Episode 337: Are you struggling to maximise your strength for grappling? JT & Joey go deep on all the things you are not doing to get stronger for BJJ. If you are already lifting weights and rolling but find you aren't getting much stronger in the gym it can be super frustrating- but what is the answer? There are some common mistakes that are holding BJJ folks back and then there are 3 key things you haven't tried that will bust you out of your strength plateau. This discussion lays out how you can remove the handbrakes that are holding you back and then some key insights that are going to level you up in the coming months. From new lifters to seasoned gym heads there are some insights in this discussion that will really help maximise your Strength Gains!
Episode 337: Are you struggling to maximise your strength for grappling? JT & Joey go deep on all the things you are not doing to get stronger for BJJ. If you are already lifting weights and rolling but find you aren't getting much stronger in the gym it can be super frustrating- but what is the answer? There are some common mistakes that are holding BJJ folks back and then there are 3 key things you haven't tried that will bust you out of your strength plateau. This discussion lays out how you can remove the handbrakes that are holding you back and then some key insights that are going to level you up in the coming months. From new lifters to seasoned gym heads there are some insights in this discussion that will really help maximise your Strength Gains!
A good martial artist does not become tense but ready. Essentially, at this point the fight is over, so you pretty much flow with the goal. Who is worthy to be trusted with the secret to limitless power?
Speaker 2:
I'm ready.
Speaker 1:
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Speaker 2:
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another Bulletproof for BJJ podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another Bulletproof for BJ podcast. Maximize your strength. It's one of those things. You're lifting weights but you're not sure. Maybe I'm not as strong as I could be. What can I do to improve this workout so I get stronger? Let's talk about it, joseph. How can the people maximize their strengths? So we see a lot of common things in the gym and we also see a lot of common threads with the users of our program. I get videos sent through, whether they post it on the coaching chat on our group or they send it privately to instagram and stuff. This first one is really something that I observe a lot and I think is it's going to be a huge upgrade for everyone out there, which is to lift slower. What now?
Speaker 1:
whether you're doing like we say let's, but whether you're excuse me, right, whether it's body weight training or you're lifting weights, but slower.
Speaker 2:
So let's just use a squat as an example. Slow on the way down, slow on the way out. Now, slow doesn't mean like I'm not saying super duper slow, I'm not saying like a five second count, like something like that, but what I'm saying is be in control throughout the entire movement, and if we look at how a lot of people approach exercising, taking the squat, they tend to just drop into the bottom. It's like I drop to the bottom and then I push up, bounce out, drop to the bottom. Yeah, and there is a place.
Speaker 2:
If you're more in the advanced realm of strength training, then, yes, training for power and explosiveness requires that you move fast, but most of the people that we're dealing with are not, and that means, then, that the foundation of true strength hasn't been built yet. And we're talking strength as in like how much weight can you lift, right, like what's, what's your numbers, kind of thing, but also how's like the density of your connective tissue and like how's your control of your body while under load. And training fast is almost a right you haven't earned yet. Yeah, I think as a process of order, if you, you know you've got to have stability before you have strength, right, like, if you can't balance, if you can't stand up and balance without falling over, then you can't squat a hundred kilos. So you've got to think if I don't have stability in my shoulder, I can't have a strong shoulder. Also, you have to understand, like, obviously without getting too esoteric and talking about speed strength, esoteric and talking about speed strength, but if we talk about power and speed, that is strength at you know times, it's force, times, acceleration, right, equal power, like you have to be able to produce force before you can accelerate it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so essentially there's plenty of people out there, yeah, but how about plyometrics? How about explosiveness? Like, yeah, but if you can't even just control your own body weight or control a low load, going straight away to those things, you're much more likely to break. Why? So, talking to Joe's point about tendon and ligament strength, which we really need for jiu-jitsu, what builds tendon and ligament strength is time under tension. Spending that little bit longer under load means you actually get more from it. Now, once you can demonstrate that, yeah, okay, I can squat this weight with control without my technique breaking down, you now have permission to go a little bit heavier. But typically where we see it, or at least where I see it, people tend to rush. When they get tired, you know, they start to get their technique falters a bit. So they're like, oh, I've just got to get them out. You know, like, just get those reps. You know, whether it be a chin-up or push-up, like people are rushing because they don't want to fatigue, they don't want to like Trying to stay ahead of the fatigue.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, if I just go quickly, it'll be fine. That's not the case. So definitely in terms of slowing it down. Every time I've had to try to work through to the next level of my strength in a movement, slowing it down was a big part of that, whether it would be like slow eccentrics, like tempo squats, like when I say tempo, I'm not talking fast, I'm talking, like you know, five seconds down, five seconds. I'm talking like five seconds down, five seconds up. Slow tempo is fucking grueling, but it's great. And then pauses. Pauses is a real example of your ability to control a position. Yeah, and control really is the thing that we're getting at here. I think too, for a lot of people, when they visualize what's important in strength training, they think about just the coming up or the pulling up section. And think about just the coming up or the, the, the pulling up section, and then you just get yourself back down so you can do it again.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
