Rogan: The work fighters do is going to break s—
One of the critical problems in MMA is injuries during training. In the last 18 months, perhaps a majority fo…
One of the critical problems in MMA is injuries during training. In the last 18 months, perhaps a majority fo major fights have been cancelled or postponed due to injury. In an interview with the ever awesome Stephie Daniels, the ever awesome Joe Rogan discusses possible reasons, and comes to a final, difficult conclusion.
Stephie Daniels: I recently saw an interview with NCAA wrestling champion, Bubba Jenkins, that stated he felt that steroid use could be directly correlated with some of the injuries. Do you feel that might be a significant contributing factor?
Joe Rogan: It’s certainly possible, but… it’s speculation, unless you’re in the camps, but people have gotten caught for steroids, so we know steroids are really used. I think to speculate on why guys are getting injured in a sport where the main goal is to injure people is a little bit pointless.
I don’t know how Randy Couture ever got through his career without getting seriously injured in a training camp, but someone should talk to him [laughs]. Someone should ask him, ‘What are you doing? Are you doing yoga or stretching? Are you just training smarter than everybody else?’
Obviously, he’s an incredibly tough guy, period. Obviously, he’s an incredibly intelligent guy, as well. Whatever he did to ensure that his training camps were injury free, is something that should be studied. Randy was one of the greatest fighters of all time, and I can’t recall him ever getting injured in training.
What is causing all this stuff? Probably a variety of different things. There’s a lot of speculation. Mike Russell once sent me something and asked me what I thought, but it was a statement by someone who’s an insider, whose take on it was that people are training more than their bodies can manage, because so many people are on the sauce, that they have a distorted perception of what’s possible, and that what these injuries are, is people who are clean, trying to keep up with people who are on the sauce.
Stephie Daniels: I know you work out and train pretty hard at 10th Planet. How do you keep yourself fairly injury free?
Joe Rogan: I don’t stay injury free, not at all. I was actually off for four whole months with a serious back injury. I pulled a muscle… a couple of times, and then it became sort of a chronic thing, where it would pop out every few months. One time, I tried to work through it, so instead of taking some time off, I trained anyway, and I really pulled it bad, to the point where I had numbness in my hand and some severe nerve pain in my elbow.
I’ve also had both my knees reconstructed. I’ve had two ACL surgeries and another meniscus surgery. I’ve had my nose fixed, because my nose was completely smooshed inside, and it was just all useless, due to a deviated septum, and I couldn’t breathe out of my nose. It’s not like I’m injury free, even at my level of training, which is considerably less than it would take to even compete in an amateur MMA fight.
These guys are doing five, six days a week. Georges St. Pierre works out seven days a week. So, five, six days a week, and many hours a day. The amount of work that these fighters do is just going to break s—. There’s no way around it. It’s hard, except if you’re Randy Couture. [laughs]
