How do I get stronger for BJJ?
STRENGTH TRAINING
You may often hear (correctly) that technique is more important that strength in Brazilian Jiu Jistu. Or maybe a training partner has told you to stop muscling everything.
So if strength doesn’t matter, why is it that the biggest, strongest guy or gal in class just ragdolls you all over the place? Why is it that in many competitions (though times are changing) PEDs aren’t illegal?
Because when you get right down to it, strength does matter. This is a combat sport. Being strong gives you a puncher’s chance to come out on top in a match. It makes you more resilient to injury. And when all else is equal (size, weight, technique, experience), strength is the difference maker.
This isn’t to say that technique isn’t important…it absolutely is. Strength cannot replace good technique, and relying on strength (especially at the beginning of your jiu jitsu journey) can stunt your growth in the sport/martial art. But to ignore the benefits of having good/great technique AND being strong AF is naive. At a competitive level, you need both.
And there are more and more studies that show just how important lean body mass is for health as we age. Men, and especially post-menopausal women, lose muscle mass as we get into our 60s and 70s. Building muscle now makes it easier to preserve later in life, and leads to a whole slew of positive quality of life and health outcomes.
So, how does one get strong for jiu jitsu so you can double leg your opponent into next week?
You need three things:
Consistent resistance training at near-max levels
Consistent good nutrition habits, with a focus on protein
Consistent rest and sleep
See a common thread there?
Consistency beats perfection. So before we go further into the tactics, I want to emphasize that point. Don’t get lost in the details and derail yourself by seeking perfection. It doesn’t exist. Focus on being consistent (i.e. be on point 80-90% of the time), and you’ll see results.
Honestly, this applies to just about anything you want to accomplish.
Anyways, back to being able to deadlift an entire family.
Consistent resistance training at near-max levels
To get strong, you need to lift heavy weights. It really is as simple as that.
How many sets/reps? Aim for 6-10 reps (this is a good range to build strength and repeat power), and if you’re just getting started, try 2 sets and see how you feel. If in a couple of days you aren’t sore as hell, maybe next week bump it up to 3 sets.
How much weight? You should be lifting enough weight to hit 6-10 reps with 2 reps in reserve (2 RIR). This means that you are keeping good form throughout the lift, full range of motion (ROM), and that with your last rep, if you wanted to you could crank out 2 more reps before your form failed.
This can take a while to figure out, so it’s better to go a little lighter at first and wrap up your set with 5 RIR and then progress, as opposed to doing some YOLO lifting, hurting yourself, and not being able/wanting to lift for another week or two. (Remember that whole thing about consistency?) This is for the long haul, so don’t worry about your numbers in the short term.
What lifts? For BJJ, we need to focus on three things: anterior chain, posterior chain, and legs. (Yes, I know that legs are part of both, but we train them separately.)
Anterior chain is everything on our front: think trying to push something away from us, or slamming something from over our heads into the ground.
Posterior chain is everything on our back: pulling things towards us, and lifting something from the ground and trying throw it over our heads and behind us.
And legs are…well, legs.
Your best bet is to use big, compound lifts to hit a bunch of everything at once. For instance, deadlifts are awesome for legs and posterior chain. You can also do squats (legs, hips, spinal erectors, some back) and bent over barbell or dumbbell rows (back). Follow this up with a bench press to hit the push muscles, maybe some full ROM sit-ups. You’ll have hit everything.
The trick is to find lifts that work for you. You should be sore after a workout, but not in pain. For instance, bent over rows kill my lower back, so I don’t do them. Instead, I’ll do a cable row or a single-arm dumbbell row on a bench. There are many ways to hit a muscle group. Find what works for you.
Need help with this? I have a free strength training for BJJ guide.
How long should my workout be? Honestly, as long as you want it to be. Mine usually last about an hour, give or take 15 minutes depending on what I’m doing that day. It could be as little as 30 minutes. You don’t need to spend hours in the gym to see results.
