Beginner's concern about joints / tendons

Hey 10th planet, although I am a real beginner and live in Europe (far away from a 10pjj gym!) I really dig your style and attitude, hence I am posting here.
As a newbie - have been on and off for about three months now - I have some concerns about doing BJJ in general, please enlighten me.
I'm 26 year old guy, 5'10 and 160 lbs.

Since I started doing BJJ - mostly gi - I had multiple injuries, due to this I skipped a series of classes too. I think I got my left finger almost broken when rolling with a bluebelt - it still hurts after three months' time as it has been twitched sideways - , my right wrist was in serious pain for around a week around 1,5 months ago, now I can function but still hurts if pressed clockwise. These are the most noticable ones, but I have pain other places as well, including some lost mobility in my right ankle (which genuinely scares me).
I have generally skinny wrists / neck / ankles, and I it seems for me my joints were not cut out for heavy duty use.

My question is: What can I expect down the road? Will my joints eventually adapt? Is someone not having strong enough joints for BJJ a thing?
I know nothing comes free and I don't like complaining, but I have to figure this thing out before I decide to man up and working through the pain. I want to know whether it makes sense and I won't be all fucked up in a couple years of time, because BJJ seems awesome and is a lot of fun, I want to enjoy my life / body later on as well.
Based on my own research I've ordered a Glucosamine / MSM / Chondroitin supplement, I take fishoil and started adapting the tap early / tap often principle too.

As experienced grapplers, what are your takes on it? Have you experienced these concerns or knows someone with this?

I really dig JJ and want to go deeper in the rabbit hole, but only if it won't leave me as a wreck in a couple of years.
Any feedback, recommendation is hugely welcome! Thanks guys!

Maybe roll light? Fish oil is a good idea. Get yourself some braces. Tap early, like you said.

But yeah, if you're in it for the long haul, you do kind of have to accept that your body will be pretty jacked up later in life. But if you ask guys who have been doing it for a decade or more, it's worth it. Eventually you're going to be too old to do a bunch of things anyway. At least by that time you can say you had a worthwhile experience.

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Originally Posted by Derango

Hey 10th planet, although I am a real beginner and live in Europe (far away from a 10pjj gym!) I really dig your style and attitude, hence I am posting here.
As a newbie - have been on and off for about three months now - I have some concerns about doing BJJ in general, please enlighten me.
I'm 26 year old guy, 5'10 and 160 lbs.

Since I started doing BJJ - mostly gi - I had multiple injuries, due to this I skipped a series of classes too. I think I got my left finger almost broken when rolling with a bluebelt - it still hurts after three months' time as it has been twitched sideways - , my right wrist was in serious pain for around a week around 1,5 months ago, now I can function but still hurts if pressed clockwise. These are the most noticable ones, but I have pain other places as well, including some lost mobility in my right ankle (which genuinely scares me).
I have generally skinny wrists / neck / ankles, and I it seems for me my joints were not cut out for heavy duty use.

My question is: What can I expect down the road? Will my joints eventually adapt? Is someone not having strong enough joints for BJJ a thing?
I know nothing comes free and I don't like complaining, but I have to figure this thing out before I decide to man up and working through the pain. I want to know whether it makes sense and I won't be all fucked up in a couple years of time, because BJJ seems awesome and is a lot of fun, I want to enjoy my life / body later on as well.
Based on my own research I've ordered a Glucosamine / MSM / Chondroitin supplement, I take fishoil and started adapting the tap early / tap often principle too.

As experienced grapplers, what are your takes on it? Have you experienced these concerns or knows someone with this?

I really dig JJ and want to go deeper in the rabbit hole, but only if it won't leave me as a wreck in a couple of years.
Any feedback, recommendation is hugely welcome! Thanks guys!

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Tap, Struggle to get out, but tap if you're fucked.
Watch where you put your hands (Keep them tight to the body most of the time, and try not to absorb too much damage on your joints (hence tapping).
You'll learn that most of us struggle from all sorts of ailments, we're all kinda beat up. Take a day off hear and there. but listen to your body.

