From the far beginning of this art until today, the thin red line that connects all BJJ practitioners is strength and conditioning development strive. That perfect ratio between explosiveness and repetitive strength, between push and pull strength, between your own stability and ability to take advantage of rival instability, is something everybody should look for if they want to become good in practitioning BJJ. This is the reason you should have Bjj Strength and Conditioning Program.
As you may already know, BJJ is multidisciplinary kind of art where a mixture of aerobic and anaerobic demands are in front of you for the whole match and to complete the puzzle called BJJ strenght and conditioning preparation you need to activate every possible muscle fiber in all types of strenght training. But, does it mean that you need to practice a different type of strenght in different days or weeks? From my point of view NO! You need a complementary approach to your strenght and conditioning training because conditions in the real match will be a mixture of complex movements that will squeeze out a lot of energy from your body.
Bjj Strength and Conditioning Program
So what are your goals when it comes to Strength and Conditioning training in BJJ?
Definitely, the first one is to develop a stable aerobic and anaerobic base. The second one is to develop base strength which will be converted to explosiveness and repetitive type of strength. And the third is to develop a good level of flexibility and proprioception and to take good injury prevention sessions, but those are the topics we will discuss other time.
Which kind of strength exercises should I choose?
Today you will find many fancy exercises with different equipment but remember, when it comes to strength training, nothing can replace basic human movement. Those are hinge, squat, press and pull movement. We can add rotation and walking to those movements. Exercises should be multijoint kind of movements which have a better transfer from training to a real situation.
Which kind of equipment should i use in training?
More of them you master, more options you wil have to compile your training session. But you dont have to go very far from basics to get a real strenght kick. Bodyweight, free weights and barbell are more then enough to start a real training. Definitely, if you can, you should add kettlebells to you strenght training tools.
So, how should a good training session look like? It can look something like this;
Warm up ( mobility work out, muscle actiovation, dynamic flexibility, proprioception…)
Hang Cleans – 3 x 3
Deadlift – 4 x 4-5 repetitions
Ketllebell press 4 x 8-12 repetitions
Farmers walk – 5 x 50 m
BJJ Throw simulation with elastic bands 5 x 30 seconds
As you can see, this is an example of training which consist from a different kind of movements, and each of them demands different kind of energy supply and different type of muscle activation.
If you would like to train more in a unilateral way, traing can look like this;
Warm up
Kettlebell one arm swing – 5 x 5 each hand
Turkish Get up – 5 x 5 each hand
One leg deadlift 4 x 8-10 each leg
One arm dumbell row – 4 x 8-10 each hand
One arm floor press – 4 x 12-15
Jump rope 5 x 45 seconds
I am sure, by now, that you realize what is the lead thought behind this acces to strenght and condtitioning training and that you understand the key concepts. In the end i will give you an example of how one week of strenght and conditioning program schedule can look like. It is important to say that it can, but does not need to look same as this. A lot of variables are included in planing and programing. How old are you? Are you a competior or you just train art? If you are a competitor on which level do you compete? … You get the point.
Example of one week complementary strenght and conditioning approach for BJJ
In the end, it is important to say that every training routine should be adjusted, if not for the individual, then for the homogeneous group which is on a similar level of training and a similar level of skills. Only with proper planning and programming of strength and conditioning training, you can get the best results in terms of physical preparation.
After reading this article you will not get the ultimate routine for your training. The simple reason for that is because the perfect routine is not universal for everybody. Something that is good for me, for you will be too hard in intensity or maybe too low in volume. It is important that you understand key concepts of complementary training and that you can use the knowledge you got to implement it to your training sessions. In the end, do not forget about proper warm up and cool down. It is also important as everything described previously.
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