How often should I lift? This depends a lot of your goals, your general level of fitness, your age, how much time you have…
I would recommend at least two times a week. This is enough to maintain any muscle you’ve gained, and can be enough to slowly progress your strength. If you have the time/energy/are recovered enough, you can do more. If I’m heading into a camp for a superfight, I’ll usually be in the gym 3-4 times a week for a few weeks leading into camp, then dial it back down to twice a week in the weeks leading into the fight.
Honestly, though, if you can only get to the gym once per week, that’s awesome. Do that. Anything is better than nothing.
How should I progress? If you felt good with last week’s lifts, either add 5 pounds or add 1 rep. Then continue as before. If last week’s lifts felt way too easy, maybe progress this week by 10 pounds, but don’t make that the norm.
2. Consistent good nutrition habits, with a focus on protein
Now you need to fuel that muscle growth.
For that, you need protein. Aim for ~1g of protein for every pound of ideal body weight. For instance, I’m weighing in at 160 pounds at the moment, so my goal is to get 160g of protein every day. (I usually exceed this, but that’s OK. You don’t have to.) This will be one of the largest factors in your ability to recover from workouts and your body’s ability to grow muscle.
The rest of your calories will come from carbs and fats; try a 60/40 split (60% of those calories coming from carbs, 40% from fats). Remember, these are just guidelines, and if your fat intake goes a little higher (or maybe a lot one day because I really wanted some ice cream…don’t judge me), it’s OK. As long as your weekly caloric intake is around maintenance, you won’t put on any weight.
So what is that number? How many calories should you be eating? I have a free calculator that can help with that, but there are also plenty of apps like Chronometer and MyFitnessPal that can calculate your calorie requirement estimates. Either way, I would recommend using one of these daily trackers to keep an eye on your daily intake.
Again, don’t get lost in the details and in micromanaging this process. Just be consistent. If you are consistent about how you enter your food into your tracker, and you see your weight goes up, then you know to eat a little less. If your weight goes down, it means you can add a little more into your intake. Don’t worry about the numbers, focus on the results.
A word of caution: If you are actively trying to get stronger (trying to add more weight to the bar), then you should at least be eating at maintenance calories (enough calories to fuel your everyday activity, plus your workouts), or maybe even in a bulking phase (where you are trying to put on muscle mass, and would then be eating in a surplus). Eating for weight loss while putting more weight on the bar is a recipe for injury. If you’re looking to lose weight (for health, aesthetics, competition), move your lifting into a maintenance phase (about 80% of your max 2 RIR weight) and focus on the weight loss. You’ll maintain your strength, don’t worry.
3. Consistent rest and sleep
This is possibly the most important step of all. You must give yourself time to recover between workouts, and you must get consistenty good sleep.
What we do in the gym doesn’t grow muscle. It stimulates the process that allows muscle to grow when we are resting. So get 7-9 hours of sleep every night.
Maybe you’re young, and made of rubber and magic, and can do two-a-days three to four times a week, hitting the gym in the morning and then hitting BJJ class in the evening. Awesome. Still get good sleep, and still give yourself at least one day off.
As we age, our recovery slows, so give yourself the time you need. Think long term. Is taking a day off here and there, or maybe going easy in class worth more than your ego, than getting hurt and not being able to train for weeks or months?
I’ll do two-a-days one to two times a week when I’m prepping for a match, but outside of that, multiple workouts a day are a rarity. It’s more important that I give my body time to heal than it is to YOLO my way through the week and inevitably end up injured.
That’s it. Nothing fancy, nothing special, just the basics. Boring wins in this case. Like right now, I’m not wild about the idea of going to the gym…I’m relaxed, my dogs are sleeping, I kinda just want to play video games (playing through Ghost of Yotei at the moment)…but then I remember how good I feel after the workout, how good it feels when my coach says, “God, your strong!” So I’m going to peel myself out of my chair and get after it.
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