I feel your pain Derango, I'm 42 and just getting started with Jiu Jitsu. My body isn't really happy about it. Lots of tendon strains and pain. Currently I'm not training in class or with other people at all because of a separated rib that's healing.

I do still practice at home. I try to at least stretch out fully every day. Usually that leads to me at least practicing some solo drills, working with my grappling dummy, whatever I can do without risking re-injuring to something that's healing.

Rolling is where all the fun is. But you can still do lots of things to help you improve your art. Drilling with other people is much safer than rolling with them, so do that if you can.

If you cannot even safely drill with other people, work by yourself. If you cannot even get on the ground and shrimp, you can still do visualization exercises and research technique, read books, whatever you can.

The hardest thing for me has been resisting the urge to train more than I'm ready for. Re-injury really sucks and can really slow down your recovery.

In addition to what everyone else is saying, I firmly believe in supplementing your jiu jitsu training with free weights, or kettlebells, for strength training. Learn good form for some basic compound lifts (ex. squat, deadlift, bench press, bent over rows, pullups, pushups), and do them a few times a week. You don't have to make bulking up your goal, but learning how to move correctly against the resistance of weights will help strengthen your tendons, ligaments and muscles. I firmly believe applying this to my own training has allowed me stay relatively injury free compared to many of the training partners I've had over the years.

Beyond that, just be smart about your training. Admit when you are injured, and modify your training within your tolerance levels. In addition to fish oils, I also supplement with vitamin D and creatine. I also see a chiropractor on a regular basis to get adjusted and ensure my body is moving as freely as possible.
Good luck.

Your body will hurt like hell for 6 months, then it begins to subside. You will toughen up just from rolling and you will toughen up just from the warmups (if they're intense).

When I first started training I could only go once a week on Monday nights, then I would be hobbling around and limping for a week, and finally just in time for monday nights class I would be feeling good again.

I also remember always having to tape up sore fingers, toes, calf muscles, etc, and I remember bruising extensively, all over the place. You body adapts and conditions for what you're putting it through.

Now I rarely bruise, rarely hurt, rarely tape, rarely run out of cardio. I was training 5 times a week (until I got a new position at work with a new shift that totally fucking disrupted that schedule) and still not getting sore or injured from standard bumps and rolling. Once in a while you can get an actual injury, but that's part of the risk of Jiu Jitsu
You'll adapt. Keep going.

Yoga is Love, Yoga is Life.

First of all, "I really dig JJ and want to go deeper in the rabbit hole" .... I dig you too brother, but please keep away from my rabbit hole.;)

Moving swiftly on...I totally get how you feel, I felt really fragile when I started jiu jitsu, and I came from doing catch wrestling and taekwondo, where I never really suffered with anything more than minor ear injuries. Hitting BJJ for the first 6-12 months I was popping fingers, toes and leaving with aches and pains every time I rolled.

All I can say is, it passes. Over time the more your body gets used to being in unnatural positions and using muscles you never really used before, you kind of harden to it. Joints like knees, fingers, elbows etc are always at a risk to some degree, people just handle it differently. As where you may think your body won't be able to sustain injuries there will be tonnes of guys and gals on here alone who never get injuries, everybody is different and everybody's pain threshold varies.

Flexibility-wise there are things you can do, warm-ups are massively important and a big part of your time before you jump on a mat with some savage should be spent warming your muscles and joints, because effectively you're about to jump throw down with another dude and roll around and push yourself to see who could kill who!

Yoga always comes up and if you are not naturally as flexible as you would like, and even if you are it keeps your muscles in good order and just helps with dexterity.

Everybody here has given you some great advice and the most important thing I would tell you is don't be afraid of injury.
If you fear tears, pulls and scrapes before you get on the mats then you will subconsciously tighten your body up and become more ridged and tense, and that's when you are more likely to strain yourself-when you're trying to over protect yourself.
At the same i believe you do need to jump in and roll with guys who are bigger, stronger, rougher with you as it is the only way to improve your game and get better. If you hang with the same guys and you are actively trying to look out for each other too much then you're actually harming your progression and missing out on most of the fun. If you generally feel beat up, wear it with pride as a side effect of what you do, most of us are walking around like the living dead sometimes, that's when you need to rest up and not over do it.