But the whole movement's important and there's benefit to the whole movement. So control the whole thing.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
And also you've got to think about the exercise itself. Like, the eccentric phase for a squat is the first part of the lift, whereas for a deadlift it's concentric, which is a little bit different. So you know, there's people out there who will say oh you know, I don't. You, you've probably seen it. Where someone's dead lifting, they come up to the top and they just drop the bar, they just do the concentric phase, they just do the up bit and they go. Oh well, you know, like, going doing the eccentric phase, it, you know it makes me sore and I don't want to have to deal with that and it's like, well, there are benefits. Now let's put it in context, there's benefits to just doing the concentric phase. Right, there is sport specific benefits, specific for sure but there's also huge benefits in the lowering phase, where you're going to get really great stimulus to grow muscle, strengthen tendons, strengthen ligaments, and that is required in bjj. You do have to be able to. If someone jumps guard on you, you've got to be able to suddenly lower them down to the ground without just dumping them and you get dq because someone jumps guard on you. You know what I mean. Like it's there's a thing to bodily control, where you being able to control your body and then add an external load is so applicable to jiu-jitsu, because you're going to have to do it when someone's trying to sweep you or take you down. Yeah, and and I I think probably the last.
Speaker 2:
The last reason I like slow is because most people don't have particularly good body awareness in the gym. This, this we just know like, unless you've been coached, unless you've been through a consistent training process, if you're newer to the thing, you're not going to have great awareness around it, and so when you're moving fast you don't have time to be aware. But when you're moving slow you do have the time, and so it's going to set you up for success down the track if you can build this awareness. Now you know whatever to make you better at jits, make you better in the gym, whatever other sport you want to play, and it's also underexplored.
Speaker 2:
Typically people are like oh, once I can lift a weight, I'll just lift it faster, I'll just, you know, that's the next step when actually that's not necessarily the case, and also we tend to think as humans oh, just put more weight on the bar, well, you can actually milk the weight you've got there, reduce your chance of injury. By just by adding more time under tension, you can get stronger lifting the same weight, which is kind of crazy. So if you're training at home and you're like, oh yeah, but I've only got these I don't know 30 pound dumbbells or whatever it might be well, you can actually get a fair bit out of the exercise just by slowing those rep down, like two count, whatever. We're not talking slow motion, matrix-esque kind of thing. Well, this brings us to the next point.
Speaker 2:
I think yeah, so what is our next point, joe? Next point is that you want to be making things a little bit harder every session or every week. So you know, I got my session. We say every, every week generally, because it's like your programs are based on a one-week cycle. So it's like, cool, I do, you know, my dead lifts and stuff on a monday and I got my pull-ups and shit on a Wednesday, and then next Monday, next Wednesday, same shit, sure. So you want to make things a little bit harder next week and then the week after a little bit harder again. Now, for those of you that are more familiar with the whole program thing, you're like, yeah, no shit, like that's what strength training is, but for a lot of folks they don't know this, right, for a lot of folks that are coming from that. You know I'm not trying to. You know, like when you talked about I'm not trying to get big, trying to maintain.
Speaker 2:
It's like I'm just going to lift the same thing week in, week out, forever, right, and we see it with our people, where they'll be like, hey, can I get feedback on this exercise? And you'd be like, yeah, great, you know, you know, or not. Like, here's the feedback. Um, how long you've been lift. Oh, I've been using this weight for a couple of months now. Should I go up? I'm like, well, it looks pretty good. You should definitely make something harder.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, now, how you make it harder might be more weight on the bar, it might be more reps, might be another set, might be slowing down the tempo, right, which method you use? In my opinion, of course, if you're following a program, do what the program says, but generally speaking, I don't really care, as long as it's a little bit more challenging. That's that, as a concept, is the most important thing. The, the method that I like, which is just kind of like a idiot's guide to progressive overload. Now, I learned this from my russian coach, because I don't ego lift, but I do emotion lift, if I'm feeling good, if I'm fucking. Joey's looking at me like he's smiling no, but like.
Speaker 1:
I don't he's seen your 1RM videos on Instagram.
