Doctor Jiu Jitsu Show

From Surgery to ADCC Trials: How Alex Enriquez Trains, Recovers, and Wins

• Doctor Jiu Jitsu • Season 1 • Episode 2

Share episode

Alex Enriquez is a jiu-jitsu black belt, ADCC Trials champ, and former All-American wrestler with a story every serious athlete should hear. The journey includes starting jiu-jitsu at age 11, switching gyms with maturity and grace, overcoming multiple injuries, and learning how to train smarter, not just harder.

This episode dives into what it takes to become a world-class competitor while maintaining mental health, proper recovery, and long-term performance. If you’re navigating burnout, injury, or the emotional rollercoaster of elite training, this conversation is gold.

Timestamps + Headlines:
00:00 – From Alpharetta to ADCC: Meet Alex Enriquez
01:06 – Day One Competitor: How Jiu-Jitsu Became a Lifestyle
03:36 – Switching Gyms Without Burning Bridges
07:16 – Managing Anxiety and Building a Champion’s Mindset
09:49 – The Competition Routine That Reduces Adrenaline Dumps
11:56 – Lessons from Overtraining and Career-Threatening Injuries
13:39 – How a Pro Athlete Team Was Built (PT, S&C, Nutrition, MFR)
17:15 – Trigger Point Dry Needling, Ice Baths, and Recovery Routines
19:57 – The Bucket Handle Tear That Changed Everything
25:29 – Rebuilding After Surgery and Restoring Confidence
26:32 – What’s Next: West Coast ADCC Trials and Elite Prep


Links & Resources:

Follow Alex on Instagram: @aenriquez218

If you got something out of this episode, please rate, follow, and leave a review! Share it with a friend, a teammate, or anyone who’s trying to build a bulletproof body and mind. I appreciate you all—see you on the next one!

To learn more about Dr. Megan Jimenez, check out her website: doctorjiujitsu.com

Dr. Megan Jimenez:

This is Dr jujitsu. Your go to podcast for combat sports, military performance, injury prevention and treatment. Now. Here's your bad ass host, Dr Megan Jimenez, bow to your sensei. Hey guys. I'm Dr Jimenez. I am an orthopedic surgeon in jiu jitsu brown belt. I'm here with my good friend, Professor Alex Enriquez, or in Portuguese and HIKI,

Megan Jimenez:

that's right, Alex and Hicks, she is a 24 year old black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu under Professor Bruno frazado Here at Atos, Atlanta, which we have Professor Bruno's stuff up here our show. She is a very decorated Brazilian Jiu Jitsu athlete. She won IBJJF NoGi pans at black belt in 2022 23 was IBJJF world's NoGi champ. And then in 2023 towards the end of last year, ADCC East Coast trials, which was awesome. I loved watching that one. And then she also wrestled throughout high school and college, all American wrestler, which has really helped, and probably why you like Nogi. Yeah, so much. Yeah, absolutely rolling it. Thanks for being here, and thanks for taking the time out too. No, thank you.

Alex Enriquez:

I've always loved it. Whenever you're in town visiting, it's always a great time. We're trained the

Megan Jimenez:

next couple days. Hell yeah, because, of course, I got an Airbnb just to come train. Yes. Cool. All right, so you started jiu jitsu really young. You were 11, yeah, 11, yes, which I'm super jealous of, because I didn't start. I was like, 2425 already, yeah, residency. And definitely harder to commit the time. But at 11, you found love for it. What brought you from just coming in, going through the motions, to competitor? Actually,

Alex Enriquez:

it was just like, a day, one thing. And it was, it just like happened on accident. I just started doing jiu jitsu that summer of sixth grade, and my parents were just trying to get me into a hobby and then keep you off the streets, hard streets of Alpharetta. And, like at the time, my parents were working like, two, three jobs. You know, we just immigrated from the from the Philippines, and Steve, my coach at the time, and Brian, both of my coaches, they kind of became, like close family friends pretty quickly. And it became like, Oh, I'll they'll pick me up from school and take me to the gym. So it just became, like a regular routine. And so within like, less than a month of training, I was just training almost every day, just because it was just became part of the schedule. And then Steve was like, Let's go compete. And I was like, okay, whatever. And then I did my first Naga with like, less than a month of experience, and then I was able to win those samurai swords. And I was like, this is the coolest thing ever. You still have that samurai sword? Oh, I have so many. Like, it became, like, all right, we're gonna collect this many. I was like, I want that design. I want this. They didn't care about Jiu Jitsu. You just wanted the sword. It was all about the swords. This is what Naga does to kids. They just farm little kids with dull samurai swords.

