Getting results can be tough and a long process.

We want results fast and we expect them quicker than they usually come.

I heard a great quote the other day on a podcast.

Focus less on expectations, but more on your standards.

We can’t really control the results we get , how fast we will lose fat, build muscle or how well we will do in a competition.

But, we can control our standards. which can drive better chances of achieving. what we want.

You can’t control if you will lose 10lbs in the next 8 weeks but you can control you”

• Not missing sessions
• Working hard
• Getting your daily steps
• Hitting your protein and calorie goals
• Getting to bed on time

Just as I’m doing a few BJJ competitions next month. I really can’t’ control, if I’ll win or not but I can control

• -Hitting my BJJ session and working hard
• -Sleeping and eating well
• -Keeping my ego at the door, so I can learn even days, I’m getting smashed

Relax on your expectations and go all in on holding yourself to a high standard.

If you need help with this, sometimes having a coach can help until you get the hang of it.

I’m looking for 1 on 1 online clients, if you’re interested, apply here and I’ll go over the program for you.

My client Robin

One of the hardest workers and one of my consistent clients.

I’ve been training her for about 10 years, she has always shows up and rarely misses sessions.

Works very hard, even if she acts like she doesn’t like to

She has been able to build muscle and strength

As well as get leaner and feel healthier.

If you’re interested, she talked about her time training with me here

We usually lift 3 days a week and do cardio 1 time a week.

It has worked well for her.

Keith’s story is a good one.

We had mutual friends and we are a bar and he told me he was going to come to see me on Monday.

Since a lot of people would say this to me, I forget all about it, until you showed up Monday.

He processed to be one of my hardest working clients ever

Never missed session
Trained hard AF
His nutrition was on point, but he just did basics stuff very well

I think he ended up dropping 60lbs and then told me he wanted to work on filling out his shirts.

We shifted to build muscles and strength, which we were able to do.

Another cool thing, how much he pushed him self in other ways

He got really into 5ks and kept beating his time.

If your going to take anything from Keith is

Make up your mind and go all in

Don’t try change everything at once, often, a phase approach is best fat loss, than muscle gain.

Keep eating basic
more protein
more fruit and veggies
less of everything else, but without elimination

Want to learn what are the best strength exercises that will allow you to perform at a high level on the mat and avoid common injuries.

I made a video on this. Check it out here

If you have any questions let me know

How to build a strong and resilient body, so you can train for life. Strength & Conditioning Guide for BJJ 101

Hi, My name is Bobby Collins. I’ve been a trainer for 15 years but I’m also a BJJ lover. I train 5-6 days a week.

As much as it is cool, to get promoted, get subs, and win medals.

The mental and physical benefits of BJJ are so profound and important for my life.

I want to be on the mat for life

I’m on a mission to help others do the same.

There is so much information for younger and competitive grapplers to perform at a high level.

But, not nearly enough for older guys 35+, who want to do everything they can to get strong, so they can stay on the mat for life

If this sounds like you. keep reading as I share, some of my basic thoughts on training for BJJ for life.

Strength training

The # 1 thing anyone should do to improve their performance on the mats from a fitness standpoint is to get strong. There are so many reasons why. I’m going to go over 3.

Staying on the mat and avoiding injuries

The first one is having more strength and muscular tissue around our most vulnerable joints, which will help us get injured less and even make us harder to submit.

Here are a few examples

• Strong core over ribs, to avoid popping your ribs
• Muscles around the knees make it harder to twist your knee the wrong way.
• Muscles around the shoulders, so your arms are not so easily ripped into vulnerable positions.
• A muscular body can handle impact better, which is why in football everyone lifts. Because they know it is protective.

Getting strong for better conditioning and gassing out less

This might not make sense at first, but let’s think about it.

If you’re a weak dude, when you use good technique, you are going to use a high percentage of your max strength.

Take a strong dude, he is using similar techniques but he is using a small percentage of his strength due to how strong he is.

Which one is going to fatigue and get tired faster?

