Full Transcript Introductions and Background 0:03 Hey guys, I'm Dr. 0:04 Megan Jimenez. 0:04 I am an orthopedic surgeon in Jujitsu Brown Belt. 0:07 Im sitting here with my good friend and partner, Dr Chris Hirasti. 0:12 People usually just call him Doc Chris and that's way easier than his last name. 0:15 He is an Orthopedics surgeon that specializes in hip, shoulder, and knee. 0:21 And he attended medical school at Emory as well. 0:23 He did his residency at Tulane and is an Atlanta top doc. 0:27 For his jiu-jitsu accolades, he's a third degree black belt under Roberto Traven. 0:32 he is a three time IBJJF master world champion and three-time pan IBjjf world-champion. 0:37 And in 1988, He was a Georgia state wrestling champion. 0:40 So he got, and I really trimmed that down, but he has just a great guy and i'm really excited to have him here because he was an orthopedic surgeon and 0:48 an amazing jitsu practitioner. 0:50 Thanks for being on. 0:51 Yeah, thank you for having me. 0:52 So the first thing I wanted to ask you, Dr. 0:54 Chris, was what got you into jiu-jitsu and what you got into orthopedics? 0:57 Okay, so as far as orthopaedics goes, I come from a family of physicians so my dad and grandparents were all physicians. 1:07 So that was kind of the path for me. 1:09 And then I took a little bit of a circuitous route. 1:13 I went to med school, I majored in international studies, not really wanting to do medicine at that time. 1:20 and I ended up graduating and with that degree I actually just played in the band for three years. 1:25 What instrument? 1:26 Guitar. 1:27 Nice. 1:28 So yeah, my interestingly enough, but the passion that I eventually had for jujitsu, I had four guitar first. 1:35 And so I played in a band called Eden that played all around Atlanta, all during college. 1:41 Do you still play? 1:43 So not really. 1:44 You have to choose one or the other. 1:46 Unfortunately, Seems like the jiu-jitsu kind of beats your hands up.
From Medicine to Orthopedics 1:52 I was wondering how you would play. 1:54 So it's hard to play guitar now. 1:56 Now, by the same token, I'm not going to make any excuses because if you Google Keith Richards' hands, they look worse than mine. 2:02 And he plays. 2:03 He's still touring the world. 2:07 Just put it down and I play every now and then. 2:12 So as far as orthopedics, I think that I pretty much always wanted to go into medicine. 2:17 I just don't think I was sort of mentally ready to, go through med school and everything. 2:21 So after being out of college a couple of years, went back to med School. 2:25 And when I went to Med school, knew I wanted do surgery. 2:29 It was just what type of surgery? 2:31 I thinking plastics, orthopaedics and neurosurgery. 2:34 Those were probably my top three. 2:39 a neurosurgeon after my first year of med school and I saw that all the patients went to the ICU and i thought you know this is not really what I want 2:49 to do and then plastics I think I'm just not so artistic not that that's not I kind of was drawn to orthopedics. 3:02 You know, played sports all my life. 3:05 Like I said, I was a wrestling state champ, so wrestling was my big sport in high school. 3:08 And just thought orthopaedics would be good. 3:10 I rotated with some orthupaedic in med school and really liked it, and so decided upon that. 3:19 And you were well into your job when you started Jiu-Jitsu, right? 3:22 Right. 3:22 So the interesting thing, so wrestling was my big sport. 3:25 Actually, my favorite sport was soccer. 3:28 And I loved playing soccer, I played soccer since I was like seven years old. 3:32 I love playing it, but I didn't have the best aptitude for it. 3:35 so I play for years and, you know, people who who hadn't been playing as long just naturally better, they had attributes, 3:45 They were real, faster and and just sort of better coordination. 3:49 We're just trying to take everybody out. 3:51 Yeah. 3:52 So I love playing soccer, but wrestling was something I had more of an aptitude for just pretty much since I started. 3:59 I was always it was the opposite of soccer where people who had been wrestling for you know, maybe seven or eight years when I started, 4:07 I was like in ninth grade in college and I already was beating them in maybe a year or so. 4:12 So it's just the same thing, just, you, know I had aptitude for it. 4:16 I wrestled all through high school and then wrested some for like intramural at college. 4:23 And the interesting thing about wrestling is that it is not like softball or baseball or soccer where you have like all these leads you can do as an adult. 4:33 I tell my kids pick up tennis or golf because it's easy to play for the rest of your life. 4:38 You know, you can always play that. 4:39 But there's not like, much wrestling around. 4:41 So I didn't even know about jiu-jitsu. 4:44 I did my residency and after I finished my presidency in 2007, I started practice here in Atlanta. 4:49 And I've always liked UFC, MMA. 4:52 Have always been a big fan. 4:53 Know I knew about Jiu Jitsu and saw that there was a Jujitsu gym near me.
