Rib Case Study Part Four: Tidal Shift

Transitions and Layers Not Steps

Progress in the human body is often more like a tidal shift that a step ladder. I’ve lived in a coastal town my entire life and much of my youth was spent deciphering how the tide that day would affect my ability to ride the waves that day, if there were any that is.

Tides are delineated by the way points of “high” and “low” at distinct time markers. On the East Coast of the United States, where I live, the semi-diurnal tides turn roughly every six hours, twelve minutes, and thirty seconds. As helpful as that temporal marker is for triangulating surfing, if you actually interact with the ocean you quickly realize how transitory tides really are.

“Dead” high and low tides, the exact moment the clock strikes the highest and lowest points respectively last less than a moment. Otherwise, you’re in relative transition between the two most of the time.

I’ve come to think of the return to play process similarly. Not in the going back and forth in progress part of tides but moreso in that the transitions are subtle and can be hard to distinguish sometimes until we suddenly hit dead tide.

If we pay attention to the transitional space more effectively, then it allows us to surf closer to our biological reality rather than rely on a vague clock of readiness. Schedules often rely on population averages. They can be very helpful in planning appropriate strategies but do not reflect individual experience. They’re reference points that help us point our attention in particular directions.

This week I noticed the tide shifting in some important areas and annoyingly staying stuck in others. Please do remember this is a description of my personal experience and in no way represents what you should do.

Transitions

In the last week or so my abs started to wake back up. Skips and bounds offered no pain or resistance at all. I’m starting to feel some contractility in my trunk in general but my ghost ab still isn’t quite firing on all cylinders without some serious concentration.

Just the other day I realized however that I cannot lay prone on the jiu jitsu mat. Direct pressure on the rib cage is still a pretty strong no-no. Basic biology holds: the high-speed neuro-muscular reboot is outpacing the slow-speed repair of the cartilage.

This reinforces what I said last week about not believing the “all better” lie my body is telling me. Just because pain has mostly subsided and I can do quite a bit more gym stuff than I could initially do does not mean I’m cleared to have training partners throw me on the mat and squeeze my ribs in a variety of configurations.

With all of that said, I don’t have to relegate myself completely to single joint BFR any longer. I can begin to explore closer to normal strength and conditioning training as well as more jiu jitsu specific solo work to see what has progressed, what needs a nudge, and what it truly still off limits.

[Rocking chair video]

Layers and Experiments

I’ve been doing BFR training five days per week since my rib separation five weeks ago. It’s been a great way to continue training with my injury, keep some strength and muscle mass, and probably most important for me psychologically, touch effort.

As the weeks roll on I’m getting itchy. BFR isn’t easy, especially when the cuffs are pumped up to 400mmHg and the C2 Bike Erg damper is on 10, but I’d be lying if I said that the pump from BFR was a fair trade for the lifts and grappling I’m accustomed to.

One thing I’ve noticed is that I’ve progressed in pressure, reps, and endurance. I can’t be sure if I’ve yielded any hypertrophy benefits from BFR because I haven’t measured limb circumference since I started a month or so ago. It’s not scientific, but it feels like my legs squeeze a lil’ tighter into my shorts.

Pushing into and even through high physical discomfort on a very regular basis is embedded in grappling. Not to say putting on Kaatsu bands and doing curls until near failure is the same thing as wrestling with another human. It’s not. In this particular circumstance though, it gave me an immediate, albeit temporary, way to keep the mental blade from dulling too much.

As I move forward and notice some parts are ready for progression, I feel obligated to oblige. Just not all at once. I’ve begun to slowly build in more standard strength and conditioning based on my Train Heroic program, Off The Mat. I’m not doing the program anywhere near prescribed but it does offer some scaffolding to anchor my training progress to and test myself against movements that would be a more normal part of my training week.

For the deeply interested, I did a Loom video that highlights some of the ways I’ve layered in changes to my strength and conditioning.

I’m still getting on the mats every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning. The first month or so after getting hurt a was just doing long duration static stretching during training while I did mental jiu jitsu. Five minutes a piece in pigeon (per side), pancake, and pike while I observed how the small sided games played out at Black Box that day.

Just recently I’ve started to do more traditional jiu jitsu warm up type movements. Technical stand up variations, crawling patterns, bridging, and even some gentle rolling back and granby rolling. I’ll tell you one thing, my neck feels downright glorious after a month off of wrestling!

Breakfalling is still off the menu once I realized direct prone contact with the mat still hurt like a son of a gun I knew I’m still a ways away from full throttle. Damn non-blood flow having cartilage.

With all of that said, I know I don’t want to make a leap of faith into live and open grappling rounds without having some reasonable idea of how my body will respond. Very often though, athletes, coaches, and even physios fail to appropriately transition athletes from the healing process into a fully reintegrated performance state.

Being done with therapeutic intevention and being prepared to perform are not the same thing.

With that in mind I’m going to begin experimenting with some highly constrained live interaction with training partners who I trust. My primary coach, Gavin Corbe at Black Box Grappling Club, will help me make necessary adjustments so I can move forward carefully. I’m sure we’ll both learn something as we journey through the process.

I’ll be sure to share how we use those games to progress.

Start Paddling

The transition from injured to performance isn’t marked by a clear border crossing. It’s a series of micro experiments. Each time I shift or progress I’m not just testing my rib, I’m probing the entire system’s readiness.

You don’t wait for the tide to be perfect to get in the water you just need to know which way it’s moving. For now, back to paddling.

Thanks for reading,

Rob