Are full /high contact MAs detrimental to health?

I said yes because my first teachers had several operations on their bodies specifically if I remember right various shoulder, back, and knee/hip work. The thing I can't figure out is if it is over-training, over-competing, or not enough rest in between? I want to do MA till the day I die and while I want to start more physically active arts, I don't want to wreck my body to succeed at it.

'Will fighting injure you?'

The answer is obvious.

'Will you be left with permanent injuries?'

There is a risk, if not a likelihood. I fractured a vertebra in the middle of my back in 1990 and in 1983 I had my right knee twisted inwards (via a caught leg) almost 180 degrees - so I limped for a year. Both injuries haunt me today. Years of taking ungloved full-power blows to the chest have damaged the joints in my breastbone, which are arthritic. I have a bone sticking half an inch out the back of my right hand from fighting in 1989 (don't try stopping a front kick with your hand)...

Injuries - fighting. They go together like like a horse and carriage.

Prize

IMO, its always a crapshoot.....the intensity of the training is often needed to really develop skills is exactly the kind of thing that increases your chances of getting hurt.

The hardest thing for a real pro to find is a sparring partner good enough and tough enough to really push them..really get them ready for a fight BUT NOT injure or hurt them......its a very fine line to walk.

The more intensly and harder you training the tougher and more ready you will be for a fight...but such intensity also up's your chances of injury.

Its why Olympic athletes are seldom in max shape all the time....actually its a pretty common problem for them...the line between being really ready and overtraining very easy to cross at that level.

My MA of choice is Iaido, which does require strong and reliable knees, from seiza on up.

November '06 I blew both knees helping a friend load a U-haul.
(Lift correctly: use your legs. Yeah, sure.)
Up the basement stairs with large 80+lb boxes does a number on knees.

MA had nothing to do with it.

I said it depends, honestly all the injuries I've seen happen are due to something getting in the way, ego, control, those types of things. When I was younger I never wanted to lose randori or a roll, and I paid the price with a bad Osoto-Gari against my MCL and various other smaller injuries from not tapping soon enough. I had a wake up call one day when I went stiff like a board against a Seoi-Otoshi and hit my neck flat on the ground, leaving me (either with a feeling of or actually) paralyzed for a few minutes. At the time I thought I was paralyzed and when I got it back I realized that it was almost all my fault and if I would've just accepted that I was thrown it would be ok.

Since that day, I tend not to over-resist and other than your typical MMA injuries (bruises, black eyes, sprained toes) I have been totally healthy in Martial Arts related activities. However, this acceptance is interesting to randori with, as some of my peers have accused me of flopping and just kind of giving up against their technique. Though I think it helps because I've now aced up my technique to make up for my lack of resistance.

"It depends" just doesn't cut it with me. Either you're fighting with real contact, meaning real blows, meaning real injuries - or you aren't.

If you're fighting with real contact you will get hit and you will be injured. If injuries aren't bad for health, what is?

I suppose what many people are thinking of is "permanent" injury. But even that is very subjective. I couldn't walk properly for a year after a bad knee injury - is one year of injury too short to call it "not bad for your health"?

This isn't a debate as far as I'm concerned. Are full/hard contact martial arts bad for health. Of course they are! Will they impact on your health "permanently" - well, that might depend... largely on luck.

Despite that, do you run the risk of a permanent injury? Of course you do - as with any contact sport (including the various football codes, basketball etc.). I had dinner with the now retired striker for the Perth Glory and former Socceroo Bobby Despotovski the other night (he married into my distant family here in Perth). His list of injuries is as long as my arm. Why, in the world, would your injuries be less in an activity where your purpose is to hit people or twist their joints / choke or strangle etc.

I'm sorry, but I'm going to make this point very strongly:

If any of you are arguing the "depends" line you're either -
(a) not really contacting; or
(b) too young to see what happens in the long run; or
(c) kidding yourself; or
(d) misunderstanding the meaning of "health".

My brother almost lost his eye to an elbow strike from a very tough and highly respected fighter. He couldn't see out of it for 3 months. "Permanent" has nothing to do with "health". His health was compromised for those 3 months and the next 3 after that. Since then his eye has been okay (apart from some scarring that makes the eye look a bit squinty). Was martial arts with contact "bad" for his health? Of course. It doesn't mean he stopped his training or will stop. It's a choice you make.

