I never realized how tight the leg squeeze is when you're in someone's guard. What exercises can I do to improve the muscles needed to have an intense squeeze?
Nothing will prepare you better than rolling. I've heard people talk about working leg blender movements, guard squeezes with a pillow or Bosu ball, but I'm a firm believer that nothing will help you more than "live" rolling. If you want to tighten up your guard, then start all your free rolls by pulling guard. When you're happy with your stamina/strength of your guard game, move on to a new area that needs work. My 2 c.
tight squeeze in the guard? I don't squeeze my legs really at all while in the guard, I squeeze when i have a submission but yeah not when I'm in my guard that just seems like a waste of energy.
ROFL! :icon_lol: Anyways, IMO there really isn't much point in squeezing the hell out of some guy when he's in your closed guard (not until you slap a sub on at least) and in fact I was in a tournament once and beat a much bigger, stronger grappler because he tried to just squeeze the hell out of me from guard. He ended up burning his legs out quick and I passed easily. But one exercise that may help is the old adductor machine in the gym. Yeah you know the one that all the chicks use to work their inner thighs. Stephen Kesting actually talked about this in his "Dynamic Kneebars" dvd as a good way to build strength to latch onto a leg via kneebar. Use it if you dare...
This reply brought you to by miller lite... always a good call...seriously Colonel good find my friend and I salute you for making this thread more interesting.
my serious reply would be, that whenever i have to fight to keep my guard closed for a long time, my thighs don't feel tired at all, but my outer calves do from trying to keep my ankles crossed. i don't know if there are any exercises for that however. Kegel FTW.
Yeah, I'll stick to ViceGrip's advice: "Nothing will prepare you better than rolling. I've heard people talk about working leg blender movements, guard squeezes with a pillow or Bosu ball, but I'm a firm believer that nothing will help you more than "live" rolling. If you want to tighten up your guard, then start all your free rolls by pulling guard. When you're happy with your stamina/strength of your guard game, move on to a new area that needs work. My 2 c."
the closed guard isn't about squeezing the shit out of someone. if you are putting that sort of squeeze on smeone you are wasting energy and going to burn your legs out.
You could drill with bigger guys where all they do is try and open your closed guard, rotating in fresh guys if you want. Other than that, any type of ATG squats or deadlifts will help.
