Finish Armbars with Less Strength & Less Injuries to Training Partners 

I'd love to hear a good conversation between Eugene and Dr. Mike (Israetel, I believe)! A good conversation about continuing good strength training while also getting BJJ training as well as preventing and rehabbing injuries. A good science-based approach really helps.

I appreciate the follow up on this Chewy! You’re absolutely right that the ONLY place to break the grip is at the defender’s hands-not at the elbow… (which would be physically impossible!) However, I’d still like to add that in this injury, I don’t think it’s best to think of only the attacking person as “causing” it. It is the defense of the person with the tear that is at fault as well. We need to be aware of what we can do more safely as defenders in this position as well, and not only expect our opponent to take care of us. The reality is that without an extremely hyper-tensed muscle on the part of the defender, it is just extremely unlikely for a tear to occur from this angle. These kinds of tears almost always happen upon an explosive muscle contraction on the part of the person who experiences the tear. People tear their own bicep and pec tendons all the time with simple body weight and barbell exercises-no tugging partner required. All it requires is that the person experiencing the tear create a greater instantaneous force than their tendon can handle when in an awkward position. Simply NOT tensing your pec muscle when in this position should make a pec tear practically impossible. …And fortunately, there’s practically no reason to strongly tense your pec muscle at all in this position! One answer is simply to tap… but you don’t necessarily even have to do that. You can defend this position fully with a relaxed pec! The irony is that *no pec muscle strength is required to keep your opponent from breaking your grip if they are simply tugging at your elbow*. Your pec can be completely relaxed and they’ll never break your grip that way. Why? Because a human being cannot break the “grip” of where your forearm attaches to your humerus. That would be insane! It would literally require that their forearm somehow slice your elbow in half. I don’t care how big and strong they are, that’s just not how any of this works! The ONLY place you can break the grip is at the hands. The “grip” of your elbow joint will not break, *unless the attacker is literally able to sever the defender’s arm at the elbow joint!* If you are hoping to break your opponent’s grip at the elbow, I hope you brought a hack saw with you! 😅 Anyway, you’re 100% right that the attacking partner shouldn’t explosively yank at the elbow. It’s bad form, it stands no chance of actually breaking the lock of the hands, and perhaps it increases the likelihood the defender will be inspired to defend unintelligently out of ego. That said, as defenders, we should be sure NOT to explosively yank back. We have a major part to play in this. And it’s a part we have full control over. There’s absolutely no benefit in yanking back, as they can’t break the lock of our hands that way, and it only increases our risk of injury-for no added survivability in the position. In fact, if the attacker did everything “wrong”, but the defender did his part right, by keeping a relaxed pec, this injury should be practically impossible. Meanwhile, the attacker could do everything correctly as described here, and the defender could STILL experience a tear if they do their part wrong by unnecessarily tensing and yanking on their side. I’m glad you’re doing your part to encourage attackers to attack more intelligently! But I think it’s important to let defenders know about their equally unnecessary part in this, if we really want to reduce the injury rate from this position. Thanks for the video, and I hope both attackers AND defenders can learn from this. Maybe sometime you can do a video on the ways we can injure ourselves by defending poorly, and include a mention of this? (You’ve probably made enough dedicated videos on this topic already!) PS: Special caution to those on TRT or other steroids, especially when you are first starting them. You are likely at a greater risk of these kinds of injuries. These kinds of “supplements” can increase your ability to instantly recruit muscle fibers, and your overall muscular strength, at a much faster rate than you can increase tendon strength. Also, a special note to those who have developed the ability to exert lots of explosive strength from past athletic experience, but have fallen away from regular strength training activities in recent years. Both these groups are more likely to experience these tears because they are more likely to be able to exert instantaneous force that their tendons can’t handle. (Unfortunately, these are also quite possibly two of the groups most likely to engage in a fruitless and unnecessary tugging battle out of sheer ego 😅 So be warned, and be smart!)

I love this channel so bad, because of these important details that will prevent so many people to get hurt. Thank you so much, guys for this video 👍

No matter what intensity I’m going, I will always finish a submission with care and control, I don’t always know my partner’s range of motion, and I don’t want to rely on them to always tap at the right time, so my goal is to maintain control, and finish slow on any submission I do.

Pec major and bicep tear from an arm bar when I was a newest white belt. I was rolling with a purple belt and he was working very slow and methodical, I believe the injury came from an old injury when I was younger and never had it resolved. Months of rehab and rebuilding. It suck lol but still training and enjoying the blue belt journey.

Great video, can you do one on labral tears..

Got my peck torn like this a few years ago. Was mh pectoral minor muscle. I never went to the DR. Cost me about 7 months of training

What is… “my jiu jitsu is terrible?” “That’s correct!” “Great. Thank you, Alex. I’ll take Failing At Jiu Jitsu for $400.”

Thanks for the video. I tor my pec last year and had surgery

The focus should be on breaking the grips *then* extending the arm.

My shoulders have calcification in the joints, arthritis, bone spurs, and a labrum that never properly healed. How do I fix myself?

Or… you let them get the arm bar tap and restart. Andy stumpf talks about this all the time, we are playing a game injuries like these are ego driven

What's he in jail for he seems like a cool dude lol