Wrestling, UFC, and Discovering Jiu-Jitsu 4:58 Walked in. 5:00 And I was probably weighing 260, 270. I kind of overweight. 5:06 But still, I mean, you know, very big and strong and used to wrestling. 5:10 And so I went in there and there was this guy there who was maybe 140 pounds, 150 pounds who's the instructor. 5:18 I walked in like at an odd hour, and so there wasn't a class and he was just there. 5:23 We were talking and I was like, hey, can we, do you want to roll? 5:27 I don't know how it can. 5:27 It wasn' an aggressive thing like I'm going in, it was more like what is this? 5:32 And he volunteered to show me. 5:35 We rolled and I immediately threw him down and jumped on top of him and got triangles. 5:42 You got the take down though. 5:44 Yeah, so I could take him out and as soon as we got on the ground, he probably submitted me three times. 5:51 I'm sure I couldn't have rolled more than two or three minutes without completely dying. 5:55 So it was probably in three minute he submitted me three times. 5:57 I was like, this is amazing. 5:59 It's good you went back because some people have that experience and they're like no, there's no way. 6:03 No, I wasn't the opposite. 6:04 What is this? 6:05 What's this crazy thing that he's able to do? 6:08 So I got into it real heavy and I've got my blue belt in six months just because I am a wrestler. 6:15 I got into it mainly because of UFC. 6:18 I watched the very first UFC, I remember me and a bunch of college friends were getting together and we were at somebody's house, 6:26 he's like, hey, there's this thing on, it's where all these different styles are fighting. 6:31 In the beginning, people who are younger don't really realize what it was like. 6:40 You know, martial arts before UFC was Bruce Lee. 6:45 It was karate, it was Chuck Norris. 6:48 I mean, we kind of just assumed that These guys were the pinnacle, like just karate was the Pinnacle of martial arts. 6:55 There's no clue on how well it actually worked. 6:59 You just watched movies and people trained and that sort of thing. 7:02 But there wasn't really any proof of it. 7:06 It wasn' until UFC. 7:07 I mean, UFC just opened everybody's eyes as to what was effective and what wasn''t. 7:13 So yeah, I watched the first one and I was hooked. 7:16 And again, watch, i watched it at the time. 7:19 And watching it at the time, you know, there were eight competitors and you got these big sumo wrestler. 7:25 You got some guys who were like karate experts. 7:28 Uh, You've got Ken Shamrock, who looks muscle bound and is this shoot fighter. 7:33 And then you've hoist Gracie who's like 170 pounds. 7:37 At the it was like, when you're looking who is going to win, hoists would have been, nobody would've thought it. 7:44 It really was such a shock to see him win. 7:48 Well and how they came in too, right? 7:49 Like Shamrock's coming in with like a speedo and shoes and then you got Hoyst coming with a D. 7:56 But to actually watch it at that time, It really was quite a paradigm shift, just that one tournament, to see how... 8:05 And you know, I mean, the whole thing with the Gracies, Hickson was obviously the champ of the family and they purposely took Hoist because they were like, 8:12 well, yeah, he comes in, and he looks like a beast. 8:15 But they took the guy who looked smaller and had him do it. 8:19 And of course he beat everybody. 8:21 Cool. 8:22 And then, so you got your blue belt and then you, I know this has always been super impressive to me. 8:27 You earned your black belt in five years. 8:28 Yeah, actually about four and a half. 8:31 So I, you know, been training for 10 years and I've switched around schools a lot through my training and you did it in four-and-a-half, 8:38 right? 8:39 So how did you do that? 8:40 I mean, your family, kids at the time, young kids, a dog, probably were you building a house at that time? 8:46 Yeah. 8:47 We bought a household. 8:48 I started in 2007. Then in early 2012, I received my black belt and literally two months after I receive my Black Belt I won Master 3 Pan. 9:00 So, you know, it was I deserved the Black belt. 9:02 And of course I did it under Roberto Traven. 9:05 who I'm sure I am one of his quickest. 9:07 Now, he was a four-year black belt. 9:09 So, yeah. 9:11 But he's the pinnacle of instructors. 9:15 And so, you know, I definitely feel like I earned it. 9:18 It was surprise, but I feel I learned it, so how did I do it? 9:22 So I think the one thing was the base. 9:25 So, I've always wrestled. 9:26 And so I came in as a wrestler. 9:30 Everybody who does Jiu Jitsu knows what it's like to go with somebody who's a good wrestler, you know, they don't know Jujitsu, 9:36 but they're a handful. 9:38 I mean, the thing that happens with most wrestlers is they come in and immediately they can beat a blue belt.