Alternatively if none of the above helps and you want to go a different way...smoke weed before you roll.
Do not give in to fear.

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Originally Posted by John Mejia

Tap, Struggle to get out, but tap if you're fucked.
Watch where you put your hands (Keep them tight to the body most of the time, and try not to absorb too much damage on your joints (hence tapping).
You'll learn that most of us struggle from all sorts of ailments, we're all kinda beat up. Take a day off hear and there. but listen to your body.

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+1. I haven't felt 100% since the day I started. I don't think you'll ever quite get there, but learning to deal with it and work with your body enables you to stay on the mats over the long term. You only maximize this by tapping, asking questions, learning from your mistakes, and tapping some more.

Feeling 100% physically is a terrible feeling. It means you're not in the gym! Of course find the line for your body between soreness and injury, if something is obviously wrong (range of motion being limited is a good indicator) then take some time off and heal up. But for the last 2 years, my back, neck, fingers, and ears have been sore regularly. Your body will adapt as far as soreness goes. You'll see a lot of beginners with bruises all over their bodies but your tissue gets conditioned to the soreness over time

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Originally Posted by Derango

Hey 10th planet, although I am a real beginner and live in Europe (far away from a 10pjj gym!) I really dig your style and attitude, hence I am posting here.
As a newbie - have been on and off for about three months now - I have some concerns about doing BJJ in general, please enlighten me.
I'm 26 year old guy, 5'10 and 160 lbs.

Since I started doing BJJ - mostly gi - I had multiple injuries, due to this I skipped a series of classes too. I think I got my left finger almost broken when rolling with a bluebelt - it still hurts after three months' time as it has been twitched sideways - , my right wrist was in serious pain for around a week around 1,5 months ago, now I can function but still hurts if pressed clockwise. These are the most noticable ones, but I have pain other places as well, including some lost mobility in my right ankle (which genuinely scares me).
I have generally skinny wrists / neck / ankles, and I it seems for me my joints were not cut out for heavy duty use.

My question is: What can I expect down the road? Will my joints eventually adapt? Is someone not having strong enough joints for BJJ a thing?
I know nothing comes free and I don't like complaining, but I have to figure this thing out before I decide to man up and working through the pain. I want to know whether it makes sense and I won't be all fucked up in a couple years of time, because BJJ seems awesome and is a lot of fun, I want to enjoy my life / body later on as well.
Based on my own research I've ordered a Glucosamine / MSM / Chondroitin supplement, I take fishoil and started adapting the tap early / tap often principle too.

As experienced grapplers, what are your takes on it? Have you experienced these concerns or knows someone with this?

I really dig JJ and want to go deeper in the rabbit hole, but only if it won't leave me as a wreck in a couple of years.
Any feedback, recommendation is hugely welcome! Thanks guys!

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If you want to do bjj for a long time, you have to have some sort of mobility work and stretching at home or its gonna catch up to you, joint pain from submissions can't be helped but joint pain from just wear and tear can be lessened if you always warm up and stretch before and after class....lifting weights and having a extra layer of muscle helps too but then you gotta be careful not hurting yourself lifting too heavy too fast too.. just my two cents, a white belt but wrestled a bit and been doin bjj for a bit now

High protein, high fat, Fish oil, MSM glucosamine won't hurt either...and lots of sleep

Hey guys! You gave me a bunch of helpful responses, thanks a ton! It's great to read I'm not experiencing anything special, I'm not alone with this physical limbo, it's pretty inspiring to read that working through this is a thing.

Also, great info on prevention and etc., there are certainly areas to work on here, I will try fixing all these including fixing my sleeping schedule (unf. a big one), investing some time into an organized mobility/stretch routine and focus on better nutrition / get diligent with my weight trainng. Yoga is something that I have been interested in for a long time - along with Rickon's diaphragmatic breathing - it would be great, I will see how I can manage my time / energy.
Thanks again, I will suck it up and see where the ride takes me!

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Originally Posted by J.J Weatherall

First of all, "I really dig JJ and want to go deeper in the rabbit hole" .... I dig you too brother, but please keep away from my rabbit hole.;)

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lol. I hope we can still be friends though :D