This article explores a program for preparing for competition in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ). It is easily adapted for other martial arts and sports competition. Competition training starts long ahead of the competition with goal setting and consistent training.
Build a program of cross training to support your chosen competitive sport. The nucleus of your training is your chosen sport. Cross training is geared to improve performance in your nucleus sport. Together, these work together to create a core program. Over time, be prepared to modify this core program as your needs change or you discover other types of training that better complement your nucleus.
These come and go over time, but I have discovered a handful that are very complimentary with BJJ. They are:
When creating your core program, be careful to not choose types of training that overlap too much. For example, in 2000, I was cross training with rock climbing. I knew the extra strength I developed would help my BJJ training. After 6 months of training, I decided to dump climbing after it became clear that my hands and arms did not have enough recovery time after climbing to be strong in BJJ. If your core sport's recovery time interferes with your competitive nucleus, it's not complementary. As fun as climbing is for me, its dramatic overlap with BJJ makes it incompatible for my core program.
Outside this core are other extraneous activities that don't make up your regular schedule. It's important that you distinguish the core program from the extraneous activities in the weeks leading to your competition. Extraneous activities are "weekend warrior" deviations from your schedule. They are fun, but come competition prep time, they are noise.
Make a training schedule and be prepared to change it as seasons and situations change. If you have to deviate from your schedule in a given week, try to have enough flexibility to have a make-up workout later. As I get closer to competition, the only thing I change is the intensity of my training.
Be prepared year-round for competition. This means keeping your training schedule intense at all times.
Most BJJ competitors have a fighting weight. For me, it's about 145, well below the featherweight cutoff of 147. This is to allow me to stay hydrated and not worry about differences between scales. When I'm not planning competition, I'll let myself get to about 155, knowing I can shave off 7 pounds easily when I decide to compete. Everyone has a different metabolism, and I seem to be blessed with a stratospheric one, so I'm not going to get into how to lose pounds here. Just try not to cut more than a pound or two per week.
This countdown will take you from 2 months before competition to the moment of battle itself. It is equal parts mental and physical commitment.
Commit to yourself that you will compete. This is a personal promise that you make: an internal decision point that you will not back down from. Share this news with your coach and training partners so they can kick it up a notch in your training. Tell your family so they will understand why you are suddenly obsessed with the scale in your bathroom! Behind every successful competitor is a supportive family.
As a form of insurance, you should stop any non-core activities that could lead to serious injury. For example, I stop mountain biking at this point, since a nasty "endo" could put you out of commission for a week, which will ruin your preparations. This is your last chance to make any impact on your cardiovascular capacity. Start to improve your short-term, explosive power by interval training with longer, more intense bursts of activity.
All training should be started from standup now. Generally BJJ sparring is started from the knees when in routine training mode. To get ready for competition, make sure you get all of your opponents off their knees to start from standing.
Before you start to drill the tactics you intend to employ in a match, make sure you know the rules. For the Pan American 2003 competition, I drilled a terrific opening move to knee-bar and a killer snake in the grass foot-lock, only to find that both moves were disallowed in my division the day of the event! That took the wind out of my sails!
Specific Drills Contact us for specifics on these drills.
- Competition opening moves: first point wins
- Endurance mode: bull in the ring
- Survival mode: lamb in the ring
- Escaping drills
- Finishing drills
Stop weight training. You won't get any stronger at this point and your muscles need a couple of weeks to completely repair if you are in a lifting schedule. If this sounds unbelievable, don't take my word for it; do your own research. The micro-tearing that is integral to the success of weight training requires 2 weeks to completely heal (for a guy my age). These micro-tears will prevent you from performing at 100%.
Roll hard the beginning of the week, but tone it down to gentle rolling by the end of the week. All exercise ends 2 days before the match to completely recover any muscle damage, cuts, and bruises you suffered in the constant barrage of mat time you subjected yourself to over the past several weeks.
Packing. Make sure you bring Everything You Need.
Rest. If you have to travel to get to the competition, have someone else do the driving, if possible. Holding a steering wheel for hours on end will sap your hand strength. If you have heavy luggage, check it to have someone else lug it around if possible. If you must drive a long distance on competition day, focus on a gentle grip on the wheel and use cruise control as much as possible.
BJJ competition is gets you closer to the glory and challenge of hand-to-hand battle than most things in life. This is perhaps why I enjoy it so much. It is also one of the more boring tests of endurance and mental focus you will find. As the day wears on, you have many challenges to face:
I was at a seminar held by Carlos Machado in 2002 when he shared his experiences preparing for world-class BJJ black belt competition. I want to thank him for sharing this because I adapted it to my program and have found it works incredibly well. His was a simple message: isolate yourself, drink plenty of water, and keep your body warm. Upon closer inspection, these are excellent tactics for numerous reasons I'll dive into in some detail in the following areas:
I have adopted his preparation plan in my own competitions over the past year and continue to fine-tune it for each new challenge.
Warming up has been known to improve sports performance and reduce risk of injury for years. Yet often athletes don't warm up enough because they are afraid of wasting energy or can't accurately predict when their match will be called. They don't want to get into a warm-up and have to cool down. Both of these concerns are easily removed with some simple facts.