Megan Jimenez:

All right, so tell me about where you started and then how you kind of ended up at Atos. Yeah.

Alex Enriquez:

So I started jiu jitsu at knuckle up fitness at the age of 11 in Alpharetta, Georgia, under Professor Steve Mitchell, and I got I went through the kids system all the way to my brown belt, and that was about COVID year of 2020. Was when things were getting difficult at the gym that I was at, and then we weren't sure if my my professor, Steve Mitchell, was going to stay teaching, because he was starting a family had other jobs, and we know we didn't know what was going to happen with the world. And it's just so happened that we lived already in Marietta because of school at life University, and so we were driving by like the street, and then all of a sudden we saw an auto, auto sign over here, and we already knew who Bruno fazato was. I've known him. I've taken a seminar from him, and I just love the way he teach. So over COVID, we chatted. We started taking privates, like, secret privates, yeah. And so it kind of just happened like that, and but we always kept the open line of communication with Steve, like, Steve's like my jiu jitsu dad, even till this day, like he's definitely like a second father to me. And so we all kind of agreed, like with the next steps of my career, where I was still wanting to become a professional athlete, or at least, like looking towards that path, that it would have been a good choice for me.

Megan Jimenez:

What advice do you have to people who are in that kind of dilemma where, or maybe they just want to step up their game, or want to change gyms, maybe there's more females in another gym, right? You don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. And how do you recommend people navigate that? Because the other option sometimes is people quit Jiu Jitsu. They're just not as happy, or they're not being it's just not the environment, right? Because one gym doesn't fit everyone. So how do you recommend people do that? It's

Alex Enriquez:

definitely a superset. Positive topic, even for myself, that whole gym switch, even though I feel like it was as amicable as possible, I struggled with it emotionally for about, like, two to three months. Like, in secret, Fay and I were both struggling with it, but we didn't talk about it, because we're like, oh, we felt like we made the right decision, but like, we were, like, crying in the showers, like every

Megan Jimenez:

or, like the best place to cry, yeah, car driving 100%

Alex Enriquez:

I think, all the top and so it was tough. But, you know, I always went with the thought of, like, you know, I didn't want to burn any bridges. Everything that knuckle up has done for me since, you know, I was very young, was always it helped me become, you know, the young adult I am now. And I've always been very thankful for that. I just kept an open line of communication with them. And regardless, it's still, you know, of course, it's gonna hurt feelings, but you know, I was very honest and open about everything. And so it made the switch easier, because I wasn't trying to hide anything. I wasn't lying about anything, so I was just honest about them and and luckily, unfortunately, I had, you know, support from both sides. In terms of, you know, my old gym and then the new gym I was coming from, they were all very supportive. Even Bruno was very understanding about the whole switch. I think I was in like Limbo of searching for a gym for about like two months or so. So it wasn't like an immediate switch and whatnot. It was me figuring, figuring it out, figuring out what, what I wanted out of the gym I wanted to be at in terms of, you know, training partners, the way I wanted to do my, you know, trainings, and what I was looking for out of a coach going forward and in my personal career. So, yeah, I was a lot of factors about it, but yeah,

Megan Jimenez:

well, it's good advice, and it's good for people to consider and have adult conversations 100% Yeah, just not just like saying anything Exactly, yeah, it's a tough conversation. The jiu jitsu

Alex Enriquez:

community is very small, and no matter where you go, it's very small. Every state is very small. So it's just, if you decide to burn your bridges there, it's gonna easily catch up to you at the new gym that you're at. You know for sure. All

