Last year, I published what became the most-viewed article on my site: “Jiu-Jitsu Is Destroying Your Body, Here’s Why”
It was also the most commented-on and controversial piece I’ve written in over a decade of publishing articles on BJJ strength and conditioning.
Some readers thanked me for putting into words what they had instinctively felt for years. Others argued that BJJ isn’t the problem—rather, it’s a lack of understanding about how to properly care for the body.
Today, I’m breaking down one of the biggest reasons grapplers accumulate damage over time—the Cumulative Injury Cycle—and how you can escape it to prolong your BJJ career.
What Is the Cumulative Injury Cycle?
The Cumulative Injury Cycle describes how small, untreated injuries eventually lead to chronic pain, movement dysfunction, and more severe injuries over time.
This cycle happens when athletes ignore minor aches, train through pain, or fail to address underlying movement dysfunctions.
When an injury or pain develops, the body compensates by altering movement patterns. These compensations create muscle tightness, weakness, and imbalances, increasing the risk of re-injury or new injuries elsewhere.
Here’s how it plays out step by step:
1️⃣ Tissue trauma – Overuse, strain, or impact causes damage.
2️⃣ Inflammation – The body responds with swelling and pain.
3️⃣ Muscle spasms – Muscles tighten to protect the injured area.
4️⃣ Adhesions (muscle knots) – Scar tissue forms, limiting mobility.
5️⃣ Altered neuromuscular control – The nervous system rewires movement patterns to avoid pain.
6️⃣ Muscle imbalances – Some muscles become overactive while others weaken, increasing injury risk.
Then the cycle repeats.
So how do you break free?
How to Stop the Cumulative Injury Cycle
The first thing is recognizing the warning signs. Almost every grappler experiences some level of pain—especially competitors. Very few people train feeling 100% all the time.
But ignoring chronic pain—pain that lasts longer than three months or keeps coming back—is a mistake. It leads to worsening imbalances and more serious injuries.
Step 1: Activate the Parasympathetic Nervous System for Recovery
The parasympathetic nervous system controls rest, digestion, and recovery. When your body is constantly stressed—whether from training, injury, or overuse—the sympathetic system (fight-or-flight) takes over, preventing proper healing.
Chronic tension can remain even after an injury heals because the body keeps muscles tight as a protective mechanism. Recovery-focused breathing drills can shift the body into a parasympathetic state and relieve this tension.
Some people have had success with myofascial release, rolling on massage balls and rollers to relieve tension in the muscles. You can also roll out the areas of the pecs, stomach, lats, and ribs to help loosen the breathing muscles for deeper breathing.
Always use a cooldown after training, focusing on deep breathing, and try foam rolling before bed along with some relaxation breathing to promote the parasympathetic system before a good 8 hours of sleep.
Step 2: Restore Relative Motion Between Joints
Regaining natural movement patterns is one of the most important steps to breaking the injury cycle.
When your body develops compensatory tension, joints lose relative motion—meaning, instead of moving freely, they become locked together, leading to stiffness and poor force distribution.
For example, if your hip lacks mobility, your entire pelvis moves as one unit instead of allowing individual bones to rotate. This forces your lower back to take on excessive stress instead of your glutes, increasing injury risk.
You can restore relative motion between joints by creating space and relieving tension with breathing drills while holding specific positions that bias proper joint function.
An example of this is the 90/90 Hip Lift with slides for better hip relative motion and Crab Breathing for shoulder mobility.
Step 3: Strengthen Weak Muscles with Isometrics
Once you create space and mobilize joints, the next step is strengthening weak muscles to reinforce proper movement.
Dysfunctional movement happens when the wrong muscles are doing the work. If weak muscles can’t handle the load, stronger ones compensate—creating further imbalances.
A simple example of this is with the row. If your traps are overactive and your lats are weak or inhibited, you will shrug the weight up when you row instead pulling with your back.
I like to use isometrics to really light up the correct muscles for a given movement to make a strong neurological connection between my muscles and brain.
In the row example, you could hold the mid point of a row for 30-90 seconds, keeping the tension on your lat and back. If you feel it go into your neck or trap, cut the set.
I typically use bodyweight exercises for this step, and use intense focus to keep the tension on the right muscles.
FINAL THOUGHTS
After 15 years on the mat, I’ve experienced the cumulative injury cycle more than I’d like.
Poor hip mobility led to two torn meniscus, which then altered my gait and resulted in herniated discs and chronic lower back pain.
But it was these injuries that ultimately forced me to understand this cycle and find solutions to break it.
Learning how to promote recovery through breathing has been a game-changing tool for resolving chronic pain and relieving tension.
Understanding biomechanics and how joints are supposed to rotate relatively to each other has completely restructured how I think about mobility training.
Adding isometrics have been essential for repatterining movement and building strength around injuries while improving my BJJ longevity.
BJJ doesn’t have to destroy your body. But if you train the way most people do—ignoring pain, training through dysfunction, and failing to recover properly—it absolutely will.
Train smarter. Address the root cause. Break the cycle.
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