Research has shown that cold muscles, which have a low blood saturation, are more susceptible to damage than warm muscles. In addition, the flexibility of the tendons and ligaments benefits from a warm-up. Warming up improves performance and does not waste energy! A 15-45 minute warm up has the following performance benefit of increased blood flow and muscle temperature, which increases speed of contraction and relaxation of warmed muscles. This provides numerous benefits:
- Warmed muscle contracts more forcefully and relaxes more quickly, enhancing strength and speed.
- Injury risk is lowered by improved muscle elasticity.
- Specific to submission grappling competition, increased muscle elasticity improves flexibility, improving chances of escaping joint locks.
- More efficient use of energy because of lowered viscous resistance within warmed muscles. This means your blood vessels dilate, thus reducing the resistance to blood flow and lowering stress on the heart.
- More efficient cardiovascular transferal of oxygen from blood hemoglobin at higher temperatures. This is a beneficial cycle, since the more oxygen available, the more glucose can be metabolized in the muscle tissue.
- Faster response time due to facilitated nerve transmission at higher temperatures.
- More efficient body cooling. By activating the heat-dissipation mechanisms in the body an athlete can cool efficiently and help prevent overheating. In other words, if you are already sweating when you get on the mats, your body won't overheat in the intensity of the first minutes of battle.
- Hormonal changes. Your body increases its production of various hormones responsible for regulating energy production. During warm-up this balance of hormones makes more carbohydrates and fatty acids available for energy production.
If you can target the time of your fight within an hour, (with a little prediction and tracking of the event progress), a warm-up lasting 15-45 minutes can get you ready for a match with an ambiguous start time. The warm-up should proceed in this order:
- Unrelated activity
- Stretching
- Related activity
Unrelated activity is anything that increases your heart rate and body temperature. Get your sweat moving for 15 to 30 minutes, but don't go hard enough to fatigue. Each athlete should know their limits. Once your muscles are warm, stretch thoroughly. Once your division is called, you should have at least 5 minutes before your match starts. At this point, begin more directly related activity, such as gentle rolling on the mats with a partner or solo. The key to related activity is that it focuses on the actual muscles you use in your sport. Many jiu-jitsu athletes forget to warm up their hands! Your forearm muscles control your hands. Warm your hands and forearms up completely with light to medium-intensity gripping and flexing exercises. At the 2003 Pan American competition, my whole body was warm and I forgot to warm my hands. They seized up on me after my first match! It took forearm massage and 20 minutes of recovery time to get the waste products moving out of there. If you've ever gone rock climbing, you know the feeling.
Don't let your warm-up reveal your game plan. It's amazing how many people jump out on the warm-up mat and start practicing their secret moves and opening moves. Want to know if your opponent is a take-down expert? Watch them warm up. They'll find it nearly irresistable to start working their duckwalk, single legs, and fireman carries. Don't make this mistake.
While you will benefit more from a warm-up immediately prior to an event, the effects last for 30-45 minutes. In a perfect situation, taper your warm-up 10 minutes before your match and stop 5 minutes before hand, resorting to stretching and last minute mental preparation. Get your game face on!
Don't sit on the bench after you warm up! The American College of Sports Medicine released results of a study conducted on athletes who warm up then sit on the bench for 30 minutes afterward. They discovered that back flexibility was adversely affected leading to potentially reduced sports performance and increased injury risk. Alternatives included not sitting on the bench or bringing a chair with back support. I'm going to start bringing a folding canvas chair to these events!
Mental preparation starts weeks before you step on the mats for your match, but the last couple of hours are crucial to pulling it all together.
Different athletes prepare in different ways. Some like to keep near their friends as a source of mental energy. I have a different plan. You are alone on the mats, and need to isolate yourself, if not physically, at least mentally from other people as you begin to clear your mind for the fight. Don't worry about opening moves, there is no cramming for this exam. The more you relax your mind, the more you will respond reflexively to the dynamic situation during battle. Having a restrictive game plan will cause you mental conflict and delay your responses if things don't go exactly as planned (and they almost never do).
Anger doesn't help. Clear your mind of emotion. Some folks think that getting mad at their opponent will help, but surprisingly, anger has been shown to negatively impact sports performance. Emotion takes you away from your instinctive game. Anger will get in the way.
Your physical and mental warm-up are inextricably linked. Warming up causes complex hormonal changes in your body. Ultimately, this cocktail of hormones is what puts you in battle mode. Many fighting athletes get a benefit from this.
Don't choke! Choking is not just a submission hold. Choking happens when an athlete performs poorly due to mental distractions during a competition. Research has shown that most athletes choke when their goals are unrealistic or when they are performing to impress their coaches, friends or family rather than for themselves. Your competition is for you. Your goals are your own. Your mental preparation should be centered around realistic goals you have for yourself.
The only constant is change. I've been in 2 man divisions where a 3rd man showed up mysteriously after the first fight. I've been in single-elimination tournaments that suddenly changed to double elimination at the whim of the division referee. I've been showered and changed into street clothes only to find that I had one more fight to determine 3rd place. Stay mentally flexible, stay in your competition clothes, and stay warm until you are positive the results are final.
Win or lose, it takes courage, hard training, and commitment to compete. Treat yourself to a big meal with your team, then get some R&R.
Scrutinize. In the days following the match, watch your video if you have one and carefully scrutinize it (with your coach if you can).
Listen to your body. If you have more than a couple of fights, you're likely to be sore in the days after the competition. Think about what parts of you are sore and how your warm up and stretching can change next time to reduce the after-effects.
Here's what I pack when going to a competition
Back to Articles by David Thomas
Copyright © 2003 by David Thomas