I want to give you a little gift, here is a 2 Days A Week Strength Training For BJJ.

In the last couple of months, I have written countless articles about how to train for BJJ, so you get hurt less and dominate on the mat. Check them out here

Today, I’m going to take the guesswork out of it all. By giving you a 2 Days A Week Strength Training For BJJ.

You can program strength and conditioning for BJJ in many ways.

But, it seems like many guys , only have the chance to train, two times a week.

That is what I’m going to give you today. This is plenty for most guys because:

• That is all they can recover from.
• They rather spend most of their extra time, on the mats instead of the weight room.
• They don’t want it to interfere with BJJ

Your 2 Days A Week Strength Training For BJJ

This is written with the masses in mind.

It is not customized for you.

Feel free to sub out movements, that don’t feel the best for your body.

If you need help adjusting these, you might enjoy my 1 on 1 coaching

I have a huge exercise library, so if you are unsure of how to do these exercises. Check it out here

The Warm-up

This is something people skip a ton.

But, this is a vital part of the 2 Days A Week Strength Training For BJJ.

This is going to get ready for the workout, but it is also going to act like a pre-hab to strengthen and mobilize weak areas.

So you can perform at your best and get hurt a lot less.

If you’re really stiff and have mobility issues. You can even use this on an off days as a mobility routine.

The Warm up

• Calf raises 15 reps
• Pec stretch(any kind you want) 60s
• Couch stretch 60s /
• 1/2 kneeling rotations 10/ side
• Deadbug-alternating arms and legs 10/
• Bridges 20
• Banded pull parts followed by banded face pulls 20 each
• Box Jumps 3x 5 rest 60s

Once, you get to know this, it shouldn’t take you longer than 10-12 minutes to do.

Workouts

Workout 1

These workouts are going to use super sets to save time. You want to do the first exercise, then the second exercise. Repeat for the given amount of sets

Optional finisher to supercharge your BJJ Conditioning

I wanted to give you some optional finishers to improve your gas tank, you can do these after your strength training or on a separate day.

Air Bike Sprints

Sprint all out 5-10s , then rest 50-55 sec 6-10 round.

Make sure you go as hard as you can. My goal when I do this is to see, how many calories I can get in the interval and each sprint see if I can beat it.

Then do your best to control your breathing and drop your heart rate as low as you can during the recovery period.

Sled Drag/Loaded Carry

• Drag a heavy Sled backward for 100 feet
• Farmer Walk with 2 heavy Keetlbells for 100 Feet
• Rest 90s
• 3- 5 rounds

Be sure to be in a slight squat when you are dragging and go heavy

Farmer walk, keep a good upright position and crush the grip of the KBs with your hands

Rower

• Go 70-80% max intensity on the rower for 15 sec.
• Then go slow for 45 sec
• Repeat 10-20 x

This is a great one to build an aerobic base, if your conditioning is your weakness. The goal is to keep your average HR around 180 minus your age.

All three of these things will develop different aspects of your conditioning game

Air Bike– develops power during intense scrambles and your ability to recover activity after them.

Sled/loaded carry- Help you build relative strength and muscular endurance, so you can have the ability to hold position isometrically, without creating too much fatigue.

Rower- Aerobic conditioning, so you can recover better from training and in between rounds.

Any questions?

Go here for daily strength tips

Hi I’m Bobby! I’ve spent a better part of my 15-year career, helping folks over 40 get strong and staying healthy. As a BJJ enthusiast, I think I have some great ideas for Strength and Conditioning For BJJ Over 40

Today! I’m going to go over some of my opinions and what I do with current online clients who are 40+ , some train BJJ, and some don’t.

Strength and Conditioning For BJJ Over 40

Sets and reps

Strength and Conditioning For BJJ Over 40, is not just about what you do. But, how much of it you do.

If you’re lifting, you have to understand as a older guys/girl your recovery is not what it used to be, especially if you have poor recovery habits.

