Josh took the time to discuss how he curates rehab for jiu jitsu athletes and his guiding frameworks to get the most out of your rehab.
He’s a master at applying the systems of staged rehab combined with sport-specific joint range of motion.
Field sports are high risk for ACL injury and often take the stage when we are discussing return to sport and applying rehab principles. Josh Chung works with all types of athletes and knee injuries for RTS, but has a special interest in jiu jitsu athletes – he’s one himself!
You might’ve seen his elaborate Instagram or Tik Tok posts where he takes himself and his patients through targeted rehab and training exercises that prepare them for the sport or activity they are about to do. He’s not one to put you through an exercise that he hasn’t already tried himself!


How does your application of working in the injured joint’s end range of motion differ across the phases of rehab?
Josh: End range of motion for an injured joint often correlates with areas where we’re more vulnerable for injury or re-injury, so in my opinion it’s very important to ensure that we’ve fully rebuilt resilience in those danger zones again.
I’ll typically approach this in three general phases:
- Early restoration of range (or building MORE range of motion)
- Mid stage expanding upon those ranges of motion (we want to be strong in those deep ranges and also have multiple ways of getting into those deep ranges)
- Late stage reinforcement of those ranges of motion (instead of just being strong now we want to be able to withstand exposure in these ranges both at quick speeds and over long periods of time)
In an attempt to make something sound catchy I’ve started referring to those three steps as a “create, curate, cultivate” framework in my head.
Compared to pivoting sports and snow sports, jiujitsu may fall under more of a contact grappling sport – do you find that knee injuries are common in these athletes?
Josh: Knee injuries are definitely common in the grappling crowd, but interestingly also quite different from pivoting sports or snow sports.
Because we have attacks in jiujitsu that target the knee rotationally (these have been growing in popularity as well in the past several years), we’ll definitely still see those mechanisms involved in ACL or meniscus type injuries.
Another common mechanism of injury with our grappling athletes involves deep knee flexion since we’re usually in much more compressed positions on the mats compared to on the pitch/field/court etc. Lastly, the contact aspect of grappling makes it so that we’ll see all sorts of ligamentous injury, especially while battling for takedowns.

Are there other injuries that you find quite common in the jiujitsu athlete population that are more unique to that group?
Josh: The more obvious ones in these populations would be elbow hyperextensions from attacks like armbars or shoulder injuries from being cranked for too long in shoulder locks.
I’ve recently been seeing alot of nervy neck injuries especially with the increasing popularity of wrestling and standup in general in modern jiujitsu. We get our necks pulled on so much as our opponent tries to disrupt our posture, and we’ll also get our necks cranked in a bunch of different directions. For an unprepared neck, that usually doesn’t feel amazing.

When you are rehabbing an ACLR patient and they are returning to a grappling sport, have you had to change your rehab frameworks (or how you apply them) when compared to a field sport ACLR athlete?
Josh: Biggest difference with ACLr rehab for a jiujitsu athlete compared to our more typical field sport ACLr rehab in my opinion lies in how much we prioritize a return to running continuum.
Obviously a super important milestone in BOTH cases, but we don’t chase a return to run AS aggressively in our mid stages of ACLr rehab for jiujitsu. This is of course completely open to change as I continue learning and refining frameworks but for a jiujitsu athlete we’re likely putting much more emphasis on a graded return to the mats and less of our resources on return to run/rehab runs etc.
What are 1-2 key differences you think jiu jitsu athletes in acute, mid stage rehab and/or end stage ACLR rehab need to cover more than other athletes?
Josh: Biggest differences for jiujitsu based ACLr rehab compared to other sports is the emphasis on restoring/refining/reinforcing deep knee flexion and tibial internal/external rotation capacity.
Especially at a full return to sport stage, many jiujitsu athletes will be exposed to tibial rotation stresses whether directly from a leg attack or in scrambles or positioning on the mats.
What is a technique(s) you use during your rehab for patients that is specific to jiu jitsu?
Josh: Interestingly I actually think underlying principles are the same regardless of sport. The only thing that differs is what application of these principles might look like.
For example, we’re still looking to restore full movement and force capacity across the force/velocity spectrum for any athlete, and then we’ll look to grade exposure back into sport.
How do you manage the mental aspect when athletes are back grappling for the first time?
Josh: Big thing for me here is trying to slowly dose exposure to those demands as soon as possible and then dial that up over time!
I think many of us agree that “sport specificity” isn’t necessarily making an exercise look like the sport as much as possible, but replicating these contexts in the clinic floor, or setting up exercise inputs that mirror these contexts really allows an athlete to put everything we’ve been working on together in a sport context. Almost as proof of concept.
And then on top of that, if we’re training at the same gym, I like to try to be their training partner whenever possible for those first couple exposures back on the mats. This lets us tweak things slightly on the fly if needed and let the athlete accumulate wins in the early return to sport stages.

Key takeaways:
Josh: This goes back to something I talk about alot when discussing end range loading options with students/clinicians etc. but while end range training is can be super effective in isolating those weak zones, especially for a sport like jiujitsu where we’re forced into these weird zones of movement, it’s always important to zoom back out and see the end goal. Just chasing end range for the sake of MORE end range isn’t necessarily helpful for us if we haven’t meaningfully moved the needle in any way in getting us back to our sport!
Give us a little insight to Rollchasers – what it is, what you love about it and where people can find you!
Josh: Rollchasers has been such a fun project to come about this year! So rollchasers is attached to the jiujitsu gym that I train at, when the owner first approached me his vision was basically: “you know how when you go into a surf shop you’ll see all the surf gear at the front, and then at the back you can get your board fixed? well in jiujitsu your body IS your board!” and that’s how the curatedmobility x rollchasers partnership started.
It’s been very fun just seeing training partners pass by during a session, maybe hang out in the shop as I’m working with another athlete, or wait for me to sneak in a training session in between clients since the gym is just upstairs.
I’m based out of Toronto and I’m happy to hang out and get some work in with anybody who swings by rollchasers, jiujitsu athlete or otherwise. I also offer virtual sessions for international clients, and online coaching consultations for clinicians/coaches.


Looking for more information on rehab phases and what that might look like for your rehab?
I go into The Rehab Phases in detail in this article and cover the ACL milestones here.