everybody what's up Chad Wesley Smith here juggernaut training systems gonna be talking to you today about the best leg training for jiu-jitsu and I'm honored to be joined by three-time IBJJF world champion at black belt three-time Pan Am champion five-time Brazilian national champion Octavio Susa how you doing brother very good man pleasure to be here very good to see you good to see you so you're the coach at Gracie Baja Huntington Beach that's correct and how long you been trained youth before I have been training jiu-jitsu pretty much my whole life like I started when
I was like 13 years old back in Brazil and my school I have been living on Eaton Beach right now and I opened up this school about like four years and half ago nice so as you look at you know strength training and physical training for jujitsu like what do you really stands out about being important about you know you got to have your legs in shape like what's the most important thing that your legs can do well we have to have like the their legs how can I say very strong like specially for jujitsu
like because we all the time on our feet like with the takedowns like so we have to be like strong like for in order to take somebody down like even like when we put fighting on the ground like with the close guard you know so it's very important you to be there with the legs like strong alright so today with Octavio and I show you some of our favorite exercises for explosive power in the lower body for maximal strength strength endurance and then also some exercise you can use for improved mobility kind of prehab injury
prevention type of exercises alright so the first exercises that we want to show you are some exercises for explosive power in the lower body so whether you're shooting for a takedown or you have a scramble being fast is probably more important even than than the maximal strength component when it comes to being a successful jiu-jitsu competitor so the first exercise that a BIA is going to show you is a weighted squat jump you can weight this in a lot of different ways holding dumbbells stand inside of a trap bar holding kettlebells wearing a vest really
simple exercise very easy to execute not too much technique to it so and just do like three reps so it's not you know it's not important that you're necessarily squatting down very deep while you do it you just want to go from sort of a quarter squat and up being reactive off of the ground using an overly heavy weight isn't necessary though you can sort of exploit different parts of the force velocity curve using lighter or heavier weights but this thirty pounds by twenty to fifty pounds twenty to sixty pounds maybe for bigger guys if
you're really strong will be enough and keeping really high quality of work like you know three to five jumps per set and we can use this in a lactic power phases where you're just training for a pure quality a lactic capacity where we're doing maybe three jumps than a very short rest like ten seconds or even lactic capacity where there's you know staying with a smooth consistent pace on the jumps for thirty to forty seconds at a time the next explosive lower body exercise that we really like for jiu-jitsu competitors it takes no equipment are
kneeling jumps and kneeling jumps are great because it teaches you to generate power with just the hip though while you know in traditional like jumping and sprinting you're looking for triple extension so from the ankle knee and hip a lot of times in jiu-jitsu you're on the ground so that extension from the ankle and even the knee may not really exist so the kneeling jump is a great exercise because it allows you know teaches the teaches the athlete to generate just force from the hip which can be particularly useful you know during the scramble whether
you're you know maybe you're down on one knee or both knees and you have to finish a single leg you're going for an explosive like a knee cut pass so let's do a couple reps here the newly Angele if they're trying to land as high as possible and turn sideways to and do two more so what is doing there is perfect you can you know add more challenge to this exercise by wearing a weight vest by having a bar on your back by holding a kettlebell or a dumbbell in front of you you know you
can add extra movements to this like you could go kneeling jump and as soon as you land jump again for height or jump out for distance you get a kneeling jump into a sprint yeah really only limited by your creativity there but kneeling jump is a very you know effective exercise for all the reasons we talked about creating that explosive power from just the hip and it takes no special equipment and really no room to execute so great exercise to include for jiu-jitsu competitors alright so now that we've developed some explosive power in the lower
body maximal strength is going to be our next objective and maximal strength is really gonna be what drives everything else it's going to improve explosive power it's going to improve strength endurance it's gonna help you all around now how strong you need to be squatting 500 pounds or 600 pounds gonna be helpful for jiu-jitsu that's sort of a topic for a different day but when it comes to developing maximal strength in the lower body for jujitsu the squat of course is going to be the the best exercise and if you have access to this a
safety squat bar is really effective because so many Jitsu competitors have really bad shoulders and it's it's maybe too stressful for them to hold the bar on their back and a traditional high bar or low bar back squat and maybe holding the bar and the front squat is too stressful in the wrist so if you have access to a safety squat bar really really good option because it's very comfortable on the shoulders to hold so I'll tell you I was gonna do a couple of reps here so there's no external rotation and the shoulder very
comfortable there it's keeping a weight balance through his whole foot squatting to good depth that's the simplest way to improve mobility is just to lift through a full range of motion the safety squat bar is great because it's very easy for the athlete to keep a very upright posture in their torso they're not gonna get leaned over too much and it's just an easy exercise to learn you could you know even have them performant like a hatfield squat where they're holding on to handles in front of them because you don't even need to have your
hands on the bar to execute it if they need that for a little bit of extra balance and this is an exercise that you can you know load up heavy doing heavy sets of like three to six reps not going to be so important for you to find you know to really push your your one rep max for jiu-jitsu but you know training heavier and heavier and the three to six reps for three to six rep range for a couple sets per week will improve the maximal strength of the lower body and help improve all