Rapid Progress to Black Belt 9:47 They can be purple belts if they start on top. 9:50 And they can roll somewhat competitively with even brown and black belts. 9:55 And so what happens is you come in as a wrestler and all of a sudden you're beating all the white belts who've never done it before. 10:01 No matter, you can go on bottom, top, whatever, You just know how to grapple. 10:04 Then when it comes to blue belts, if you start on top you easily beat them. 10:08 If you star on the bottom it's more of an even roll. 10:10 and then purple belts if spare it on to you, can actually beat some. 10:13 So you get this sort of ego thing where I think very early on, you kind of think, okay, well, I'm this good at jiu-jitsu because I can roll with a brown 10:23 belt and hold my own if I, if i'm on top, and in a competition you can usually be on the top because you have the takedowns. 10:31 And people like to pull. 10:32 Yeah. 10:32 I mean, pet peeve of mine is people who always want to start on-top, but don't have take-downs because in training, fine, 10:40 You always start top. 10:42 But if you don' know take downs, you're never going to get there. 10:45 So I think that's not a good thing to do. 10:46 But anyway, as far as wrestlers go, if a wrestler gets to about a blue belt and commits to start learning jiu-jitsu and playing on bottom, 10:54 their progression is going be a lot better. 10:56 I've seen so many cases where you have guys who are really good wrestler who do very well up to know about purple belt, but they can't really compete with 11:03 the brown and black because you are not always going on top and sometimes you get swept. 11:07 And even a great wrestler, if they don't know a lot of Jiu Jitsu, are not that good, or not going to be able to stay on top against a black belt in D at least. 11:15 So I think the different things I did, you know, one, I was a wrestler at a good base, so I got my blue belt really quick. 11:21 The other thing is very early on, probably six months in, when I started I could roll with guys after about six month, I can roll purple belts. 11:31 I mean, the gym I went to with Roberto Traven, he always separates like the higher belts and the lower belts, first time I ever went there after I've been 11:39 training about 6 months he put me with the high belts I never rolled with the, you know, so I was already at that level where I could stay on top and do 11:47 pretty well, but I would still get beat. 11:50 I mean, I'd get beaten all the time. 11:51 And even with that, pretty much made the decision just to sit for every role because I knew that my top game sort of came naturally and the bottom game 12:00 is what I needed to work on. 12:01 So you focused on the parts you were having trouble with. 12:04 That's the thing. 12:05 And so that's one of the big keys to progressing in jiu-jitsu is focus on your weaknesses. 12:10 Now, when you're a white belt, you say, what should I focus? 12:13 It's like, OK, everything. 12:16 Right now, just roll. 12:17 Just train a lot. 12:19 But once you've been training the year or two, You need to really start focusing on the weaknesses and then the other thing is consistency. 12:27 I mean, honestly, I from the four and a half years I got my black belt, I don't think I missed a week. 12:35 I mean, and it's not just, you know, i would train anywhere from three to six times a, week okay, but I never missed the week, 12:41 even you, know injuries, whatever I didn't get injured bad enough, where I had to miss, But I just wouldn't miss. 12:47 If I went on vacation, always went to a gym. 12:50 Yeah. 12:50 i mean I would bring my gi with me everywhere I, went consistently for four, And then the other huge thing is YouTube. 13:00 By the time I was a purple belt, I'm sure I'd watched just about every competition, high level competition footage on YouTube, 13:08 and you just watch it, see what works, you learn how the right way to move is and all that sort of thing. 13:14 And the the two big things I think I did is cross training and competition. 