There’s no better supplement a human can take than good old physical exertion.

That’s what you’ll get if you go with Ginástica Natural, a workout method that’s handy in helping you to build endurance, improve your posture and get more power behind your moves. And the best part: you don’t need any equipment, just the weight from your own body.

Want to get started today? Physical conditioning coaches Álvaro and Raphael Romano have a brand new challenge for you, to whip you into shape good and quick.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSQjkJ4ATjs

Today’s exercise needs to be done in pairs. The first thing to do is decide who’s going to roll first and who’s going to leap. The second step is to determine how many repetitions there’ll be—two sets of ten reps is what they recommend.

When doing the leap, it’s important that you use your legs to thrust as well as to absorb the impact. At first sight, people often think the thrust is created by the upper body.

Ready for the challenge? Enjoy the workout and be healthy.

Go that extra mile and check out the video below to get some inspiration to train better your body for Jiu-Jitsu:

There is no reason to miss Jiu-Jitsu! Even if your gym is closed and you have no partners available to practice, you can still get some work out done by yourself.

In the video below, Black Belt Jason Scully shows us 33 exercises in 7 minutes that can be performed alone and anywhere. It helps improve your movement, agility, coordination, balance, and conditioning.

Learn it here and good training!

Xande hits the weights hard with Alejarra. (Photo by Carlos Ozório)

What does it take to get your physical conditioning right? What’s the best way to prepare your body for the demands of Jiu-Jitsu training?

If you’re counting the hours before you can hit the mats again, whether because you were gallivanting around at carnival or other reasons, today GRACIEMAG brings you three plum tips plucked from issue 181.

Oriented by the practitioner Leandro Medeiros of Equipe Liboni, an expert on the subject from Unicamp University, we bring you a list of three common mistakes committed by Jiu-Jitsu practitioners in their physical-conditioning routines.

Mistake 1: Neglecting Jiu-Jitsu and focusing only on pumping up in the weight room

The intensity of movement in a Jiu-Jitsu match varies between peaks and plateaus, and you thus have to perform different types of muscular exertion during the course of combat. There are moments where you’re required to exert explosive force, while at others you rely on isometrics or even endurance. To be effective in wielding all these different manifestations of force, VARIATION should be a cornerstone of your strength training or weightlifting routine. You can develop your muscles for all of these forms of muscular exertion by doing specific workouts in the weight room or even on the mat. Often Jiu-Jitsu practitioners are influenced by aesthetically-minded weight lifters who focus only on muscular hypertrophy (for example, 3 to 4 sets of 6 to 12 repetitions at moderate speed with 1- to 2-minute breaks and performing standard exercises). Most of these methodologies meant to pump up muscle fibers don’t provide the right sort of gains in strength, power and endurance. Getting that would require combining sets/reps/load/speed with movement/rest-interval and workout/varied exercise types. Now, muscular hypertrophy does indeed have its importance for Jiu-Jitsu fighters, as it means gains in power (explosiveness) and injury prevention. But you should only work on hypertrophy once you’ve laid a solid foundation of muscular endurance. Immediately following a strength workout and depending on how far off a competition is, you should place greater emphasis on power building. Remember, you want the performance of a fighter, not a bodybuilder. (Tip: reading Martin Rooney’s column in GRACIEMAG will help introduce you to useful and diverse exercises.)

Mistake 2: Failure to adjust workout volume or intensity in training

In a nutshell, training volume is a composite of different variables that hinders how long a weight-training workout lasts. Like number of repetitions and different exercises, for example. On the mat, volume is the number of matches and their duration. Now, intensity is all about the different aspects related to quality of training. For example, in weightlifting it’s the load being lifted. On the mat it’s the “level of difficulty” of the matches—that is, the amount of force employed in the movements.

A Jiu-Jitsu match is overall more intense than it is voluminous, unlike a marathon, for example. Therefore, as a competition approaches, it is only natural that you bring the volume of training down, making way for intensity work, which is closer to what actually transpires in competition. What ends up happening a lot of the time, though, is that training plays out almost exclusively on the mat. The result of that is that you’ll perform with bursts of endurance but won’t be able to reach peak muscle strength and power. Furthermore, you’ll tend to be physically drained as you step into competition. The thing to do is build up a solid foundation of endurance early in the season through volume training, to later bring down the volume and boost the intensity as you go. At most stages of your training, you should avoid raising volume and intensity at the same time, which can lead to fatigue, overtraining, and osteoarticular and muscle injuries.

Mistake 3: Lack of planning affecting adaptation to desired body weight

To count for the whole season, your training has to be firmly grounded in the principles of sport science. Slapdash training routines thrown together randomly don’t do your physical conditioning a bit of good. Truth is, often they’ll do more harm than good, hampering your results in training and competition. And when it comes to making your target weight class, you should plan your weight cut well so it will happen in a natural manner.

