Well it was inevitable…I am back on the injured reserve list.
I was rolling with a particularly strong partner in jiu jitsu last night, he was attempting to grab my arm for an arm bar which I was fighting with my body with good positioning so I didn’t feel like I was in any real danger. He was on his stomach trying to roll me over and I was half sitting up and feeling safe because I had a lot of leverage. All of a sudden he stretched out against my ribs in an attempt to pull my arm free and I felt my ribs slide and pop. It actually felt like one of my ribs were getting twisted around but I’m pretty sure that’s not possible. I yelled out in pain and when my partner let go my it felt like my ribs flipped around a few more time before settling. Needless to say that was the end of open mat for this guy.
On the drive home my ribs “popped” a few more times which took my breath away. Of course I iced and took some ibuprofen and did a little “googling” before going to bed.
It looks to be a fairly common injury in BJJ, one that seems to take anywhere from 3 to 6 weeks of rest before getting back to 100%. I tried to test my limits this morning at the gym and found its really difficult to do anything with a rib injury. I probably will not be going to the gym for the rest of the week. I do not plan on going to the doctor because everything I’ve read says that a doctor cannot and will not do much for a rib injury unless it is really serious, plus my general practitioner gives me a really blank look when I explain my injuries (I really have to find a sports medicine doctor!).
The rib has popped at least four times this morning, twice when I was trying to get into my car and twice at the gym when I was trying to get up from laying down on the ground. I am continuing to ice and trying to move around as little as possible at this point in my rehab. My plan is to completely rest for at least 2 to 3 days before going back to the gym and stretching and maybe doing a little light cardio to loosen up and test my range of motion.
I definitely don’t want to re-injure and have a long term injury with rib protrusions I have been reading on some forums!
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Guys… This is simple.. Usually with rib injuries a light wrap, * get the widest ace bandage and obviously good length. Make sure to Not Wrap TOO TIGHT, as it can cause pneaumonia. *close enough* lol… anyway.. NO smoking or anything that strains the diaphragm or abdomen muscles. Just ice and rest. Trust me I Looooove playing goal keeper and I will often play injured. The truth is if you want it to heal fast Take care of it.. tell the team you are out for a few weeks.. NO TRAINING. give it 3-6 weeks and you will be wanting to play again. only an xray can tell you if its completely healed. ICE REST REST REST. slight ace bandage compression.. *widest and longest possible* And remember NOT TO TIGHT!!! anyway best wishes with your rib injury. BTW most rib injuries are treated the same way.. rest slight on/off compression ice.
First of all, I’m no doctor. I’m a doctor’s son (orthopedic surgeon). I have torn the intercostal muscle between my 7th and 8th ribs on my right side. So far from what I have read a lot of you guys/gals need to stop thinking that this injury will be healed in “5 days.” Your body takes time to heal itself! You need to rest for AT LEAST 6 WEEKS! If you keep doing motions that involve twisting, turning, or any vertical compression on the ribs (i.e. russian twists, abdominal crunches, etc.) you are going to injure yourself further and PROLONG the amount of time that you cannot participate is such activities. You also need to ice as often as possible. I try to ice whenever I am stationary for more than 5 minutes, wether it be while I’m watching TV, riding the stationary bike, studying, driving, and before I go to bed. If the pain gets to the point where you can’t tolerate it or when acetaminophen and aspirin do not help reduce the pain, then you need to see a doctor about treatment for your pain. As far as keeping your ribs from moving around my dad helped me wrap ace wrap around my ribs to keep them from sliding back and forth. As far as exercise goes I’m only allowed on a stationary bike. If your doing bjj flexibility is your best friend so do what stretches do not hurt and avoid stretches that do. In terms of sleep I haven’t slept well so I’ve resorted to sleeping on my dads recliner in an effort to stabilize me and keep me from rolling. The best treatment for this is to ice, rest, and repeat. If you need to keep in shape, ride a stationary bike in the gym and keep your rpm’s up past 100 or if you have access to a heart rate monitor, try to keep your HR up in your target zone. Once again I’m going to say that if you have this injury YOU NEED TO ICE! AND REST!
Hey guy’s.
I broke 9 ribs in a car accident along with other fractures to my arms and leg. I’m sure there was much cartilage damage as well but not diagnosed.
During my 2 year recovery I popped my ribs about 6 times ( chiropractor, skateboarding, wrestling with my kid etc).
After 2 months without incident I hit the mats, on my second day bjj I popped a right side #7 rib that was previously broken and displaced. 4 weeks into healing doing only weights and muay thai drills I caught a light knee on my left side which popped another rib, which then popped again (I assume back into place) 3 days later while stretching.
Now I’m 5 weeks into healing right side and 1 week into healing my left, I’m able to do all my cardio work and some weight training, also still doing muay thai drills.
What I’m beginning to think, is that these cartilage injuries take way more time to heal than bone fractures. In any other lifestyle ppl never use their core like in bjj so they heal over a long period of time (more than 6 weeks) and have no problem as they do not stress their core the way we do.