Megan Jimenez:

right, so you compete a lot, and one of the big things that I talk about is like, mind and body, that connection. I think for so long, I was a culprit of just going physical body, and it was like, you hurt, you are stressed. It doesn't matter. Just put bury your head in the ground, and you can't really live that way. You can't do life that way, and let alone try to compete that way. So what mindset tips do you have for people? What do you do to prepare for competition with all the anxiety? I mean, I guess, I'm assuming, but I think most people probably have anxiety. Yes, yeah, I met a couple people that say they don't. There's got to be some, there's got to be

Alex Enriquez:

a little bit, at least, like, even for those people that they say that they don't, I predict that they probably come their competition schedule is very, very like when I was in the wrestling season, collegiate wrestling or high school, is probably when I experienced the least amount of anxiety, because it was other than it was so physically draining. We were having, meets, tournaments, whatever it was, every like Wednesday and weekend. So it was so consistent that is just like it just became part of the schedule. And it doesn't seem like there's this whole build up towards it. So even with Jiu Jitsu, like I compete maybe once to twice a month, if that ends, the more often I did it, the less nerves I felt during so it just became part of routine. But even if I take like, a, like, a month or two off of competition, I go back to it. I definitely feel nervous. And it's just now I've gotten to the point where, you know, I've been able to control, you know, control, not so much, control my nerves, but, like, direct them in the way that, you know. I just know that the nerves are like, it's my body just priming itself for war. Essentially. Do you

Megan Jimenez:

have a routine or anything that you do that people can do before

Alex Enriquez:

they compete? It's more so I don't really do a lot. I've been asked a lot, like, you listen to music, or do you have any, like, mantras or whatnot? I actually don't. And when I go to tournaments, I like to fully involve myself in the environment. I go there, like, maybe two hours before, one and a half to two hours before, because I have a really long warm up, I soak in the sound so that, like, my body is just like, Okay, it's used to the loudness, or whatever. A lot of my calmness comes from the pre tournament of the preparation. Like I feel confident through the studying I've done, the, you know, the training and knowing that I'm already as as prepared as I can be, so that, you know, there's nothing else to worry about, like you've done all the work, so there's no reason to be nervous. You know, when wins and losses, I've gotten to the point where. Where, yes, now it's about like the wins and losses do matter at that high level, you know, in terms of rankings. But I also try to look at competition now as like a feedback mechanism of like, okay, I, you know, do this well, or I needed to work on that, you know, what could I have done better stuff like that? But in about like 45 minutes before competition, 45 to 30 minutes, I start warming up, I do a lot of dynamic mobility, and then I go with, you know, my training partner, and I start just moving around, moving around, like kind of regular roll stuff, or if there's a specific Super Fight that I train for, it's gonna be those specific things that we've been working on during the camp, and I just tried to build a really good sweat to where I'm almost in like, my second win, so that I don't have like, an adrenaline dump, Yep, yeah. And I'm not eating a lot. I probably eat in the morning. I do eat a lot more than I feel other competitors that I've talked to, other female competitors that I've talked to leading up to the tournaments. I'm always kind of snacking, but I take simple carbs, like fruit leathers, honey sticks, something that you know will give my body the energy needs, but I'm not sitting there like digesting food. Yeah?

Unknown:

Quick Hits, yeah,

Alex Enriquez:

that are gonna get you Yeah? Exactly, exactly. So, all right,

Megan Jimenez:

awesome. You said that, or I read in your bio that you went from training like five to six times a week, you know, daily, or a couple times just once, to like two to three times a day. Yeah. But we've also talked about injuries over training over use, and how have you balanced that when you are training so much,

