Top 3 Conditioning Tools For BJJ

Here is an article that I wrote for BJJ Legends Magazine:

http://bjjlegends.com/bjj/jiujitsu/item/1030-top-3-conditioning-tools-for-bjj

I would love to hear everyone's opinion...Thanks.
Rich

 

Your article says these are "conditioning" tools, but then the reasons you give for number 1 are

 

LOL

 

Sport specific strength is a myth. Squats and milk.

 

That is true. But let's say you already have a pretty decent squat, clean, overhead etc. So now you need to transfer that strength to your chosen sport. Maybe doing stuff with sandbags will accelerate the process of transfer.

Or maybe not...

 

I'm relatively new to strength training but I don't find picking a dude up that different from picking a barbell up.

That said, I'm lazy as shit and I'd rather just do my work sets and go home than do a bunch of crazy shit with sandbags because it might transfer 10% better

 

Or you may start spreading yourself a little thin. Which most BJJ guys tend to do. What TS doesn't understand, and what like 99% of the BJJ community doesn't understand, is that power lifting is the absolute best GPP for BJJ. Build strength and work capacity. Conditioning happens on the mat.

 

I think kettle bells excel more than sandbags in all the area's you listed.

 

It's said that doing your sport more is usually going to be the best conditioning for that sport, and that does make sense to me. But some people face an upper limit on how often they can do their sport, and still have some, or even many, training slots left in the week. For people in that situation, I would have thought that doing stuff with sandbags would be one of the better choices for anaerobic sessions.

 

I don't know many combat athletes or high level BJJ practitioners who simply go the power lifting route for strength and conditioning.

There is more to strength and conditioning than lifting heavy and rolling.

 

In addition to what others have said, how are those all cost effective options? That's gonna be over $600 worth of stuff, maybe up to $700, depending on shipping and taxes and all that good stuff. For me, that's a three year membership, at a gym that has all those tools and more.

 

By upper limit you mean they risk "over training"? Because in that case, they should probably just use that time to rest. Or if somehow they find too much time on their hands they can spread their lifting out a little more. Or if they are really really hurtin to do some extra cardio, they can sprint, or push a sled. I just have never seen anyone improve their strength or cardio using TRX, or sandbags, Bulgarian bags, kettlebells, or any of the other gimicky tools someone is trying to make $ off of and I've helped A LOT of BJJ, and martial artists with their S&C.

 

Do you disagree on both fronts or just one?

 

Like what?

 

Oh, no, I just meant that they physically can't get to classes as many times as they would like to in a week. Like maybe the place they go only has classes three times a week, something like that, so they have plenty of spare training time which they are probably going to be using for S&C.

It's interesting that you've never seen good results from sandbag stuff. As I say, from my non-experienced guesswork-based perspective I would have thought that sandbag stuff, along with prowler pushes and maybe some kind of sprint, would be among the better exercises for grapplers wanting to do HIIT. Thanks for sharing your experience!

 

So, for a BJJ practitioner, what would be some sport specific exercises would you suggest? Obviously, this does not mean everyone should do them, but I'm struggling to come up with any examples.

Squats and milk are tremendous. I returned home from school for winter break today and my mother is already upset with how quickly I'm going through milk.

 

Most BJJ athletes don't really need too much more than that. The three best conditioning tools for BJJ are BJJ skill training (more technical efficiency), light drilling for long periods of time (cardiac output), and hard rolling for short-medium periods of time.