You have to take into consideration all the other stresses in your life, such as your BJJ training, work, relationship stress etc.

Because of this Strength and Conditioning For BJJ Over 40 , you’ll do much better with less volume. So aka less sets and reps.

You’ll get stronger, and build more muscle as well as your workouts will be an asset, instead of a liability.

Especially if you don’t have a goal of building muscle. You might be shocked, at how much strength you can build with just 1-2 hard sets for each exercise.

Start with 1-2 hard sets and slowly build up and see how you feel.

Avoid using bodybuilding like volume, it will most likely just wreck you.

Some good numbers to try to hit each week would

6 Hard sets of each muscle group per body part at the end of each week.

Joint friendly Movements

As you get older your joints have more miles on them. You have to be smart about what exercises you choose to use.

AIt’s important that you pick exercises that tax your muscles, while not beating up your joints . This is a big part of Strength and Conditioning For BJJ Over 40.

We want to typically stay away from exercises that

• Compress our spine
• Put our joints in really weak and uncomfortable positions
• That hurts you, and not in a good way.

This is where DBS and KBs are going to be some of your best options.

I have a full article on my favorite joint-friendly exercise here

You”ll have to play around with exercises and find what works best for you

Extra cardio

Everyone over 40 thinks they need more cardio, especially if you’re a lower belt starting your journey.

But, I would prioritize recovery and strength training, before you add cardio.

But, if you do, most likely as 40 + you have a ton of stress in your life, and adding high-intensity cardio isn’t going to make anything better.

But, most likely makes things much worse.

If are going to add cardio sessions, I would add aerobic training.

Which is developing the aerobic system, so your heart can pump more oxygenated blood more efficiently.

This will give you better endurance, and better recovery from jits.

In general; you want your HR to average, 180 minus your age for 30-60 minutes. I’m 36, so mine would be 144 beats per minute.

I recommend you do this with joint-friendly exercises, that aren’t going to beat up your knee, ankles or lower back.

This style of training is boring, but it is needed if your aerobics system is hurting.

A few things I do to make this fun or less boring.

• Watch a movie or TV or I’ll watch fights when I’m on a machine.
• Do circuits to keep it engaging like 5 minutes on the air bike, 5 minutes on the rower and 5 minutes incline walk and repeat for 30 minutes.

If you want a better idea of how to improve your gas tank go here

Recovery from Strength and Conditioning For BJJ Over 40

As you get older, your recovery gets worse.

Sometimes, this is from age, and for others it is just the added stress in our life that makes habits, that boost recovery to slip away.

If you can’t recover from it, it is waste.

This is why it depends on how much train BJJ and the other stress factors in your life.

This should dictate how many strength and conditioning sessions you do each week.

But, there are some things that will help you boost how well you will recover, that is what I’m going to talk about next.

#1 Fitness- Being strong, moving well, and having good aerobic fitness, will allow faster and more complete recovery.

#2 Food – How we fuel is going to have an impact on how we recover. Keep it simple: lean protein with most meals, stay hydrated, fruits/veggies and carbs around your workouts, as well at night.

#3 Sleep- I should have written this first, it is the best way we can recover from anything. Try to get 7-9 hours of sleep and the more of it you get before 12am the better. A good rule of thumb, is to go to sleep around 10 p.m. or earlier.

You’ll often see recovery tips from supplements, ice baths, foam rolling etc. These can definitely help but they are small rocks, compared to the three I listed above. Dial those three in first, before worrying about that small stuff.

This is how I would train if I were 40+.

Actually, this is how I’m training now at 36. The earlier we can train like this, the less likely we have to deal with, what the average 40 or 50 years has to deal with.

If your looking for daily Strength and Conditioning For BJJ Over 40, check out this page for daily tips

This Bobby! I love lifting and BJJ. I want to do it for as long as I can. Training the core is a vital part of that. Today I’m going to teach you all about core training for BJJ

Knock on wood but, I have not a serious rib injury, where many guys who do BJJ get them often.

