Yes. Jiu jitsu is the ideal martial art to empower a weaker, less athletic person to be able to successfully defend an attack from a larger, stronger assailant. The strategies and leverage behind Gracie jiu jitsu do not require athletic talent in order to be successful.
That being said, there are physical attributes that can be helpful in making jiu jitsu even easier to use for self-defense. Although jiu jitsu gives us the ability to defeat opponents without being stronger than they are, there are benefits to certain types of athletic endurance. I will address a couple of them and offer some exercises that will help develop these ... optional physical attributes.
ANAEROBIC ENDURANCE
High intensity cardiovascular exertion should be anticipated in a violent confrontation. The Gracie Combatives sequences are very effective at minimizing the work needed to prevail in a close quarters fight, but a fight is a fight. Even if someone
involved in a fight is utilizing efficient techniques, just the fight/flight arousal response is going to drive the heart rate probably north if 140 bpm in seconds.
High intensity interval training (HIIT) can develop a very jiu jitsu relevant energy resource in your body. HIIT typically involves a series of drills with repetitions requiring maximum effort for about 20 seconds, followed by a very short rest period of 10-15 seconds. The athlete then goes immediately back into another rep of the 20 seconds of 100% effort ... and it repeats for 10-30 minutes.
For about the first 10 seconds of the first rep at 100% exertion, the body will burn its supply of the ATP-CP energy pathway. This is the energy pathway our muscles use for immediate, powerful bursts of energy. ATP-PC only has about 10-12 seconds of supply at maximum effort though, and the body will shift to fueling the exercise using the anaerobic glycolysis system. Since the ATP-PC system requires a couple of minutes of rest to re-charge, the short rest periods in a HIIT will keep the remainder of the circuit mostly in the anaerobic and aerobic range.
The anaerobic glycolysis system utilizes the metabolism of glucose to fuel muscular effort. This system isn't as powerful as the CP mechanism in terms of a one rep maximum effort task, but it is well suited to fuel moderate exertion for several minutes. This is our best source of fuel for most fights, as they tend to last more than 10 seconds, but well under 10 minutes. Additionally, properly executed jiu jitsu would not generally call upon explosive, maximum muscular effort anyway.
The limiting factor in relying on the anaerobic pathway is lactic acid. The metabolism of glucose (sugar) produces lactic acid as a by-product. As blood pH lowers (becomes more acidic) muscles start to lose their ability to contract efficiently, and this is perceived as muscle fatigue.
By training using HIIT type drills, we can improve our muscular tolerance for lactic acid build up. Through repeated exposure of our muscles to their lactate threshold, we can improve our ability to continue moderate to extreme muscular exertion for longer periods of time before becoming fatigued.
Specific drills for improving one's lactate threshold for jiu jitsu are beyond the scope of this article. I do believe however it is important to point out that the drills chosen to extend one's lactate threshold should be based on movements and physical tasks that are specific to the tasks involved in using jiu jitsu in realistic self-defense scenarios.
ISOMETRIC ENDURANCE
One type of anaerobic endurance that must be addressed in jiu jitsu relevant physical training is isometric endurance. Properly applied jiu jitsu principles do not generally call for the ability to bench press 250 pounds or to be able to snatch kettle bells over one's head for 10 minutes straight. Good jiu jitsu does require an ability to effectively manage distance, and this is commonly achieved through some variation of clinching.
Many jiu jitsu students overlook the value in having the endurance to maintain a clinch in a violent confrontation. If a fight were to proceed by the book, yes, a clinch should not have to last any longer than a few seconds (the 10 seconds for the assailant to try to escape at 100% effort and burn out his ATP-CP capacity). But we may not always get what we want, and a prepared jiu jitsu student will be well served by having the ability to maintain a clinch as long as it may take for the attacker to exhaust.
Traditional resistance training focuses on lifting weight. Lifting weight typically involves muscular contraction or extension. Neither of these movements are specific to the muscular demands of clinching, therefore conventional weight lifting will not be the best regimen to maximize clinching endurance.
Clinching requires isometric tension in some muscles of the back and some bicep exertion. Essentially, clinching is a light to moderate pull/ squeeze during which the involved muscles to not shorten or lengthen. Isometric tension.
A well prepared student of jiu jitsu who wants to effectively improve their physical ability to use good jiu jitsu in a real-life confrontation could spend some time in the gym doing the following:
1. Any rowing type exercise that allows the athlete to stop the pull about half way. Pull the weight slowly until your hands are 6-8 inches from your chest and just stop. Hold the weight there without moving it for 10, 20, 30 seconds ... eventually a minute. This type of exercise will strengthen your grip endurance as well as help condition the back and biceps to be able to hold a constant clinch for longer and longer periods before feeling the burn.
2. Any bicep curl exercise that provides resistance at the half-way point. Much like the back exercise suggested above, use a bicep curl brought to about half way and stop. Hold it stationary for several seconds - working toward longer and longer periods before the burn starts. The resistance is greatest right as your forearms are at a 90 degree angle to your biceps.
Clinching in a street confrontation would rarely demand exceptional athletic conditioning. The vast majority of encounters would be easily dispensed with a typical ability to hug a torso. The suggestions in this article are simply ideas for any jiu jitsu student who engages in resistance training and who wants just that extra advantage that may become necessary with a stronger opponent. These training ideas would also benefit a jiu jitsu student who competes in grappling competitions in which their opponent is also using jiu jitsu principles.
AEROBIC ENDURANCE
Aerobic endurance refers to a person's capacity to generate muscular energy using the oxidative metabolism pathway. This process is commonly referred to as "cardio." While cardio is not as much an issue in a street self-defense situation as in a 25 minute MMA fight, becoming "winded" is a limitation even in a brief encounter.
My experience has been that people becoming "winded" in a short confrontation is more a function of inadvertent breath holding/ inefficient breathing than from exhaustion of one's cardiovascular capacity. Most aerobic exhaustion seen during training in the controlled environment of a jiu jitsu school is a result of failure to simply breath normally. This can be controlled with practice, and is easier once the details of techniques become more committed to subconscious motor routines.
Comments