13:21 So very early on, I pretty much went to every gym I could. 13:26 I'm sort of a physician where I was the doctor, so I treat a lot of jiu-jitsu athletes, I am friends with everybody, but I luckily was able to go to other 13:38 gyms as well. 13:38 Every time you cross train, you get exposed to something different. 13:46 I think competition is huge. 13:49 One competition, I mean, is equal to like 20 training sessions. 13:54 Yeah, maybe more. 13:56 Especially if you lose. 13:57 Losing in a competition? 13:59 For sure. 14:00 That's where your weaknesses are exposed. 14:02 You say, what do I need to work on? 14:03 You'll find out. 14:04 Compete. 14:05 And you have the whole tape, you watch that tape and you're like, oh my God, little things. 14:09 The whole match. 14:09 Yeah. 14:10 Even when you win, You can find little thing. 14:12 So I competed a lot and I always competed you know, pretty much right at or above my level competition. 14:20 My first tournament after I'd been training six months since I was a wrestler, when it came to Nogi, I Was competing advanced division, 14:28 not always winning, but I, was competing in it. 14:32 And, and then I always competed adult division even though I as masters all the way up until I started black belt. 14:38 When I blackbelt,I was competed masters. 14:40 But I competed three, four times a year, went out to all the tournaments. 14:47 Back then, we didn't have regional Atlanta Open and all of that sort of thing. 14:51 It was pretty much pans and worlds. 14:54 And that's the other thing, as far as promotions, it's hard for your instructor to hold you back if you just won Brown Bell Worlds. 15:02 Yeah. 15:03 So, you know, I won brown belt master. 15:08 When I got my brownbelt, Traven was like, You're not getting, because it was quick. 15:13 And he was, like I'm not going to give you your black belt for a while. 15:15 I mean, he just mentioned that. 15:16 and then I went and won like pans, brownbelts and everything. 15:24 He went in. 15:25 It's hard to hold it back. 15:27 And then I think the last thing, another big thing is the instructors. 15:34 When I say instructors, so Traven was my main instructor and he's, like I said, he is world class. 15:41 highly respected in the jujitsu world and an amazing instructor. 15:46 So I had a very high level instructor and then on top of that of course watching every competition footage because back then pretty much the only thing 15:56 you could watch was competition. 15:58 Footage because it used to be that before about 2010-2011 most people were of the idea that it was secret. 16:09 Yeah, keep it to your gym. 16:11 So all the gyms, Alliance and Gracie Baja and Nova U now, they all wouldn't really share techniques. 16:18 Like it, you didn't want to cross-train too much. 16:21 You didn' t share technique. 16:22 Everybody had their own secret techniques and so the only way to learn techniques was either to buy DVDs or- Go to the gym. 16:31 Yeah, go to gym and yeah. 16:33 So what changed that is Marcella Garcia. 16:38 He started this MG in Action website and he was the first person to basically just say, I'm going to throw it out there. 16:46 It was revolution. 16:47 Of course, everybody does it now. 16:48 Andre Galvao and Art of Jiu Jitsu, Gracie Baja, Atos, they all have their websites where you can just go and see everything they do. 16:56 You got BJJ Fanatics, you got Jiu Jitsu X, there's a lot of options. 17:00 But back then Marcelo Garcia was the first one that pretty much just said, I'm going to put it all out there. 17:06 All my techniques, everything. 17:07 And you can study me. 17:09 Because people were worried, oh, they're going study and learn what I am doing. 17:13 Marcelos was like, listen, my stuff, it works whether you know it or not. 17:18 He said I think it's better for Jujitsu as a whole. 17:21 I love that because we would have never met without that opening. 17:24 Well, we wouldn't have through orthopedics. 17:25 But most people I meet during in jujitsu is from traveling and cross training.
