Nigh on everyone in the BJJ community is twiddling their thumbs at home, thinking of things they can be doing whilst self-isolating and remaining house-bound. The Coronavirus pandemic has affected us all in ways we didn’t expect – due to the severity – like having to stop training BJJ all together.
We all know that Brazilian Jiu Jitsu doesn’t just help to keep your body fit and active, but our minds too. Walking back into the gym after weeks or months off (for numerous reasons) can feel like the first time again, you feel a sense of impostor syndrome. I’ve put together a few things that I will be doing to help keep my mind and body active. I hope it helps!
Strength and Conditioning
To upkeep your strength and conditioning at home, there’s various exercises you can do without needing a bench press or weights. However, if you do have a bench press or/and weights… even better!
There’s simple exercises that can be done at home which you can incorporate into a workout routine such as, sit ups, press ups, planking, squats etc… for one minute each and repeat for as many reps as you challenge yourself to do.
However there is plenty of workout videos available online – for free – instead of having to create your own routine. But don’t work out every day, as rest days are advised to help build strength, improve coordination and flexibility, and also improve anaerobic endurance.
There’s also BJJ drills you can do at home such as shrimping, bridging, forward/backward rolls, triangles, technical stand-up etc, this YouTube video goes into further detail. Then of course, everyone should also have access to John Danaher’s Instructional on practicing BJJ movements at home.
Yoga
In order to maintain and increase your flexibility, Yoga is great for inventive stretches. You can stretch or do yoga literally anywhere. Doing basic stretches on a daily basis will increase not only your flexibility, but your strength too. You will quickly start to notice the difference.
To learn some basic yoga for BJJ, this is a great free video to give you an idea of some exercises you can do at home to help with BJJ. However if yoga isn’t for you, there’s so many simple stretches you can do just sitting on your bed whilst watching television.
Yoga is also beneficial as a medium of meditation. If things are getting a bit intense, it’s a way to unwind and be at one with yourself. Even if it is just for a few minutes. Stretch, unwind and… relax.
Watch YouTube Videos
Watching BJJ YouTube videos is great until you overload yourself with information consequently evaporating 95% of the information you thought you had learnt. If you don’t have the opportunity to put to practice what you have learnt your brain is a lot less likely to retain the information. However, personally, I think that even if your brain didn’t absorb 95% of the information, it did absorb 5% – and 5% is better than zero!
So many highly regarded BJJ practitioners are giving out free instructionals during this testing time too, so it would be rude to not take advantage of that! There is also a mass amount of content available on YouTube regarding all things BJJ, plus some really interesting techniques and drills.
**PSA: Please DO NOT cancel your gym membership (if you can afford to). So many BJJ gyms are independent, and are likely to suffer a huge financial detriment due to this pandemic and being forced to close. Even though you may not be training – for most gyms – that is their only source of income. If everybody cancelled their memberships, you might not have a gym to go back to. So, support your gym! (if you can)**
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