Alex Enriquez:

oh, man, so I feel like I did everything that I wasn't supposed to do, or like supposed to do, or wrong in the beginning, and then I got injured, and I had to get surgery, whether it was my shoulder in high school or my my knee in college, and it was all from over training, and I ended up having to have surgery and also cutting weight in high school, like high school wrestling, I didn't know what I was doing. I was just eating bananas and protein bars for Yeah, it was dehydration, yeah, it was just lack of knowledge, lack of education, you know. And once I did everything wrong, then I was able to, you know, I I had the right support system and I was able to educate myself. I learned that, you know, after, I believe, honestly, after my second or my second surgery on my knee and in college, my my freshman season of college at life University was when I realized, okay, I really need to be on top of my active recovery. And so the biggest thing that allowed me to train from one time a day to like multiple times a day and still feel at the peak level, like how a 24 year old should feel, you know, is that I realized, and Bruno professor, Bruno attests to this too, because when I switched gyms, it was before I was really like, burning myself to the ground every training session. It was like, super intense every training session. Now my training sessions, the intensity is not it's probably moderate, most of 70% exactly, it will go light to moderate, and a lot of it is about developing new skills. We're all about like developing new skills, being very technical, being as well rounded as we can. And our job as a professional athlete is doing our strength and conditioning outside the gym, and you're responsible for that. So you know, my strength and conditioning coach is Mo Travis, and I knew her from knuckle up my old gym, and she's a CrossFit level two instructor. She was a muay thai IKF world champ. She's a jujitsu black belt. So she knows what, what's going on. She knows what, what my body is, you know, going through when I'm training all the time. She programs everything for us, and it's so built in, like, even though I'm saying I'm training two to three times a day, part of those training sessions is already active recovery. It's like, built in during my week. And I noticed that even though I'm training more, I feel like I'm training smarter, like I feel like I'm recovering so much better. The amount of sleep I get, my diet, my nutrition is so much better than it was when I, of course, when I was in high school and but you're still

Megan Jimenez:

so young to be knowing knowing this. Because when I started around your age, right, years on you. So I started around your age, but I was of that mentality of like, just beat the shit out of yourself. If you're not training 100% you're not training right. And it was not the right mentality, because I'd wake up and I'd be like, Oh, here's how I look, left, right, yes, yeah, I got it so super lucky. And like, That's awesome that you're doing now, you know, figuring that out now, no, yeah,

Alex Enriquez:

I feel really fortunate to just, you know, I started young enough so that I made all the mistakes, but I'm still. Young enough to where I can learn from those mistakes and really benefit and use it to my advantage animals, older. But yeah, no, it's it's all so much, so much goes into it. I feel like I've found a really great support team. Of you know, I have a PT, I have a Chiro, I have a strength and condition coach, I have a nutritionist, I have all the things that you're supposed to have as a professional athlete, so to speak, in any as

Megan Jimenez:

a person, right? Just like walking around, everybody should be doing a little bit of training, not just professional athletes. Yeah, people don't realize how much all this catches up to

Alex Enriquez:

them. Oh yeah, I work at a restaurant part time on the weekend, and, like, I just talked to my coworkers who live, you know, normal lives, and I'm just like, Oh my gosh. Like, no wonder your body always hurts. Like you don't do anything for your body. You don't just even just the simple, simple working out, like, maybe 2030, minutes, yeah? Sleeping guys, yeah. And then the way they eat, of course. And being at a restaurant is like, you know, we're always, they're always just eating all the all the junk food, fried and

Megan Jimenez:

vegetable oil, exactly. Yeah. So what kind of active recovery do

Alex Enriquez:

you do sometimes, like yoga. I go to the sauna a lot, sauna slash ice bath. I do contrast that in the same sessions. And that was like a love hate relationship in the beginning. And now I love it. I still have love hate with the ice, like the sauna. I love the ice is where there's I always say you're not supposed to love it. No, yeah, I feel that. Yeah, that's, that's good afterwards. Afterwards, you feel like euphoric, and that's when you love it. But not during,

Megan Jimenez:

yeah, I always have, like, good music on after. I'm like, dancing around, having a great time.

