EUGENIZATION.

It seems that injuries are a way of life for a combat athlete. Or for a mere dabbler, for that matter. The latest incarnation of acute trauma occurred during a spirited session of grappling at the good ol’ New York Health and Racquet Club.

Here are some small lessons I’ve learned from that day:

1) A 115 pound weight disadvantage is probably too much. Just maybe.

2) Don’t fight when you’re exhausted (unless you have to, of course).

3) Just because you are “just rolling and having fun” doesn’t mean the other guy is too. In fact, he may actually be trying to kill you.

and most importantly (and I’ve been told this a BILLION times by everyone):

4) Don’t roll (hard) with anybody you don’t know.

Well, long story short, I can’t be mad at anyone but myself. After all, I broke the rules. So let’s walk through the mechanism of injury and see if we can’t get a bead on what happened.

How: We were in a weird north/south position, as I had him in my guard. It probably would’ve looked quite discomforting to any homophobes spectating. I was working my way to taking my opponent’s back, when he caught my leg, put me in his guard, and began cranking away (a bit of imagination is required to visualize this).

Let me interrupt for a moment here to set the stage. At this point my opponent and I had been rolling for a good five minutes; he had attempted several leg and ankle locks and failed, and also nearly caught me in an armbar. I had attempted many armbars but did not pursue them to completion because I feared I would be unable to extend his elbow under control and would thus hurt him if I used any power. I was also pretty tired at this point having played 6 straight rolls with a different opponent prior to this bout. I should’ve had a clue that my current opponent was getting frustrated in my guard when he picked me up and slammed me.

Man, I am really looking stupid at this point.

Well, now that you know the backstory, let’s get back to the north/south-double guard situation. So he is cranking away on my foot, but I’m feeling pretty safe, since he doesn’t appear to have anything, and I don’t feel any crazy pressure on my leg/knee/ankle/foot. My opponent began to transition into what I thought was a kneebar, so I rolled to take it away, thus bending my knee slightly - which put me in a great position for a footlock/toehold type thingy, since my opponent was still apparently trying to twist my foot off. As I stopped rolling along the floor, my opponent gave a mighty twist, and “POP.”

Folks, if you roll with someone and you slap a submission on them, please give them time to tap out. I’d like to mention that it hurt less than one of Francisco’s anklelocks, and he’s a purple belt that outweighs me by 80 pounds. Initially, I thought my ankle joint just popped. After the fact is when the ankle began to hurt. A lot.

The first thing that ran into my head was, “Well, there goes my chances at hitting a 540 this season.” There was some swelling, nothing incredible, and extreme tenderness. I could not support my weight on it; in fact, I could not put any weight on it. My colleagues were kind enough to get me some ice packs, which reduced the pain and swelling considerably.

So, the mechanism of injury: plantar flexion and hyper-inversion of the foot, causing some acute trauma to the lateral ligaments and connective tissue of the ankle. When I got home, I performed an anterior drawer test for the ankle, and it demonstrated some laxity. Indeed, if I plant my foot and draw my leg posteriorly (lean back on my leg), I feel unsteady, like the leg is “slipping” off of my ankle. Oh, and there’s some pain too when I do that. But aside from that, things are looking fine - the pain is minimal (unless I do what I described above), there is some minor swelling around the lateral malleolus of the tibia, and some very slight discoloration (no bruising or dark spots). I can plant my foot normally, and support all my weight on it. There is some compromised Range of Motion in plantar flexion (due to pain) and dorsiflexion (due to the swelling). I feel there has been some adaptive shortening of the Achilles tendon, but perhaps this is due to it just feeling tight.

So, my Cracker-Jack box diagnosis? I think I have a Grade 2 (partial) tear of the Anterior Talofibular ligament. I haven’t done a Talar tilt test yet because the anterior drawer test has a very high percentage of false-positive results, especially if performed less than 48 hours post-injury (which it was). Since I can ambulate without any trouble or pain, I hope it is not as severe as I think. Either way, the treatment is the same, and I have already begun to rehab it via strength training for the joint, none of which is painful, save compressive exercises(such as the leg press), which I have eliminated.

Hey, I’ve just committed a Cardinal Personal Trainer Sin - diagnosis (gasp!).

Well, it looks like a 2-4 week layoff - sigh. At least winter is still (sadly) 3 months away.

8/30/05 update - Thanks to Dr. Warden for spotting my little mistake - my ankle was in inversion and internally rotated.