The weaker one, his muscles are going to be full of lactic acid, his heart rate is going to go through the roof, and he is going to have a hard time recovering in between rounds.

Stronger is usually better

I know everyone in jiu-jitsu is all about, the weaker guys beating the bigger guys.

But, is that really true?

Isn’t it more about technical guys beating guys without any or little technical skill?

If you are stronger, you can have more strength behind your technique.

Now, this won’t be applicable to every move. But, for certain moves, it’s a big advantage.

Aerobic-based and walking

When it comes to building our cardio. Everyone is so quick to do HIT or other intense forms of cardio.

But, this is a big mistake

Adding more stress on top of strength training and BJJ is usually not a good idea

Plus, building an aerobic base is going to help you more than any HIT routine will.

This form of training is easy to recover from, so it won’t interfere with your BJJ.

Building the aerobic base and what this means.

Having a strong aerobic base is going to allow your heart, muscles, and the rest of the aerobic system to produce power for longer.

This system also enables better recovery, so a better base means.

Better recovery and we can train more, without beating ourselves into the ground.

One of the ways we do this, is to do cardio at moderate intensity, so our heart can fully stretch as it pumps.

This will allow your heart chamber to grow in size and allow more oxygenated blood to be pumped per stroke.

• This means we get tired less.
• We recover better
• We have a lower heart rate overall, upon waking, and while we train
• Even living longer

• 1-2 x a week we want to do zone 2 work or aerobic training.

We want to use cyclical-type exercises like 

• Airbike,
• Walking
• Elliptical
• rower
• Sled dragging
• Jogging etc

Being sure to keep your heart rate in the 120-150 BPM or 60-70% of your max heart rate

These workouts should be around 30-60 minutes.

Walking

Getting outside and walking more, and hitting about 7500 steps can be huge for recovery.

Something many people don’t know, is we actually recover better, while we move.

A big reason for this is blood flow. If we can get more blood flow in a stressed or injured area, that is most likely going to be very beneficial from a recovery standpoint.

Try to add some walks daily and see if you can do 1-2 aerobic sessions per week.

With the aerobic session make sure you’re using exercises that don’t beat up your joints.

For example, an air bike might be easier on the knee than running.

Eating healthy and fueling jiu jitsu

We all know that eating healthy is going to give us better performance and health.

But, if you’re serious about being your best self and keeping your body injury-free, nutrition is going to play a big role.

How and what you eat will drive better recovery or can worsen your recovery.

Let’s go over a few big ideas when it comes to what you eat.

Hydration

Hydration is huge. Showing up to train, just a little dehydrated and your performance is going to plummet.

You’ll cramp, you’ll get gassed out quickly and your chances of getting hurt goes through the roof.

Try drinking half your body weight in ounces and then add 16 oz for every hour you train.

In the summer months, it may be a good idea to bump up your electrolytes by supplementing with magnesium and sodium

My favorite supplement for sodium is LMNT

Ancient minerals for a magnesium supplement.

Protein

Protein isn’t just a bodybuilding thing. But, the building block of all tissue in our body, and if we aren’t giving our body the resources to rebuild, we will get hurt.

Plus, from a weight management point of view eating more protein is gonna be huge.

Try to .7-1 g of protein per body weight

The best protein choices are going to be from animal products like

• Chicken
• Fish
• Pork
• Greek yogurt
• Cottage cheese
• Whey protein
• Lean beef

Fruit and veggies

You have been hearing this since you were little but fruit and veggies are going to give you a variety of vitamins and minerals we need to thrive. 

Plus, fruit is a great way to give your body quick fuel.

All the fruit and veggies will help you get more water and fiber in as well, for better health.

Carbs

BJJ is an intense sport, and carbs are the best fuel source for quick explosive movements. 

Carbs are gonna be your friend for performance and recovery.

Healthy carbs will always be better, think of things like

• Rice
• Pasta
• Bean
• Potataos
• Fruit

It usually makes sense to eat your heavy carbs meals around training and at night to improve sleep quality.

