How to Train Martial Arts Without Getting Brain Damage
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- čas přidán 1. 06. 2024
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Welcome to today's video where I, Jack Krucial, an injury rehab and high-performance consultant specialising in combat sports, share my insights on training in martial arts with a focus on preserving your brain health. Through years of experience, I've developed a three-step formula that allows athletes to excel without risking their long-term well-being.
What You'll Learn:
Choosing the Right Gym: I'll guide you on how to pick a martial arts gym that not only matches your goals but also prioritizes your safety.
Smart Sparring Techniques: Discover intelligent sparring strategies that minimize the risk of brain damage while maximizing skill development.
Optimal Nutrition & Supplementation: Learn about the critical role of hydration, nutrition, and supplements like creatine in protecting your brain health.
Why This Video?
Make informed decisions about your martial arts training with a focus on long-term health.
Understand the balance between rigorous training and brain safety.
Get practical tips that can be applied immediately to your training regimen.
Subscribe for More: If you value a training approach that prioritizes health and performance, don't forget to subscribe for more content on safe and effective martial arts training.
Whether you're stepping into a gym for the first time or you're a seasoned fighter, this video will equip you with the knowledge to protect your most valuable asset-your brain-while pursuing the art of combat sports.
Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
1:00 - The Difficulty of Getting Started
1:30 - Muhammad Ali's Struggle
2:00 - Boxing Gym Hard Sparring
2:20 - Dutch Kickboxing Sparring
2:30 - Golden Era of The UFC
3:00 - Concerns with Combat Sports Training
3:40 - Modern Era of Combat Sports
3:45 - Max Holloway
4:56 - Conor McGregor
6:27 - Gym Selection
11:35 - Sparring
19:55 - Hydration
27:21 - Creatine
31:00 - Summary of Action Items
34:00 - The Elite Performers Club - Sport
Well said! 👍
Thanks brother - check Twitter, DM'd you
Gym selection is KEY. I've seen gyms focused on churning out fighters rather than developing long-term athletes. Those new to the sport must understand this distinction and prioritize their long-term well-being when choosing where to train. Some gyms border on cult-like, where the expectation is you sacrifice everything for the cause.
Absolutely - great input & everyones goals are different. Professional combat is high risk high reward.
But I train as a businessman primarily - and don't want to lose my faculties in the process.
Yup, choosing a gym is like an employer. If the training style ain't for you leave. Many types of training styles out there.
@@__________o____________ Another great analogy
Chuteboxe go brrrrr
Well put 👌
Sparring wars are stupid, they suck the fun out of training. You should feel safe at a gym and be able to have a laugh from time to time. Light sparring drills allow for this. Good video!
'Preciate it
100% man, it's what kept me away from training and having fun, that stuff just gave me too much anxiety
Learning how to breakfall is very important in terms of safety. One of the main things you're trying to be certain of is that you're not falling back and busting your head on the concrete. Learning when and what type of breakfall should be part of that defensive responsibility.
back in the 1980s my instructor always said. " Train smart.protect your brain & joints, spar light , fight hard.".
I think it is still useful to have sporadic hard sparring sessions. The thing is that you have to have experienced what it is to absorb a full on blow and have your arm cranked to determinate if you will pursue in competing and if you like hiiting people and getting hit, or you will be a martial artist with no pretention of ever fighting.
Yes, this!
But nobody can ever predict or imagine the depth of pain caused to themselves and their loved ones to lose brain function. To no longer think clearly, to have poor emotional control, memory impairment, the inability to care for loved ones like before, a higher risk of dementia, and so on
Spot on. I bounced around a few gyms prior to settling on my current one. Funny enough, I started with a couple that were closest to my home, then decided on one thats further away w/ a very strong coach, relaxed but focused training environment, and an emphasis on technical sparring. This is some of the most actionable advice I've seen in the MMA community, well done!
Good to hear brother. Means a lot - always trying to keep it actionable.
You can spar , just keep it light, it’s about movement training, timing and reflexes and dealing with moving targets, you don’t have to smash each other in the head and body in ego driven gym wars , that behavior needs to be avoided at all costs
Funny that doesn’t work out when you are new and someone with more experience will tee up on you.
@@andrewtanczyk4009Bad gym or bad communication 💯
@@andrewtanczyk4009 nobody should be teeing up on you , especially if your new or a beginner
the only thing in my opinion is safe to go 100% on during sparring are head movements and footwork those are abt the only things you can do full force without seriously injuring yourself or your partner.
