BJJ and weight lifting?

[lethalweapon]

What are your opinions for a beginner on BJJ and weight lifting?
I've been doing BJJ for a few months and love it.

My conditioning's gotten better, so that if I'm rolling with someone
at the same skill level/weight, it can be a standstill for 5-10minutes with neither
gassing out. We can both focus on technique -attacking and defending.

Same for heavier guys who's at the same or worse skill level, but i'm not
strong enough to keep them in position or finishing a sub without them powering out of it.
I can get the better of guys my weight with positioning/subs, but not guys 30-50pounds heavier.
For these heavier guys, is it because a lack in technique, strength, alittle of both?
Will weight lifting weaken my conditioning by building more muscles and burning more oxygen?
I'm more concerned about being able to keep them in position then submissions, such as side control/mount, without them easily flipping me off or power out.
Thanks!

 

[Gavin LeFever]

well, if you ever finish sparring and think in your head, "shit if i was stronger i could have completely controlled his arm!" then weightlifting has beneifits you might enjoy. go to the strength and power forum and read the stickies. they will set you on the right path fast.

the most important strength you can have, IMO is strong hands/grip. what are the weapons in bjj? hands. legs come into play and help but it's hands first and hands last. if you can dominate someone's hand control then you can control the match.

 

[Mark Allen]

Agree with the grip. If you drive, hang one of those hand strength spring things on your turn signal lever. while driving to work, use it, come up with things like from one overpass to the next i wont let go of this thing. I have had one in my car for years and it works great. The grip is key, and you can get one that even woks on sweaty no gi opponents.

 

[TapDG]

Need a great grp..just do tons of forearms exercises but dont sacrifice your flexibilty either...get stronger but dont get too bulky

 

[Big Red]

I'm not much of a lifter & not much of a grappler. I'm a lazy one at both but I notice training certain muscles before a BJJ makes me weak at the session. I find my chest & tri's are my most used muscles as I tend to work from guard alot & we do alot of pressups etc in our warm up.

My regime is usually so that my chest & tricep day has an off day after so im fresh for BJJ.

Sun: Chest & Tri
Mon: OFF
Tue: BJJ
Wed: BACK & BI
Thur: BJJ
Fri: Shoulders & Legs
Sat: Muay Thai & BJJ

 

[blanko]

grip and core strength is what you need

 

[Happy Camper]

Sun: Chest & Tri
Mon: OFF
Tue: BJJ
Wed: BACK & BI
Thur: BJJ
Fri: Shoulders & Legs
Sat: Muay Thai & BJJ

Sounds like some terrible body builder thing

 

[Brendon Katz]

Will weight lifting weaken my conditioning by building more muscles and burning more oxygen?

I'm more concerned about being able to keep them in position then submissions, such as side control/mount, without them easily flipping me off or power out.
Thanks!

No. Your muscles will have more oxygen because the blood flow there will improve , and they will be able to make better use of that oxygen .

and iv found positioning to be 100% technique , if you are using strength to try and hold a position you will lose it.

 

[Soid]

I don't work out because I figure I'll just start using the strength to my advantage which in turn will sacrafice the little technique I already have.

 

[Wylian]

Well, on bigger guys u gotta attack the anckles, no matter how strong u are, there we are all equal!

 

[krellik]

Keep focusing on technique but strength training will do nothing but good for you.

 

[Gavin LeFever]

Sounds like some terrible body builder thing

nah, he's got a decent idea going with breaking it for push and pull days. he just hasnt made the last step and scrapped the bs ast lifts yet.

 

[JoeU1741]

I'm the opposite, I was pretty big and strong when I started. As soon as I got on the mat for the first time, the instructor who was showing me the basics gave me essentials on low hips, space to defend, no space to attack, use your legs etc. Then he looked me square in the eye and said "and don't use strength to force something". Then he made me train with all guys bigger than me so I wouldn't get used to using my strength. Even now it's hard as when I roll with a guy smaller than me, but of equal or slightly better skills and I win, I wonder if it's skill or strength.