Training Methods and Cross-Training 17:29 Right. 17:30 And so I loved that he did. 17:31 I didn't know he Did that. 17:33 He was the first one that I'm aware of that started a website. 17:36 People cross train to an extent, but but not like online. 17:40 Online it was you would not be able to see a lot of training footage. 17:44 Yeah. 17:44 In Marcella, basically his website was like every day, every training session he he would post it. 17:51 And then of course he posted all of his class and all his techniques, everything he did. 17:55 What's important for Jiu-Jitsu, right? 17:56 It's spreading like wildfire. 17:58 The thing about Marcelo that's interesting is even after doing that of, course, he still beat everybody. 18:02 But Marcelos, the thing is he will say that the stuff he does, it works whether you know it's coming or not. 18:11 I mean, Marcel is interesting. 18:12 He only does like four submissions. 18:15 This guy who's one of the ghosts of Jujitsu He does guillotines, rear naked chokes of some sort, arm bars, and north-south choke. 18:25 That will be 99% of his submissions in any of this training or any other competition footage. 18:33 Why? 18:34 Because that stuff works. 18:37 So anyway, that's nice. 18:39 Very good. 18:40 Well, moving on to kind of more injury related stuff, since we're both surgeons and both train. 18:45 The big joke is I'll slap hands, bump fists with my friends and then they'll say, oh, you're funny because you can break me and you fix me. 18:52 And I always joke that I should like carry my business card in my gi. 18:55 But I know we were talking before this and said, You've done that before. 18:58 So what have you done? 18:59 We're like, obviously not on purpose to get business. 19:03 You know, having been doing Jiu-Jitsu in Atlanta so long and the type of surgeries I do are, you know sports related. 19:11 So yeah, I definitely have treated tons of Jujitsu athletes. 19:18 I mean it's funny like when I also cover the IBJJF competitions here and you, know it is nice to see but I'll be like looking on the mat and I mean, 19:28 probably like 20 of the people at any Atlanta Open tournament I've operated on. 19:35 Yeah, I'm pretty much, whenever I go to the gym, because I... 19:40 Okay with this and I tell them and the guy the professors know it's fine. 19:45 But um, yeah, I mean if somebody gets hurt They'll just call me over, you know, and and i I do that all the time. 19:51 Um, if someone gets hurts there, You know i've put in shoulders on the mat Well, same whenever i'll be rolling and then I just hear doc doc and it like 19:58 an immediate I joke that one time one of my friends she uh broke her ankle. 20:02 It's like dislocated broke. 20:03 Her ankle Yeah And I was rolling and I about to get choked by one of my buddies, Anthony Turrell. 20:08 And he's, he has me in a bow and arrow. 20:10 I'm like about tap and she goes, doc. 20:12 You know, I, joke, she saved me. 20:14 So I like, thanks for breaking my ankle. 20:18 But I always carry stuff in my car. 20:20 Like I remember I went to my and got splinting material and making a mess on the mat. 20:24 That's the stuff I enjoy. 20:26 People will come over and say, sorry to bother you. 20:29 No, this is, who I love to treat. 20:31 Right. 20:31 This is the population. 20:32 I enjoy it. 20:35 Yeah, but I've had a couple of people I have actually been rolling with. 20:38 Twice I had somebody who cut their head open or their eye because they hit my knee or I hit them by accident and I took them to my house and sewed them up. 20:47 Got to take care of them when you hurt them. 20:50 Exactly. 20:51 Well, what's the worst injury you've ever seen in fighting? 20:54 Orthopedic wise, I mean, knee dislocation, seen that before. 21:00 You know, the worst injuries, in MMA and boxing are the concussions. 21:05 So I've seen some pretty bad knockouts. 21:08 I had one athlete that actually had a brain bleed. 21:13 Luckily, I mean, we diagnosed it there while they were on the mat. 21:18 The ambulance, well, they didn't diagnose us, but we knew something was bad. 21:21 But the ambulance was there. 21:23 So we rushed them to the hospital. 21:26 And that's a good call because it's tough sometimes when you see a concussion or whether you send them or not. 21:29 Right. 21:29 Right, so we're both ringside physicians and you are one of my mentors, you and Dr. 21:35 Andrea, who is also in Atlanta. 21:37 And so the two of you kind of mentored me since I came out a couple of years ago. 21:41 So anytime I'm at a fight and I am like, oh God, this is wild, I'll just give you a call. 21:45 Because you've been here 15 years, right? 21:47 So those concussions are really scary and we are usually better off sending them than not. 21:54 I will tell you the high level promotions like UFC, I mean, we'll send 80% of the fighters to the hospital after. 22:04 I'm not saying they all need it, but we're super careful about it. 22:09 If in doubt, then we will usually refer to get a CT scan. 22:13 And then I think that probably the worst injury for me, because I don't treat this, is Derek Brunson when he broke his jaw. 22:21 So he was fighting Yellow Romero. 22:26 And, you know, Romero elbowed him in the jaw and basically broke his jaw in half. 22:29 And you see the teeth come up. 22:30 Yeah. 22:31 I mean, his teeth were separated. 22:34 But it's not just losing a tooth, like the whole gums. 22:36 Here's the thing is, for me, that was the worst injury I've seen because I don't treat that. 22:43 Now, if somebody's an oral surgeon, they probably look at that, oh, I mildly displaced jaw, they're not even worried.