Since about 1998 I've had an autoimmune related arthritis that is worst in my old injury sites. I live with pain, particularly in the back. I appreciate now that pain of any kind is pain you can do without. It affects your health. Ditto swelling, immobility or other disability, scarring etc.

The question is, IMHO, a no-brainer.

I voted yes. I think we have to look at the art one is studying. One of the things that has always, IMO, separated arts like Karate from something like MMA or boxing, is that we still see people in their Eighties or older still training in karate, wheras a lot of these full contact arts have practioners with much shorter careers. that is not to say that an eighty year old karate sensei might not be without injury from years of training, but I think the art can be more adaptable to age than others.

Are proffessional fighters or fighters not MEANT to hurt each other?
Thats the whole point.
If I fight you and take you out,howver I do it,then my goal is complete.The injury is your problem.You knew the risks.
So ,of course a fighter WANTS to damage the other person.
So injurys to the opponent is good for the winner.
Or good for the person who has defended themselves in SD.
Sounds harsh but violence is and it cant be escaped if fighting.
Plus every one should expect and accept to get hurt somehow if involved in a fight or SD situation.

Picking up injuries in training is different I guesse though could be argued if its consitent injurys its just not good training.Or bad luck.Or idiot training partners.

Like CXT said, it's a crapshoot.

You can get injured walking down the street. The risk of injury rises with each step up in intensity of the activity. Conditioning helps prevent this, but you're never immune from it.

Prize,
First I was just playing with you on the other thread. Injuries suck. I have had a few. The elephant on my chest thing was complete hyperbole.

I don't think that I've ever led anyone to believe that I'm "hardcore" in any way. In fact what we do is still called "no contact". Still, to be honest, what we do is harder than most people want to go.

Even though that is the case over the years I have had broken toes, fingers, ribs, a knee fracture an ACL tear and a random assortment of other injuries. Stuff happens. The longer you drive a car the more ding's you are going to have on the finish. If you are lucky you can avoind a collision.
All that being said...

I went to the doctor the other day. They gave me the three page list of questions to answer. I got to the end of the three pages of medical questions and did not have to put a "check" in any box. I actually drew in another box at the bottom of the page and wrote "Damn, I'm Doin' GREAT" next to it and checked it.

Trying to avoid pain is no way to go through life. Learning from it is.

As others have alluded to. I say yes because pending age and preparation they can cause injuries. Its not uncommon for average skilled pupils to sustain injuries after competetion not that its not enjoyable pending what kind of injuries and no matter what it still hurts. I believe that contact is necessary in order to get the feel of what we are doing and there is such a thing as a neccessary risk but its short sighted to believe that you will spar full contact and not get hurt.

And this new attitude of not tapping trying to counter a lock (that some pro MMA have adapated) is just for them at practice its Tap before it Snap!!! One or two attempts then tap, hell you ain't fighting for money or a belt. Which is the opposite of what we use to do tapping to soon.

Contact sports and Martial arts are prone to injuries ask a boxer/wrestler/football/Basket ball player at highschool or college level let a lone Pro to show U his injuried knuckle, knee, ankle or shoulder. Hey asked a Hockey player to say cheese.

Full contact Martial arts is worse or no different bc its purpose is to hurt the other guy. So Yes but it hurts so good sometimes, sometimes it just HURTS!!

I was just playing too Oldman! Shoe's on the other foot now eh????

Certainly you can get injured any time anywhere, but perhaps there are things we do that increase the chances, one way or another.

Very good stuff from people on the thread, keep it coming!

One life. One youth. Live it to the max.

I have no quams about that I'm going to hurt when I'm older; I'm almost 40 and I already have pains. What I want to make sure is if I can "deal" with it. That will be the true testament.

Hello Prizewriter:

<< Are full contact, or high contact, martial arts detrimental to your health?

(A "hat" for prizewriter on this one).

Jeff

I voted yes.

If you are trying to hurt the other person, then yes, they are probably going to get hurt. Doesn't take too many boots to the head to start causing brain damage, much less any of the other potential injuries from full contact sparring. I get hurt enough in light/medium contact sparring.

Is it good to condition yourself to be able to take an impact? sure, but I don't think you could/should do it on a regular basis, and it's something that I think you should build up to.

Should white belts be going full contact? Absolutely not. They don't have a clue how to defend themselves, and it would be negligent on the part of the instructor to put their students in that position.