I'm 57 and still train Muay Thai and no sparring because it almost always ends in a fight. I sparred plenty back in the day and have defended myself on the streets just fine.
Wow , sir you surely are wise .
I have following goals with martial arts: Cardio and be able to defend myself
The only problem is that when you are a novice sparring not much you can do when haven’t got the skills. Yet you said it at
9:20
It’s all about having a good trainer to teach you defense first. Thanks. Great advice.
I like Scott Sievewright's method. you start sparring from day one with no head contact. Only when Scott sees you have the control to spar light you can do head contact (if you want to). I think he also does some in-house competitions to prepare people who want to compete.
sparring is the only thing that actually gives you proper defence so doing this a lot will let you get hit way less if you put most of your focus on the not getting hit part.
I've also seen an interview where a reporter asked Seanchai how he trained at jocky gym when he was young. he said the only thing we did all day every day was sparring.
I am not an expert, but one thing I do know is that you NEED TO TRAIN THE NECK, its just overall better in all aspects of life to have a strong neck...
What about sleep apnea
@@Lily-lc9sz That is a valid concern, many athletes like wrestlers and footballers who have trained their neck heavily have experienced issues with sleep apnea, but along with a thick neck maybe blocking your airway, there are tons of other factors which can cause sleep apnea like a heavy weight for your height(high BMI), improper sleeping posture, past smoking habits and many other factors too. But even then if we are worried about it, we don't have to train for extreme intensity like many wrestlers, we also don't have to train for hypertrophy like other bodybuilders do, we can instead train for a certain amount of strength which means you would have muscular neck but then it would not stick out like a wrestlers neck or bodybuilders roid junkie neck...
Well said. Extremely important information in this video. I've seen gyms and fellow coaches, who put their athletes to spar regularly very hard. A more relaxed approach with a clever combination of training, nutrition, stretching, recovery, a positive environment to grow, freedom of movement, and a holistic approach, is simply the future. Now we have a clear understanding of all the modern research etc. If we look at nature we see cats playing, eating, and sleeping 3/4 of the day, and when it comes to a need they are ready to hunt or to fight in nanoseconds. Dogs as well same approach, sharpen their skills through harmless playing, eating, resting, and running, and when there is a need to hunt or to protect a person they just give their 100%, perfect killing performance.
Essential watching
Legend
Good video I will take action now since I started boxing 6 months ago I didn’t know how bad cte is I will be doing more technical sparring than hard sparring
Solid info, especially on hydration. Thanks.
Great video
10:55
Not just visit multiple gyms but if you have to change gyms for your safety then do that. I must have been at least a dozen gyms over the years.
Quality video. So much good information here. Really appreciate it.
Appreciate your support Coby.
Great vid
totally agree.
this video genuinely helped me SO much
I'm glad mate. Happy training.
Wow, Very insightful video! 👍🏽
Preciate it
Im a beginner, thank you for this
Sparring is crucial. Avoid brain damage by sparring with people who have control and common sense.
100% - sometimes harder to find than you'd expect.
@@combattherapist There are groups of guys that I refuse to spar with because they're stupid and they take unnecessary risks. If you want to be effective in any type of combat its necessary to spar, though I agree it's not easy to find good partners.
What an excellent and complete review! Your work will potentially prevent thousands from incurring acute or chronic training martial arts.
Hope so, thanks
Why didn’t this get more views
Soon
Because it hasn’t even been uploaded for a day
Bc it’s a new video?
You could also just take a grappling martial art like wrestling or judo. In a one-on-one fight grappling martial arts are actually more effective.
Great video, I use a 6 week peaking cycle of sparring with one heavy kickboxing and heavy boxing session through the week when training for upcoming fights. This will be low volume and fight specific. No place in doing 8 x 3’s heavy sparring when fighting 3 x 3’s etc. also will reduce this two weeks before the fight to prevent injuries etc.
Sounds like you have a good setup brother
Have you seen Jesse Enkamp's video "Sparring is dead" Yours and his video go really well together! Edit: The title of video is now "Something WEIRD Is Happening In Martial Arts..."
Also considering the fact that the was majority of ufc fighter is on gear gyms should opt for spreading the truth to as many young athletes as posible so they can save as many kids as posible
¡Exelente video! Qué bueno sería que los dueños de gimnasios y profesores de artes marciales vienen este video. Gracias.
