If you have a wrestling/BJJ/MMA backround please help a brutha out a little bit.
I’m 21 years old, 6 feet tall, 215 lbs (a little chunk barely visible 4 pack), and I am just kind of wondering right now how I ought to be lifting as I’m a little confused on my goals. There are too many!
Number 1 I want to be good at Jiu Jitsu, but life happens so I can only get about 2-3 practices per week.
Number 2 I want to be well conditioned so that I never get tired in a fight.
Number 3 I want to be strong. Grappling partners tell me I smother them and feel very strong, but I don’t feel like my numbers in the gym reflect that, and even if they did I’d want to be stronger anyway.
Number 4 I need to lose some fat.
Number 5 I need to correct some imbalances and would like to be bigger(legs, arms, forearms). My back is a weak point, so are my shoulders, and at this point I don’t know how good my legs are compared to the rest of me…I am almost obsessed with the thought of my legs being too tiny.
So really most of these kinda go hand in hand, training jiu jitsu is going to make my technique better, improve my cardio, and help lose a little fat, but there are other training questions.
I’ve had other goals in the past which have led me to trying different things, but injuries have led me to thinking I need to change some things up. I tried 4-5 day splits, and I’ve tried total body for a little while, and since a grappling competition in September I’ve hardly done any convenional weightlifting at all on the advice of one of my jiu jitsu instructors, and strangely I feel stronger than before.
Basically I’m wanting input on how I should lift around all of my other training in a way that will build up my lactic acid tolerance, increase my strength and explosiveness, and correct imbalances as well as give me a little more size. I’m thinking twice a week total body workouts with reps in the 12-20 range, and I have no many ideas how many sets I should do.
Excercise selection is also another big problem, I don’t want to completely blow my load on “money” excercises and be weaker when I’m fighting, but I do feel like I need mroe raw strength. Here’s everything but the weight training:
M-W-S is BJJ. With a pretty intense “warm up” and conditioning. Lots of shrimping, rollouts and around 100-200 pushups and ab excercises. Then the techniques and rolling.
T-TH are my track “workouts”. I go to the track at 6:30 a.m. Start off with .5-1 mile jog for warmup, then it’s different everytime. A lot of sprinting, leap frogs, sprawl and jumps, burpees, bleachers, mountain climbers, bear crawls, and then another .5 mile cool down jog. These last about 45 minutes and usually also involve puking, crying, and wicked DOMS the next couple of days.
Another 2 days a week I jog a pretty slow and relaxed 3 miles.(9-10 minute miles) I think of this as just extra fat burning stuff. I like to eat.
So to me it seems like I do quite a bit, especially with those track workouts which make me think that squatting and deadlifting heavy in the same week on top of that just isn’t smart.
-So how would YOU lift?
-Do I really need more conditioning in my weight workouts?
-Circuits? Complexes?
-Should I post physique shots so you can see what REALLY needs to be worked on?
Thanks to anyone who waded through this mess and can give me some good advice.
