Time To Take Action is NOW
No time is better than now. Take action now and start your journey of developing the strength and conditioning that you need in order to train or compete at the level that you desire.
When deciding on which piece of equipment that I choose to use with my clients, there are a couple of things that I take into account:
1. Cost
What is my initial investment? Do I have to keep buying additional equipment?
2. Versatility
Can I use it with my athletes that are dropping body fat, increasing lean muscle, conditioning, rehab, etc.
3. Space
How big is it? Can it be stored away? Can it be moved from training facility to BJJ Academy.
4. Longevity
How long will it last you? Or will you be buying a new piece of equipment every couple of months and throwing money down the drain.
Now that we understand some of the reasons that I picked these pieces of equipment…Here is my list of the “Top 3 Conditioning Tools For BJJ”:
1. Ultimate Sandbag
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Ultimate Sandbag exercises change levels of stability, speed, planes of motion, and weight. All of these factors contribute a great deal to the power of Ultimate Sandbag exercises to being a perfect way to organize simple periodization.
Here are 3 reasons why you should be training with the Ultimate Sandbag:
• Improved Core Strength: The non-cooperative nature of sandbags makes using every muscle possible to lift it crucial. More stable and predictable implements can cause the body to find a particular groove.
• Greater Grip Strength: The dynamic nature of the sandbag forces the body to use different grip strategies depending upon the lift and the level of fatigue one feels. Getting strong at sandbag lifts means you will find a great transfer of this hand strength to other forms of training.
• Sport Specific Strength Training: Sandbags may be the perfect tools for BJJ athletes as they are the only tool that can come close to representing an opponent. The constant shifting weight of a sandbag makes it an ideal training environment for combative athletes as it prepares the athlete for the unpredictability of a fight on the mats on the ring.
• Sample Workout: http://youtu.be/e9HSujRML7o
2. TRX Suspension Trainer
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Lets keep this one simple…Here are my 3 reasons to use a TRX Suspension Trainer:
• Core Training: Suspension Training bodyweight exercise is designed to intentionally displace your center of gravity, activating the core musculature during every exercise to stabilize and balance the body in a truly functional way.
• Pulling Exercises: The TRX Suspension Trainer requires you to integrate the entire posterior chain with the pulling moves – hip extension combined with torso stability and pulling from the back – hard to beat it!
• Unilateral Training: Unilateral training is important to help identify muscle imbalances and/or weakness, which can lead to injury. The simplest way to avoid muscle imbalance is to choose exercises that strengthen opposing muscle groups or perform unilateral training.
• Sample Workout: http://youtu.be/r6PHM_z4GlE
3. RIP Trainer
Now this is one piece of equipment that most MMA/BJJ athletes tend to look over. I often here…”Really??? It’s just a stick with a band.” This always makes me laugh and than I usually put them through a brief “Stick with a band” workout.
Here are some reasons why it is not just a stick with a band:
• Replicate Life and Sport Movements: Simply put, you get better at something by doing it over and over while changing acute variables. The Rip Trainer allows you to easily manipulate common movements from all sports.
• Core Strengthening: New age research has taught us a lot about our mid sections and how to train them. Up until recent years, people didn’t talk about building core strength, they talked about working their abs. Crunches, sit ups and ab machines were mostly the extent of “core training.”
• Full Body Movement: You can press, squat, row, lunge with the RIP Trainer, but you can also build strength while adding a stability component to any of these movements. Plus, it doesn’t stop there…You can prevent rotation, flexion, pulling, and still perform these movements unilaterally.
• Sample Workout: http://www.stack.com/video/1161987733001/TRX-Rip-Trainer-MMA-Workout/