Unfortunately I believe the only way to heal properly is to make sure with x ray or ct that everything is in place and take the full 6 weeks without any rolling.
Doing stretching, weights, cardio and training that is not painful has not slowed my recovery and my right side seems to be healed completely.
But I have not done any bjj at all, which I think is the key here. As someone mentioned above, every time you pop a rib the healing time is reset and you start your 6 week recovery from the last “POP”.
Alex
I ‘popped’ my first rib on the left side of my ribcage while rolling in november – everything i read stated 2 weeks of complete rest, 2 weeks doing drills and then back to rolling. A week into resting I thought i was pretty good and unfortunately popped it again and then once more fore good luck
. This basically resets the healing clock everytime. Overall it took me approx. 8 weeks before i was rolling again. Now, i’ve popped a rib on the right side of my ribcage while rolling with what can only be described as a north american grizzly. I’m expecting at least 3-4 weeks before im back doing drills… The best advice i got from my instructors was to wait two weeks after the ribs stop hurting, and even then start back lightly.
I tore my rib exactly two months ago trying to escape a headlock. The first time it popped I thought it would be OK and then went back for more and really tore it good. Any exercise seems to inflame it sill after two months. I am back on the mat this week and even being super careful I have now caused it to burn badly. It’s frustrating, I have broken ten bones and all healed faster than this. Not sure what to do.
I doBJJ also and was rolling last nightlight because I had just “broke” or hurt” my ribs….ie er docs could not figure out what was going on but it happened at least 5-6 times before I found this site and was very glad I did. Now I have some direction for an actual guide
1. go see s sports medicine doctor
2. get a diagnosis
3. educate myself on the diagnosis and follow the instructions
4. for now, Ice, refrain for rolling (grappling) etc —I like all of you am addicted to. Keep your heads up. Its hard but you can go and watch, and take notes, and then get back on the mats when cleared and you’ll know better how to prevent the injury from occurring.
5. hopefully some physical therapy, chiropractor, and or other forms of exercise to strengthen those areas will be learned.
6. try nsaids (if you are not allergic like I am) because addiction to Narcotics can occur quickly with chronic and recurring injuries like the ones we suffer doing bjj and mma.
7. ONLY WE KNOW whats it like and what it is…so try to make it known and educate everyone we can, including docs, RN’s etc regarding this type of injury which I see a lot in my gym. Thanks for this website…lets keep it going strong and adding to it to keep each other educated and keep this awesome sport alive guys.
This page is completely AWESOME. So I’ve got some friends that had the injury and getting their experiences and advice was good…but sometimes 1 or 2 stories could be unique to the individuals who may have a slightly different injury to the ribs than you. This page allowed me to get a lot of different stories and find the ones that identified with me the most. I injured mine exactly 1 week ago doing Nogi BJJ…my partner did a back-step out of (top) half guard and landed FLUSH on my rips with his entire upper body….hurt, but i didn’t think much of it other than “damn, that knocked the wind outta me good!”…finished that round and rolled 1 more just telling my new partner to ‘take it easy’ on ribs a bit (i.e. chill on knee-on-belly attempts, please
). Anyway…it’s on my 3rd-from-bottom rib on my right side…didn’t think much of it until I tried to drive my stick-shift Jeep….every time i’d try to shift gears, it would engage that side of my core and the rib would “pop” again. wrapping it for the next 4-5 days seemed to work great. I still teach BJJ, but just take it easy w/ my demonstration….and haven’t rolled since the night of the injury. Haven’t seen a Doc, because I just didn’t want to pay a co-pay just for them to tell me to do what I’m ALREADY doing: wrap & rest. But the last few days, I’m noticing that (although the rib isn’t “popping” anymore) it seems to be poking out. So, now I’m worried that maybe it isn’t healing in the right place. It’s still very tender to the touch and uncomfortable to drive, sleep, sit up from lying down, etc….any recommendations of supplements that can be taken to make the ‘recovery’ time speed up? Really miss rolling, and this takes me out of a competition that’s coming up in about 4 weeks….I need to get back to form so that I can train @ 100% again in preparation for Srs/Masters WORLDS this year! OSS
Thanks again to the original poster and all that commented!
oh and i have a question. I prefer heat over ice, is this ok or is ice much better?
day 2 pissed off in whistler
Well thanks jits guys this is the only place i could find a detailed idea of what kind of recovery this is going to be. myself although a big fan of mma do not train, i did this snowboarding. I cased hard landed awkwardly and almost blew out my knee, thankful i didnt and paying much more attention to the knee i neglected the little pop in my rib cage. I did a couple more runs feeling not bad again worrying about the knee. Woke up the next day, knee felt great and went riding again as i am use to being sore. First run i overshot a kicker landed perfectly but missing the sweet spot and landed fairly hard, nothing im not used to. It felt like my guts dropped out on the injured side of the ribs, i couldnt breathe, i knew i was done. Morale of the story, that little pop is SOMETHING. DO NOT TRAIN OR PUSH AFTER THAT LITTLE POP OR SEE YA IN 3-6 WEEKS.
pissed off in whistler
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