Remember guys sleep = better recovery

Maintenance Calories

I know people, don’t like to track their calories, but making sure you’re not undereating, will definitely affect how you feel on the mat.

When people eat less to lose weight, they are choosing to under recover.

When you have fewer calories to play with, it makes your recovery go down, kills your gas tank, and even makes it easier to get banged up.

Most of the year try to eat at maintenance calories

To get a ballpark number multiply your body weight by 13-15 and try to hit that number.

Hope this article started to give you the blueprint, on how to train to stay on the mat for life.

Get strong

Improve your conditioning 

Eat well and enough

Any questions comment below

If you want to work with me, you can apply for coaching here

With my 6-week challenge release, I’ve been writing more cardio workouts than I have in a while.

My goal with these cardio workouts isn’t to make it as hard as possible or even burn a ton of calories.

But, to build the aerobic system

When you have aerobic fitness and health

-You have a greater chance of living longer

-Better heart health and circulation

-Better recovery

-Better tolerance for dealing with shit in your life.

But, the thing with this type of training is it can be kinda boring, like going on an elliptical and pedaling for 30 minutes.

I wanted to program funner ways, while still hitting this system.

Here is one I did for a client this week, the goal is still to keep the HR at a low to moderate rate for 20-30 minutes.

Think Heart rate between 120-150

• Backward sled drag 100 feet
• light KB Swing 25
• Side lunges 10/ side
• Rest 60 sec

5 rounds

Finisher

Seated banded abductions

Banded leg curls

set 1 40 set 2 set 3 30 set 4 10

We were able to train the aerobic system, while the workout had the feel of a killer leg workout.

Feel free to steal this and give it a try.

I’ve always hated working out.

It’s boring and drags out.

It always seemed too much like a hamster running on a wheel.

When I got into training, that all changed.

Working out and training might seem like the same to most people. and the difference I’m going to explain might seem like a stretch.

But, for me, it made training fun, interesting and motivating.

To me, a workout is where you go in to just to sweat, burn calories and go through the motions.

But, training is when you train intentionally with purpose.

Training is about trying to improve your performance each week by

Doing more reps

Doing More Weight

Beating your times from the previous week.

It is this intention, that not only makes it more engaging.

But, really effective as well.

By getting into improving performance, you get to build some wins. while you’re trying to change your body.

Fat loss takes time and it can be like watching paint dry at times.

This can be why people can’t stick to a plan for long.

If your, only feeling of winning is, when the scales moves down, it can be a tough process.

But, if you feel a win because you’re doing more weight or reps each week.

You can create more wins and that makes the plan easier.

You might even, eventually be one of the crazy people, who says working out is fun 🙂

Train for performance and eat for health and your body fat/muscle goal goal

Taking shotgun to kill a fly, might get the job done.

But, it will create a big mess and destroy other things in the process.

This is how people tend to lose fat.

They will go on these restrictive diets.

Yeah, do they work yes?

A better question, do they last?

You’ll eat a lot less

Cut out your favorite foods and drinks

Lose weight

But, at what cost?

Wouldn’t it be better to kill that fly with fly swatter and not make a big mess.

This is often the difference between someone who can lose weight and keep it off and some one who can’t.

If you always go on these diet fads , you’ll always be destroying a lot of things, while you lose fat.

This is the big difference between someone, who track calories and know there numbers and can easily dial there numbers to lose weight when they want to.

Someone who doesn’t and has to be overly strict, because they don’t track and have no clue what they need to dial down.

So, they cut almost everything out.

Which method would you prefer?

Bobby

Here are a few ways I can help you reach your goals, when you’re ready!

#1 Apply to my 30 Day Results First Program…Lose fat and build lean muscle before you invest long term.

Apply here
http://fallriverpersonaltrainer.com/30rf/

#2 Follow me on Instagram, I give out free training and nutrition info daily.

https://www.instagram.com/bobbycstrength/?hl=en

#3 Are you looking to lose fat and finally get a hold of your eating? Join my Strong Eating Program

Just e-mail me Strong Eating, and I’ll give you all the details