I think because I have built armor around my ribs with core training for BJJ

Not just any type of core training for bjj, but functional core training.

Today I’m going to go over how to build a strong core, so you don’t get hurt and perform at a high level on the mat.

You have the outer core, that you’ll see if your body fat is lower enough.

But, then you have the inner core , which helps create tension to protect your spine.

If all you do is hip flexion exercises aka outer core, like crunches and sit out you might build the outter abs but your inner core will be weak.

You’ll be more prone to injuries.

We want to develop your whole core for BJJ , so you are strong on the mat and can resist pressure more easily.

As well, as decreasing the chances of getting hurt, because your lack of strength and/muscle around your most vulnerable area.

I’m going to teach you how to do that today.

Core Training For BJJ

To build a core that performs and protects, their are 4 categories we are going to go over, that we want to train.

• Anti-extension
• Anti-rotation
• Anti-lateial flexion
• Anti-flexion

When developed and worked together, you’ll have less lower back pain, better performance and a stronger core for BJJ.

No more pressure tapping from knee on belly

Anit-Extension

This is when we fight extension of the lower back, these would categories as anti-extension core exercises.

This will challenge our inner core and anterior core to a very high degree.

Exercise that would be under this category would

• Planks
• Deadbugs
• jacknife
• Ab fall outs
• Hollow holds
• GHR isolation

We want to resist the extension of the lower back as we do these. We do this by tucking our rib cage in and breathing into our core, and bracing.

Bracing is when you breathe into your core and think about pushing your core/abs out 3 dimensionally. This can be a little hard to grasp at first. But, this is essential to what a lifting belt does.

A good drill to try this, is to tie and band around your mid section. Take a breathe into your belly and try to stretch the band using your gut. Push out in the front, sides and back.

Anti-Rotation

These will target your inner core, anterior core and side core(olbiques)

The idea is to resist the rotation of your torso.

Things like

• Hip taps
• superman
• mountain climbers
• pallof holds or presses

Really anything where forces are trying to get you to twist and you have to resist that.

Anti Lareial Flexion

This involves resisting bending to the side, which is going to challenge your lateral core like obliques the most

Things like

• Side planks
• pallof press with pole
• single arm farmer walks

Anti-Flexion

This is going to be the one move, that is not super core related but hips and glutes, which can be considered part of your core

This is going to be extending your hip and resist the hips from bending . Things like

• Backe extension hold
• bridges
• hip thruster
• Rever see hypers

A strong glute is going to protect your core and lower back, so be sure to train this one.

Levels of Core Training For BJJ

There are different levels to core training for BJJ

Level 1 static holds, holding these for time, being sure you resist the movements

2-4 sets 20-60s are some parameters to start with

Level 2 Would be added dynamic movements and resisting , while we move another part of our body.

• This would ab fall out, moving the arms out, while not letting your lower back go into extension.
• Single-arm farmer walks, walking, while not letting the DB/KB flex you to the side.
• Pallof press with band, moving the arm, while not rotating the body.

The one movments that are different would the flexion, in which you would flex at the hip and go into extension.

This would bridges, instead of bridges hold or back extensions, instead of the iso hold at the tops

How to add core training for BJJ until your workouts

There are a ton different ways you can add core training for BJJ into your current routine, I want to give you 3 ways I do this for myself and my online clients. If you want more strength tips for BJJ go here

#1 Do 1-2 core exercises at the end of most strength workouts. The idea behind this, is doing the hardest exercise first in the workout and more isolation exercises towards the end. You can think of core work as isolation exercises. I do this version the most often.

#2 Core work can be done first , before you lift. This is backwards, then what is typically done. But, the idea is sometimes, people might skip the core at the end because they don’t want to or they run out of time. This ensures you always get the core work in .

