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5 TRAINING

20 Ways to Train and Fight Wounded

By Loren W. Christensen

Here are some bumper stickers on preparedness:

“Confidence comes from being prepared.” John Wooden

“If you fail to plan, plan to fail.” Anonymous

“Spectacular achievement is always preceded by spectacular preparation.” Robert Schuller

As hard training martial artists we are in constant preparation for a self-defense event. We stretch, lift weights, kick, punch, and thrash around on the mats. Our ever-present thought is to be prepared for that moment with well-honed techniques, a sharp and alert mind, and a body that is strong, fast, and healthy. Our mind-set is all about the positive: strong punches, powerful kicks, and incredible speed. But what if some of that were removed by virtue of an injury? A broken elbow not only takes that arm out of the equation, but it saps the entire body of strength, speed and, for some, the will to fight.

Has a fellow student ever blocked your foot so hard that it bent your little toe way back to where it isn’t supposed to go, say, on top of your foot? Or maybe you did it yourself kicking a bag. How about your little finger? Ever had it crumpled from someone’s heavy-duty block or kick? A little toe and a little finger are tiny body parts with relatively fewer nerve endings than, say, an elbow or knee. Still, injure those little guys and you’re off to the sidelines yelping for a warm hug. You don’t even want to train anymore tonight, and you’re likely to miss a few classes.

A doctor would tell you that that is a wise decision. Give it time to heal, he would advise. Apply some ice, keep the injury elevated, pop some ibuprophen, hit the sofa, and channel surf. While this is excellent advice for your physical injury, it can be argued that it’s not so good for your mind. This is because your mind takes this advice and creates an equation. Jammed finger = sofa and TV. Tweaked knee = sofa and TV. Both injuries at the same time = sofa, TV, an adult beverage, and a phone call to mother.

The reason this mindset is arguably a bad thing is that it conditions your thinking to stop fighting, to stop training, to stop everything until you feel better. That works in training, but not on the street. The assailant isn’t going to stop thumping on you because you’re hurt. That is what he wants. That is his goal. He is going to smell blood and go nuts on you while you’re tapping the time-out signal.

Reprogram your mind

Now I’m not saying that you should ignore your injuries. That is never wise and it can come back to bite you in the bee-hind. Take care of your injuries so that they don’t become bigger ones that will haunt you years later.

What I am saying is that it’s important to train around your injuries to develop a mindset that though you have a broken wrist or a trashed knee cap, you can train and, therefore, you can fight. You might have to hop on one leg or hold your injured arm behind you, but you can, in some way, still hit.

Make a training plan

Whenever I’ve gotten injured, the first thing that passes through my mind is to ask, how do I train now? Okay, that’s not the first thing I think. First I mimic Olympic skater Nancy Kerrigan when she got her knee struck with a baton by an assailant, and I cry out, “Why? Why? Why?” Then I ask myself how I can train.

As I write this it’s been about a month since I bent my left big toe back when practicing front kicks on the heavy bag. First it throbbed, then it swelled, and then it turned black. This was especially annoying because I had been making some good gains on the bag. But I swallowed my disappointment and immediately set about planning how I was going to train for the few weeks it would likely take to heal. I had just bought a set of step risers so I decided I would work on those.

Three times a week I’d step up on the riser, execute a front kick in the air, step down and then repeat.

The first week I couldn’t do a fast snapping kick with my injured foot because it hurt too much. So I just did slow kicks to emphasize the kicking muscles. Then after a few days when it felt better and I could kick faster with it, I began pushing to increase the number of reps per minute and the number of minutes per session.

My plan worked great. Over the past month I’ve progressively increased my time on the step, my stepping speed, the number of reps, and my kicking speed. While I’m not getting the experience of kicking a solid bag, I’ve improved my cardiovascular system, the muscles around my knees from the step-up action (a sort of mini squat), the larger leg muscles involved in the front kick, and I’ve entertained my dog. Sometimes I hold him while I’m stepping for added weight resistance and because he thinks it’s fun.

While I still front kick the heavy bag with my good leg and do other types of kicks on the bag with both legs that don’t impact my trashed toe, I’m coming out of this injury stronger than I was before. Once I’m able to front kick the bag again with my healed foot, it will take only a few workouts to get back into the feel of kicking something.

I’ve written before on the subject of training around an injury to come out of it stronger, so I’ll just mention it briefly in bullet form on the next page.

Oh all right! So he’s not that much resistance.

When you injure any part of your hand or arm:hold it behind your back and work your drills and sparring as usual.train more on your kicks.concentrate on increasing the strength and speed of your “good” arm.focus on building strength and power in your legs with resistance training.practice sprints to develop explosive speed.When you injure any part of your foot or leg:practice kicking and punching reps to understand how the injury affects your balance.if you can’t stand on your injured leg or foot, practice your kicks while sitting in a chair (check out Solo Training DVD published by YMAA Publication Center for chair kicking exercises). You might be able to practice kicks, even slow ones, with your injured limb.practice all your techniques - kicks, hand, elbow, whatever – while sitting and lying on the floor.if you can support your weight on your injured limb, work your drills and sparring as you usually do.double your training time with your good leg. Some fighters say they don’t want one leg better than the other. Why the heck not? If you don’t train your good leg while the injured one heals, you come out of your injury with two legs in bad shape. Train so you have a powerful kicking leg should you have to defend yourself during your recuperation period. Then when the other leg heals, work to bring it up to par with your much improved good one.emphasize arm techniques with a goal of increasing their speed, accuracy, power, and explosiveness. When you injure your back or neck.Each back and neck injury is different, so you have to experiment to see what hurts it and what might cause further injury. Whatever you can do, work that. I’ve had back injuries that were so severe that all I could do were a few dumbbell curls with one arm while lying on the floor in a strange-looking posture. By the time I recovered from the back injury and could train again that one arm was pretty darn strong.