Treating Jiu-Jitsu and Fight Injuries 22:50 They're like wiring it and sending them to the ear. 22:51 It's the same thing. 22:52 Like I watched, I was watching when Anderson Silva kicked Chris Weidman and when Chris, why I didn't watch when, but I wasn't actually watching that fight 23:01 when Andersen Silva kick Chris Wideman. 23:03 Of course, everybody was Oh my gosh, look at his leg. 23:05 I was at the bar and everybody's losing their mind. 23:07 He's got erotic eyes, chill. 23:08 You could be better than he was before. 23:10 Yeah, he'll be walking tomorrow. 23:12 That's an easy surgery. 23:13 So that doesn't really bother me to see his legs go like this. 23:17 But it's good for the show, huh? 23:19 Oh yeah. 23:21 Yeah. 23:21 All right. 23:22 Great. 23:23 What tips do you have for injury prevention? 23:25 I know you were, you had some stuff on your Instagram, which I'm going to link to after you've your top 10 things that you can do. 23:31 The first one we were kind of laughing about. 23:33 So if you want to talk about that one and maybe give us two or three that are your favorite things to teach people to prevent injury. 23:39 I think honestly, the number one way to, or the best thing you could do to That's what we were laughing about. 23:47 Just be good. 23:48 Don't suck. 23:53 White belts necessarily have a higher injury incidence than competitive black belts. 23:59 Competitive black belt probably have higher incidents but it's because of the intensity of what they're doing. 24:06 It's still better for at any level to get better at Jiu Jitsu and have your body understand which way you're moving and feel comfortable with the moves. 24:18 Learn more and more how the other person is is going to move as well I talked to people bigger guys right when they come to grapple with me 125 pounds 24:26 versus like my boyfriend who's over 200 Yeah, I'm like don't smash and use all your force because I can't really do much to that when you're pretty good. 24:35 But if you just become technical and lighten up your weight, you will learn so much from small females, small people, because we have to really have technique 24:43 to get around the big guys. 24:44 So that was what I took from Get Better at Jiu Jitsu. 24:47 Get more technical, study more, and don't focus on your strength in training. 24:51 Yeah, and that's it for sure. 24:55 And going along with that is there's a philosophy called neuromuscular training. 25:00 Basically, it's about your body being better coordinated, your nervous system and your muscles being coordinated. 25:08 For instance, with an ankle sprain, what typically happens, If someone has already sprained their ankle, they're more likely to sprain it again. 25:15 Why? 25:16 Because of proprioception. 25:17 So, you know, in a normal ankle you get to a certain point and your nerves pick up right away that you're stretching it too much and your your muscles 25:31 fire automatically automatically and it comes right back where it's supposed to be but once somebody sprained their ankle that proprioception the nerves 25:38 going to it are damaged so it part of the problem with you know recurrent sprain ankles is well you may have torn some ligaments okay but a lot of times 25:46 you've just stretched some legaments but you're more likely to strain it because your body your doesn't really know where the ankle is in space as well 25:52 and that's why it like physical therapy and training, balance board, things like that that help with... 25:57 I mean, the connection's gone. 25:59 That connection is gone, so your muscles don't fire automatically anymore once you've had that sprain. 26:03 So I talk about proprioception a lot, like on my Instagram, and the importance of it, especially after I tore my ACL, just how important that single leg 26:11 stuff is. 26:11 But for people that don�t know what it is, can you kind of explain what proprioception is? 26:16 It's not a conscious thing, but it's the ability of your body to know where it is in space, basically. 26:22 It is the feeling that the joints have around them so that they know exactly where everything is. 26:29 Where it comes into play again is at the extremes of range of motion. 26:33 before something actually pops. 26:36 You can have a pain in your ligament and that means it's already stretched a little too far. 26:42 Your body's actually going to be better off recognizing that it is getting close just because of of where it is, and then it reacts. 