So from my point of view, being strong particularly in the grip and midsection/ back does help a lot, but don't use it as a crutch to win fights (with little skill) or you'll loose to the first stronger guy you roll with.

 

[mogway]

The only thing I do extra from my bjj schedule ( 5-6x week) is cardio, push ups, sit ups and grip work. Usually on sundays

 

[Oktavius**]

IMHO if you want to get GOOD at bjj as quick as possible forget the weights untill you are blue. Spend the time and energy you would have used on weights doing bjj. That way your technique will improve so much faster because you wont be muscling your way through anything and learning bad habits.

If you stop and think about it bjj was designed for feeble little poeple to defeat bigger (less skilled) oponents so adding muscle with add nothing to the arts intension.

On the other hand... IF you just want to kick ass NOW and want to blitz competitions/mma then by all means, being as strong as you can possibly be in your weight class is a HUGE advantage. But you might be stuck at white belt for a while longer...

As far as wieghts and cardio? The two dont go together at all, bigger muscles require more blood/oxygen/energy to feed them whether you are using them or not but specially when you are. Your heart and lungs can only get so big and efficiant compared to your muscles. So unless you do a shit load of cardio as well your endurance will suffer, but lots of cardio eats away your muscle gains too and also makes it difficult to keep up your nutritional requirements.

So what im saying is in a perfect world (sif) you would concentrate on learning perfect technique first and THEN add the power on top, would make you pretty bas ass.

 

[krellik]

As far as wieghts and cardio? The two dont go together at all, bigger muscles require more blood/oxygen/energy to feed them whether you are using them or not but specially when you are. Your heart and lungs can only get so big and efficiant compared to your muscles. So unless you do a shit load of cardio as well your endurance will suffer, but lots of cardio eats away your muscle gains too and also makes it difficult to keep up your nutritional requirements.

Dude strength and cardio do "go together" and are in my opinion a necesary combination for a fighter. This way you will perhaps not set world records for the maraton or compete with the boys at westside in powerlifting, but you will be a wicked fighter. Do both from the begining. By the way there are more than one type of strength. As fighters we need to be alround.

 

[Oktavius**]

Dude strength and cardio do "go together" and are in my opinion a necesary combination for a fighter. This way you will perhaps not set world records for the maraton or compete with the boys at westside in powerlifting, but you will be a wicked fighter. Do both from the begining. By the way there are more than one type of strength. As fighters we need to be alround.

By saying not go together i was getting at how they conflict with each other in trying to develope both together. The old "rest them muscles for 48+ hours after a heavy workout" holds very true and traning cardio in that rest period is not optimum. Of course you need both and that will come down to just how athletic you are overall in the end i suppose.

 

[krellik]

By saying not go together i was getting at how they conflict with each other in trying to develope both together. The old "rest them muscles for 48+ hours after a heavy workout" holds very true and traning cardio in that rest period is not optimum. Of course you need both and that will come down to just how athletic you are overall in the end i suppose.

Not every strength session need to be heavy powerlifting training, and I also think that most of us have higher workcapacity than you implie, or have to build up to that anyway to be an as efficient grappler as possible.

 

[colinm]

i train bjj 3-5 times a week and lift 2-3 times a week. i always do heavy combination movements like deadlift, squat, or bench (or a variation of these) to kick things off, less than 5 reps per set. then i do another 1 or 2 assistance exercises, 5-8 reps for 3-4 sets. ive done some extra grip training too with heavy holds, farmers walks, wrist rollers ,plate pinching, etc. so far, ive noticed a significant difference when im rolling and its been very positive for my training. all of my workouts since i started lifting for bjj are in the training logs section of S&P in case anyone wants to take a look.

thats being said, bjj is always first. if its between going to bjj and lifting, i always do bjj because i lift to supplement my game...which i think some people miss and go all out on a lifting program and their training suffers.