Wrap for sore ribs?

JustSomeGuy

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I'm about a month back into BJJ. I've been doing 2-3 nights a week. Last Thursday, had some pain in my left ribs by the solar plexus. Healed up over the weekend. First light roll last night, started hurting again.

Last roll of the night, fell to my right from mount to finish an armbar and got immediate stabbing pain in that left rib spot, more intense than before. Had to stop the roll, took a minute or two before I could fully inhale.

But 18 hours later, its feeling much better again. Thinking about taking two days off and going back Thursday. Wondering if there is some sort of compression wrap I can put around my ribs to keep them from further injury?
 
I'm about a month back into BJJ. I've been doing 2-3 nights a week. Last Thursday, had some pain in my left ribs by the solar plexus. Healed up over the weekend. First light roll last night, started hurting again.

Last roll of the night, fell to my right from mount to finish an armbar and got immediate stabbing pain in that left rib spot, more intense than before. Had to stop the roll, took a minute or two before I could fully inhale.

But 18 hours later, its feeling much better again. Thinking about taking two days off and going back Thursday. Wondering if there is some sort of compression wrap I can put around my ribs to keep them from further injury?

Nurse here. Wrapping the ribs is an old school and outdated method of treatment. I would strongly recommend just taking time off but knowing jiu jitsu practitioners, youll be in the mats.


I bruised my left floating ribs during my early white belt days and just rolled slowly and used biofreeze to manage the pain afterwards.

Edit; make use of heat and cold therapy. 15 min alternating periods of heat and cold and never on bare skin.
 
I'm laid out with sore ribs from muay Thai sparring. Took two weeks to feel good enough to train on, and then a light roll got heated and I'm back off the mats for a while.

My advice is to give it a week or two after it feels better before you do anything.
 
It's my understanding that wrapping the ribs is actually counterproductive and can even lead to pneumonia.
 
You can wear an under armor compression shirt made for football that has the built in soft rib pads to alleviate some pressure if you want to keep training. I had to wear one after injuring my ribs kickboxing and having to continue to train grappling while injured. Helped out a fair amount.
 
I've had the unpleasant experience of popping my ribs twice (separation from the cartilage). I did a ton of research and as others have already stated it seems the consensus is that wrapping won't help much, and can lead to pneumonia. I'm not a doctor, but I'm speaking from my experience. The only thing that insured it healed was about 4 weeks off. Mind you this was most definitely a popped rib and might have been more sever than your case, but all rib injuries seem to require "time off" as treatment.
 
The only bones I ever broke in my body outright were my ribs. I just had to stay away from the mat for a couple months.

Wrapping them is pointless and will only make it difficult to breathe during strenuous activity.
 
Usually like a chicken caesar wrap when my ribs are sore because I am sitting out until I heal.

But seriously, hurting ribs and NOT taking the time off for them to heal ends up in even longer time off when you hurt them worse. First time I tore some rib cartilage, I could have probably been on the mats in about 2 months full speed. Instead I was a walking wounded for like 6 months.
 
Thanks for the input so far.



Even for 1.5 hours of BJJ?

I doubt it'd do that in such a short amount of time. Sometimes people leave them wrapped and that is when they run into problems. I've popped ribs many a time. My only advice is when you feel better, wait another 2-4 weeks. It sounds like overkill but rib injuries suck. Trust me that rest is your friend.
 
How have people injured their ribs? What happened? Just curious in terms of how to prevent such injuries. It seems like this type of injury puts people out for a while with the only treatment being taking the time to lay off. Hope you get better. Thanks.
 
How have people injured their ribs? What happened? Just curious in terms of how to prevent such injuries. It seems like this type of injury puts people out for a while with the only treatment being taking the time to lay off. Hope you get better. Thanks.

Took a knee to the chest in Muay Thai, then later that same day, I was crushed with a knee-on-belly by one of the strongest guys I trained with... then got crushed with a knee-on-belly again by another guy. I felt and heard a pop, and then rib pain, with accompanying breathing difficulties, stayed with me for almost two months.

I work in healthcare, so I knew that there was precious little that they can do for it, so I also knew that the best option was just to relax for a couple months. Unlike most of the bones in your body, the ribs are in constant motion. There's simply no way to reasonably cast them without making it even harder to breathe.
 
I'm a big guy which means my partners are typically big and/or strong guys that like to put all of their weight/strength on my torso if they get the chance. That coupled with me using too much strength while rolling also played a factor I'm sure. That and I'm old :)

Thanks again for all the info. Of course, I'm going back to class tonight, hehe. I'm going to try and just do the warm up and techniques and skip the rolls to see how that feels. If that's too much, then will just lay out a while.
 
I'm about a month back into BJJ. I've been doing 2-3 nights a week. Last Thursday, had some pain in my left ribs by the solar plexus. Healed up over the weekend. First light roll last night, started hurting again.

Last roll of the night, fell to my right from mount to finish an armbar and got immediate stabbing pain in that left rib spot, more intense than before. Had to stop the roll, took a minute or two before I could fully inhale.

But 18 hours later, its feeling much better again. Thinking about taking two days off and going back Thursday. Wondering if there is some sort of compression wrap I can put around my ribs to keep them from further injury?
I was born with a cracked rib bug I hurt my ribs by falling down a hill in a woods. I was walking and I slipped and I literally rolled down it over rocks, brambles and logs. When I got home I realised I'd pushed it out of place and so I pushed it back in and wrapped it with a bandage. I left it wrapped for about 2 days. And then I started to only wrap it when I went out and if I knew I'd be moving around a fair amount (for example school). This helped a lot so I would recommend wrapping your tip area when you do activities that involve moving around .
 
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