From Boxing to BJJ

[JFG]

Hey I currently box. I consider myself to be in great shape... I box/workout 6 days a week... 7km runs, 3km of off an wind sprints... I train hard. However, my training is to help me with boxing. Will my boxing conditioning carry over well to BJJ? Or is it a totally different kind of conditioning needed?

[Hardball]

Originally Posted by JFG

Hey I currently box. I consider myself to be in great shape... I box/workout 6 days a week... 7km runs, 3km of off an wind sprints... I train hard. However, my training is to help me with boxing. Will my boxing conditioning carry over well to BJJ? Or is it a totally different kind of conditioning needed?

You will need flexibilty training. Start stretching especially lower body.

[danfaggella]

Sure it will, the thing is, you need to learn to keep your cool whne you grapple and not expand all that energy at once. I know runners that can only grapple for a few minutes. You just need to learn basics and get compfortable so you know when its a good time to expend energy, though your conditioning will pay off if you keep up training cuz you will be able to go all out for longer periods of time and really work for escapes or submissions.

[aseepish]

First off, you probably have a big advantage cardio-wise. You'll have better stamina than the casual students. You'll have no problems doing the warm-up and drilling part of the class.

If you've never done BJJ before, though, a funny thing will happen your first few sparring sessions. You'll come away from your first rolling session thinking that that was the most physically draining activity that you've ever done. You'll probobably feel that your cardio training was not sufficient. (If I'm wrong about this then great! You're a big step ahead of other beginners!)

The reason for this is that most people are totally unfamiliar with fighting on the ground. If you've done wrestling before, it won't be as bad, but psychologically, the vast majority of beginners get really worked up. They are super tense when they roll, and as soon as they get put in a bad position (e.g. someone gets them in a very tight cross-side or knee-on-the-belly) they tend to waste a lot of energy pushing in all directions in an effort to escape. Your heart and breathing rate shoots up, but it's very difficult to breathe because your training partner has all his weight on your chest.

The good news is that once you get a bit of experience (and have learned the essential positional escapes), you learn to relax. You learn where to focus your pushing so that you don't waste energy. Once you get to that point, your boxing conditioning will give you an advantage.

For other kinds of conditioning, Hardball is right - work on your flexibility!

Check out this website - there are a lot of great training tips here http://www.grapplearts.com/index.htm

Especially http://grapplearts.com/Starting-BJJ-Classes.htm

Good luck and enjoy your training!

Edit: Yeah! What Danfaggella said!

[JFG]

Originally Posted by aseepish

First off, you probably have a big advantage cardio-wise. You'll have better stamina than the casual students. You'll have no problems doing the warm-up and drilling part of the class.

If you've never done BJJ before, though, a funny thing will happen your first few sparring sessions. You'll come away from your first rolling session thinking that that was the most physically draining activity that you've ever done. You'll probobably feel that your cardio training was not sufficient. (If I'm wrong about this then great! You're a big step ahead of other beginners!)

The reason for this is that most people are totally unfamiliar with fighting on the ground. If you've done wrestling before, it won't be as bad, but psychologically, the vast majority of beginners get really worked up. They are super tense when they roll, and as soon as they get put in a bad position (e.g. someone gets them in a very tight cross-side or knee-on-the-belly) they tend to waste a lot of energy pushing in all directions in an effort to escape. Your heart and breathing rate shoots up, but it's very difficult to breathe because your training partner has all his weight on your chest.

The good news is that once you get a bit of experience (and have learned the essential positional escapes), you learn to relax. You learn where to focus your pushing so that you don't waste energy. Once you get to that point, your boxing conditioning will give you an advantage.

For other kinds of conditioning, Hardball is right - work on your flexibility!

Check out this website - there are a lot of great training tips here http://www.grapplearts.com/index.htm

Especially http://grapplearts.com/Starting-BJJ-Classes.htm

Good luck and enjoy your training!

Edit: Yeah! What Danfaggella said!

I can totally see the above being true. I did do some wrestling in highschool and I did find it tiring. However I think I found it harder because it was new to me and I was nervous. I can relate the draining experience to sparring in boxing. When you first start, or if you've been out of the ring for a bit with an injury you're nervous when you get in there. You hold your breath, over throw punches etc. So I will definitely have to focus on remaining calm. Just as in boxing... there are times to explode and times to coast (while maintaining control of the situation).

I definitely need to work on flexibility. We do some stretching but nothing to really increase our range of movement. I was thinking of starting Yoga. Good idea?

Thanks for the responses guys.

[aseepish]

Yoga is a very good idea. A lot of top BJJ people do some form of it. It will help not only with the flexibility, but with the staying calm part too.