Shane Carwin on Growing Old in Mixed Martial Arts

We are talking over the totality of the career here, not just in-cage action. And over the course of any successful fighter’s life, they take beatings in the gym and put their bodies through the ringer. Even older competitive grapplers have a ton of joint problems and chronic ailments.

As for comparisons to other innocuous lines of work, I don’t know what the point is. Of course working in a factory has costs, but on average, they are insignificant compared to what a fighter goes through (although a coal miner might have some sort of claim). Fighting for sport is a uniquely difficult thing with its own sets of risks and rewards. To think our understanding is sufficient about the full breadth of damage a fighter incurs from beginning to end of careers is false.

Rec’d. A point that needs to be said regarding the issue of mma’s impact on one’s health.

He’s been hit way too many times with way too many huge blows.

I would like to add Cris Leben to that quote. Listen to his interview before the Bisping-fight and compare his speech to his brother`s or even to himself while he was on TUF.

You’ve never been hit with headgear on have you? Most of the guys that I know have been flash’d plenty with their gear on.

Lyoto’s only limit is when age causes him to lose speed.

No one is suggesting that because MMA may be more damaging than we realize that therefore we shouldn’t do it. But we have no need to not have transparent discussions about the realities of the sport. And I’m sorry, the available data on injuries is good but far from complete. We still have much to learn and the fact that other sports that aren’t combative also have athletes who exhibit problems only reinforces the need to understand as much as possible.

Even with smart training I’m not sure everyone has a healthy respect for how taxing even cardiovascular conditioning can be on the body, to say nothing of striking, grappling and the like. Getting KO’d too many time is one problem, but hardly the only one. We are very still much on the position of wait and see.

Well, ‘article’ might be pushing it, so how about ‘responding paragraph’? I suppose I should be careful with my words considering your new found love of semantics, a la the blog vs. newsite piece. ;-)

Maintain a job skill outside of fighting. Do not let your ego or dreams blind you to necessities of reality.

“This is the only way I have to support my family. If I don’t fight, I’m going to be homeless by the end of the year.” – Karo Parisyan

Or, at a minimum, are you preparing yourself, while competing, to train the generation after you? Are you starting now? Are you developing an educational system that you’re willing to bank on for the rest of your life?

I love this sport and everyone who competes in it* and I don’t want to see them suffer a miserable end unless absolutely necessary.

There is no correlation between Parkinson’s and Traumatic Brain Injury. One of the big things out of Ali’s story was that he was potentially predisposed to having Parkinson’s. There are a lot of studies all over the Internet trying to link repeated blows to the head with the early onset of Parkinson’s, but none have actually proved it.

I’m more worried about some of these guys obtaining bleeds in their brain, something that many boxers have suddenly died from. That and just the overall condition of guys with traumatic brain injuries… vegetable state if you will.

Being punched in the face not only makes you lose BJJ belt level, it ages you.

More than likely it was the years of getting absolutely POUNDED in his matches combined with the fact that he comes from schools of fighting known for going “full-on” to an extent that wouldn’t be tolerated (or considered sane) by many contemporary schools. A lot of the guys who came up from Brazil in the early years practiced full contact, full force. Nevermind the debate about whether or not headgear helps; guys sparred with NO GLOVES at times. The abuse adds up. Ligaments never quite contract after being over-extended; brain trauma causes scarring to neural pathways which don’t heal; scar tissue builds over scar tissue.

Nog’s style and those early training sessions (which partially helped build his incredible resistance to injury and pain) probably did a lot to break down Nog’s foundational physiology.