It’s important to bear in mind that, unlike in MMA, in Jiu-Jitsu weigh-ins take place on the day of competition. And it’s not uncommon to see competitors having to shed ten or so pounds on tournament day, forcing them to run laps around the gymnasium while wrapped in plastic, sweatshirts or two gis, without eating properly or drinking water. The product of all these harrowing procedures is a weakly, dehydrated and debilitated athlete dragging his feet around the match area.

Planning and periodizing your training in a sensible way is of the utmost importance for you to make it to competition day at the right weight and in good physical shape to compete. By doing so, there’ll be a greater chance of your physiological functions being better adapted to a lower weight division once the big events roll around.

So, check out the video below where personal trainer Sasa Obradovic and BJJ athlete Alexandre Odebrecht show a creative routine that can be performed at the gym and simulates real fight situations.

Learn the workout here and good training!

These are simple exercises that everyone can perform at the gym or on the mat to warm-up before class. The intensity of the workout will depend on how many sets you can do.

Watch the video below for instructions and good training!

Let us know, Jiu-Jitsu beasts: What would it be the place of your dreams to roll? It could be a beautiful beach, a park of greenish grass, a place high in the mountains. Which would you choose?

In the video below, a group of athletes from Michigan, United States, took the mats out of the dojo at one fine morning and did their workout outdoor in the park.

Inspire yourself!

BJJ at the Tridge in Midland from Steve Cronk on Vimeo.

Check it out!

Petya with her family, husband Bruno and son Joao Lucas.

How difficult is losing weight and getting back in shape after pregnancy? Jiu-Jitsu practitioner from Texas and Bruno Bastos’s wife, Petya Bastos shows us how she lost 3kg / 6.5 pounds in one week of training after having the baby.

Petya still breastfeeding her son, Joao Lucas, and she is not on a diet. “I’m not on a diet but I try to eat healthy and give all the necessary food substances for me and my son.” Says Petya.

Here we present her 6-day workout routine coming back to training at the gym after the baby in this fit mom’s workout diary.

Monday: 45 minutes of cardio in fitness. It was her only workout of the day. “I felt tired and I had aching joints because of weight gained from pregnancy.” Petya said.

Tuesday: 30 minutes of cardio and exercises for shoulder and triceps. Squats and crunches, all this in 3 sets of 15 to 20 reps each. In the afternoon, she practiced judo. “We did some warm-up drill development and inspective new techniques. After time to fight.” Says Petya

Wednesday: 45 minutes of cardio after lunch, then she helped in the kids class where children learn some judo throws and how to protect themselves from throwing. After that she made it to the ladies class. She did grip fighting and learning about the technique.

Thursday: 30 minutes of cardio exercises with elastic and crunches. She said she had a nice stretch for at least 10 min. In the afternoon she workout “BJJ fight for grip” a lot with drills, and felt very tired. She finished the training with stretching.

Friday: Just one workout in fitness, 30 minutes of cardio, and this was all for the day.

Saturday: 30 minutes cardio. She was going to train BJJ after but her son was crying and didn’t let her, something very common to hear from a newborn’s mother. “I was ready to train BJJ but my son, “said no” and cried all the time and I could not train at that time.” Petya said.

Sunday was a rest day. In one week she lost 3 kg with this workout routine and eating healthy. Let’s have Petya as an inspiration and go hit the gym, train BJJ, practice sports or work out outdoors. Petya is a mother and does it, so no excuses!

Gracie Magazine is going to follow up with Petya registering her progress at the gym and keeping you posted about her workouts every month on Instagram. Follow @graciemagazine to see her posts.

Triatleta nas horas de folga, Jenson Button indica a hidratação constante para atletas de alto rendimento. Foto: Divulgação

English racer Jenson Button doesn’t limit himself to moving just his neck and steering wheel when in the cramped cockpit of his Formula 1 race car. When he’s not zipping around tracks at 300 km/h, he’s taking care of his physical shape by lifting weights and doing hobbies like triathlons, mountain biking and hitting the weights.

In a recent interview by British journalists, Button was asked to share a pointer for readers who practice impact sports. He was quick and precise in answering:

“Make sure you’re hydrated; it’s crucial to performance no matter what sport you’re in. Set a goal of drinking 500 mL of water every hour. That how I keep my body hydrated for moments of great exertion,” he advised.

Did you know that your lungs, so vital for getting oxygen to your body during training, are comprised of around 90% water? Jenson Button surely knows.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1uxLAEtsmg

Fundamental, yes. After all, the sport you practice is an “explosive” on too, if you hadn’t noticed. How else do you think you get to each position, or recover and escape to others.

Through explosiveness, of course. Work out with the dummy, jump rope, and run with Letícia Ribeiro, if you can.