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stir
28th May 2001, 20:16
i recently got back to judo practice after a very long absence.. (8 years) .. i've been back a few months now and gladly lots of my training is coming back quicker than i thought.. however when doing breakfalls my elbow started to hit the mat before the rest of my arm.. consequently it swelled up very badly and i was forced to resort to a thin pad on the elbow until my breakfalls improve.. well, i was rubbing the eblow the other day and i found that there is bone and/or cartilage that seems to have broken off the elbow..
my question is: has anyone else suffered an injury like this?? how commom is this injury (especially to any judoka reading this) and Should i have the loose bone (or whatever it is) removed, as I am pretty sure it is not going to magically mend itself back with the rest of the arm.


thanks in advance for your advice..

MarkF
29th May 2001, 10:29
I would get an x-ray before I began to self-diagnose. It may not be any thing "loose" or it could be worse than you think. Rubbing it that much to feel any kind of movement is probably not a good thing either.

A Swelling could mean one of two things. OK, one thing but two different substances. Fluid could be collecting somewhere around the elbow joint, or it could be blood pooling which hasn't been there long enough to see bruising. In either case, if you don't know what you are doing, you could make it worse.

Yes, the elbow joint is one of the joints with maximized overuse with judoka. It could be torn cartilage, a bone fragment (which then cuts into veins and arteries), a fracture, or any or all these things. If you don't have a regular doctor, get to an Urgent Care center or the ER. If it doesn't hurt a lot (and since you've simply padded the area, my guess is that it doesn't hurt that much), it could be anything. Pain is the body's way of telling you something is wrong. No pain with obvious injury could be even worse.

After that is sorted out. Begin again with ukemi from the beginning. If your injury isn't bad now, it could be with the way you are falling. Start with a squat fall back-type ukemi exercise. If you can do this without hitting your elbow unnecessarily hard, then do the same one, but kick your feet out and fall. When this is done without much thinking or pondering your dilemma, get back into a lot of breakfall warm up. This goes from side to side, forward rolls, and then you can practice more ukemi with a partner. Take a few steps, grab on to the lapel of the partner's uwagi, and throw yourself upward, landing as you would from a throw. After this is accomplished, you can start some forward flips in the air landing on your back.

Keep in mind that your entire body is going to absorb your fall, so the straighter the arm when hitting the mat, the less it will compromise you. Then do some slow to moderate falling from throws, and then progress.

If you pretend it isn't serious, it will become a bad habit and more difficult to do correctly.

DON"T DO ANY FULL SPEED RANDORI until you have mastered ukemi. Everyone learns at their own pace, and you need to begin at the beginning, not in the middle.

I hope this was of some help.

Mark

BTW: Are you sure you are hitting the mat with the elbow first, or could it be that you notice it when you push yourself out of a fall to get up? If tori is helping you by pulling up on your sleeve, this could be the reason for hitting the elbow first. This isn't incorrect, it is "mutual welfare."

MarkF
29th May 2001, 10:34
BTW: I could be absolutely full of it, but try to keep your arm straight when hitting the ground. Don't worry about your body hitting first. If you are hitting the mat with your body evenly proportioned hitting hard with your arm could be unnecessary.

Ukemi waza may not be ukemi no kata, but it's as close as any other to being one.

Mark

DavidMasaki
29th May 2001, 10:48
Once my elbow swelled up for no reason that I could think of. It might've been a few ingrown hairs that got infected. It was pretty painful for about a week or two and I developed scar tissue over my bone that can still be felt when I rub my elbow. It feels like cartilage. Maybe that's what you have. I saw a doctor and he prescribed antiinflamatory drugs for the swelling and said not to worry about the scar tissue, but was puzzled about why it swelled up in the first place.