Laura

I already have a hole where my mouth is. Did he make an extra hole?

Jokes aside, we don't let our white belts free-spar until they are one grade before green. Instead they do restricted forms of sparring (ie. not completely free). The restrictions are initally strong, and gradually reduce. By the time they are green belts they have probably been free sparring for 4 to 6 months. The total time they spent not free sparring (at least completely) could be anything form 9 months to one year - hardly a blip in their martial careers.

But why do we do this? Well for one thing, we teach them how to spar. This is a process. We don't just "let them do whatever" (faux boxing etc.). I don't believe students can "spar" using karate techniques when they don't know any. All they'll be doing is whatever they currently do - and getting bad habits "to boot" (pardon the pun). Again, if you look at our sparring video, you'll see we teach a specific method of fighting - actually using karate techniques including bunkai. We don't encourage or seek to develop some form of generic "free (for all) fighting".

As far as "hard" or contact sparring goes, I'm tired of being hit by green and brown belts accidentally. Even they haven't got the control to spar with heavier contact "safely" - ie. without poking out an eye etc. - never mind white belts.

One of my students went to live in Kalgoorlie (2 hours flight inland from Perth) and joined a dojo where they let people free spar (with contact) from the moment they walked in the door as rank beginners. My student witnessed a guy being kicked hard in the groin. The guy ended up losing both testes. There was no malice - just a total lack of control in an exuberant "contest". Apparently this was the second time in 2 years that the same thing had happened (different person doing the kicking too)! My student quit in horror - and rightly so. As a former civil litigation lawyer I can only cringe at their prospects of being sued (if they haven't been already).

Training should be a controlled learning environment. I believe in staged learning of free sparring as part of this controlled environment - not letting white belts "do their own thing" with potential risk to themselves and others, while gaining bad habits such as cringing, turning away etc. especially when panicking.

That's been the approach I've used for almost 3 decades and I'm sticking with it because I find it works. I appreciate that others don't do the same thing, but each to his own. If any of you have found a way to ensure safe, yet productive, junior white belt sparring, then more power to you.

Laura -

Beginners should definitley not just be thrown into free-sparring with no training. They should be given specific, limited drills with appropriate (but increasing) resisitance. Start them with hands-only, no footwork, just defending upper body strikes. Then add footwork, then kicks, etc. Start them defending takedowns only, no strikes from either person. Then let the attacker punch before the takedown, then after, etc. Then let the defender use strikes, and so on. Make sure they switch attacker/defender roles every time.

Give them limited drills in every situation, then start to chain them together. That way they can get the resistance of sparring, without the sensory overload. But the concept of resistance needs to be there from day one.

Hi!
I voted on your poll, but thought to expand and write out my two cents worth:
Objectively, yes. Contact is much more likely to produce permanent injuries than not. These can be catastrophic (E.g.: Broken bones, etc.) or cumulative over the years.
Now, as many have pointed out, it's not a certainty, protective gear and (Within the idea of contact) safe(r!) practices will go a long way to prevent them. But I know few that have practiced heavy/full contact fighting that are free of some type of permanent injury.
In my case, just to cite one, I have this "beautiful" off-center nose that was broken by a very nice left cross! To pile insult on injury, I have nasal allergies. So I have all kinds of problems with a schnozz that leaks a lot of the time. It's hard to breathe through it, because the break twisted the septum in a way that shrunk one of my nasal passages. Between the allergy and the deviated septum...
I often wind up mouth breathing, specially during any kind of strenuous stuff. My endurance is fine, but I constantly seem to be sucking wind 'cause my schnozz don't work so good!

To expand on the thread a little further:

How important is frequency of training when it comes to full contact arts re injuries? Does how often hard/full contact training is done have any correlation to frequency/severity of injuries in peoples experience/opinion?

Is less more when it comes to Full Contact training? To paraphrase a boxing coach in my old gym "How many times do you have to get hit in the head before you learn to move out of the way?!"

Please feel free to comment on this. Also still feel free to comment on the thread overall as well.

I think frequency makes a big difference in amount and severity of injuries. I generally limit hard training (75%+ intensity) to once a week. That seems to give me enough recovery time between training so to not aggravate injuries that occur in the first place.

For civilian self-defense, I do think that "more" is not always better. It's a fine line.