Wendi Bacon

The Open University, UK

Many common martial arts injuries could be prevented with prehabilitation. However, martial arts clubs are often built on preserving tradition – and thus have not yet widely adopted contemporary prehabilitation exercises. Given the high rates of preventable injuries in the female athlete and national efforts to increase women’s participation in sport, implementing injury prevention is critical for recreational, co-ed sports. We reviewed the literature for common martial arts injuries, as well as injuries common to the female athlete. We then identified sport-specific evidence-based interventions using a combination of literature review and the Physiotec exercise video library. We filtered this list through the constraints of recreational martial arts environments to develop a cohesive, useable prehabilitation programme: the MASS-12. We tested the MASS-12 via a mixed-methods approach in a mixed martial arts setting of a Jiu Jitsu club. This evaluation involved quantitatively assessing the impact of the MASS-12 on athlete movement mechanics – with a particular focus on lower limb alignment – as well as qualitatively assessing athlete and coach experiences. Additionally, this study presents the first characterisation of both the social behaviors and exercise techniques of a traditional martial arts warm-up. The MASS-12 demonstrated significant improvements in lower limb mechanics in a single session, as well as positive athlete and coach acceptance. While its impact in the long-term remains unknown, the MASS-12 is nevertheless the first to apply evidence-informed injury prevention to a recreational martial arts environment, and could profoundly alter the high injury rates seen in martial arts.