Alex Enriquez:

It's amazing. It's like a it's like a natural high. And then part of my PT and stuff, I actually just did it today and went over to one on one physical therapy with Lance cross. He's my physical therapist, and he's had decades of experience with trigger point dry needling, and that's something that I found earlier last year that has been a game changer. I mean, like, literally, a game changer that we've added almost weekly. And it'll be insane. I'll have, like, a injury, a severe injury, to where I'm like, I don't know if I'll be able to compete in, like, the end of this weekend, something like, I got hurt that week, and you're like, I messed up, and then I'll go see him. And it's, it's crazy how trigger point dry needling works. It's just the amount of relief, the range of motion I get back, and it's just like, oh, I felt like I wasn't even injured after the 12 hours after being sore from all the dry needling. And on top of that, I mean, Faye herself is a licensed massage therapist. That's why I had to, you know, as soon as we started dating, I was

Megan Jimenez:

like, I have to keep you.

Alex Enriquez:

Yeah, I was like, who's trapping exactly, but she specializes in MFR myofascial release, and I feel like that modality of massage has really helped me. So it's just like, all of it, all of it. Have

Megan Jimenez:

you ever had times where you didn't have your cross training, your PT, and you were just training jiu jitsu since you started, yeah,

Alex Enriquez:

since I started? Uh, yeah. Maybe if we're, like, on vacation, or you might have noticed a difference, oh, 100% because then it's like, if I don't have, like, my true pointer, I need to like, or if I don't do, like, my especially stretching if I don't, if I don't stretch, if I don't do my my Yeah, stuff. If I'm not doing my active recovery, I feel like I'm in college and I'm just like, hurting all the time. My quality of sleep just tanks. Like, I can't sleep good. It was such a game changer for me after my second year of college, when I really got on top of my active recovery, that I was like, oh, doing more doesn't always have to be, like, intensive doing more, but I'm, like, recovering so much better, and I feel like I my energy levels are so much better. And I just feel overall, like, healthy all the way around. I feel so strong in terms of, you know, my strength and conditioning with Marc. You know, we're we're doing our correct strength cycles, and I'm always peaking when I need to for competitions, and then I can recover. And we're de loading and doing all the stuff that we're supposed to do nice to

Megan Jimenez:

date. Now, what's been your worst injury and how did you come back from it?

Alex Enriquez:

I'd say, actually, the I've had some neck injuries, but I when I actually had to get surgery on my my meniscus, I had a bucket handle tear, and 20 or 20

Megan Jimenez:

the bucket handle is like a, you know, I know kind of when a bucket handles, but people listening, you can explain your meniscus, like that little disc that's in the side, inside of your knee. It kind of flipped. And your knee gets stuck. So a lot of people, people like, people will come in and say, I can't bend my knee. Yeah,

Alex Enriquez:

it was just stuck like this, like a right angle. And it was because, you know, it was my first season of college wrestling, and the coaches were still actually learning, like, the next season, they did not do this, but they were running us into the ground, like, literally running us like we were having the same practices as the collegiate track team. We got to the track before them, and we were finishing after them, and we're like, why are we running more than the actual track team, the collegiate track team, and plus, we were doing this with weights like yoga balls, med balls, stuff like that. And it was insane. And so I definitely had underdeveloped hamstrings, and so I actually ended up getting hurt by myself, like, on the next day my hamstrings. I, like, woke up and I was like, I can't I was like, I can't bend my hamstrings. I just so tight. And then we went to we had the map practice, and we were just warming up. And so we were having line drills, and I was they were asking us to do a bear crawl to a knee slide or so. And so I bear crawled, and as soon as I slid my knee across, it just it popped really loud. And I instinctively dropped to my butt and tried to kick out my leg, because I felt like something, yeah, and I dropped, and I was like, Oh. I was like, and then I looked around, and because, I guess I was just like, in shock, and then I was like, I can't move. And I just, like, raised my hands up, and like, looked at my coach. I was like, oh, like, yeah. I was like, and so they took me downstairs to the ATR, the athletic training room. They put some stem on me in some heat packs, and they're like, Okay, just wait for it to relax. And throughout the rest of the day I was I still couldn't move my leg. My leg was stuck. And then I got I got home, and I was like, I can't sleep. They actually gave me some muscle relaxers and whatnot, but it was so painful. Like the whole the next two to three days, I was, I've never had, like, really bad knee injuries, so I was trying to Fay. I was like, I think my knee is really messed up. Yeah. I was like, I don't know why I can't. I still can't bear weight on it. I couldn't, I couldn't extend it or flex it at all. Fortunately, her massage therapist at the time, Ray long is also specializes MFR. She has over, like, 1000 actually, I'm not exaggerating this. She has documented over 1000 plus hours of continuing education in MFR and myofascial release. She teaches some of the courses now too. And so that's who actually got stay involved in starting to study MFR. But he's like, You need to go see Ray and whatnot. And I was terrified, because I was like, I don't think anybody could touch my leg. I can't even move my leg. Like, how am I? And then so, and it was crazy. She took my she went to see me. She took my leg, and she was just guiding it. It wasn't hurting, and she was guiding it through the motion that I heard it. And I was like, I didn't explain to her how I hurt my leg. And she was and I was like, how did you what? How did you know like that was, and she was just like, your body was just guiding me through it. And after that weekend, after time of that, that session, my leg was starting to release, I was able to start walking, then i was running, and I hadn't gotten the MRI back, yes, from the school. They had to wait. They had a protocol, I think it was like a week or two weeks. And so I got back to weight bearing and all that. And then I was basically running, jumping. I was back to normal. I just didn't have the last, like, end range of motions, like, I couldn't fully extend it, I couldn't fully bend it. And then they got back, and they're like, Oh, you have a Bucha handle. Bucket handle, Terry, you have to do surgery. And I was like, but, yeah, but, but it was crazy how much that MFR helped me in that time to go from not being able to move my leg or be weight bearing to okay, I'm actually almost pretty much normal. I just, you know, didn't have whatever was stuck. After

