Strength and Conditioning for BJJ is one part of the process that can’t be missed if you are looking to fulfill your potential as a BJJ player – especially if you are looking to compete.

Grappling Industries ran their round-robin format tournament on the weekend in Sydney. The competition was my second in the last two weeks and provided fresh format to grow my skills. I would be competing in the Gi and No-Gi.

I have alway taken the long view in developing myself towards to what hopefully will be my Black Belt one day. This has meant I have had to look at my strengths and weaknesses and understand how to address them along the way. Strength and Conditioning allows you to improve your physical attributes to reduce injury, increase your ability to exert force and improve the pace that you are able to keep when rolling.

In the Grappling Industries competition I won a Silver (Gi) and Bronze (No-Gi). One of my big discoveries from the day is that for me to be more successful in competition I need to develop a cardio base. Not the type of base where I can go flat chat the whole round, I just need to develop enough base to fight at a pace that allows me to play my game throughout the whole round.

Fatigue Makes Cowards Of Us All – Vince Lombardi

We are going to dive into what it means when you focus too much on one area ,and become specialized, while neglecting others. Like being that guy who has that one move and nothing else – we never want to limit ourselves in that way.

#blackbeltstrength

I may have taken the backward approach and I decided to improve my strengths even more and work on getting strong as fuck (for a bjj player).

With the help of Shannon Green (#shoutouts Warrior Performance) over a 2-3 year period I have been able to bring myself up to what I have jokingly coined #blackbeltstrength. This of course is all relative as I am the height of a midget (5’5) and weight a sloppy 85.5kg.

Also if someone has better technique and strategy than you then your strength levels are negated. #blackbeltstrenght is the idea that you and your opponent are matched or they are slightly better. The person who can produce more force and pressure by being stronger will come out on top.

I do think that all BJJ players should be chasing strength in the gym. Your strength and muscles act as armour that protects your body to be able to train often and for a long time. I have been doing BJJ since 2009 so many of my training partners have been injured or burnt out from the art they love. The injuries pile up or they just get too beaten up from training session to training session.

If you are looking at your long-term development as a BJJ player it is remiss to not give yourself the best chance of being able to endure the pain and stress that comes with the art by having #blackbeltstrength.

#whitebeltcardio

The idea of gassing out in a competition seems so foreign till it happens to you. Rolling in BJJ once you start to get some technical expertise becomes easier and becomes more like a flow state. Don’t get me wrong you still go to war with some training partners which leaves you both gasping for breath when the buzzer for the round ends.

The gassing in competitions is different though.

Its this feeling that you can’t get you breath back no matter how hard you try. Your legs feel heavy and your forearms are going to explode and that’s in the first 30 seconds!

Questioning how you are able to survive 5 x 7 minute rounds at training and then still feel like you could do a few more yet now you struggle to last one match.

The Effect of Nerves

For a competition you can use your nerves to motivate you or to play on your mind so much it affects your performance. Sports Psychology teaches us that each person has an optimal zone for them to achieve their performance.

It took me many competitions to become comfortable with a routine that allowed me to hit my Optimal Zone for performance.

At a later date I will look at some of the methods I have used to create what I feel is the best routine for me. For Grappling Industries I don’t feel nerves played as much of a part as my cardio base.

Cardio Base

Cardio base is something that may have a few misconceptions around it and does require a bit more thought to nail down. For me cardio base is not necessarily the ability to go flat chat for an entire round and not be breathing heavy at the end. BJJ is more about discovering the pace that you can maintain throughout the whole 5-10 minute (7 minutes for me) round in competition.

This takes into account times when you may be scrambling for position in transition or when your opponent is creating a lot of pressure for escapes or on top. Your ability to recover quickly from these exchanges is important as is your ability to recover to a level that is not so low that it impacts your ability to perform in the match.

A good analogy would be a video game character – lets use Street Fighter – ( I know your energy doesn’t regenerate in Street Fighter 🙂 )

Each time Ken is hit he regenerates some energy, however it regenerates at a lower and lower amount.

e.g 100% – Hit – 80% – Hit – 65% – Hit – 45% – Hit – 30% – Hit – 15% – FINISHED

Conversely if we look at Blanka who has no Cardio Base each time he is hit he recovers at much more reduced amount

e.g 100% – Hit – 60% – Hit – 30% – Hit – 5% – Hit – FINISHED

That is the best way I can explain not having a cardio base – your ability to recover at a level to still perform the skills of BJJ and implement your strategy becomes harder and harder as your energy bar goes down. Then if you have no ability to recover it back you are definitely up shit creek without a paddle!

Where to go from here

After every comp there is a post mortem on what was done well, what was done badly and where to next. The debrief after a comp should always be focused on aspects that you can control – not results as a lot of the times this can be out of your hands.

From a Strength and Conditioning for BJJ perspective my focus will be on the next three things

1. Periodize my Strength and Conditioning for BJJ to attack my weaknesses more (definitely my cardio base)
2. Study up on the work of Joel Jamieson from 8 Weeks Out fame – the coach of the 🐐 Demetrious Johnson
3. Improve my technical and tactical components of my BJJ game to utilize more “cooking the beans” in my matches 😁

If you enjoyed this little rant of mine then feel free to share with your BJJ friends and let me know anything else you would like me to write about.