The benefit of training injuries

The Benefits of getting injured during training

Getting injuries during training is one of the worse things that can happen, especially if that injury prevents you from training for a prolonged period of time. I personally have had a rough past couple years sustaining a herniated disc, meniscus tear, injuring my shoulder, throwing sacroiliac joint out of place, ankle sprain, thumb sprain and neck injuries. I’ve been forced to take a ton of downtime recovering from these injuries and luckily as a younger man of 27 I still have some great regeneration, however, the downtime is all the more excruciating because I have so much energy. Bruce Lee suffered from a severely injured fourth sacral nerve in his lower spinal cord and was faced with 6 months of downtime. We have all heard stories of his amazing physique and can only imagine how terrible he must have felt having his passion taken away from him if even for a short period of time. Bruce Lee, although unknown to most people was an amazing philosopher and spent his downtime reassessing his physical training program, reading on philosophy and exercise theories and was able to come back from a once thought career ending injury.

“Pain is just our bodies way of telling us we’re doing something wrong”

Getting injured is usually the result of some sort of mistake on either our part or our partners, my herniated disc and sacroiliac injuries were a result of not overtraining and overworking so I decided to reevaluate my life habits. We often get so caught up in our day to day lives, and our image of success that we forget to take the time for some introspective and retrospective thought, which injuries can give us time for.


Personally, I believe the best upside to becoming injured is being forced to learn the ins and outs of the human body as well as the methods used to heal your condition. Through my various injuries, I’ve learned massage therapy and been exposed to physical therapy methods which I have absorbed. I’m never going to be a fan of injuries and generally take extra care to ensure my partners' safety especially having seen bad things happen as a result of sparring too hard. I’d like to leave you with this story of a gym visit on sparring night I attended and there were a few local amateur and pro fighters getting ready for bouts in the coming month. There was one young individual, in particular, the coach wanted to prepare and had set up a bullpen (nonstop rounds rotating fresh fighters in every few minutes) to get him ready. I had been assigned second to help him with his elbows and knee striking after a semi-pro fighter who outweighed him by at least 60 pounds, and unfortunately didn’t realize this, had too much ego, pre-workout or know how to spar lightly. It was clear from the start of the round that there was a massive skill difference and in addition to the clear intimidation the lighter fighter was feeling he was too afraid to throw any real strikes to gain the respect of his opponent. Feeling confident the larger fighter unleashed a single leg kick which literally folded the knee. I cringed watching the lighter fighter fail to check and his knee buckle completely falling to the ground and clutching his leg. It was instantly clear that he would not be cleared for his match and honestly from my perspective he might never recover from it. Having my own ego in check, I decided to not spar that particular fighter that night and got many a great round in before the night ended, enjoying myself. Hopefully, this gruesome story will prevent some injury somewhere or remind you that ego and pride often prevent us from smart decisions.