Cardio for competing in BJJ?

Tell your training partners that you're training for competition and ask then if you can roll a harder. Best bet

These things will help you a lot:

• Not taking breaks in rolls
• Rolling an extra round before class and/or after class
• Being a lot more active in your rolls
• Training with someone at their house during off hours.

I have admittedly bad cardio on average but the times that I decide to train my cardio outside of class I found really helped. Longer distances or periods didnt seem to help me. What seemed to kick my conditioing into overdrive and in a really short amount of time were shorter more sprint-y, HIIT-ish workouts. Whether that was as fast as I can do 21-15-9s KB cleans/burpees, HIIT jump rope sessions, EMOMs with sandbag over shoulders, anything along those lines. As long as I could really push myself hard in bursts

magnuspalmer, post: 61950, member: 27517

So, signed up for my first real competition being a white belt in decent shape.
Been training since Oct 2018 with a one year pause due to covid restrictions.

Where I live we only have three classes per week, so need to work on my cardio off the mats.
I have heard that sprints and intervals should translate well to BJJ cardio.

Any personal tips/experiences would be appreciated! (I have read some articles after googling, but there are so many conflicting advice I am not sure which ones to listen to)

In cardio basic motor is aerobic ability. It would be good to know your thresholdes for aerobic and anaerobic energy thresholds or lactatic levels. To work your energy system, you need to work at right level. Very often it is stated that 80% or training needs to be in aerobic level and 20% harder with some amount even very hard.

One way to schedule cardio is to train 4 days easy and one day very hard…hard for cardio, more like moving a lot and gwting max winded.

Skipping. start at 2 mins constant with 1 min break then take it up to 4 minutes at a time.

I think 3x per week of training is sufficient cardio. Adding 2-3x days of strength training will likely have a better improvement in your grappling - especially, legs, chest, shoulders, and core.

HIIT worked great for me, but I haven't done that in a while and tried to let technique compensate for the lack of fitness. So far so good, but I would still recommend HIIT.

magnuspalmer, post: 61950, member: 27517

So, signed up for my first real competition being a white belt in decent shape.
Been training since Oct 2018 with a one year pause due to covid restrictions.

Where I live we only have three classes per week, so need to work on my cardio off the mats.
I have heard that sprints and intervals should translate well to BJJ cardio.

Any personal tips/experiences would be appreciated! (I have read some articles after googling, but there are so many conflicting advice I am not sure which ones to listen to)

I've found long steady running helped with improving recovery between rounds and shorter HIT sessions helped with pushing the pace in a round. Finding time and a balance between the two remains a challenge when you add strength training and BJJ on top of that

Jar1987, post: 63993, member: 24864

I've found long steady running helped with improving recovery between rounds and shorter HIT sessions helped with pushing the pace in a round. Finding time and a balance between the two remains a challenge when you add strength training and BJJ on top of that

crossover, post: 63995, member: 10990

One way to go is 80 % aerobic cardio and 20% anaerobic/HIIT.

Start jumping rope everyday, not only will your cardio go through the roof but you will strengthen your legs as well

Part of this is mindset which no one talked about. You DO have a lot in your gas tank when you are tired. Find ways to take mental aid stations during a roll, reset, make a plan, correct your breathing and posture. Energy will flow back into you if you are not cramped and panicked.

Due to a back injury, I use the elliptical every day for a low impact cardio session. Amazingly rolling does not hurt my injury. Anyhow, I like that the elliptical trains the arms too for endurance so I can constantly push and pull with ease. One part of cardio is certainly how much endurance Type I fibers you have in a given muscle group. Things like the arms, shoulders, abs, glutes, etc need to be dense in these fibers for you to not be gassed!