Knees and lower back

[The kza]

Ok, in my first competition I attempted a gogo on a wrestler who was stacking me and pulled something in my knee (there was no pop) ever since then both of my knees have been bothering me a lot.... I decided not to use any of the rubberguard until I could attain full lotus, so i'm only sticking with the twister system and free newyork.

also my lowerback has been hurting for the past two weeks....

I train everysingle day except for the weekends and the last time I used rubberguard was in my MMA fight last friday, in which I won because of bjj skills + some rubberguard lol so thanks for that....

any tips besides stretching?

[Seth_Rolfe]

Umm...Doctor dude. Don't play with the knees, you might still want them working in a few decades. Same with the back.

[Chris Herzog]

If your hurting your knees your doing something wrong, your positioning and angle of your hips needs work.

[David Womack]

I did something similar Saturday just drilling a weird Gogo variation (Hindsight.. I know, prob #1 is trying some crap move from youtube instead of solid, proven 10P moves) and thought I destroyed my knee (it popped loud enough for the instructor to hear it). I'm pretty flexy through my knees and hips (full lotus, heels to nuts full butterfly no biggie), warmed up and stretched prior... long story short = partial tear @ lateral origin of the soleus muscle and no jits for a cpl months. I don't think flexibility is as important as proper technique in preventing injury. Played around with it after to see what happened, I was rotating my lower leg to finish the choke instead of extending.. If only I had some good 10P guys closer then a few hours from me maybe I could fix my sloppiness! LOL

[AJ Camacho]

It helps to recognize when you have a true high guard or if you're just underneath a dude holding your ankle. In the latter scenario, you have no hip mobility and forcing an omoplata can injure your knee. I say "high guard" because this scenario is not exclusive to rubber guard and there are many scenarios with a single over hook where the same thing can happen.