AKA founder reduces gym injury rate by nearly 50%

Two years ago Michael Hutchinson for BE took a statistical look at the injury rates of major MMA fight camps, between 2009-2016, limited to the UFC. Of all the lists in MMA, this is one where you want to be last.

1. AKA • 8 fighters, 111 scheduled fights, 24 injuries, 21.6% injury rate
2. Serra/Longo • 4 fighters, 48 scheduled fights, 9 injuries, 16.3% injury rate
3. Nova Uniao • 12 fighters, 135 scheduled fights, 20 injuries, 14.8% injury rate
4. Blackzilians • 10 fighters, 97 scheduled fights, 14 injuries, 14.4% injury rate
5. Roufusport • 8 fighters, 87 scheduled fights, 11 injuries, 12.6% injury rate
6. Team Nogueira/Blackhouse • 11 fighters, 152 scheduled fights, 16 injuries, 11.9% injury rate
Below average rate.
7. Tristar • 15 fighters, 153 scheduled fights, 14 injuries, 9.2% injury rate
8. ATT • 12 fighters, 219 scheduled fights, 19 injuries, 8.7% injury rate
9. Jackson Wink MMA • 26 fighters, 353 scheduled fights, 30 injuries, 8.5% injury rate
10, Kings MMA • 6 fighters, 94 scheduled fights, 6 injuries, 6.4% injury rate
11. Team Alpha Male • 8 fighters, 120 scheduled fights, 7 injuries, 5.8% injury rate
12. Alliance MMA • 12 fighters, 164 scheduled fights, 7 injuries, 4.3% injury rate

At the time AKA head coach Javier Mendez pointed out that three of the injuries attributed to his team were suffered by Khabib Nurmagomedov, and they happened when he was training in Russia. Another injury was to Daniel Cormier whose injury happened while DC was teaching his own wrestling class; he’s now the champ champ, and a G.O.A.T. contender. At the same time, the coach acknowledged that the team has had a high injury rate, and began to implement preventative steps.

Now, during an exclusive interview with BJ Penn Radio, Mendez detailed the progress.

It is the nature of the sport, said Mendez, as transcribed by Tom Taylor for BJPenn.com,. You know, there’s a lot of injuries involved in the sport. It’s not something that we have mastered yet, but I’ll tell you what, it is something that we’ve gotten better at.

This is still a relatively new sport and we’re still learning. I was still trying to figure out how do we save us from getting injured all the damn time? Why are we getting injured? It’s nuts. Well little simple things, from having the guys talk to me when they don’t want to spar. They have issues with their girlfriend or their family, you know, they didn’t get enough sleep, or they have a little injury. I want them to point it out to me. I want them to tell me what’s going on. So this way I’ll say, ‘okay, you’re just boxing today or okay, you’re not sparring today.’ Let me tell you something. Our injury rate has dropped almost over 50 percent.

Let me give you another example. [Blagoy Ivanov], he came to me, I took him on to start training, being his head coach for the Junior dos Santos fight, right?

So I said, this what you need to do. I need you running five, six days a week. [He said] ‘What? Why?’ [I said] ‘Yes. I need you to do it hard six days a week.’ He goes, ‘Okay coach.’ So next thing you know, two weeks into this whole thing, the poor guy rips his meniscus running on the street. He ripped his meniscus in two spots. How he’s going into the fight with Junior dos Santos with a torn meniscus in two spots. Now guess what? All you can really do is box.

So I had told them to cancel the fight, call the UFC, cancel the fight. So he had already scheduled surgery, he was canceling the fight, but over the weekend, he just felt like, no, I’m gonna fight. And that’s what fighters do. They fight injured. He’s not the only example. There’s tons of examples that go out there.

He decided to take the fight, and he went through the fight. It didn’t go his way and even if he had been 100 percent healthy feel, who knows how the fight would have gone? Because Junior dos Santos is a great fighter, you know? So I’m just saying in regards to injuries that they don’t always happen in the gym either.

I’ll give you another [example], he said. [Gabriel Benitez], he was scheduled to fight Andre Fili, and he was injured. He was injured, he couldn’t do nothing, and I just pleaded with him to cancel the fight. Please cancel the fight. But he needed the money. He needed the money. He could not cancel the fight. So he had no sparring, zero sparring. He was injured going into the fight, his confidence was down to the dumps, and now you fight Andre Fili for God’s sake. Come on. I mean, I knew that kid was really special.

So I just said, ‘Please cancel the fight.’ No. He took the fight anyways. What happens? Boom. Taken care of. So those are the things, the unknown things that the fans don’t know and they don’t understand and they don’t care to hear either. All they care about is come fight time, you either win or you don’t. And that’s what I tell my guys. I go, ‘Fans don’t give a s*** whether you’re injured or not injured with your fight. They just see the winner.”