34:37 34:37
34:37 34:3 34:37 7
Unfortunately, a lot of my friends have attended BJ schools and because everybody wants to roll hard against each other they all come into work the next morning, hip problems, knee problems, shoulder problems, elbow problems. I love Brazilian jiu-jitsu but I don’t want to sacrifice my body. I have three children and keeping up with them is important.
Good stuff. Curious if you have any info about using Creatine to rehydrate after a weight cut?
No - I'd look up the fight dietician for that
This isn't novel nor an advancement in training methodology but rather the way Martial Arts has been trained traditionally over years. Old school boxing manuals also emphasize instructionals on t techniques and functionality with limited sparring.
Good reminder video tho
Most of the boxing gyms that I went to in my youth had a toxic machismo culture with mostly bro-science.
Glad to see things are changing nowadays, at peast in the US.
Tremendous video, I've been following you on X for a hot minute. I'd like to hear your take on jiu-jitsu (grappling) being a good base for longevity. It occurred to me that if we're trying to get hours in the training room without damaging our brains, then grappling provides a means of going near 100%, with mostly realistic responses, allowing someone to rack up the experience - assuming that some striking is mixed in.
I have some videos in the pipeline that cover this in more detail.
Grappling has higher joint orthopaedic risk compared to striking in my experience.
But in regards to brain health, it's true the fact you can train very hard multiple times per week with near zero brain risk (unless doing wrestling takedowns where accidents can happen).
Doing my best to keep video quality high - making these in between servicing clients at the highest level which is my primary priority.
But have some great topics in the pipeline.
About the orthopedic risks you mentioned. Is that primarily caused by submissions such as arm bars that put pressure on your joints? Or the compound movements like takedowns, suplexes, knee drops etc like you see in wrestling.
I’ve gotten more long term injuries from grappling than striking training. It all depends on training partners. Spazy behavior and lack of control is what caused a lot of my injuries.
The idea is you don’t need to be going 100% for most situations, grappling and striking, except when really doing true pressure testing, which should happen, but at the same time should be minimized.
I’m not saying not to use muscles to make a technique work, but prioritize on structure breaking, putting your weight in just the right spot, and just overall being efficient.
Skipping on functional strength training and flexibility will also get you hurt long term and not letting your body rest.
Also, it’s ok to refuse training with someone if they have a bad track record of hurting you or anyone else.
@@StimmedPenguin This is a great point and something I will be discussing more in the future (especially around injuries).
Age 46..bjj and tkd hobbyist..I sparr at 50 percent and make sure my partner knows expectations 💯
Really good insights. Im thinking about starting boxing. But wondering if even at a light/moderate level of sparring will also trouble your brain. Do helmets even help?
They are moreso beneficial to minimize getting cuts
Best sparring approach are the sitjaopho twins in Thailand..
Hey man what goin on with this website? Idk if you’ll get this but I’m very interested and I think I got a decent amount to offer. Thankyou awesome vid
About 3 years ago I recorded a video
Aikido and "No Sparing" fallacy. How is Sparing Misinterpreted...
And it's interesting how more and more professional coaches and fighters seem to be coming up with the same ideas 🙂
I feel PLEASED 👍😎💯
Glad to hear mate- this video is gaining traction so it's good to see the message spread
great video but a lot of fighters get CTE from fights, not from training. I used to be into watching MMA, but I cringe when I see former MMA fighters in their late 30s/40s doing the bare knuckles boxing because they are broke/don't have many other options to make quick income (but I also realize some of them enjoy it). Its just disturbing to watch though, you can see the results of them getting bashed in the head too many times (especially when they do the interviews). That is why I like the martial arts matches of Kudo where they wear a full helmet, its still exciting to watch.
Being in many street fights as young as 12 (real fights!), in Bosnia where so called bullying is normal pecking order of things i had been kicked in my head like it was Soccer ball as hard as possible.
I never got K.O'd but over period of years and many fights lost or than won I have never connected the dots to my anger and mood swings in life.
Extreme depression for almost 7 years untill I think the brain either reweird it's self or healed.
MRI's later showed mild TBI years later.
My whole life I have been angry and irritable i think this is why.
