Have any of you ever had a pulled sprained or strained groin? How did you deal with it? I am still teaching and training but it hurts a whole helluva alot. Ice is helping a bit but I really can't seem to get relief.

Sorry for you it will be painful... I don't know any remedy for that appart resting... One tip I use is for fingers. I have osteoarthritis everywhere and it started on my fingers. I find a lot of relief using a massage ring that I can use after I have coated my fingers with coated wintergreen essential oil. I'll put the Amazon link for those I use and which costs only a few euros. It is the best investment to make and much more ecological than strapping. Thank you to my friend Carlos VARONA, professor of Flow Academy in Spain for giving me this very effective remedy used by climbers. https://www.amazon.fr/gp/[...]&psc=1

"And grapple like a sneaky pussy"

yea i pulled my groin really badly like 6 or so years ago. it took like a year to start feeling better. then started hurting like hell again a few years later. it bothers me still from time to time. so i looked up some groin stretches on youtube. i started going to yoga. and i stopped playing closed guard completely. which forced me to play open guard and work on that which was shit at the time so my open guard got pretty good. let me find the video i found on groin stretches. but yoga really helped a lot. https://youtu.be/H29Th36wzfs

Not a strained groin, but I did mess up my hip flexor, which is similar. That was a massive pain in the butt, as it took aaaaaages to heal. Couldn't play guard properly or really sweep, so I had to focus on top game (which is no bad thing, as I love top game, but I needed - and still need - to improve my guard way more). What I do when I'm injured is firstly see if I can train around it. Most injuries I can: e.g., busted wrist I can just use one arm instead, busted knee I can use one leg, usually can play half guard to an extent (IIRC, that's what led to Gordo massively developing and popularising half guard, he was working through a knee injury). If it's busted ribs, shoulder, back, then that is much harder to work around, so I can't really train when that happens. I can still teach, but last time I hurt one of those, I used a stick and pointed at two of my students for the demonstration, talking through the move as they followed what I was saying. If I can't train, I'll watch even more video than usual, podcasts etc so I can still train my brain even if I can't train my body. Main ways I avoid injury (I've never been off the mat more than a week, ever since I started BJJ in 2006): - Don't roll with anybody more than 15kg heavier (though sometimes that's unavoidable, depends how much choice you have in training partners) - If I do end up rolling with somebody bigger (e.g., say I'm visiting a gym and there are only big partners available), stay super defensive and don't try to outmuscle them. If they are straining hard to get something, just let them have it, rather than trying to strain back equally as hard. - Avoid over-gripping - Avoid inverting and other positions that might put strain on the neck - Immediately stop sparring if anything hurts, sit out the next round - Pick my training partners very carefully. If I don't know you, it's unlikely I'll roll with you until I've seen you roll with somebody else. ESPECIALLY if you're a white belt.

Ice slows down the healing process and contray to popular belief it doesn't reduce swelling, if you have it that is. Compression reduces swelling. Now best thing to do is what alot are saying and reduce intensity and work around it to allow it to heal. Work with a pain score of 3 out of 10. So a 0 is asleep and in the most blissful place and 10 you are on fire. That's what I tell my patients, when we are conducting their rehabilitation. Keep it moving and the blood flow will allow the inflammation healing process to happen. If you have strained a ligament or tendon try heat as these areas lack vascularity and need blood flow, which ice impedes. Keep as much Active Range Of Motion as possible but don't excessively load it. You may also need some strength work in the gym for that area before returning to 100% sparring. Always happy to help the community. I am my gyms friendly neighbourhood rehab guy

What do you think about hot/cold therapy? Do you know of any papers I can check out on that? My personal experience has been that alternating hot and cold allows me to get a lot of blood to the area, but I've not seen any clear research on it.

Thread resurrection. Share your tips and resources for dealing with chronic wrist/finger/forearm pains. Because it seems I'll be dealing with those for a while...

Suckage, what did you do? Worst part about this is the reflex to post when rolling has to be changed. I had to learn to post on my forearms a lot, but would still end up fucking up my wrist again.

I didn't specifically do anything really. It started with sharp stabbing wrist pain about 5 years ago when I was just driving. Since then it has been one arm, then the other sometimes both. Mobility has decreased so that I can't get into push-up position really. Sometimes it's better and sometimes it's worse. Clearly seems to be worse after intense periods of training BJJ. Now I rolled for 3 days straight in Beach Camp, got the persistent pain about 3 days after and it was there for a week. Today is the first day without background pain again.

Jorgen, do you do any upper body mobility off the mats? I find it very useful, especially if I do a lot of passive sitting (which I do for my work). Shoulder pain and forementioned forearm/wrist pain stay away if I keep myself moving regularly. I suppose it's because of the increased blood flow. Like our friendly neighborhood Mikey said, keeping things warm and moving seems to be very helpful. :)