6 Jiu-Jitsu Strength Tips

Bobby Collins here, BJJ brown belt and personal trainer of 15 years. Let’s break down the my best 6 Jiu-Jitsu Strength Tips .

This article came to be because, I often see people online arguing over what is the best strength split for BJJ.

But, I’ve always thought as long as we have the right methods and recovering properly. The split probably doesn’t matter too much.

Here are 6 Modalities To Do in the weight room to improve your jiu-jitsu.

6 Jiu-Jitsu Strength Tips

Movement Pattern Based Workout

Training around the 5 fundamental movement patterns is essential to move better, get strong and become resilient to injuries in BJJ.

These patterns are

• Squats
• Hip hinge
• Upper push
• Upper Pull
• Single leg

If you look at the martial art, you’ll see how these movements repeat them self over and over again. By training these with control and load. We improve our potential on the mat.

Our goal , should be to train each movement pattern at least twice a week.

We want to use variations, that we can do well and don’t beat us up.

For example, maybe a back squat destroys you but a zercher box squats feels amazing.

Another benefit of training movements and through the entire range of motion. Is the more strength we have in larger range of motion, the less likely we will get hurt.

We often get hurt, when we are taken to ranges of motion, that we don’t have much strength in.

Sub-Max Strength

We want to train for strength.

This will improve our performance and make us resilient to injuries.

I prefer sub max strength, which is where you are lifting for heavy reps 3-6.

We want to lift heavy and be training at intensity of 7-9 from a scale 1-10.

This is super important, these should be hard, but we are keeping our form and control on point.

These are called technical maxes.

This will ensure we don’t get hurt and lifting heavy with poor movements, doesn’t transfer over to the mats as well.

I like to program this twice a week. One for upper and lower.

We focus on exercise variations, we can push hard with out pain

These are some suggestion, which seem to work for most.

Lower

• Trap bar deadlift
• Safety bar squat
• Zercher squat
• Box squats variation
• Sumo deadlifts

For upper

• Incline DB Bench Press
• Floor press
• Viking Landmine Press variation
• Chin ups

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but this will get you started

Power

Being explosive matters . Especially for us older guys 35+. After the age 30 our most explosive muscles start to go away, as we get older.

Unless we do something about it. That is why as we age , we get slower and slower.

Now, BJJ Athlete we want to be fast, explosive and reactive. Training power will develop these qualities.

This is going to help us dominate scrambles, have more explosive take downs and react to the opportunity we see much quicker.

For lower body, I like to train jumps, KB exercises and sprints

For upper body I love medicine ball throws, plyo push ups and some landmine power exercises.

Repetition Method

This is your higher rep work to build some strength capacity and muscle.

Body building gets a bad rep, but building muscle is great for BJJ athletes for 2 major reason.

The bigger the muscle, the more strength potential it has. Leading to better BJJ performance on the mat and being more explosive. As well as having more endurance.

The second reason is putting some strength and muscular tissue around our most vulnerable joints. Is going to help us become more resilient to injuries. We can never guarantee we won’t get hurt. But a stronger body with stronger muscles, connective tissue and ligaments. Is going to put the chip in our favor.

With this style of training , I like to pick exercises that are friendly on the joints and I’ll usually prioritize building muscle around common weak links such as

• Glutes and hamstring
• Abs and core
• Upper Back

I prefer full range of motion with these. Most of these will be compound movements in nature.

Assistance work

Assistance work are strength exercises, that you put in your workouts to help improve your main lift.

By improving your main lift , it going to have direct impact on your performance on the mat.

For example today my main lift was sumo deadlift with a 2s pause . I worked up to a heavy set of 5.

Then my assistant work was a trap bar RDL, which works a similar musculature. By training the RDL and getting strong at that move. It will help me have better performance with the main lift.

An upper body example might be Bench Press for heavy sets of 5.

Then my assistant lift, could be a close grip bench press. Same ideas, if I get stronger at the assistance, it will aid better out comes with the main lift.

Assistance exercises, are often similar movements then your main lift and sometimes, they will focus on the weak spot of your main lift.

Say you are having trouble with your lock out with your bench press. Your assistance work might be a tricep bias press variation. Because , if we get bigger and stronger triceps. That will eliminate your biggest liability in your bench press.

Strengthen Weakness

I love the saying “weak things break,” because it is true. A good strength plan will address your weakness.

I don’t know you, but after training people for close to 20 years most people have weak

• Upper backs
• Hamstring/glutes/low back
• Core and grip

If we strengthen those, good things tend to happen. Also, I am also a huge fan of building strength and muscle around our most vulnerable joints. Which will be adding muscle around your knees, hips, ribs and shoulders/neck,

If you put these 6 Jiu-Jitsu Strength Tips in your routine, you’ll not only be a monster on the mat but you will add years to your BJJ life.

If you want help with your strength and conditioning program. Join my Athletic Arm Bar, click the picture below to sign up