Many of us love Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) as a martial art combat sport because of its focus on grappling and ground fighting. A big factor that attracts newbies is that it promotes the concept that a considerably smaller, weaker person can successfully defend against a bigger, heavier opponent.
The purpose of this article is to help you get the best out of your BJJ training by implementing different types of exercises for improving strength. The end-goal is to use proper technique, leverage, and most notably, the ability to take the fight to the ground.
Afterwards, applying joint-locks and chokeholds are used to defeat the opponent..
Mix it Up
As mentioned, the following exercises are designed to help you to improve your strength whether you’re interested in learning BJJ or are already practicing.
Either way, with any repetitive exercise routine, there is a danger that such training can get a tad boring after a while. To combat this, we often like to add all exercises to a random wheel to help mix up your training regime order. It can prevent sessions from getting too stale and predictable by freshening up the order.
Let’s look at are some of those important BJJ strength training exercises in a bit more detail:
Weighted Squats
The weighted squats exercises are a fantastic exercise for your legs. This is especially the quads. It’s also an excellent all-around workout for the rest of your body. You’ll need a weighted vest or dumbbell to complete this exercise. However, if you don’t have either available, don’t worry – Use your body weight instead!
Start by holding on to something for balance (a wall, chair, etc.). Afterwards, extend one leg backward and place it on top of a chair or bench (you can also do this standing upright with arms folded across the chest). You should bend the other leg at 90 degrees with toes pointed forward. Now squat down until thighs are parallel to the floor while keeping back straight and knees behind toes at all times.
Kettlebell Swings
Using kettlebell swings are a great, simple exercise that you can do anywhere. They work your entire lower body and will help improve your overall strength and fitness level.
To perform a kettlebell swing:
- Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and hold the kettlebell with both hands at arm’s length.
- Squat down until you’re almost sitting on the floor, keeping your back straight as much as possible. The kettlebell should hang between your legs; if it isn’t, move it down further so that it is resting in this position (it shouldn’t be touching anything).
- Return to standing upright while swinging the weight up off of its resting point between your legs. Therefore, it travels behind and then forward past our head where we let go of it. Thus, making sure not to let go too soon or else risk having bruises from where it hit us. Lastly, catch it again before squatting back down into another rep.
Bench Presses
The bench presses technique are a great exercise to build upper body strength. You can do them with weights or a partner (the latter is called a rack-pull). The bench press works your chest, shoulders, and triceps. These four muscles work together to lift the weight off the rack by pushing it away from you until your arms are fully extended in front of your body.
If you are doing this exercise with a partner, they will catch the barbell when it reaches its peak height, then slowly lower it back onto their chest as they lay on one side facing down towards you.
This type of bench press helps improve shoulder mobility and increase strength so that if someone tries to push/strike/grab hold of you while standing up straight. Then they can easily resist these attacks by pushing them back away from themselves using their force against theirs. This is while being careful not to let go because both parties would fall over backward onto the concrete ground, which could result in serious injury.
Medicine Ball Slams
What is a Medicine Ball? A medicine ball is a weighted ball made of leather or rubber filled with sand, steel shot, or water. The size of the medicine ball depends on your strength and fitness level, but they can weigh anywhere from 2 to 20 pounds (1-9 kilograms). The most commonly used size weighs around 10 lbs (4.5 kg).
Medicine Balls are great for conditioning because they help you work the muscles in your core and upper body when you throw them overhead, lift them under control, or slam them onto the ground. They’re also effective for building power because it’s easy to generate momentum when swinging a heavy object around. If you don’t have access to one at home or in your gym, grab some dumbbells if you have them, instead – doing so should work just as well.
Wrapping Up
As you can see from the sample list of exercises above, there are a number of exercises to try out that will benefit your strength for BJJ. You will want to ensure that you are hitting all of your relevant muscles regularly to get the best long-term results.
By using these techniques and finding others online, it should not be too difficult to add variety to your BJJ training routines. Keep a random element to your sessions so as to keep things fresh and different each time.
The post Beginner’s Guide to BJJ StrengthTraining appeared first on Bjj Eastern Europe.