How safe is it to be strangled hundreds of times in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu or other submission grappling arts? The latest research addressing this subject has just been published.
Dr. Samuel J. Stellpflug, a US based physician and one of the world’s leading researchers of the medical consequences of serial strangulation in sport has authored a new paper looking into whether experienced grapplers who are exposed to repeated strangulations have increased stroke risk compared to other athletes.
In the study, titled Impact of repeated sportive chokes on carotid intima media thickness and brain
injury biomarkers in grappling athletes, grapplers were recruited who experienced at least 500 strangulation events over the course of their training. These were compared against a pool of age/weight/sex matched non grappler athletes with no history of being exposed to strangulation.
The groups were reviewed for stroke risk as measured by increased carotid intima media thickness or brain tissue damage as measured by a handful of relatively new serum markers of brain injury.
In short the study found no significant differences in any of the outcome measures between the groups leading the authors to the following conclusion:
In conclusion, this study of very experienced submission
grapplers with historical exposure to a large number of
repeated transient sportive chokes compared with matched
control participants with no prior choke exposure demonstrated no difference in the CIMT measurements and no difference in the four measured serum markers of brain injury.
These outcomes suggest that repeated exposure to sportive
chokes is safe according to these measures, but more research
is needed to support these findings
The study is published in the journal The Physician and Sports Medicine and can be found here.
Combat Sports Law 