Tag Archives: conditioning

Benchmarks For BJJ: Part 1

Nobody bothered to ask me, but if they did ask me, here’s what I would tell them: Get in really good shape if you want to compete. A jiujitsu competition is not just about who has the best jiujitsu skills, it’s about who is willing to work harder to win. The worst way to lose in my opinion is to gas out because you were not in fighting shape. There are lots of ways to train but if I was going to initially assess your readiness, I would look at these four workouts first and see how your performed. These are just three workouts that I have frequently used to train and assess athletes and there are many more that I could choose. Let’s start here. These workouts are relatively low skill and low weight but pack a punch and are useful to gauge how ready you are for the physical and mental challenges of competition. First learn to beat a barbell that isn’t fighting back before going against a live opponent.

When you enter a tournament you know based on your belt level how long your matches will last.  A white belt match is 5 minutes and a black belt match is 10 minutes (different organizations will have different time limits). You will know your weight and your opponents should be within a certain weight range. You probably will not know how many matches you will have until the day of because brackets are often not set until they have all the participants registered and checked in. Ask around and get a sense if you are in a stacked division or a light division. Obviously it is better to be over-prepared for more matches. On average most people have about 4 matches at local tournaments. Be prepared. Also in terms of strength you should be able to back squat and deadlift a barbell that weighs the same or more than you for multiple reps. You should have multiple pull-ups and dips.

“Fight Gone Bad”

In the early days of CrossFit, Coach Glassman created a workout for BJ Penn to prepare him for the UFC.  The workout was called “Fight Gone Bad” and it was as follows: 

3 5-minute rounds of:  (5 rounds if he was preparing for a championship fight).  

  • 1 minute of Wallballs, 20lbs 10ft target
  • 1 minute of Sumo Deadlift High Pulls, 75 lbs
  • 1 minute of Box Jumps, 20”
  • 1 minute of Push Press, 75lbs
  • 1 minute of Rowing for Calories
  • 1 minute rest between rounds.

The score was the total number of reps (and calories on the rower) added  up over all three rounds. What is great about this workout is that by doing the movements correctly you are forced to do a minimum amount of work for each rep and the more reps you get overall indicates your ability put out power for the duration of a fight. 

 

“The Death Race”

5 rounds for time of: 

  • 15 Calories Bike
  • 10 Burpees

This is a “gas pedal” workout: you step on the gas and go! There is no rest. You have to hit this hard and fast. Getting this workout done in under 7 minutes will require you to go to a dark place. If you want to be physically and mentally prepared for a competition, strive to do this workout as fast as possible.

“StrongFit Conditioning Benchmark”

Originally this workout was written as 8 minutes with a 140lb sandbag. I suggest you set the clock to match your rank level: 5 minutes for white, 6 for blue, etc.  The weight should be 60-70% of your body weight. So a 200lb black belt should be carrying a 120-140lb sandbag for 10 minutes. This is just a simple and painful workout that will test your fortitude.

Pick up the bag and bear hug it or Zercher it and do 5, below-parallel squats, walk 50ft and turn around and do 5 more squats and walk back.  Repeat this as many times as you can during the time. The less you drop the bag the better. The more rounds you do the better. An average of a round per minute is pretty good. You want to exceed that by as much as possible.  Hugging a heavy sandbag is a good facsimile for grappling with another human of similar size.

CrossFit Open Workout 12.1

This is by far the simplest workout you can do to determine your readiness.  The original workout is simple: perform as many burpees as you can in 7 minutes. In its original form the burpees were done to a target six inches above the athlete’s max reach. This dramatically impacts your score. I suggest you modify this to a time that corresponds to your belt level: 5 minutes for white belt, 6 for blue, etc. I also recommend you try it with and without the target. An average of about 12 burpees per minute with a target (and 15 without a target) is excellent. If you can move at that pace it will be hard for someone to out work your during your match. 

There are lots of ways to train and there is no guaranty that being stronger or faster or doing more burpees will get you a medal. But being in good shape gives you confidence it gives you a leg up on your opponent. It’s one less thing you have to worry about when you’re on the mat. Go work fucking harder.