Doing some core work can even help you move better. At times working the muscle of the core can unclick hip mobitly. If you are doing squats, starting that workout with 1-3 sets of core, can help the squats feel better

#3 This another one I do often is to add core after cardio. If you are someone who hasd cardio days. After you are done with cardio piece for the day . Add 1-3 sets of core work.

When you do core, I would pick 1 core exercise from 2 of the 4 categories and work them 1-3 sets 8-12 rep or for 20-60s.

Each time you hit core, do a different combination of the categories.

Day 1

Anti-exntesion/anti-laterial flexion

Day 2

Anti-rotation/anti flexion

As you get better and train with high-level guys, your opportunity to pull off your moves becomes smaller.

You need to be able to explode when you see an opening.

The sad part a a 35+ BJJ practitioner, power and our fast twitch muscle fibers are the first to go as we age.

This is why everyone should have some type of power training in their routine

This reminds me of a sweep, I was working. I took my time to set up and waited for my opportunity, then I was able to explode, get the sweep, pass the guard, and get into an attacking position.

So, if I had not built and maintained power, I might not been able to pull things like that off.

How To develop power?

Power is something, that can be hard to get people to buy into, because it feels like easy work sometimes.

Power is about moving very fast, with little to no weight, with a long duration of rest.

It might feel like you are not doing much, but you are developing power.

We want to explode as quickly and as hard as we can. We train these for low reps. The higher reps you get the less explosive, you become and now you are no longer training power.

We also want to stay away from fatigue, because that will slow us down and stop us from being truly fast and explosive.

Which will hinder our ultimate goal for developing power for BJJ and in life.

Do reps 1-6 reps for rest intervals of 30-90s. They are done for 3-10 sets.

You want to train power first before you get into your heavy lifting.

We tend to do 2 types of power exercise, one that is done really fast with no or little external resistance,

• sprints
• plyo
• jumps
• MB throws

We also have strength-speed exercises, which involve moving lighter loads faster compared to when we lift heavy, these are like

• Olympic lifts
• KB swings/cleans or snatches
• Dyanicn effort deadlift and squats.

I like to utilize both, but depending on where your weak links are, one may help you out more than others.

When it comes to exercise selection for power exercise, with BJJ guys in mind. I like power exercises, that aren’t going to take a long time to learn and are joint-friendly.

I’m going to finish this post, with some of my favorite power exercises, I like to use

Box jumps

This is a lower-body power exercise, it is easy on the joints and can be scaled toward your fitness level.

• Bend your knee
• Hips rapidly and jump as high as you can on the box.
• You should be able to land on the box in an athletic stance, but not with your knees to your chest.

I like reps for 3-5 here for 3-6 sets with 60s of rest.

KB Swings

A great dynamic exercise, to build explosive power in the hips, as well as build a strong core. It also teaches you to relax and explode. Which is needed in BJJ.

• Throw the KB, through your legs, but above your knees
• Without using your arms explode your hip forward.
• Let the KB float up and as it comes down repeat and throw it back through your legs.

I like higher reps here 6-15 reps and 30-60s of rest between rounds, 5-10 rounds.

Dynamic deadlifts and squats

I like to use banded for these lifts, and focus on coming up rapidly with lighter weights, usually 50% of my max on that particular lift.

For deadlifts, I like to use trap bars and BB sumos.

For the squat I like box squats or regular style squats, I prefer to use a safety bar, because of the less wear and tear on the joints.

I like 1-3 reps here with 30-45 s rest for 6-10 sets

Medcine balls throws or slams

There are so many throws and slams you can do, to build power with medicine balls. These are extremely joint-friendly, they have no lowering phase.

Here are some drills I like

• Slams
• Rotational slams
• rotation throws
• Slamo-rotational throw
• Chest pass
• Scoop throw
• Step through chest pass

I like 3-6 reps with 30-45 s rest 5-10 sets here

If you want to stay young and be explosive on the BJJ mat ensure to train power 2-3x a week.