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Conditioning is the process of improving your body’s ability to use oxygen-based metabolism as a source of energy. There are a lot of perspectives from different Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu professionals on the need for conditioning. Some favor it, and others think it unnecessary as they give more importance to technique.
Apart from the debate, if you are looking for some of the best exercises for conditioning your body for BJJ training, here are 7 important ones. Using these exercises, you can strengthen and condition your body to train well.
1. Yoga
In jiu-jitsu, mobility and flexibility of the body are important things, and yoga is the best way to improve them. Improvement in these areas can enable you to hit moves on the mat with ease.
It will also help with everything, including guard retention, guard passing, gaining balance, and top control. Yoga also helps you stay injury-free as it enhances your body’s flexibility. Lack of flexibility has been found to be the major reason for a lot of injuries.
Yoga includes specific programs for BJJ trainees. If you are going to do this conditioning exercise, it will be vital to have the assistance of professionals. It will ensure better conditioning and strengthening results.
2. Running
Along with hundreds of other benefits, running is also a great conditioning exercise for BJJ trainees. It really helps trainees get in shape for jiu-jitsu. It ramps up your metabolism, and more importantly, it helps you build leg strength.
Improvement in leg strength always helps BJJ trainees in their training and competitions. Running helps you in fights if you like to attack from guard.
The best thing about running is that it is a very simple exercise and does not require any equipment or gym memberships. You can do it anywhere at any time you feel like it. For better results, it is vital to run the right amount of time.
If there is a match ahead, running two or three days a week is a sufficient amount of time. It will be best to align your running routines with the BJJ sessions to increase your leg strength and condition your body.
3. Swimming
A lot of people think that jumping into a water pool is what people do for leisure outside of the gym, but that is not true. If you are a BJJ athlete, swimming is one of the comprehensive yet low-impact exercises that help you in plenty of ways.
It helps with improving cardio, building endurance, and strengthening your muscles. Specifically, endurance is the major element that helps trainees perform repetitive motions for long periods of time.
If you do not have enough endurance, you cannot perform your moves repetitively and perfectly. Swimming for long laps at a slower pace is a perfect exercise for endurance building.
Swimming also makes your body strong and enhances lung capacity. With swimming, you can also increase your stamina as it is a low-impact yet all-around exercise for BJJ trainees.
4. Kettlebell Training
According to most BJJ professionals, kettlebell training is the key for BJJ trainees if they want to get stronger. Kettlebell training is a secret weapon for athletes because it aids in fat loss as well as cardio development.
Kettlebell training involves the most functional areas of your body that are essential to using your power in all kinds of situations. In comparison to kettlebell training, when you go for traditional strength training like bench press, you get stronger in that particular movement, but you can maintain that strength for versatile movement.
Many of the kettlebell exercises need a complete range of motion to be completed. It means that while doing these exercises, you trigger a range of supporting and stabilizer muscles. It also activates the metabolism which helps you burn fats for hours after the completion of the workout.
All these aspects of kettlebell exercises make them one of the best workouts for BJJ athletes.
5. Cardio
Being a BJJ trainee, you must know how physically taxing and tiring it is to grapple with full strength. In BJJ competitions, only those who can keep their heads cool can survive, along with those who can push the pace and utilize their maximum strength.
In this respect, cardio is one of the essential exercises to ensure that you are not the one who loses when it comes to conditioning. It only prepares you for high-intensity competitions, but it also has a slew of other advantages that a BJJ athlete should not overlook.
You can also enjoy quality sleep, increased lung capacity, improved bone density, lower stress, and most importantly, an improvement in your confidence. In other words, cardio exercises are designed in a way that everyone can benefit from them. Especially for trainees of BJJ and MMA, when it comes to conditioning, this exercise is unbeatable in every aspect.
6. Bodyweight Training
The other effective conditioning exercise that a BJJ athlete can adopt is bodyweight training. If you are scared of injury risks due to lifting heavy weights, you can alter your conditioning workout with bodyweight training.
Heavyweight exercises such as deadlifts, squats, and bench presses can help you develop a lot of muscles, but they can also put a ton of strain on your body, which is not good, particularly when you are already going through some BJJ injuries.
While in bodyweight training, you never put any undue strain on your joints as you are lifting the weight of your body only. These exercises are focused on the functional movements that always help you improve the mobility and flexibility in your body.
7. Cross-Training
A lot of BJJ professionals go for cross-training, which is a great way of building conditioning for BJJ. Specifically, kickboxing and Muay Thai are found to be incredible when it comes to getting into better shape along with improving mobility and cardio.
You might not be planning on competing in Muay Thai or kickboxing, but training in these martial arts will surely benefit you by increasing your body balance, stability, and core strength in BJJ.
Going for this strategy can help you learn and develop some newer techniques you can utilize in competitions to surprise your opponents. When you are aware of other martial art techniques, you can prepare your body for unexpected moves and techniques by your opponents.
So, if you want to improve your body’s strength, balance, and endurance for BJJ training or competitions, the listed conditioning exercises are incredible.
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