Neck Injuries and Pro Wrestling revisited

After the brutal attack from Bazooka Joe on “Heavyweight” Sean Royal on March 9^th at Delaware Pro Wrestling’s RCP-2 Nulli Secundus event I thought I would re-cycle one of my older blog posts on neck injuries. Read up and protect that neck and back at all costs.  

 "Heavyweight" Sean Royal suffered a concussion, bruised ribs and a neck injury that will keep him sidelined for 8-12 weeks. Get well soon Sean and here is to a speedy recovery.

 So you want to be a Professional Wrestler? Perhaps you are looking into +Right Coast Pro Wrestling’s Developmental Program in Delaware, or another School? Are you prepared to make sacrifices? Pro-Wrestling is more than just learning a few moves. It is like any other professional sport and requires training in and out of the ring encompassing all aspects of the Renegade Wheel of Conditioning as well as the Renegade Concepts of Training. It also requires you to “learn” and “understand” your body in ways you would not normally so you can properly distinguish injury from discomfort. This article will show an example, extracted from my own experience in the ring, and why you need to “understand” your body in regards to potential long term neck injury.  

Let's fast forward to the ten minute mark in your match, you are sweating profusely, finding breath hard to come by, your opponent has been relentless and all out since the bell rang.........Unconsciously you grasp your thumb and pull. The pain, in any other circumstance, would have been unbearable, but adrenaline and awaiting tasks keep it at bay. With a click the joints align themselves once more. You survey the ring with eyes two moves ahead of your body’s actions. The original plan of attack has long since been vanquished. Nothing since the bell rang is going as planned and now the pace of the match has sped up so fast that one simple re-alignment of the thumb has left you out of position. You turn, formulating another plan of attack in your head, only to find two arms, resembling tree trunks, wrapping you into a bear hug. High in the air you are cast. You want to fight back, try to fight back, but it is far too late. With the ease of throwing a sack of potatoes you are driven backwards. The only thing you can do is close your eyes and tuck your chin as your opponent drives you to the mat with full force.
Time slows to a crawl, you hear something strange, but feel no pain. Backwards you feel your neck being whipped at an odd angle. No matter how hard you try to keep your chin tucked the sheer mass and rate of acceleration is too great. With remarkable clarity a picture of your spinal column forms before you, it is not pretty. You hear another crack and notice a distinct difference in pitch. The crack definitely did not come from the mat or your opponent. The picture of your spine shows your head being thrown forward as something foreign strikes the base of your spine. Still, you feel nothing of the table it is the echo over snapping vertebrae that has you concerned.
“Here we go again,” you mumble as two hundred and seventy pounds of flesh pin you to the mat.
“One,” the referee shouts as you are already planning your rehabilitation.
“Two.”
“I sure hope the Doc is in tomorrow,” you think to yourself.
“Three.”
“This is not good. I am buying a damn ice machine this time,” you mutter slowly feeling the muscles encompassing the spinal region of C3 thru C5 already beginning to stiffen. Before you can roll out of the wrestling ring your range of motion is limited and you know it is serious. Sleep that night, despite icing, is near impossible and though you need to adjust the way your neck is laying on the pillow you can not even raise your head upwards an inch.

Injuries to the neck, especially when it comes to sports and training, are quite common and often times contribute to an athlete being prematurely forced out of the game or into risky surgery. Taking the above example, which is quite common minus the table of course, into consideration the most common mistake and contributor to long term neck problems is improper diagnosis.
The most common reaction in the locker room for such a neck injury is to assume that the injury it is nothing more than a muscle pull. The athlete would immediately take to icing the region and administer anti-inflamitories. This practice would, in all likelihood, continue for a week at which time he/she would re-evaluate the injury and determine whether or not to seek a professional opinion at this time. In most cases, after a week, the area affected would begin to feel better and the athlete would chose not to seek a professional opinion while continuing with anti-inflamintories. Slowly the athlete would begin resuming existing training protocols until finally the athlete feels the injury is healed. But has the injury been healed? More often than not the answer is no despite a subsiding of symptoms.
When it comes to the neck and back, first and foremost, make no assumptions! What you believe may be a simple muscle pull in these regions often times is more complicated. The acute will become chronic eventually if misdiagnosed no matter how “tough” you are. As an active combat sports athlete, who has seen more than his share of neck and back problems both in and out of the ring, I implore you to immediately seek a professional opinion as well as re-evaluate your training regime to include DMC.

In a future Right Coast Pro Wrestling blog I will cover my personal protocols for re-habilitation on such an injury and why Renegade Training and more specifically DMC is so important for both re-habilitation and pre-habilitation of the neck and back.
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