Image Credits: Tua Tagovailoa Instagram
Tua Tagovailoa (full name Tuanigamanuolepola Donny Tagovailoa) is an American football quarterback for the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League (NFL).
And he has taken up Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to further aid his progress and to combat head injuries.
As he revealed in a recent interview with the ESPN, Tagovailoa trains BJJ once per week.
It helps him learn how to fall in order to make contact less of a shock to his system; something that he feels the athletes don’t learn a lot – especially during the offseason:
For guys at my position, we barely get hit throughout practices, throughout the offseason, even going into training camp.
We don’t even get touched until the season starts.So, I mean, with Jiu-Jitsu I’ve been thrown airborne, I’ve been put in many uncomfortable positions for me to learn how to fall and try to react throughout those positions that I’m getting thrown around in.
Tagovailoa had to miss out on a better part of six games during the last NFL season due to concussions and an apparent head injury in Week 3.
This inspired an unconventional approach to his offseason training, as emphasized by Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel:
It’s really hard sometimes for me to even remember [who came up with the idea of BJJ].
I know [quarterbacks] coach [Darrell] Bevell was spitballing some problem-solving things that we could do.
[Strength and conditioning coach] Dave Puloka and [head athletic trainer] Kyle Johnston were very involved in all this stuff.
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