesn’t seem like my alcohol consumption is at a level that it’s impairing my health (based on my lab reviews, part 1 and part 2). However, I have felt it creeping up. “One or two” can quickly turn into “a few” or even “a few too many.”

This is a similar problem with indulgences, dietary deviations, or “cheat meals.” We can quickly go from “once in a while” to “once a week” to “after every bad day” and so on.

For the later, “getting X hours of sleep” is a goal. A habit is “wake up and go to the gym” or “go to bed at 10.” Of course, the idea is that habits build towards your goals and objectives, but they are binary tasks in a larger process.

Session Details:

Monday: 6/17/24

Note: This is what was going on when I tore my knee. In fact, almost the exact position in the thumbnail. If I were the guy on top, my right hand was reaching back to grab my partner’s collar on the left side of his head. As my right (front) knee went to the ground, my foot was trapped, heel-up and as I turned my chest towards my partner’s head I effectively inside-heel-hooked myself. My shin may have even been lifted, so it was on the left side of my partner’s head instead of the right, either way, the knee got isolated in a way it wouldn’t have if my toes were pointed and free to slip and rotate.