I'm thinking of patching a comp I'm signed up for at the start of next month, I just don't feel strong and my cardio is not what it should be and I already lost a match I never should have earlier this month, thing is I can't help wondering if this is a silly reason not to compete, bare in mind were talking about local comps in sport centres not the mundials, I want to know if its my imagination but it just always seems everyone but me just show's up to comps without doing much to prepare for them but when I do this I get hammered, is this in my head ? in your experience are the people who medal regularly at local events putting in allot of extra work outside of BJJ time ?
Depends on the belt. At white I saw well conditioned guys taking medals and used to blame it for my failings when in reality it was more that I couldn't switch on during comps and had complete brain lapses. Now I'm over that I've beaten a few people who are clearly in much better shape than me, and that's in no gi where it makes more of a difference in my opinion. At blue I dunno. The only two guys I know who medalled routinely in blue, one of them is a very strong dude and uses it well to pull people into his spider guard game. The other is in shape, but he won by being a very very good practitioner. And blue belt is the division where everyone seems to have a 6 pack I think my summary then would be that it certainly helps to be in better shape and it can overcome skill deficits, but I don't think its an especially important part of it. Entering a comp while you feel down and unconfident I think will do more damage than going into it with a bit less cardio than you'd like.
For BJJ generally, conditioning is useful but not essential. As Roy Dean says, it's not about the size of your gas tank but rather your fuel economy. The main thing is getting as much time on the mats as you can: if your time is limited, then you want to focus on BJJ rather than external methods of conditioning, like CrossFit or whatever. Having said that, especially for competing, it is obviously going to help if that gas tank is bigger AND you have great fuel economy. At the higher levels, you need excellent conditioning, as the differences in skill tends to be narrow. In that situation, great conditioning can be what wins the match.
I'm more on the side of "skills > conditioning" however I think they are both essential in competition. I know I'm never as fit as others in competition, by quite a margin, but that doesn't stop me from doing techniques that work ;3
Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and ask a noob question - for those of who you practice BJJ, what sorts of conditioning exercises would you do for a BJJ comp? We talking things like skipping, grip training, etc, rather than say things like bag work?
The exercise you choose isn’t as important as the goal you are trying to achieve through conditioning. Too many people try to condition for a sport without understanding what they actually want to achieve, how to measure what they are doing or what energy system they are actually using in their sport.
Best conditioning for BJJ is more BJJ: skipping etc is all well and good for exercise, but I'd rather get better at BJJ than get better at skipping. So if I was preparing for a comp, I would just spar more with people I trust (presuming I had enough access to sparring partners, but most school schedules should be able to accommodate that) and drill technique more. Of course, I'm not a big competitor, so probably not the best person to ask.
Oh yeah, I totally get that. It's no different for me kickboxing and working on my fitness and movement (just spar with more people). I was just curious as to what sorts of exercises people would prefer to supplement their BJJ.
From what I've seen, climbing for grip strength, yoga for flexibility and a bunch of people like CrossFit for cardio (though there is plenty of criticism of that too). I don't do anything but BJJ (and cycling I guess, but that's for transport with exercise as a handy bonus). If I did, I'd go with BJJ solo drills, like shrimping, bridging, lizards, scrunchies, wall drills etc. Although that terminology probably doesn't mean much if you don't do BJJ, or even if you do: every gym seems to have its own name for stuff. I envy judo its clear nomenclature. Jason Scully has some BJJ solo drill videos around on YouTube, I think.
Its always S and C. Strength work, cardio work to build a bigger general gas tank, Hiit work to aide recovery. Add in good mobility work and some grip pre/rehab and your good to go. I used to just roll for conditioning, but I found I picked up a lot of injuries, so now I still roll, but not all out all the time, I add in s and c work one to twice a week and I have regular rest weeks where I don't train so much.
True, I have had people tell me strength training is important for injury prevention. I've not had any major issues with injury yet, but I am sure it's going to be increasingly problematic as I get older. At 33 I haven't noticed a huge difference to when I started BJJ at 25 (or indeed when I first got into regular martial arts training at 18), except that stretching has become more important. If I ever manage to earn enough from teaching that I can quit my main job, I'll be looking to spend some of that extra time on a good injury prevention strength program. Big if, though.