those other strength qualities that can help with jiu-jitsu another great exercise for maximal strength development in the lower body for jiu-jitsu competitors is the trap bar deadlift you know all deadlifting variations are going to be really useful for a jiu-jitsu because there is so much you know stress and emphasis on a powerful hip hinge and hip extension movement pattern but the traditional conventional deadlift straight bar deadlift maybe a little bit too demanding from a technique perspective for a lot of jutsu athletes especially since there's so much stress on the low back already when you're playing
guard and and guys with a lot of history of low back issues so using the trap bar deadlift which is gonna be so much easier to learn a little bit less stress on on the lower back will be you know sort of the preferred modality that we use for developing maximal lower body strength plus you can go really heavy on it so do like five reps so TVO's got the bar right over the middle of his foot controlling it up and down a lot of benefit to controlling the eccentric phase of the the of any
deadlifting variation particularly for jiu-jitsu competitors there's you know not just concentric strength is what's going to matter but eccentric strength yielding strength isometric strength so many different strength qualities that are needed that's good so making sure that you're controlling the eccentric phase of the lift is gonna be really important you might see a lot of really big power lifters you know pull a max maximum deadlift and you know not drop the bar but lower it really quickly and while that's fine for a powerlifting competition where you only have to do one rep and as long
as you're lowering it while keeping your hands on the bar it's still gonna count in competition for you know jiu-jitsu where you have to have so many different types of strength building the e centric strength and controlling the weight on the way down is gonna be really beneficial so the trap bar deadlift you know whether you have a closed trap bar an open trap bar like this low handles high handles all good options elevating the bar on blocks if that's what's necessary for the athlete to get into a good position this is a simple very
effective exercise they can load heavy and get stronger in a highly transferable way to your jujitsu competition the next strength quality that we're looking to develop for the lower body for jutsu competitors is strength endurance so whether you're in a 5 6 7 8 10 20 minute match strength endurance is going to be really important because at the end of that match you still have to be able to hold good positions you know whether you're playing top hearing like a headquarters position whether you got your feet on your opponent's hips trying to play a good
guard or you still need that you know that strength endurance to shoot for you know shoot a takedown with 30 seconds left in the match and get that late win so developing strength endurance as well as lactic threshold is gonna be really important now there's a lot of different things that you can do to develop that whether it's you know sled dragging farmers walks running stadiums all those are really good options and the belt squat is one of our favorite exercises to do that as well because you can train the legs so hard in absence
of loading the low back and as we mentioned with the trap bar deadlift how so many jutsu athletes have low back issues already you know being able to put them in a give them a situation where they don't have to further load their low back and give it a break is gonna be really helpful so the belt squat we can train for really high reps you know to really muscular failure for the legs without worrying about exacerbating any low back injuries so if you're fortunate enough to have a belt squat like this this is the
rogue rhino belt squat that otávio is going to be using that's great but you can also just you know train a dip belt standing up on blocks and the weight hanging between your your legs is totally fine option you could use a landmine set up all kind of different options for the belts what good and hop up there so the belt squat allows you to manipulate the your stance and technique you can go closer stance wider stand so you can sit back and make it more hip dominant you can stay more forward and make it
more like dominant a lot of good options you can attach bands and and do more speed work type of stuff on here but it's a great option if you want to just pump out reps sets of ten sets of 20 sets of 50 you know as many reps as you can in a minute a lot of really good options here or you feel a lot of stress in your legs but not the loading of the low back alright so we've developed explosive strength maximal strength strength endurance the final component of you know to make your
best lower body training for Jitsu is making sure that you stay mobile to help prevent injuries and as I mentioned earlier the simplest thing that you can do to improve mobility in terms of your strength training is train through a full range of motion you know so squat deep you know even extending range ranges of motion like doing stuff like a deficit deadlift if you can stay safe and in good positions while you're doing that and then an extra exercise that you can use to improve mobility throughout the lower body you know the the hips
hamstrings ankles is going to be the Cossack squat or lateral lunge so otávio is going to do a couple of reps here so the wider you can move your stance out the more mobility it will require the side that you're squatting to you want to keep that foot flat on the ground you can let the opposite heel come up no TV I was doing a great job of these so he's you know improving mobility and his ankle and his hips he's getting out of just that sagittal plane moving up and down straight forward and straight
back with adding some lateral movement in and if if the athlete isn't challenged by just doing this with bodyweight which you know start with bodyweight make sure they're moving through the full range of motion well then they could start at you know holding a weight in front of them having weight on their back wearing a weight vest lot of options you can increase the intensity of the Cossack squat with alright so there's some simple exercises that you can sort of build the foundation of your lower body training for jujitsu with when I develop explosive power
maximal strength strength endurance all while staying mobile and preventing injury throughout so thank you to a table Susa multiple time world champion head instructor at gracie Baja Huntington Beach you know if you're in the Orange County area if you're coming for a visit hit them up go get some hard training in he'll kick your ass like he kicks my ass and make sure you subscribe to the channel like the video for more Jitsu strength training content and content to help you get better at whatever sport you're trying to improve that [Music] [Music] you
