BJJ Cardio Workouts-Stop Gassing Out

Are you sick of gassing out during rounds and looking for the best BJJ Cardio Workouts to improve your gas tank?

Today, I’m going to give 3 cardio boosting workouts for BJJ.

A couple of months ago, I wrote about how to boost your BJJ cardio, but today I’m going to give you the specifics.

Take all the guesswork out.

If you like to see my original article, check it out here

BJJ Cardio Workouts

How many days of cardio, do you need?

How many days, you need will depend on a a few things.

The first thing is your current BJJ schedule. If you train 1-3 days(BJJ sessions) a week, you could fit 2-3 of these sessions in. I would prioritize the 2 aerobic sessions because they have more upsides. But, if you train BJJ 4-8 sessions per week. Doing 1 aerobic session per week is plenty for most guys.

The second, thing is your current fitness level.

A quick test to see, where you are at, is when you wake up. Measure your resting heart rate. Do this for a few days and take the average.

High 60s+- Your conditioning is something you really want to develop and it is vital to really spend the next 8-12 weeks, hitting 2-3 cardio sessions per week.

Low 60s – You are in a decent place from a cardio standpoint. Depending on how much BJJ you do.

I may do 1 cardio session a week. I would spend 4 weeks on each workout, before moving to the next workout for the following month.

Note, that if your Heart rate is low but your cardio on the mats, is horrible.

Consider a few things outside of the BJJ Cardio Workouts, to work on.

Your technique, your strength levels and your recovery habits.

Those are mostly likely bigger linchpins, than your actual conditioning. I go over these things in the article I posted above.

The last thing to consider, when deciding, how much cardio to do is your overall stress.

Stress is accumulative, relationship stress, lack of sleep, work stress etc…..

These can all limit your recovery ability if you feel your life is very stressful.

I would focus only on the aerobic session for 1-2 x a week. Doing more than that and/or the hard session will do more harm than good.

Aerobic session

This is going to be the foundation of good cardio and overall fitness.

The aerobic energy system, is the system we use and rely on most in our lives.

If you want to live a long and healthy life, you have to take care of your heart.

This training will help your heart be able to pump more oxygenated blood into the rest of your body per pump.

This gives you better endurance, faster recovery and makes sure your heart rate doesn’t go through the roof during training

These are moderate-intensity sessions, we are breathing a little heavier.

But, we should be able to talk normally.

Try to keep your heart rate between 120-150 beats per minute.

Your aerobic training workout

• Air Bike 25 Calories
• Rower 25 Calories
• Planks 30s
• Banded pull parts 20
• 20 minutes 0 rest

This is one way you can, do this style of training. There are a ton of other ways to do this as well.

Another idea is to jump on a machine and go for 30-60 minutes. Many people do this.

But, it is not my style.

The big thing to remember is to keep your heart rate in the proper zone and go for 30-60 minutes.

Aerobic StrongMan

This will develop your aerobic system just, like the last workout, but we are going to use heavy-loaded carries and sled/prowler work to build that energy system.

This will also help build muscular endurance and give you more capacity to hold position/submission for longer, without your muscles getting burned out.

The Workout

• Famer Walk 100 feet as heavy as you can
• Backward sled drag 100 feet
• Forward sled drag 100 feet
• Rest 2 minutes 6 Rounds

These are some of the funnest conditioning workouts to do.

Hard conditioning Day

This is the type of training everyone goes to first but without a good aerobic base and a decent level of strength.

You won’t be able to do it properly and it won’t be effective.

Without strength, you can’t go as hard as you need to for this style of workout.

Without the aerobic base, you won’t be able to do enough quality reps, for it to cause many changes.

These are simple :

Go as hard as you can 5-15 sec with 60- 90 sec of active recovery. 6-12 total rounds.

My favorite exercises to these with are

• Prowler sprints
• Rope Slams
• Air Bike
• KB Swings
• Hill Sprints

The key with these is going as hard as you can.

Followed by enough recovery, so that you can repeat these high efforts.

Without enough intensity, you will not develop the power and explosive burst you need to dominate the scrambles.

But, without proper rest, you will not be able to have high-intensity sets and half your reps will be poor quality.

Don’t think you are doing yourself any favors by resting too little.

These BJJ Cardio Workouts are great for building a huge gas tank. But, will help you recover better, so you can train more frequently and for years to come.

Any question?