my Arte Suave

Competition fitness question answered..

So I received an email from friend who checks out my blog from time to time, and this person had a question regarding fitness. Here’s what he said/asked exactly.

So I joined [a tournament] last weekend and
I got my ass kicked. I figured I have to improve on my strength and
fitness. The guys i fight are usually bigger than me and I need to
match them on that aspect.

What do you suggest I start doing? I will be enrolling to a gym. I
agree with what you said about building fitness continously. I want to
do that as well because I want myself to be ready to compete all the
time. I know you are pretty knowledgeable on this field thats why I
sent you this email.

Thanks bro!

This was my reply, and i replied from my phone. Had no idea it was this much info:

**Disclaimer** I am by no means a master at this stuff. I have just been around, have competed. Have felt like complete crap, out of shape competing. Things have changed. I am now doing much better fitness wise. And i am improving daily. I am more then willing to share my experience and what has worked for me thus far.

Hey bro, all is great over here.
So guys your size are strong or bigger..hmm.
Personally what I always try to strive to improve are cardiovascular fitness coupled with strength movements, just like you feel in bjj… When your passing your being pushed away while trying to drive in around and such..then you might be playin guard and now your back stand up fighting. The othet thing try to improve is grip strength and endurance.

How do I improve these things. A good sprinting routine is a must to improve cardio the most (and it’s free). You can max your cardio w/ this.

Also you’ll want to add olympic lifts bro. Snatches, cleans, presses, deadlifts…this is where you make your money in fighting those bigs.

But you wanna go further and combine cardio with strength movements essentially mimicking a fight…so for example I looooove to do stuff like this for , I’ll do 5-8 exercises… 2-3 of them will be olympic lifts..those are your strength movements..and I’ll do those for 5 reps (weights will vary, keep it light but challenging, you should be able to do 7 reps if you wanted to..you always want to leave 1 or 2 in the tank when training strength in my opinion, and is something called ‘greasing the groove’ by one of me fitness heroes Pavel Tsatsouline)..the other exercises will be hard intense bodyweight exercises. Like sprawls, burpees (180 burpees are great), pullups, explosive pushups, sitthrus, or if you have a partner you can do some sort of bjj related drill or w.e you can do wheel barrels, buddy carrries..it should be exhausting!! Then you will do the strength movement at the end…3-infinitie rounds is what I do..i rest 1-2minutes between sets…if your in shape keep 45secs to 60secs please…it shouldn’t feel good..
All the while when your doing the lifts your indirectly working your grips…

To attack the grips I’m doing rope pullups, taking 2 10 or 20lbs..putting the plates together and squez em between thumb and four fingers..do it for time…another exercise I do is I take a bar (45lbs) and I hold it in one hand, and let it seasaw in my hand..u will feel it in your forearms… And of course the bar complexes are good..but that’s another email…

The olympic lifts will work work everything! Your arms, your shoulders, your back, legs, core…

Another thing I have ignored too much is core work…gotta get a good core routine.

Also something I do is long runs..nomore then 3 miles…and to make it more fun..i do some pushups pullups and some core stuff…

Stay tuned on my blog bro I’m going to be putting up fitness videos as well as how I prepare for competition to a certain extent.

Also this was a fantastic question, hope you don’t mind if I share it with the world on my blog bro.

My secret weapon for 2010 competition…

Well if i blog about my secret weapon that makes it NOT a secret!lol But for about the last few months I’ve been super fascinated with the work of guys like Steve Maxwell, Pavel Tsatsouline, Mike Mahler, Steve Cotter to name a few. More So Steve Maxwell for his work with Gracie Humaita. Anyway I’ve done KB work before with someone in my town but I didn’t agree with how he went about training me. I need organization when it comes to paying someone to train me. So i stopped at this place and I’ve always kept in mind the practices of the guys i mentioned previously. Theyre training methology even if you dont train with KB’s would still help you out in whatever it was that I was doing. So in staying close with them, I decided I would purchase KBs of my own and do some workouts. The workouts are ENDLESS! But before i bought my set of KB my good friend Mack that i train BJJ with was just certified by Steven Cotter. So of course i jumped at the oppertunity to work with KBs again, and he understands what we need to be succesful in bjj so im feeling really good about it. I’ve already done a few workouts with him. Im working Mack Monday’s and Fridays and on Wednesday’s I do sprints and when im up to it i will add a swim to this day as i just found a swimming facility around my area. I also have run days where i Just jog to help get my weight down even more. Im thinking maybe I will be fighting middle weight if i can stay away from oreos. LOL


Kettlebells are so tough.
Looking forward to the new season of BJJ tournaments.