Your body
What actually gets injured, why hygiene matters more than it seems, and how to last. Sources stated.
Injuries in BJJ: what the data actually says
Per hour spent on the mat, competition is ten times riskier than training. And yet nine injuries out of ten happen in training, and the reason is simple.
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Ringworm, herpes and impetigo: skin infections in grappling
The subject nobody enjoys bringing up, and the one that gets you turned away at a competition skin check. What has been measured, what is just custom, and what nobody has studied.
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Cauliflower ear: what happens, and the protection that is banned
It is the most recognisable mark of someone who has grappled for years. Behind it is a specific mechanism, and a contradiction: the only protection that works cannot be used in competition.
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Tapping in time: the only skill that genuinely prevents anything
Among injuries caused by a submission, 78.9% land on the person receiving it. It is the most useful figure jiu-jitsu research has produced.
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Fingers, neck, knees: the three areas most talked about and least understood
Plenty of certainties circulate at the gym about these three areas. Only one of them is backed by solid data; on the other two the research simply is not there.
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Training after 40 without falling apart: what we know and what we don't
People training after forty want precise answers and find opinions instead. The reason is that studies on this age group in grappling simply do not exist.
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Periods, pregnancy and coming back after birth: what is not known
On these subjects the honest answer is almost always: it has not been studied. Not “it is safe” and not “it is dangerous” — it simply has not been studied, and that is worth knowing.
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Coming back from an injury: what other people did
There are no return-to-play criteria for grappling: no scientific body has ever written any. What does exist is data on what hundreds of practitioners did, and that is already something.
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