Speaker 2:
I don't feel good every day I don't. I get in there sometimes I'm like dang, I'm a little bitch and I can't. You know, I haven't got it every day and that's okay, but Okay. But if I walk in the gym and I feel good, I'm like fuck the program I am maxing today. This is a mistake, my friends, don't do that. I've just come off the back. How often would you max?
Speaker 1:
Like monthly?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, maybe, maybe once a month, not on the same lift. I might just be like, wow, overhead press is good today. I wonder if I can press the 40. 40 is good. Let Press is good today. I wonder if I can. I wonder if I can press the 40. 40's good, let's just see. Let's just keep going Like when can this party go? Um, awesome, I never go max isn't this just as a funny indicator of our personalities.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, but it's. It's because, like my joe and I've had this argument with my, my coach of him before my life is not that interesting. You know, like I don't, I don't do exciting things, so me just picking up five kilos everywhere, I'm like I'm living, like how exciting is this? What I'm saying to you guys, this is, this is what I would recommend and I'm saying to you guys, this is what I would recommend, and I do stick to this generally and this is what we recommend for our people in the program. If you're starting at and we often give rep ranges like 8 to 12 or 3 to 6, that you start at 5 sets of 3 or 3 sets of 8. Bottom of the rep range Bottom of the rep range.
Speaker 2:
Then the next time you come back, based on how you're doing, you might add a rep per set until you can do the set range with the maximum rep range.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, top of the rep range, you know, now doing three sets of 12. Now you have added, you know, kind of 30% of the volume of where you were, go up a little bit in weight and then go back down. This is a very controlled, conservative, safe way for you to be getting stronger. You gradually build your volume and then add a little bit of weight, Gradually build your volume and this fucking works. It doesn't sound super exciting, it's not a max, but it's the chip away, chip away consistency. You need to build real strength, yeah, and it's also not life-changing shit week to week. And this is what you see from people who are maybe less experienced with it, is that? But who are like, really like people who get a bit carried away with it.
Speaker 2:
We could say, but just adding two and a half kilos on last week, like I reckon I could add 10. And you're like that's fine, but can you add 10 the week after? And the week after Probably not. So why don't we just do two and a half and two and a half and why don't we just do that every week? Yeah, and it's this short-term view of like, nah, I'm feeling good today, let's go up more. Yeah, and don't take a big bite, just little ones every time, but I'm hungry. Joe, I want it. The dog, I mean. This is the thing, right, if you go up two and a half kilograms every week what's what's?
Speaker 2:
that, what's that in? What's that in a year? Jt? Well, it just depends. So you've got 52 weeks in the year, but you don't always got. Let's just say it's 130 kilos in the year. It's a lot so, but not all like no. But let's say you're dead lifting and you're like, okay, I'm going to go up two and a half kilos every week. Motherfucker, you are not adding 130 to your deadlift this year. If you're brand new, maybe, and you start at two and a half kilos, but you're probably going to be starting at 60.
Speaker 2:
I think part of the reason why this happens is when people start in the gym you do have newbie gains. Like newbie gains is real. So, yeah, your adaptation in the first three to six months of training, if you haven't really lifted before, it's colossal. Like your nervous system adapts, your muscles adapt. You're like I've gone from couldn't barely squat my body weight. I'm back squatting a hundred kilos. Yeah, wow, now the growth curve is not like that. It kind of evens out of it. It's it gets harder, right, and that's fine. There's nothing not like that. It kind of evens out of it. It gets harder, right, and that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. Well, what my coach would advocate for. Is 1% better a week? He believed if you can get 50% better in a year, that's a huge increase. That's huge Because you put that to, because it compounds, right, yeah, 1% or 1%, 1%. And then he said you get to the next year and you keep improving 1% per week.
Speaker 2:
It's more than a hundred percent better in two years because it's yeah, because the compounding, compounding's crazy we're lifting 500 kilos in a couple years, yeah, well, it just depends on can you be that consistent? Yeah, and almost no one can. Life throws spanners in the works. But if you do everything in the right way and you are gradually increasing, not not just rocketing up, you're going to be good.
Speaker 2:
Let me talk about a mistake I made last week based on enthusiasm. Don't let me be one to curb anyone's enthusiasm, but it's classic squatting feeling pretty good and I was like you know what I haven't been doing my back offsets. Like typically I would work up to my working weight and do that. Then afterwards I would do anywhere from one to three back offsets where you reduce the weight to 70% or 60% of what you were squatting. Then you might do an AMRAP or a set amount of reps. I hadn't been doing that for… Couple of months and I was like I'm being a pussy here, I'm avoiding this, I should be doing it. So I did an AMRAP set and did 15 reps and cooked myself and I was like, nah, not enough, I need a second AMRAP set.
