An important job of any coach is to help injured athletes recover. Your team of BJJ athletes will turn to you for advice when they’ve pulled a muscle or broken a bone, and you’ll want to be prepared with the best remedies for fast healing.
Of course, they will need to consult a doctor for the best results, but below are some other guidelines that you should follow.
Sports Massage Therapy
Massage therapy works wonders for Jiu-Jitsu martial artists who are suffering from injuries. Done correctly, it can help the athlete’s muscles relax and begin to recover after the trauma.
However, sports massages should be handled by professionals that have taken sports massage courses.
The good news is that there are sports massage practices throughout the country, and it’s easy to find one in your area. Get acquainted with a local professional and have their number on hand in case one of your team members gets injured.
RICE Method
RICE is a pneumonic device that stands for rest, ice, compression, and elevation. Together, these actions can help reduce swelling, pain, and the lasting impacts of an injury.
Resting means taking time off from the sport, sleeping extra and for particularly bad injuries, and avoiding the use of the injured area at all for several days.
Using ice on the injured area will help to prevent swelling, which makes it hard for the area to heal. Compression means using a bandage or wrap and uniform pressure around the injured area.
Make sure your entire team is familiar with each of these steps. If an injury happens outside of practice, they will know the steps to recover faster.
Strengthening Exercises
Injuries leave the body weaker than before. Weakness comes partly from the trauma of the injury, but also the lack of exercise during the healing and resting process.
Because of how much training it takes to get an athlete back in shape, it is important to be patient and have your athlete do extra exercises to rehabilitate their injury.
For example, if your athlete hurt their knee, they should do exercises like leg lifts where you just practice extending and flexing your leg in a seated position to get back on their feet.
Start Your Athletes Slowly Once Recovered
Simple strength training exercises may seem too easy for an athlete that’s used to much more intense maneuvers, but the goal is to rebuild. To prevent re-injury, they need to take extra small steps to make that region stronger than it was before.
Going right back to the advanced level that they were at before the injury occurred could be dangerous and cause major setbacks. Slowly increasing the training duration and intensity over the course of several weeks will help athletes to get back to their baseline routines effectively.
Additional Stretching Before Training
In addition to gaining strength, athletes also need to increase flexibility to prevent the injury from happening again.
After physical trauma to a region, the human body will usually develop scar tissue in or around a muscle in response. This reduces flexibility and increases the risk of having a repeated injury.
To counteract this, athletes have to stretch the affected muscles, ligaments, and tendons three times more than they normally would.
Concluding Thoughts
Whenever an athlete is injured, you should always call for emergency medical services and consult a doctor for the best treatment methods.
In addition, as a coach, you should be aware of the best ways to help your athletes when they are beginning to start training again.
Following the tips above will help your athlete readjust to intense training in the most effective and safe ways possible.
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