I'm over 50 and trained since my early 20's. I've never liked sparring as you can't balance out impact/aggression between your sparring partners. I found that my personality needs a switch before I can become aggressive and that was not triggered in sparring against someone I knew and liked. I often wonder if I was back in my late teen's and wanted to enter competition with today's opportunities how I would have fared in training.
I would say you have a lot more resources & smarter methods of training & probably would have faired much better. There's a lot more money and growth in the sport now.
@5:54 Rich statement. Being able to maintain on health & longevity and having that coincide with learning how to fight has always been a part of the traditional martial arts. It is the competitive sports cultural mindset of America (which permeated into Western Europe & much of the western world) which ridicule & suppress the health aspect of traditional martial arts in favor of the combat aspect which is the cause of the health problems of the competitive martial arts practitioners. The premise behind hard sparring was that it’s an essential method to pressure test your skills and that if you only do light sparring, it will not fully simulate the environment of the ring. This pseudoscience may no longer be politically viable to propagate in boxing & striking-based mma practice, but this sort of pseudoscientific reasoning is still being propagated in sports-marketed-as-self-defence systems like BJJ where many coaches will still assert that doing bjj competitions is imperative to prepare a student to defend themselves on the streets (with the same “pressure test” reasoning).
And it is only because the health problem aspects of competitive martial arts is beginning to become too big to ignore which is why the conversation in the competitive sports martial arts world is beginning to shift to incorporate what traditional martial arts have been practicing all along.
Essentially, it’s a trade off. If you want to be the “best of the best” in your sports competition, you can only achieve that without noticeable serious adverse health affects if you have the genetics to back you up physically; and even then, it will only peak in your favor until you pass the age of 25 and your body begins to physically decline. 99.99% for people striving to be the “best of the best” in their sports competition will eventually need to make trade offs with their own health & well being. It’s the nature of competing with other people (as opposed to competing with yourself) and wanting to win over other people. It’s the incentive for people getting into roids; if all your competitors are taking roids and you don’t, you don’t win.
On the flip side, if your only competitor is yourself (specifically from yesterday) and your only concern is whether or not you’re meeting standards (i.e: you are meeting the goals you set for yourself, which you hopefully set using the SMART goals criteria which is often used in fitness but almost never used in competitive sports martial arts training), then maintaining your health would be more sustainable when you train martial arts.
Whats the show at 2:05 looks sick
Vikings
Karate Shotokan with their Light Spar are right after all these years and Full contact Spar only brings CTE and Brain Damage ?
Very informative video, but I miss any information about shime waza/choke holds. I went from Karate and Kickboxing to traditional Jujutsu and Kobudo to find more knowledge about self defence and weapons. Training was very safe and disciplined and we NEVER choke our training partner out. My teacher was very clear about that. Yet I find tons of videos and hear from other martial artists that they regularly choke each other unconscious in training! What is your opinion about that?
If you’re the one being choked, it’s your responsibility to let go of your ego and tap. If they’re tapping & they’re still holding the choke, that’s def a problem and the coach should be stepping in.
@mvc5181 If your ego stops you from tapping out in a TRAINING session, you're definitely not training for self-defense. If you're willing to take more damage in training than from an average self-defense situation, have your brain checked.
@@cyberserk5614 I can’t tell if you’re arguing with what I said, but I can tell you haven’t witnessed much BJJ training 😂.. there’s a ton of ego in any physical sport or martial art, it’s just up to the athlete or practitioner to set it aside when it’s necessary.
Can you do a video on hand speed ?
Potentially - it's not top of priority but I will likely get to something like that in the future.
unless your nearest gym is seriously terrible or you want to go pro, you should probably just go to your nearest gym. You're going to be going there multiple times a week so any time saved travelling will add up enormously. Plus most gyms for bjj/boxing/kickboxing/mma are good enough.
dont be fooled YOU WILL get hurt and you will get brain damage, if this is something you don't want just don't pursue a career in this sport
Prize fighting in mma or any martial art sport with money on the line don’t have to be for everyone especially when they’re cheaters of steroid and drug users in prize fighting combat so when one chooses not to train martial arts for prize fighting and just for self defense are smart
training martial arts just for self defense to use when needed and have fun learning yourself through martial arts which is perfectly fine.
Great video. But I just have some feedback, this video could have been 10-15 minutes, which is a better sweet spot and will get more views for this type of content
George Ferman sent me here💪🏼
Big love George
George rules
Is there any concern about permanent damage to internal organs from the hard sparring on the body?