26:52 So proprioception is basically just the feeling of your joints, but it's more about your joint's knowing where they are. 26:59 It's an automatic response that you have to train, because when you're in the moment, playing soccer, whatever the sport is, 27:06 you can't be like, okay, ankle fought, like perineus. 27:09 You can just tell your muscles. 27:11 Yeah. 27:11 It's about training. 27:12 And that's where, the more that you do jujitsu and you drill, for instance, um, better that your body knows where things are. 27:20 And going back to ankle sprains, that's super common injury that we see regardless of even out of sport. 27:25 And people will often immobilize their ankle and just like sit on the couch. 27:29 Yes, you could do that for a day, two days, whatever, get the swelling down, but I straighten to PT, right? 27:35 Because you need to start working on that proprioception and not let that thing stiffen up. 27:40 All right. 27:40 So we talked about some of our favorite prevention, which is just Yeah, and there's some other injury prevention tips which I have like a 10 list. 27:51 It can be as simple as things like be aware of your surroundings. 27:53 I mean, if you're training next to an open window. 27:56 Right, don't keep going. 27:58 You laugh about it, but one of the most old school intense gyms I've ever been to is Unity Jiu Jitsu in New York. 28:06 Went and trained up there at their old place. 28:09 Morela Santana's there, the Miao brothers were there. 28:12 That place was, that was awesome. 28:14 So old school was like this tiny room, there's like no air conditioning, so it gets super hot. 28:20 There's a shower there, and people will actually, in the middle of their training, they'll run, jump in their shower with their gi, 28:25 because the shower's right next to it, it's tiny. 28:28 And then they will come out and keep training. 28:30 In the same gi? 28:31 Yeah. 28:32 But you know, the thing is, is they actually had, they had mats going all the way up to windows. 28:36 It's a second floor and there's two windows at the end of it.
Injury Prevention and Proprioception 28:40 And they have mats goin' all way. 28:41 So, I mean, probably just don't let white belts train near the window. 28:46 Not many meow brothers. 28:47 I'm sure they stay away from it, but. 28:49 You know that's, it's like, be aware of your surroundings. 28:52 Is there, you knows, there water on the mats? 28:54 Is, a lot of sweat. 28:56 Yeah. 28:56 Don't slip. 28:57 Things like that. 29:00 Yeah. 29:00 Cool. 29:01 And one of the last questions I had for you was, what's your favorite surgery to perform? 29:05 I would say is rotator cuff repair. 29:09 Simply because, I mean, people I like doing it. 29:14 It's a fun surgery do and people do really well. 29:16 I means, it depends on how old they are and how bad their rotators cuff is torn or how long it's been there. 29:22 But for most rotater cuff tears, i think people knew very well it is elegant to like there's We're doing it now with cameras and we can go in through these 29:32 couple little pokes and fix somebody's rotator cuff and you can add different things. 29:37 There's so many things on the market, which the research, you know, that's probably another topic for another day, but you could add patches. 29:45 You can do a lot to try and augment it if needed. 29:49 And every rotater cuff is different, every tear pattern. 29:52 But in jiu-jitsu, I haven't seen many rotatater cuffs. 29:55 It's not really a common injury in Jiu Jitsu I don't think. 29:59 I mean, I have seen quite a few. 30:02 The people who get rotator cuff tears usually are the older jiu-jitsu athletes. 30:06 I don't see it as much in 20 and 30. Right, the more competitive people, like knees, shoulder dislocations. 30:13 But once you get in the sort of the master's 40 and over, um, It happens. 30:22 Okay. 30:22 The last thing I wanted to talk to you about was what kind of advice would you give to hobbyists and competitors that have full-time jobs? 30:28 You know, we work about 40 to 60 hours as orthopedic surgeons. 30:32 We cover games on the weekends. 30:33 Were ringside doctors. 30:34 You also have kids. 30:38 What kind of advice, because I hear a lot of people, they'll say, I'm so disappointed. 