Many of us have been there, especially as a white belt. You’re in the middle of a grappling session. You get caught, and BAM! Wrist lock.
A few years ago, this happened to me. I was in a bit of a stalemate with another white belt in my half guard, and managed to get my left arm stuck between us, palm up. I kept trying to wiggle my arm free, and when I finally thought there was enough room to pull it out, my opponent pressed his weight down directly on my palm. There was an audible CRACK. We stopped our grappling session, and I told him I was fine. “Don’t worry about it.”
Boy, was I wrong. I wasn’t in pain immediately after, so I genuinely thought I was fine. It wasn’t until later in the week, however, that I noticed something was definitely wrong. As I was bringing groceries in from my car, carrying my purse or gym bag, and typing on my computer, I noticed pain, discomfort, and fatigue in my wrist.
It got so bad that I even had x-rays taken. They didn’t reveal anything serious, so I was told to just avoid lifting heavy object with that hand, and let it heal.
I didn’t stop training jiu jitsu, though. In order to keep training with a wrist injury, I would wrap my wrists with “sticky” gauze from Target and tell my grappling partners to take it easy on that wrist. The wrist wraps were crucial for support. I would even sometimes wear them if I had a lot of work to do on the computer.
I soon discovered that gently stretching my wrists also helped alleviate pain and discomfort. Also, like anyone who has been grappling and practicing jiu jitsu for a while can tell you, taking glucosamine and chondroitin was great in reducing inflammation.
Naturally, I would simply try to take it easy on my wrist throughout the day, especially if I was going to jiiu jistu later.
There are times that I feel that old injury flare up, but doing all of the above always helps and keeps me on the mat.
Happy Training,
Marisol
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