This post offers a short introduction to why strength training will help your BJJ. It will be part of an ongoing series over the coming weeks and months to give you guys a few more ideas on how to improve your overall game. A few of the benefits of strength training are listed below.

1. Injury Prevention – Strength training will help to condition your body by strengthening tendons, ligaments and muscles, making you more resistant to injury. This is perhaps the most important reason to improve your strength.

2. Increased Performance – Whether in competition or just in the gym, strength training will enable you to perform better for longer. This is not to say that you should try to out-muscle your opponents, but when you have two people of equal skill, it is generally the stronger and more conditioned who will prevail.

3. Increased metabolism – Muscle requires energy to function, therefore the more you have, the more calories you will burn at rest. This helps with body composition and losing unnecessary body fat.

There are many different types of strength that a BJJ competitor should possess:

Maximal Strength – This is simply how much force a muscle can produce. The more you have, the more you can lift! This is generally trained with heavy loads and low repetitions.

Explosive Strength – This is the ability for muscles to quickly create force. A good display of explosive power is a double-leg takedown where you are required to quickly shoot in and take your opponent to the ground. Being strong is one thing, but it is of little use if you can’t apply that strength quickly when you need it. This will generally use lighter loads than strength training, whilst still keeping repetitions low.

Strength Endurance – This is the ability of your muscles to resist fatigue. BJJ, especially in a gi, is particularly reliant on strength endurance. Working grips on lapels and collars can quickly lead to the muscles burning out if they are not well conditioned; a feeling that many of us have experienced in training and competition! Strength endurance can be trained with a number of methods, but this usually includes high repetitions with less weight and low rest periods.

BJJ requires all of these strength qualities, so it is important for any program to address them all: but more on that at a later date.

That’s all for this brief introduction, so stay tuned for the next part in the series where we will explore a little more on how to get started.

For more information contact me on or ask for Jay Harper at the gym!

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