Weight lifting - how necessary?

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Oldguy

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I train 3 days a week. I stretch for 30 minutes each morning. On my non-training days, I run 5 miles or ride an exercise bike for 30 minutes. I force myself to lift weights one day a week. But, to be honest, I HATE it. For me, it is so boring.

How necessary is weight lifting in your opinion for staying fit and not injured? Is it worth the time for you?

P.S. Just trying to get a sanity check. I am not a competitor. My goal is to keep training and gradually get better over time at BJJ.
 
Weight lifting can be very important in regard to injury prevention. Athletes of all kinds develop imbalances due to their sport, so abiding by a routine to train the antagonistic muscles would go a long way to help keep you training longer and harder.

We'll take kind of an off-the-wall scenario, but let's consider the life style of a military person. Their PT usually consists of lots of push-ups and long distance running. To counter-act the effects of push dominant workouts (like shoulder bursitis, rounded shoulders, etc) doing a day or two of heavy pulling exercises like pull-ups or pull-ups would be great. Similarly, long distance running tends to put a lot of the load on the quads so doing ass-to-grass squats or deadlifts or SLDL or any other exercise that trained the posterior chain would be of value.
 
You don't ever have to weight lift to stay in shape. There's body exercises you can do or you can just grapple more. Swimming is another full body workout alternative. If you hate weight lifting, simply don't do it.

Personally, I do weight lift because I like it.
 
To me it is extremely important, I enjoy lifting and it does give me an edge in strength endurance when rolling with a partner with similar experience.
 
I find weightlifting extremely beneficial! I say stick to full body olympic style lifts.

I find deadlifts, clean and jerk(or powercleans), squats, and bench press to be very helpful
 
neomage2021 said:
I find weightlifting extremely beneficial! I say stick to full body olympic style lifts.

I find deadlifts, clean and jerk(or powercleans), squats, and bench press to be very helpful
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I agree. It's all about the compound lifts.

If I had limited time/motivation, I would make sure to hit:

pull-ups, squats, dead-lifts, bench, and military press for me with some ab.
 
I'd say lifting is essential to better your BJJ game. To prevent injuries and to be more explosive. If you're getting bored, challenge yourself more and set goals.
 
why don't you like lifting? is it too boring because you don't see the gains?

Lifting is very important. if you want to be a grappler you need to atleast do bench,squat, deadlift. your whole body minus a few parts are worked out hard with those compound lifts. include power cleans and you can be a beast on the mat (along with technique..ofc)

strength is a technique
 
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i don't do a lot of straight weight lifting but i do do a lot of anaerobic and kettlebell stuff to help with my explosion.
 
Pullups and ab exercises are all you need...lifting is just a bonus.
 
i think i remember an article in Mens Journal that said most doctors recommend 3 weight lifting sessions per week for men.
 
Kainan said:
i think i remember an article in Mens Journal that said most doctors recommend 3 weight lifting sessions per week for men.
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Remember that rolling is a sort of resistance work too. I think that 3 times a week recommendation is probably for those not doing other resistance work.

Will 3 days a week be better than 1 day a week...absolutely. Is it necessary...not.
I do it primarily for injury prevention and because I enjoy it. But if push comes to shove strength training is the first thing I drop in favor of stretching and technique.

It all depends on your priorities. If a lack of strength is not a problem for you and you hate doing it then don't. However, I would be willing to guess that you're doing some sort of split isolation routine (AKA bodybuilding style). If so, I also found it mind numbingly boring and don't blame you for hating it.

A real strength program doesn't look like that and doesn't take nearly as much time. As a previous poster wrote, squat, deadlift and bench are all you really need to do. But if you don't do them.... don't feel guilty
 
Oldguy said:
I train 3 days a week. I stretch for 30 minutes each morning. On my non-training days, I run 5 miles or ride an exercise bike for 30 minutes. I force myself to lift weights one day a week. But, to be honest, I HATE it. For me, it is so boring.

How necessary is weight lifting in your opinion for staying fit and not injured? Is it worth the time for you?

P.S. Just trying to get a sanity check. I am not a competitor. My goal is to keep training and gradually get better over time at BJJ.
Click to expand...

Is stretching in the morning good? I'd like to, but my muscles are so stiff in the morning and i don't feel like doing 50 jumping jacks first when i get out of bed, but i feel like stretching without a warm up is really bad.
How do you do this?
 
Oldguy said:
I train 3 days a week. I stretch for 30 minutes each morning. On my non-training days, I run 5 miles or ride an exercise bike for 30 minutes. I force myself to lift weights one day a week. But, to be honest, I HATE it. For me, it is so boring.

How necessary is weight lifting in your opinion for staying fit and not injured? Is it worth the time for you?

P.S. Just trying to get a sanity check. I am not a competitor. My goal is to keep training and gradually get better over time at BJJ.
Click to expand...

I would say ditch the cardio, which you get anyway at jj, and trade it in for the compound lifts. A proper below parallel, toes out, low bar back squat; deadlift; presses, etc.. will get you a lot more bang for your buck than a run.

These types of lifts have done great things for me and I can honestly say I have either avoided major injuries or healed faster since I started lifting on a regular basis.

If you are in fact old then this should be a no brainer.
 
workout A: Squat, bench press, deadlift
workout B: Squat, push press, clean
 
I don't think weight lifting is necessary, at all. I know this isn't a popular view. But if all you go is jiu jitsu in the gi, then I think off-mat time is better spent improving aerobic conditioning and flexibility. Those two things will do more than anything else to keep you training longer - the key to improving your jiu jitsu.

I also think the "injury prevention" angle is exaggerated. When I think of all the guys and gals at my academy who are injured, better flexibility and range of motion would have done a far better job of warding off those injuries than weight lifting ever would.

I've loved lifting weights over the years, and still do a little as part of my off-mat conditioning. But I think the current trend toward seeing weight lifting as a significant part of jiu jitsu training is wrong-headed - however inevitable it may be.

An interesting opinion from Carlos Gracie Jr.
"I could, for example, have done a lot of weight lifting and forgotten about the stretching, a recurring flaw I notice in gyms. I could have undergone hypertrophy for a time and not enjoy the flexibility and lightness I do today. Stretching is something we can do that is good for the inner organism, not yielding to the "results in the mirror." These days I notice how that is the great difference between me and my friends of the same age, as many of them are curved and heavy, loaded with muscle pains."
 
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