Why do BJJ instructors commonly downplay Strength and Conditioning?

[WarDronx]

More specifically, if the athlete is far off from a competition, especially in the off season, they will do more traditional S&C. As the competition approaches, the athletes will do more "sport specific" stuff, drills , etc - stuff geared towards enhancing timing and technique rather than raw attributes so that they are technically sharp and not physically fatigued for their upcoming competition.

That is exactly what is changing. They are moving towards a model that even when far from the time of the competition, the training is organized to include more of the actual sport as a form of exercise. At least that was what the guy was focused on doing. I am no expert either though and i might be wrong.

 

[nefti]

I had to review and use several studies in college regarding muscle activation both in my undergrad for human performance and my Masters. It really did change the way I trained.

Below is an article that has been reproduced several times about muscle activation of the shoulders, triceps, and pecs. They will all tell you the same thing: Flat bench activates the largest muscles groups in the pressing motion, both eccentric and isometric the most efficiently, while changing the angle and grip can activate the smaller muscle groups more efficiently. Anybody who has done BJJ and has had to frame for extended periods understands how important it is to rely on larger muscle groups compared to smaller ones because to put it succinctly, your arms will gas the fuck out.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&ved=2ahUKEwjO9LzN487cAhWYHjQIHcquD6UQFjAFegQIBhAC&url=http://downloads.hindawi.com/journals/jsm/2013/612650.pdf&usg=AOvVaw2a70aN3pLMXxIfFomgm8N_

I will have to take your word considering your experience in high lvl grappling and research.
Its that I never found the bench beneficial, the deadlift however helped me alot with keeping posture in guard.

 

[j123]

This isn't just a BJJ thing, its a martial arts thing

My exp is it stems from ignorance. Which is funny because before I started combat sports I got shit on for lifting and doing alot of s&c

The negative to it is that you get too obsessed chasing numbers and decrease your training in BJJ. The other negative is when you're new and balancing both, lifting and s&c takes alot out of you and you won't be able to make BJJ sessions

The thing with s&c, is that its like money, there's no negative to having too much money

 

[Dirty Holt]

The thing with s&c, is that its like money, there's no negative to having too much money

There is when it has diminishing returns. When it takes you 9 months of lifting every day to get 2% stronger, the time greatly outweighs the strength benefit.

If you want to use the money analogy, its like having 90 million dollars in the bank, and its going to take you another 9 months of working 12 hour days to get 91 million dollars, and another year to get to 92 million.

This is the exact reason why high level athletes use a structured periodization schedule. It allows you to maximize the benefits of S&C on a schedule that optimizes different components of skill and athleticism in your given sport.

 

[aus101]

Because they are selling bjj not strength and conditioning. The goal of bjj is to use skill not strength anyway. Of course being stronger is a huge advantage in grappling, just look at wrestlers and their weight cutting, but everyone already knows that. The point is to be able to win without a strength advantage, as their will most likely always be someone stronger.

 

[rmongler]

Because they are selling bjj not strength and conditioning. The goal of bjj is to use skill not strength anyway. Of course being stronger is a huge advantage in grappling, just look at wrestlers and their weight cutting, but everyone already knows that. The point is to be able to win without a strength advantage, as their will most likely always be someone stronger.

With that attitude I think i can confidently say there will always be someone more skilled than you, too.

 

[yetanother]

With that attitude I think i can confidently say there will always be someone more skilled than you, too.

Do you seriously believe that depending on the ability to overpower people is a sound strategy if you aren't some super rare freak of nature (Gabi Garcia)?
Obviously endurance and grip strength etc. matter but you can't get strong enough to just overpower everyone without any skill.

 

[Alech33]

It sells better. Plus if they prompted using your strength a new student would likely rely on it and over use it

 

[rmongler]

Do you seriously believe that depending on the ability to overpower people is a sound strategy if you aren't some super rare freak of nature (Gabi Garcia)?
Obviously endurance and grip strength etc. matter but you can't get strong enough to just overpower everyone without any skill.

You can't get skilled enough to out skill everyone with skill either.

May as well just roll over and die then eh?

 

[dsdoubled]

I've never had an instructor who dismissed the importance of conditioning. That idea isn't common with any of the guys I've trained with.

That being said, BJJ itself is a pretty effective form of S&C. I can actually cover most elements of S&C with BJJ stuff if I want to. It's only max strength stuff that I think can't be done on the mat. That part requires the weight room.

