Hey guys, I have been training bjj for about 3 months and wrestling for about 1 month. When I am rolling, I want to put a pace on my opponent that he cannot match and so he will eventually run out of energy. I am jogging/sprinting everyday for about 12 minutes at a high intensity (near my max heart rate) .
But can you guys give me more suggestions on how I can improve my stamina for these 2 sports
Thanks 
Work ethic is great, but if you’re beginning BJJ with the strategy of outworking your opponent, you’re kind of missing the point of BJJ. It’s about working as little as possible. A far less fit but more technical guy will let you tire yourself out every time, no matter how fit you are. I’m not saying you shouldn’t condition, it’s just that I think you should adjust your focus/strategy.
As far as what to do, I think it’s wise to built an aerobic base (longer slower running) as well as incorporating sprints. Body movement stuff, i.e. burpees, bear crawls, and sport specific movement drills would be a good bet as well. Most of all, roll as often as you can, as well as you can. The second an of your GPP training begins to compromise your actual practice quality,it’s time to back off on GPP.
[quote]zakidiaz wrote:
Hey guys, I have been training bjj for about 3 months and wrestling for about 1 month.[/quote]
How often do you have classes each week and how long is each session?
In your thread last month, you didn’t mention anything about martial arts training. That would’ve slightly changed the advice given.
This has as much to do with using proper technique and strategy as it does with your actual conditioning.
Are you still 6’0 and 155 pounds? Running hard like that everyday will burn what little fat you have on you, without significantly improving your conditioning.
The best way to get better at a combat sport is to practice it. So make sure you train 100% full throttle in class. Like I said before, focus on eating well and sticking with a basic, well-rounded lifting program consistently to build lean muscle. At your current stage, that’ll improve everything.
With this new info about wanting to improve your conditioning, even though I’m wondering how much you’re in class each week and I’m not sure how you’re lifting right now, I’d rather see you doing two or three moderate intensity cardio sessions instead of high intensity running everyday. Either of these articles should have enough info to help you figure out the details:
[quote]batman730 wrote:
Work ethic is great, but if you’re beginning BJJ with the strategy of outworking your opponent, you’re kind of missing the point of BJJ. It’s about working as little as possible. A far less fit but more technical guy will let you tire yourself out every time, no matter how fit you are. I’m not saying you shouldn’t condition, it’s just that I think you should adjust your focus/strategy.
As far as what to do, I think it’s wise to built an aerobic base (longer slower running) as well as incorporating sprints. Body movement stuff, i.e. burpees, bear crawls, and sport specific movement drills would be a good bet as well. Most of all, roll as often as you can, as well as you can. The second an of your GPP training begins to compromise your actual practice quality,it’s time to back off on GPP.[/quote]
yup.
Don’t run yourself into the ground. In BJJ, technique is much more important than strength and conditioning. You only have 3 months of experience, so you should be focusing on learning the basics rather than trying to outwork your training partners. I currently do 2 strength and 1 cardio sessions outside of BJJ if I am training 4 days a week, and no cardio if I am training 5 or 6 days a week. Push yourself in your rolls and give yourself 1 day off at least for recovery and you will improve your cardio and technique at the same time.
[quote]Prodigul wrote:
Don’t run yourself into the ground. In BJJ, technique is much more important than strength and conditioning. You only have 3 months of experience, so you should be focusing on learning the basics rather than trying to outwork your training partners. I currently do 2 strength and 1 cardio sessions outside of BJJ if I am training 4 days a week, and no cardio if I am training 5 or 6 days a week. Push yourself in your rolls and give yourself 1 day off at least for recovery and you will improve your cardio and technique at the same time. [/quote]
I agree, though I’m not sure I agree with the idea of constantly pushing yourself in your rolls. Live grappling should be a time to attempt to apply the techniques that you have learned in your drilling and technical practice time. IMO you should only go as hard as you can while maintaining good technique and relying primarily on technique, otherwise your progress will be slow (or if you are much bigger/stronger than your opponents you will have early success until they all start to surpass you technically and they you’ll have a lot of catching up to do).
Agreed. Going hard often has left me with a series of nagging injuries, things like knee strains, finger joint pain, a dislocated rib. Other than a hyper-extended knee from a freak incident, nothing major, and nothing that took me out for more than a week, but it builds up and I have to be mindful of reinjuring them.
Nevertheless, I do think a hard roll once or twice a week helps, especially if you compete. Keep them under 10min and try your best to use techniques you’re working on. Rolling with a guy going at 80-90% is a slightly different animal, and you want your game to be ready for it.
For reference, I usually work my positional game (guard retention, guard work, top control etc) at 60%, and go harder when I work a sweep, sub or shrimp.
I didn’t mean he should go balls to the wall all the time, I only meant to say that doing so sometimes definitely helps your conditioning a lot, as well as your mental ability to push through exhaustion. Obviously being technical is the goal, but you cannot be technical if you are panting in the first 3 minutes of a match because you only flow roll in practice.
I usually do a combination of hard rolls, normal rolls, flow rolls, and drilling or doing positional rolls. If I am hurt or working on learning a specific technique or transition I will do more drilling and flow rolls, if I am preparing for a competition I’ll do more hard rolls. They all have their place.
Yeah, I agree with both of you. You need a combination of intensities. IMO though, beginners should only be rolling hard on occasion (by hard I mean to the intensity where technique starts to break down). Even intermediates and advanced people only need to do it maybe once a week at most (and obviously they will be able to maintain technical proficiency at a higher level of intensity than a beginner).
In regards to cardio, the goal is to drill your techniques to the point where you don’t have to “think” to do them and they just become reflexive. That allows your timing to be in concert with the opponent’s and prevents you from having to use strength (which is what makes you tired). So, in my opinion/experience the majority of your conditioning should come from your drilling, not your live rolling.