I could go on listing every possible injury but you get the idea. When you get hurt go ahead, and cry, “Why me? Why me? Why me?” and then go about figuring out what you can do and how you can progress in some way.

No handicap for this guy

One of the many characters I ran across walking a beat on skid row as a cop in Portland, Oregon was a grizzled old timer named Lefty. He told me once that he didn’t know if he was given the nickname because he was missing his left leg all the way to his hip or because he only had a right one. Either way, Lefty took both his name and his handicap in stride. He had long since adapted to his prosthetic leg (the vintage pink-colored wood type) and except for a slight limp, he still had a lot of giddy-up in his get-a-long.

One night, a couple of officers came around a corner to find Lefty engaged in a serious fight with a man. Just prior to the officers showing up, both combatants had crashed to the sidewalk. At one point, Lefty had removed his prosthetic limb and was beating the other guy all over his head and body with it, sort of like Sampson did to the army of Philistines with that jawbone.

And like Sampson, he was winning.

So if Lefty can adapt to being physically challenged, you can, too.

Develop a mindset to fight injured

You’ve got an injury and you have figured out what you can and can’t do. You’re ready to keep yourself in a training mode and even grow stronger in another area. To make it even more beneficial, you want to work on a mindset that you’re able to defend yourself given your incapacitation. One that knows that you can fight and you can fight well. A mindset that is a synergism of accepting your injury, determining a course of action, turning your plan into action, and training with a powerful sense of combat.

Let’s make your injury a wrist hyperextension. Since it has swollen to the size of a Volkswagen and the slightest movement with that arm makes your brain hurt, you’re forced to give into the reality that you have to let it rest and heal. You’ve wrapped it or maybe it’s even in a sling. But you’re going to train anyway. If you can, put your arm behind your back and hook your thumb in your belt. If that hurts too much, move it off to your side as far as you can. You’re now good to go.

Bag work

You can certainly practice punching the air with your good arm, and you should for a set of 10 reps to check your body alignment and balance now that you’re functioning mostly on only one side. However, only by hitting a heavy bag or a mannequin-style bag will you get a true sense of what it feels like to hit someone with your arm held protectively behind your back.

You don’t have to do anything special as far as your bag routine is concerned. In fact, one could argue that it’s best to do your regular workout because it’s already in your mind. Your purpose now, however, is to execute your jabs, crosses, hooks and backfists with only your good arm, while determining how it feels to you physically. As you discovered when punching and kicking the air, it’s surprising how much both arms are involved in your balance, speed, and power. With one arm out of commission, you have to adjust and compensate when hammering the bag.

Your style

Can you keep your same style of fighting or do you have to change it a little?

Will you hold your injured arm side forward or your good arm?

If you normally punch the bag with one arm and hold your other fist near the side of your head (which you should), what are you going to do now that you don’t have that arm available to you?

Use the arm you just hit with?

Bob and weave out of range?

Hit and then push through the bag as if to run past the threat?

These are all good options but you won’t know which is best for you until you train with them. You might just find that they are all good and that it just depends on the situation you conjure in your mind.

Defense tactics

How are you going to block? Yes, you can block with your good hand and arm, but what if a kick or punch suddenly comes in on the side of the injured arm?

Can you deflect a punch with your shoulder?

Can you block a kick with your leg?

Grappling

I can’t begin to count the number of times I had to grapple with resisting suspects when I had but one healthy arm. There were periods I had so many martial arts injuries that I was afraid the PD would try to stifle my training. So I’d drag by crumpled toes, broken fingers and sprained wrists to work, and hide them from my bosses. When I got into a scuffle out in the street, I’d hold my bad arm behind me and get real creative when it came to grappling.

Armbar takedown

The straight armbar is usually done by gripping the attacker’s wrist and applying pressure an inch or so above his elbow.

With one arm out of play, grab his wrist as before and press your upper arm just above his elbow.

Hold his wrist in place as you turn your upper body slightly to the outside to press the arm down and ultimately take him to the ground.

Wrist twist takedown

This wrist twist is usually done with two hands.

With one arm out of play, twist his hand with one hand.

When his weight shifts to his outside leg help him the rest of the way with a knee ram to his midsection.

Hit to help upset his balance

Block his haymaker and simultaneously slam your shin up into his groin.

Grab a wad of hair or cup your hand behind his head …

… then jerk your elbow downward to take him to the ground.

More on mindset

I once separated a shoulder fighting an enraged man who had just stabbed another man in the temple with an ice pick. As my adrenaline began to subside after the guy was lying in the backseat of the police car, I realized I couldn’t move my left arm. Then I realized it was hurting more and more every passing second. By the time I got back to the station, I was in agony.

Making the pain even more intense was that not only did the injury happen five minutes before my shift ended, the next day I was to defend my title in forms at the Northwest Nationals. No way was that going to happen; no way was I even going to leave my sofa.

After several weeks of physical therapy, my arm still ached but I could move it fairly well. So I asked my physical therapist if he thought I would be able to compete in another tournament three weeks away. He was a martial artist himself and understood. He said that I could, but it would likely set my recovery back a few weeks. If that was okay with me, he said it was okay with him. I thought about it for a couple days and then after deciding I would do it, I changed my mind. No plastic trophy was worth going through the pain and therapy again. However, for a day or so I at least knew I could have done it. It would hurt but I knew the adrenaline rush of competition would block the pain and give me the “juice” I needed to perform.