Other than that, you can cover overall cardiac capacity, cardiac power, localized muscular endurance, and explosive power pretty well with BJJ if you set it up right.

I still do stuff outside of BJJ to help. But the main reasons are 1) it gives me a break mentally and 2) I wouldn't have enough willing partners to cover it all. Theoretically though I could cover quite a bit of S&C with BJJ alone if I really made the effort.

This is definitely true. You can sorta steer the practice of any combat sport towards improving most elements of performance. I come from a wrestling background and have been doing S&C almost exclusively for the past 10 years and I have a brown belt buddy who's never lifted weights seriously, yet every time we roll I am pretty shocked at how strong he is. And the great thing about grappling strength is that it's so functional and so broad that it transfers over to most everything else, even the weight room, quite well.

Having said that, bjjers seem to usually be stronger in the anterior chain and some important muscles will get underworked so hitting the weights is a good idea for injury prevention at the very least.

 

[dmwalking]

I'm not familiar with this concept. I thought drills were S&C. And most of the top guys drill AND do S&C when prepping for competition. I don't know many instructors that don't encourage S&C.

 

[WestEndLolo]

My coach never said anything bad about s&c I’m starting my weight lifting routine this week but it’s better to put technique over s&c but a good mixture of both is great

 

[maximus__]

Not sure if anyone said this as I had a quick skim.

The issue is people will put 6 days a week into S&C and then only train 2x a week. If you want to get better at BJJ and that is your focus it needs to be flipped or more biased to BJJ.

If you are doing S&C when you could be on the mats you are doing it wrong.

 

[SHAOLINMONK420]

If skill was the only thing that mattered then 50+ year old multiple degree black belts would be tapping 30 year old black belts, but that simply is not the case. Marcelo is famous for stating that all of his training is sport specific, but only fought MMA once. There are some people who have evolved, but how come the vast majority of BJJ schools will tell you that BJJ is all you need and commonly downplay the benefits of Strength and Conditioning? A Jon Jones could beat 99% of all BJJ practitioners in a real self defense situation and he is a white belt.

Same reason people dislike bob sapp.

 

[Quebec Nick]

Not sure if anyone said this as I had a quick skim.

The issue is people will put 6 days a week into S&C and then only train 2x a week. If you want to get better at BJJ and that is your focus it needs to be flipped or more biased to BJJ.

If you are doing S&C when you could be on the mats you are doing it wrong.

The thing I hate the most is to see people doing S&C while there's a class going on

We walk through the gym all the time to get to class and pretty much every night I see white belts doing normal pace strenght training instead of putting his gi on. The best excuse is that they want to feel stronger and that it will help them. Dude no matter how strong you're gonna get with that workout, it'll be way better for you to come and learn to escape side control and get 4-5 rounds of sparring than lifting without a drip of sweat.

 

[Bubblun]

Doing smart S&C, specific for the sport you are competing in, is great to improve your performance.
But what's stupid is following all the fads that you read in internet forums that want you to believe that everybody should train like a powerlifter or a football player.

This is good bjj S&C

 

[freakroor]

My past 3 BJJ instructors. Most of my classmates as well.

This is a pretty common theme in schools. Its also a way of selling their philosophy, rather then stating the obvious science.

It goes against the whole, "The more skilled man will win, size doesn't matter when you know BJJ YAY HELIO."

ive trained at over a dozen schools. none of the coaches ever said that strength/conditioning doesnt matter. many bjj schools have kettlebells, ropes, weights, pullup bars, etc..


and not once have i ever heard a bjj coach in real life mention Helio Gracie. just saying....

either you are trolling or you train with weirdos.

 

[beat...people...up?]

Not sure if anyone said this as I had a quick skim.

The issue is people will put 6 days a week into S&C and then only train 2x a week. If you want to get better at BJJ and that is your focus it needs to be flipped or more biased to BJJ.

If you are doing S&C when you could be on the mats you are doing it wrong.

I think the reason for this is that newbies to BJJ still want to cling to the previous routine that they had, workout-wise. I certainly did this for quite some time. I would run before class and compromise my energy for rolling, or lift legs the day before we did takedowns because I didn't know any better. Also, there's this weird phase where, as a beginner, you can't get as good a workout from rolling as you'll be able to when you have a bigger bag of skills, so where are you supposed to get the conditioning?

 

[yetanother]

Most beginners get extremely exhausted from any rolling they do because they tense up super hard and always attempt impossible things as hard as they can.

 

[babycart]

Dunno about you, but my instructor busts our asses off at the end of every session.