Does BJJ build a certain style of physique?

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clampe1066

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I just started taking Muay Thai at a local BJJ school and while my fellow students are a typical collection of body-styles, the BJJ guys who come in as we are finishing pretty much all look like they could easily rip someone's head off. Are these guys doing outside strength training or does BJJ, in and of itself, develop this type of physique?
 
Yes . . . BJJ in and of itself makes you a complete bad-ass. But ripping heads off is a high purple belt technique.
 
Do BJJ if you wanna grow grappling muscles and do kickboxing if you wanna grow kickboxing muscles. :rolleyes:
 
please ripping heads of is a judo technique, we are the ripped and muscular studs, you BJJ are the agile pudgy looking dudes
 
When you train Jiu-Jitsu you use every muscle in your body at the same time instead of focusing on legs, arms, or abs individually. The result is strong and flexable, realistic muscles. Weight liftling will of course make your muscles bigger and stronger, but it won't do you much good if you can't touch your wrists together behind your back. For instance, having legs like a football player usually means not being able to do a simple butterfly stretch correctly, which gives you massive holes in your guard. If you had large holes in your guard as a student of Muay Thai then you'd want to change that, right?

IMO, the muscle structure of grapplers is almost identical to that of a surfer. Large shoulders and very toned and cut muscles. Treating the body as a whole in your work out has better results then disecting it part by part and then expecting it to come together again by itself.

Hope it helps you understand.
 
Paige said:
When you train Jiu-Jitsu you use every muscle in your body at the same time instead of focusing on legs, arms, or abs individually. The result is strong and flexable, realistic muscles. Weight liftling will of course make your muscles bigger and stronger, but it won't do you much good if you can't touch your wrists together behind your back. For instance, having legs like a football player usually means not being able to do a simple butterfly stretch correctly, which gives you massive holes in your guard. If you had large holes in your guard as a student of Muay Thai then you'd want to change that, right?

IMO, the muscle structure of grapplers is almost identical to that of a surfer. Large shoulders and very toned and cut muscles. Treating the body as a whole in your work out has better results then disecting it part by part and then expecting it to come together again by itself.

Hope it helps you understand.
Click to expand...

Proper strength training is NOT training the body part by part.
 
We have a wide range of physiques in my BJJ class. The key is to adapt the game to suit your physical abilities. The good news is that there are many ways to adapt/modigy/alter BJJ to achieve the same resluts.
 
Paige said:
When you train Jiu-Jitsu you use every muscle in your body at the same time instead of focusing on legs, arms, or abs individually. The result is strong and flexable, realistic muscles. Weight liftling will of course make your muscles bigger and stronger, but it won't do you much good if you can't touch your wrists together behind your back. For instance, having legs like a football player usually means not being able to do a simple butterfly stretch correctly, which gives you massive holes in your guard. If you had large holes in your guard as a student of Muay Thai then you'd want to change that, right?

IMO, the muscle structure of grapplers is almost identical to that of a surfer. Large shoulders and very toned and cut muscles. Treating the body as a whole in your work out has better results then disecting it part by part and then expecting it to come together again by itself.

Hope it helps you understand.
Click to expand...

You are succumbing to a huge (and common) stereotype by thinking that more muscle size = less flexibility. I hear people all the time "I don't lift 'cause I don't want to lose my flexibility" and it makes me cringe every time.

Growing muscles DOES NOT MEAN you lose flexibility.
 
Paige said:
When you train Jiu-Jitsu you use every muscle in your body at the same time instead of focusing on legs, arms, or abs individually. The result is strong and flexable, realistic muscles. Weight liftling will of course make your muscles bigger and stronger, but it won't do you much good if you can't touch your wrists together behind your back. For instance, having legs like a football player usually means not being able to do a simple butterfly stretch correctly, which gives you massive holes in your guard. If you had large holes in your guard as a student of Muay Thai then you'd want to change that, right?

IMO, the muscle structure of grapplers is almost identical to that of a surfer. Large shoulders and very toned and cut muscles. Treating the body as a whole in your work out has better results then disecting it part by part and then expecting it to come together again by itself.

Hope it helps you understand.
Click to expand...

Stop...just stop.
 
Grappling absolutely causes you to develop a certain physique, people lose ridiculous amounts of fat and gain much muscle from grappling. not to mention the whole ear thing.
 
NJrocks said:
Grappling absolutely causes you to develop a certain physique, people lose ridiculous amounts of fat and gain much muscle from grappling. not to mention the whole ear thing.
Click to expand...

I guess what surprised me was that the BJJ guys were mostly built like UFC fighters (i.e., quite large thru the chest, shoulders and back) which surprised me because the last UFC BJJ fighter I watched was Joyce in the fourth UFC. I would not have expected that kind of upper-body development from BJJ.


I could live without the ear thing but I primarily got into Muay Thai to lose weight and build a better physique. I assumed grappling would not do that to any great degree. Looks like I was wrong.
 
Paige said:
When you train Jiu-Jitsu you use every muscle in your body at the same time instead of focusing on legs, arms, or abs individually. The result is strong and flexable, realistic muscles. Weight liftling will of course make your muscles bigger and stronger, but it won't do you much good if you can't touch your wrists together behind your back. For instance, having legs like a football player usually means not being able to do a simple butterfly stretch correctly, which gives you massive holes in your guard. If you had large holes in your guard as a student of Muay Thai then you'd want to change that, right?

IMO, the muscle structure of grapplers is almost identical to that of a surfer. Large shoulders and very toned and cut muscles. Treating the body as a whole in your work out has better results then disecting it part by part and then expecting it to come together again by itself.

Hope it helps you understand.
Click to expand...

do you know who jeff monson and ricardo arona are?
 
If you're training hard, and very often, you'll be getting a hard workout in a lot of different muscular groups, so while you won't get bigger from it, you'll get toned in the areas you use, and develop a physique that is practical for grappling.

So the answer is yes, if you're training hard enough and also doing other things like eating right. Unfortunately a lot of places don't focus on hard physical conditioning much.
 
I hadn't really thought too much about the grappler's physique, but lately I've been getting a lot of comments that I "look like a wrestler". I mentioned this to my wife and she thinks since I've started BJJ, that I look "tougher".

At 42, that sure beats looking like 98% of the other guys my age.
 
Sohan said:
I hadn't really thought too much about the grappler's physique, but lately I've been getting a lot of comments that I "look like a wrestler". I mentioned this to my wife and she thinks since I've started BJJ, that I look "tougher".

At 42, that sure beats looking like 98% of the other guys my age.
Click to expand...

I agree and I also like the above comment about the BJJ physique being a chick magnet. Maybe I need to switch over to BJJ. :icon_chee
 
Spencer is 13. He does not work out at all other than BJJ. 1.5 years of training.

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No, diet probably has more to do with physique than BJJ, think about all the BJJ BB's ever to try MMA, then look @ pictures of the machado and gracie family's. Rolker Gracie and Rigan Machado both practice BJJ regularly and there physique is that of an average male there age.
 
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