Megan Jimenez:

surgery, you went back to wrestling. Yes, how did you so I recently had ACL surgery, and now thinking about competition, it's, it's a little bit like nerve wracking. What did you do? What tools did you do? And this is, I'm asking for me to a lot of this, because I want to know what tools you use to get you back to competing, yeah, and feel safe and feel confident with your new knee or with what had been repaired,

Alex Enriquez:

honestly, like I probably went, I did actually the ATR trainers at the time, and I feel like a lot of collegiate it's the downfall of collegiate sports is like you have such just a short timeline to do everything, And, you know, eligibility, but I did go back early. I did actually, honestly, with, I think it was eight months, even for just a meniscus repair. Like, at six months, I was already, like, back on the mat, but it was still taking me, like, an hour or like 30 minutes to warm up and, like, actually being able to squat full. Slowly and get that range of motion back. And then I was moving well, they kind of pushed me back into competition. I think that was my first competition back with collegiate nationals. And I didn't do well there, but, but I was able to do it, and my knee held up. Luckily, the school was, you know, covering everything, paying for everything, and, you know, I was still on the same schedule as all the athletes. So I was going to the strength training room all the same, same as they were. And then after that nationals, we went back to jujitsu, because it was off season. And it took me about another, like, couple months to actually start feeling more normal. I started training again, strength training with Mo and that helps your confidence. Yes, I feel like you know when you have a personal trainer that you could trust, she knows it, because she's been through injuries too, and so she's like, Okay, I've had something similar. This is what we're gonna do. We're gonna take our time, and over time, like, Okay, I started gaining the muscles back in my legs, my emotion was starting to come back, and before I knew it like and we just continued that strength training. So now I even feel like bulletproof with my legs. Like, you know, I feel like the surgery helped me in a way, if, if I was doing everything right now, I feel like my legs are pretty bulletproof, like my my surgery need does get sore sometimes when I overdo it, but I never had a scare where, like, I think I'm gonna hurt myself again. So what's next for you? Um, what's next? West Coast trials, nice, yeah, the one that actually counts to get into ADCC. So we'll have that coming up in March. Yeah, cool. And where can people find you? Um, on Instagram, at a Enriquez 218, here at Sosa, Atlanta, come through. Come train. Please. Super

Megan Jimenez:

Welcome to here. I always love having training. All right. Well, thanks so much for all the info. No,

Alex Enriquez:

thank you. Thank you for having me excited to train during the week. Hell yeah.

Buzz Burbank:

And I ironic Media Productions visit us at i r, O N, I C, K, media.com i.