No need for weights

[Earl]

I dont have a weight paln and I've been wondering, do you need one when youre doing BJJ. I mean some of the guys i wrestle are bigger than me and when I try to get them off, I'm thinking this is like a weights workout. Would it be the same??

[Animal]

no weight workout is not bjj

a plan wouldincrease your strength to wrestle better
suggest the matt furey combat conditioning and the awesoem elastic resistance trainign workout

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to be aware to is to be alive

[wynjitsu]

I think its a good idea to do some weight training ...i have just started to do it and already i have noticed a difference with how i'm wrasslin ( i just do'nt get beat on quite as quickly ) but seriously i think its beneficial

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It's not the destination it's the journey

[Mat Rat]

other han not being beat as quick what do you think the benefits are? i dont really do weights, only now and then wen i fel like it, no set plan

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I don't have an attitude problem.
You have a perception problem.

[Kong Han]

Mat Rat,

The benefits of weight training...increased strength, anaerobic thresehold, V02 Max, and less injuries.

If you want to see improvement, like all other things, you have to be consistent. But the trick with weight training is that while consistency is key, you have to be veryvery careful not to overtrain when combined with BJJ.

I take it you want to weight train foremost for strength, not just to be buffed (yep there's a difference). When you train for strength, you central nervous system takes a huge beating especially if you're over 30. My advice is don't start with more than twice a week, and if you're over 30, almost NEVER go to failure on every set. Save two reps in the tank particularly on deadlifts and cleans. Your body will thank you. Else you'd easily burn out. You'll feel it...lack of power and drastic drop in endurance when grappling, feeling very very tired, insomia, increased blood pressure, joint aches, lowered immune system, etc.

Strength training is very good when done well, just be sure to do your research on FUNCTIONAL STRENGTH TRAINING instead of the regular bodybuilding thing.

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EVERYWHERE hurts if you hit it hard enough

[Mat Rat]

hey Kong Han thanks for the info. wouldn't do it to be buffed thats for sure but i might consider doing something now. im curious why does your nervous system take a battering? and i have to say i kinda see earls reasoning that moving peoples weight in bjj would/should be enough. wouldn't that be better than actual weighhts cause then you're using your bjj muscles and from positions you just could'nt simulate in the gym with weights.

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I don't have an attitude problem.
You have a perception problem.

[Kong Han]

I agree with Earl. In most cases grappling alone forms an excellent functional resistance exercise by itself. But it has certain limitations. For example if you're one of the largest guys in the club, you might have trouble getting a challenging weight to throw with. Grappling alone might give you unbalanced or overused muscle area. For example, if you work a lot of guard positions, your lower back might be stronger than your upper back, your glutes might be stronger than your quads, etc. This might result in muscle tears, postural issues or aches & discomforts if the imbalance is too strong. Hence you might want to strengthen other areas to balance it out.

I lift weights because...well...I'm small. Before lifting I weigh around 50-52kg. Now fortunately I've upped a couple of weight category
A bit of extra muscle also helps absorb some strikes or throw impacts

Have there been times when your opponent grabs you with such tenacity and strength that you can feel the force be literally pounded into you and you could only go "Oh sh*t!!"? Well I have on many, many occasions. Not a good feeling. And there's quite a few guys in the club who can toss me around like a rag doll if they wanted to I feel strength training enhances a tad bit of my game....more like holding on to wild bulls in a reverse rodeo kinda way when playing guard with the big boys. Yes, strength is definitely not the deciding factor in BJJ, but you know the saying... if everything else being equal, the stronger one wins. Though I'm actually starting to believe that in BJJ, if everything else being equal, the one with more endurance wins :eh:

On with the Central Nervous System (CNS):

The way to increase strength is to train the neurals to fire up more muscle activation hence enable a stronger lift. Yes, strength is more neural training than muscle training. Some lucky people has naturally more receptive neural firing systems. Thats what you see some skinny guy might be able to outlift much bigger guys. Olympic weightlifters are smaller than bodybuilders...but they sure can outlift bodybuilders many, many times over.

Now, neurals (basically major motor nerves) are located on the back connecting the brain down to the body, yes? The spine is the cord that protects them. Now if you do heavy lifting that involves loading the spine, like deadlifting, squats etc, you are actually putting much more stress to the nervous system. Also, as these exercises call for a huge amount of muscle (the whole posterior chain) as well as core muscles, the amount of neural firings are tremendous. Here's an analogy... you can run a fast 100meters or you can run a long 10 kilometers, but you can run fast and long or else you'd be puking out breakfast midway. Same goes with the CNS. The more frequent/heavy/straining the exercise the faster CNS goes tired, especially exercises that involves loading of the spine. The loading of the spine also explains why people who has chronic lower back/neck pains also complains of fatigue...the CNS got into play. Many strength experts now believe CNS recovery as important if not more vital to an atheletes performance than muscle recovery. By the way, a muscle, not matter how sore, should be able to be worked again after 24 hours of rest. This debunked quite a few conventional bodybuilding knowledge.

Now from the reasonings above, thats why I urge you to be very careful when doing strength training and BJJ concurrently. Both are very hard sports by themselves and places high loads to the spine and CNS. Done well, it can give you great benefits, but done incorrectly might give you more fatigue and jointaches. I have yet to be able to combine both effectively for durations longer than 8 weeks. Off-weeks and tapering off is a must. Many times I've experienced quite bad CNS burnouts whenever I push harder in the gym while maintaining BJJ. Oh well... live and learn.

I'm not trying to scare anyone off from weight training as it has tremendous benefits to offer. But like I said before...don't go to failure on every set, save 2 reps in the tank. Alternate your reps...don't stay in a rep bracket for too long particularly low reps. Experiment with your optimal set range. Don't do more sets than you need. And EAT a bit more.

Hope it helps.

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EVERYWHERE hurts if you hit it hard enough

[wynjitsu]

WOW : awesome post kong good reading

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It's not the destination it's the journey

[Autarch]

Most importantly, being able to squat 2-3x your own body weight is pretty goddamned manly.

[Couch Potato]

interesting. Good info Kong Han. Autarch, when you say