30:41 I haven't been in in three weeks. 30:43 Life just took over. 30:45 So I always like to ask people that are doing it, that have a lock going on. 30:50 What advice do you give to these people? 30:52 I think number one is priority. 30:55 You've got to make it a priority in your life. 30:58 My priorities for the last 15 years pretty much have been family, work, jujitsu. 31:05 but not necessarily going to this concert or, you know, it's about priorities. 31:12 I mean, if I get off at five o'clock or six o´clock, I have a gym that I can go. 31:20 For me, part of it was also kind of going into different gyms. 31:23 Some would start at 6.30, one someone starts at 7. 30, things like that. 31:26 But for the most part, It's, about planning the day so that you have the time to do it. 31:32 And then, You know, it doesn't matter if I'm tired, you know. 31:37 And first off, I learned very early on that I could feel like crap and I go and feel great after. 31:42 So just the community. 31:43 Yes. 31:43 With your friends there. 31:44 Yeah. 31:45 Or get buddies to like friends that will text you and say, hey, are you coming tonight?
Balancing Work, Family, and Training 31:49 Yeah, because then you're like, oh, OK, yeah. 31:51 I think I. 31:51 Think priority is is just a big one. 31:54 Pretty much I mean, just would, if i didn't train for two days, i would be very much on top of my mind, when's my next training session gonna be? 32:04 And I would make it work. 32:07 And then priorities also, everyone has their own thing with their wife and kids and all that kind of stuff. 32:15 I think I pretty much sometimes just had to put my foot down and be like, okay, I'm gonna go to Jiu Jitsu. 32:20 Or have a nice conversation before saying, hey, look, this for me makes me very happy. 32:27 If I don't do this, You have to take care of yourself in order to be helpful to the people in your life. 32:38 And that's just a really important concept. 32:40 I mean, you really have take to care yourself mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, before you can help the others in life and be an asset to them. 32:49 Well, I always preach that through medical training and everything, but that is really not Not for you, right? 32:55 Medical training, you've got to put yourself pretty far down the pole, unfortunately. 33:00 But once I came out of all my training my first year out, I was still putting everyone else first. 33:05 And it was, it I miserable. 33:06 I really stressed. 33:07 It wasn't sleeping. 33:08 Then when I put myself first, and I know it sounds terrible, people say, how are your patients not first? 33:13 Because if I'm not the first and not happy and sound of mind and have my sleep, then how can I treat them in the best way? 33:20 So putting yourself first I think is important. 33:22 Not all the time, but Yeah. 33:24 Yeah, all right. 33:25 And what's next for you on and off the mats? 33:28 I mean, you know, right now it's pretty much just continue. 33:35 I'm not really competing anymore. 33:38 So I am teaching and training with people and trying to help the rest of my team. 33:46 Developing the next set of competitors. 33:47 Exactly. 33:48 Get ready for their competitions and that sort of thing. 33:52 As far as orthopedics goes, I mean, just everything is going great with that. 33:56 Enjoying it. 33:56 Yeah, yeah. 33:57 I just keep working, taking care of patients. 34:02 And then, you know, for the ringside physician stuff, sort of already established with Really, that's kind of keep trying to be as excellent as possible 34:13 with it. 34:13 That's awesome. 34:13 I'll do my best. 34:15 Very good. 34:15 And where can people find you? 34:17 So I'm at Emory Orthopedics.
What's Next and Where to Find Him 34:20 So if you just look up my name on Emery Orthopaedics, you can get an appointment or come in. 34:26 Yeah, great. 34:27 Then your Instagram? 34:29 Instagram is BJJortho. 34:34 I'll link out to it. 34:35 On Facebook I'm Doc Chris. 34:37 Awesome. 34:38 And on Instagram I think I am BJJOrtho. 34:41 Yeah and people can go through my stuff and we'll post about those 10 prevention injury or 10 ways to prevent injury. 34:47 Well thanks so much for being here. 34:48 This was awesome. 34:49 Thank you.
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