Grappling with Pain: A Guide for Jiu Jitsu Athletes Who Want to Keep Training
Pain is tricky. It sucks to feel it—but without it, we wouldn’t survive. It’s essential for sensing danger and protecting ourselves. Put your finger near an open flame, and pain saves you from a burn. And as jiu jitsu athletes, pain is what pushes us to move OR, if we can’t, tap.
For grapplers, pain is a part of life. One that often shows up on the mats and by extension in the weight room. But just because we feel pain doesn't necessarily mean we need to stop, especially in a strength training context. The key is knowing how to interpret it so you can keep training without making things worse.
The Problem With the 1–10 Pain Scale
I used to go with the old, “On a scale from 1 to 10, how bad is the pain?” It's a standard question, but not a very useful one.
Why? Because pain is subjective. Your 5/10 might be someone else's 8/10. Plus, pain often changes (for better or worse) as you move—so a single number doesn’t tell the whole story.
And as a coach, relying on that number can prove troublesome. I need more detailed feedback to help athletes train effectively and safely.
Enter: The Pain Traffic Light System
Dr. Diana Wang, DPT at Open Mat Physio (a team of physical therapists who specialize in helping grapplers get back to and stay on the mats), introduced me to a simple framework that really made everything click:
Think of pain like a stoplight.
🟢 Green = Go
Does the movement hurt at first, but start to feel better the more you move it? If pain is present at first but improves as you warm up or move, this means your body is giving you the green light—keep going, this is likely safe and even beneficial.
🟡 Yellow = Proceed With Caution
Does the pain stay at the same level during the movement? This is ok, but proceed with caution. This might mean you need to adjust something like:Load
Load position
Range of motion
Tempo
You can certainly still train—but be mindful and listen closely to how your body responds.
🔴 Red = Stop
If the pain gets worse as you perform the exercise, that’s a pretty solid indicator from your body that continuing whatever you’re doing will likely feel worse tomorrow. This doesn't mean stop exercising altogether.. It means you might need to find another way to get the same stimulus.
How to Apply This in the Weight Room
Let’s say someone comes into the gym with acute hip or back pain from training. If a heavy deadlift is on the schedule and we know that loading it will likely make things worse (see: red light) we might swap in a hip lift or another variation that trains the same movement pattern (hip extension), without aggravating the injury.
Or maybe an athlete tweaks their knee. We might test the prescribed movement pattern using bodyweight first and check in. Does the pain go away? Stay the same? Or get worse?
If it stays the same, maybe we just stick with body weight this week and look to load it a bit more next week. Or, depending on the quality and intensity of the pain at certain joint angles, we might shorten the range of motion a bit.
If the pain goes away during the test set—we’d add as much load as we can without any “red lights.”
That way, the athlete continues to improve without pushing through damaging pain.
Listen to Your Body. Train Smarter. Stay on the Mats.
The takeaway? Understanding your body’s feedback is a crucial skill for maximizing the effectiveness of your training as well as staying healthy on and off the mats.
By using the traffic light system consistently, you can:
Train around pain without derailing progress
Avoid turning minor tweaks into major injuries
Build a more sustainable approach to your physical development
Learn to read the signals, and you'll stay stronger, healthier, and on the mats longer.
If you’d like to get stronger so you can dominate the competition, book a free strategy session with Victory Submission Strength today. We’ll get you started on your personalized, proven path to winning more matches and getting injured less, so you can keep doing what you love.