When I say 'hard sparring' to the body - it's just 'harder'.
There is a fine balance & a lot of conditioning methods utilise a gradual build up of shot intensity to the body.
Unless you are preparing for competition intensity sparring, your partners shouldn't be throwing 100% shots at your organs.
Thank you for the reply
I don't see it. Until you've been caught hard and sharp by a stiff shot on
The chin, the nose, behind the ear, the gut and especially liver you will be going into your first fights at a massive disadvantage
Been fighting, working as a sparring as a sparring partner and coaching for my entire adult life. Good full bar headgear exists for a reason for newer guys
Until your arms and shoulders have been deadened in the ring also. You're going to panic when it happens in a fight
As long as none of us are headhunting everything else is fine
That's the premise of this video.
If you have competitive goals, you need to spar. Period.
It's the best way to simulate, I also advocate for 1-2x hard sparring sessions per week if you are someone who has competition based goals.
Not everyone wants to do this - but wants to get the upsides of martial arts, so I am offering a solution to this by curating this video.
Remids me of oldschool approach to soviet boxing style.
Easiest way to combat this would be to just not allow hits in the direction of the face during sparring.
Reply when this blows up
Punching heavy things that barely move like heavy bags can give brain damage!
Look at your grappling too… many people don’t notice how many times they post with their head, hit their head rolling and so on… no benign.
I feel like ultimately this video is irresponsible because it doesn't really circumvent the underlying mechanic that is actually responsible to cte which is blows absorbed to the head on a regular basis. Many studies show that subconcussive blows taken with regularity are the ones that cause CTE concussions and similar brain injuries are not required whatsoever for the condition to develop. That's not to say these aren't good practices in terms of giving yourself the best chance to avoid serious brain injuries but the risk is still there even if everything in this video is done to the letter.
The Brain is not designed to be hit hard or repeatedly, even heading the ball in soccer where you dont even feel shook causes serious brain damage later in life.Nine out of the eleven of the English football team in the 1970s died prematurely of brain trauma.Blows to the head from even light strikes shake the brain significantly more than a soccer ball on the forehead.All head sparing will cause some brain damage , you just have to choose the level of risk, you feel comfortable with, but everyone will suffer some defecit and for some it wil be catastrophic.You can reduce the risk of catastrophic brain damage, but even light sparring does not eliminate it.
Source?
Exactly, source pls there's many athletes(including soccer ones). Who have lived long lives and now with addvancements in science it's much betterm@@GAtTheTop
@@GAtTheTop trust me bro
I have played soccer and muyai thai and i can tell you a ball will hit you much harder than a 16 ounce glove in light sparring
Never seen an amateur geting CTE this is a very rare condition to be honest, it usualy only happen with high level pros becasue they live off the sport, it is like people like to advertise this desease just to get views, there should be waaaaaay more concern for other aspects of the athlets health like their shins and knees for example
Just joined a grappling art wrestling bjj luta Livre sambo shuai jiao judo
Just do Judo instead of Boxing
People hate the traditional martial arts for one step fighting but it's no different than Drilling in a boxing gym or in MMA The impetus is and has always been to mitigate injury.
Without any heavy sparring u cant get really get ready for a competitive fight unless you've already had many of em.
All the people mentioned here are grizzled veterans with dozens of pro fights and most likely over 100 hours of heavy sparring during their lifetime
Absolutely- which is why the reccomendation in the video is to hard spar if you have competitive goals - just do it smart.
All of the fighter who say hard soaring is useless have themself got to that position by doing it, its not Important what you say on top of the mountain but what you did to climb it. Name me one guy who never ever spared and got somewhere
No where in this video does it say not to spar mate.
@@combattherapist touching is not sparing, you have to have some fear of getting hit
@@lunox69good luck with that mentality, you don’t need to get punched in the head repeatedly to possess the heart or ability to take damage in a fight and keep going, getting hit is inevitable the idea is too not allow yourself to get hit too much, too often, there is nothing to gain from taking damage in training
Great video but I will like there are a lot of times you repeat yourself over and over, almost word to word...
I'm sure you have thrown the same roundhouse kick over & over - repetition is how you educate.
Jesus Christ is the Savior
Well apperently here we still didnt get the message. Light sparring = you are a wuss. So you need to hard spar all the time, the more colorful bruises the more badass you are ... I admit, this is why I stopped.
Train Smater Not Harder. 🫵😊