Training/competing while injured

One of the conundrums faced by most judo players during the course of their judo journey is what to do when injured?

Of course for some it's simple. If you are a recreational judo player and you do judo just for fun or fitness, there is no point in training when injured. Take time off to heal properly before coming back onto the mat.

But for those training for competition, it's not so easy or straightforward. A competitor does not like to miss training. Every session counts. So do you train with an injury?

The first issue to consider, of course, is how serious the injury is. If it's a bad injury, you've obviously have got to stop. But if it's minor injury like a sprain, you could consider carrying on, if you're a competitor who feels that you cannot afford to miss any training.

What you do is firstly, wrap up or tape up the injured part. If it's your ankle or toes or elbow that's hurting, wrap it up. Secondly, remind all your training partners where your injury is so they can be vigilant about not applying pressure on that part of your body when they train with you. Thirdly, protect the injured part when training. Don't be tempted to use it just to try to get a throw or defend against an attack. Training is not shiai.

If your left arm is injured (perhaps your elbow, or wrist, or fingers hurt), learn to train one-handed. Don't be tempted to use the injured arm at all. Learn to fight and defend with just one arm.

This is important because it allows you to keep up with the training without injuring yourself further. But it's also important in that it trains you to fight with restrictions. This will come in handy if you get injured during a competition. What if you're in the final and you hurt your arm? If it's not too bad an injury, you might want to carry on with the fight because a gold medal is at stake. To do that you will have to fight largely one-handed. If you've never trained to do that, you won't be able to do it.

The other day, we devoted an entire session to fighting one-handed. It was a good experience for our competitors. They found it quite hard at first because they are so used to being able to fight with both hands. By the time they got to doing one-handed randori, they were kind of used to it.