Training for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

Taking twelve years away from Brazilian jiu-jitsu (“BJJ”) was not good for my skills on the mat.  However, I used that time to do a lot of training and coaching and worked with thousands of athletes around the world teaching CrossFit, kettlebells, weightlifting, mobility and gymnastics seminars.  While it could be said that I’ve dabbled in too many fields, I like to think that doing everything from yoga to strongman training has given me a lot of perspective when it comes to training.  As the saying goes, “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”  I find that yoga teachers think that yoga is what’s missing from everyone’s training and weightlifters think that everyone needs to get stronger and lift more weight.  Most blackbelts and people who have achieved success at something tend to advocate for whatever worked for them.  It’s only natural.  So when I lay out the things that I think are most important to BJJ athletes to help their training, I imagine my viewpoint might go against what other people have said. And that’s okay.  I am just here to help.

Coming back to the mat after 12 years, it’s taken me a few months to get back to my former level but I feel like I’m there.  In some ways I’m better than I was 12 years ago and in some ways I still have a lot of the same bad habits that I have to work to undo.  But what is important to remember is that now, at 46 years of age, I am in better shape than I was at 34 and I am smarter about taking care of my body.  So while I am an old purple belt and am not some world champion blackbelt or a CrossFit Games athlete, I have a lot of experience and time under tension. I also have a lot of training injuries that I’ve worked through so my recommendations come from a place of experience with an eye toward longevity.

Most blackbelts will tell you that if you want to be good at BJJ, you need more time on the mat. In order for you to log more training hours, you need to be healthy and injury free.  In order to stay strong and healthy what you do off the mat is extremely important.  Most blogs and magazine articles are concerned with optimal training: getting stronger, faster and being generally more awesome all the time.  This thinking is essential for young competitors. That is not who my advice is aimed at (although younger athletes will do well to heed this advice).  My experience is that you can take a 20-something male and throw a ton of training at them (both good and bad) and they will still continue to improve and get better.  Furthermore, younger people can train through injuries just because they’re young and (think/believe) they’re invincible.  I want to talk to the 30-, 40- and 50-year old BJJ athletes that are already starting to feel the wear and tear of training and advancing age.  Time is a precious resource and the older you get, the less likely you are going to be pursuing a professional jiu-jitsu career, so efficiency and longevity are more important than creating an optimal program.  For example, if you wanted to optimize your strength (i.e. get really strong, really fast), you might lift three to five days per week and follow some complicated periodized program and do a lot of complicated exercises.  However, lifting once or twice a week and sticking with 3 to 5 sets of 3 to 5 big exercises and going as heavy as you can for that day will give you almost all the general strength benefits that you need for BJJ without sucking up a lot of valuable time and energy.

For myself and my athletes I first consider that training time is limited and so our training off the mat has to be efficient and effective.  There are a lot of things that we could do, but there are a few things that we must do.  There are four areas that need to be addressed and trained and if you give them the proper weight and allot adequate time for them it will help you stay strong and injury free and allow you to enjoy your time in the dojo.

The four elements are Joint Preparation, Assisted Recovery, Conditioning, and Strength.   I listed them in what I consider their order of importance.  Furthermore, these four elements have some overlap so the lines can be blurred sometimes.  So doing joint preparation can also make you stronger and help your cardio. For example, doing heavy farmers carries (holding a very heavy dumbell/kettlebell in each hand and walking for distance or time) is not only a form of strength training, but it is also a conditioning workout because your heart will beat out of your chest.  Furthermore, it strengthens the grip as well as the connective tissues in the hands, wrists, elbows and shoulders.  Therefore, choosing exercises that have some crossover can be very efficient if you are short on time.  Of course, it goes without saying, that nutrition is probably the most important weapon in your arsenal with regards to health and longevity, so while you read this eat a fucking salad!

I will go into greater detail in future blog posts on how to properly prepare your joints, ideas for recovery and, of course, strength and conditioning.  Meanwhile, keep training and getting better.