Strength and Conditioning For BJJ Over 40

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.

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