Speaker 1:
And I did it.
Speaker 2:
And I was like oh, my.
Speaker 2:
God, my fucking quads are so gone. And I was like, okay, pistols, I've been working on my pistols. I pistols, all right, I've been working on my pistols. I usually do three accessory. My accessories are usually shorter, I'm usually a bit, and I was like, no, fuck that I'm gonna do five. You know, and this is what we're trying to say with the gradual increase, if you think you say you do three sets of five, so you're doing 15 reps, if you add another set, you've increased at 33 percent without increasing any weight. Your volume volume is 33% higher, significantly higher.
Speaker 2:
That's more than 1%. Just for the non-mathematicians out there, in case the math don't math, I added two sets From 15 to 25 reps. Yeah, 60. And you're going oh, it's just a couple extra sets, that's 66% increase. For what? For what am I doing that? After I'd done this amrap, and then I was like you know what, I haven't written myself off enough. I'm gonna do fucking leg extensions. I don't do leg extensions anymore usually do other exercises.
Speaker 2:
I'm like nah fucking gonna make these quads pump so I did three max out leg extension sets and then I couldn't walk for days.
Speaker 1:
Imagine I was fucked this past weekend. Nothing happening in JT town Like Joe's. Like what did you do on the weekend, bro? Recovering Deep heat everywhere. My guy Trying not to burn my balls off because I was laughing up in deep heat. Anyway, don't do that. Like that is an example of what not to do because I got a little in deep heat. Anyway, don't do that. Like that is an example of what not to do because I got a little bit excited.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, took too big a bite. I did, which is typical of me Choked to death, most likely cause of death. But now let's talk about something else which people also do not consider when maximizing their strengths tech, yeah. So getting feedback, like visual feedback on your technique now, or getting feedback. So one of the simplest ways you can do this is to video yourself at an angle that shows you, like gives you a good view of your form, and then watching it, you know, either at the time after the set or like later.
Speaker 2:
But being able to see what you're doing and mirrors at the gym can be helpful for this, but usually you shouldn't actually be looking in the mirror while you're doing the set. Right, you should be, like, putting your eye line wherever it needs to be to be in a good alignment. So watching yourself on camera goes a huge way, yes, but an even better step on that is to have someone who actually knows like, someone who's a reasonable coach or at least knows what good technique looks like. Get them to watch it for you now. You might have someone in the gym that you train like a training buddy. It might be someone else in the gym that you, that's you know it's a coach that's there like a pt that's walking around you fucking. Hey man, you take a look at my squat. Tell me what you think, like. Really, I think people don't do this enough and in most globo gyms you've got pts there.
Speaker 2:
All the pt wants to do is flex their training knowledge they do so when you say you don't even have to view, so hey, man, can you check my set and give me some feedback? Fucking great, you're getting free advice there, right? If you're in our program, you obviously have us. That's why we always say, hey, send us a video so we can see. Um, a video says so much and getting that feedback is like it's such a hack on. It's like if you were doing jujitsu, trying to get better at it, but you didn't have a coach.
Speaker 2:
Imagine your coach just didn't tell you. Yeah, but like, imagine you were just training by yourself with a grappling dummy and no one to tell you about your tech, and then you go to a gym where you got a coach. That's like teaching you things and telling you what you're doing wrong amazing, like one of those is a really fast way to progress. The other one's like super fucking slow. This super slow one is what most people are doing in the gym, right, yeah, they're not getting any feedback at all. And so, yeah, find a way to get that. And I think you shouldn't feel self-conscious about videoing yourself, even though I know there's all this different crap about people filming themselves in the gym, part of the reason why, other than vanity or Instagram, there's a lot of people who are getting coached online. So their coach will say send me a video of that set so they can give you feedback.
Speaker 2:
It is actually important for you to be improving technically and, even though there's some people out there who might be quite beastly just off, raw determination, just one or two little bits of technical feedback, can actually take your strength up like 20%, like just almost immediately. And we've seen it as coaches, too, that someone comes to us and they're doing a movement. You're like, oh, hang on a second, let's just change your grip a little, change your stance a little. Now do that, how's that feel? People like oh, it's easy, like there's the unlock, now use that tool going forward and it it's massive. I I think that this is definitely the most undererexplored element that could be holding your strengths back for sure. I got a bonus. Fourth point Please make sure to like subscribe. It's a five-star review. Do it now and you will get stronger.