When Dominick Cruz sustained an injury to his quad his return was delayed. Stripped of the title and sitting on the sidelines Cruz has been working hard to return and prove he is still the best at 135.
“The reason why I haven’t given an exact date yet is because I’m trying to piece my body together,” Cruz told MMAFighting.com. “I haven’t been able to kick due to this quad injury and that’s been the biggest holdback, is kicking. I’m boxing, I’m doing jiu-jitsu, I’m drilling wrestling, but I’m not going all-out in the wrestling and I’m not kicking all out yet.
The former 135 pound king continued.
“The reason is, you’ve got to rebuild those muscles because it’s a quad injury. It shuts the muscles down when you tear something off the bone like that, and you have to re-wake them up. Unfortunately that’s a process that takes time. It’s not a broken bone where the bone mends back together and it’s healed and it’s strong. A tendon or a muscle, it’s always flexible, always pliable, and it takes time to re-adhere to the bone, and the second you try to rush it, it re-rips right off the bone and you’re set back another two or three months. So the idea is for me to come back and stay back, not to come back for one fight and be hurt again forever. I’m trying to get my body 100-percent through and through, like when I started this sport, and it’s coming together and I’m feeling stronger. And I will be back this year.”
Source: mmafighting.com