Bring your heart rate up with a purpose.

I get it.

Running is accessible, practical, and very hard to screw up. People looking to burn calories (a notion i don't exactly agree with) will hit that goal. If you're a runner, thats exactly what should be your main focus. I'm here to look out for the people who don't know how to achieve similar caloric effect, in a shorter time, with a post exercise oxygen consumption rate of nearly double that of steady-state cardio ( 13% of calories burned during the workout over the next 36 hours due to metabolic demands, compared to 7% of steady state cardio, J Sports Sci. 2006 Dec;24(12):1247-64.), And, build power on top of muscle. Sound too good to be true? Not so.

Back to peoples normal source of cardio, jogging. If you're a fighter, you use your whole body on top of your legs. Theres very rarely the same demands you would face in a foot race. Power, explosion, and different opponents all play into what you might need to do to win. Its not simply enough to have steady state cardio endurance in BJJ, or MMA, because the foot doesn't fit the shoe.

If i'm fighting anywhere from a 5-10 minute round, why would any of the precious energy i devote into a conditioning program be ruined by going on a hour long jog? If i have that short amount of work time, i want to ensure i have maximum power and strength available to me at that time, for the whole time. I recall listening to a seminar taught by Paul Chek, and he went onto say how theres very little carry over from lower body conditioning to upper body conditioning. For example, if you're a boxer and almost exclusively use your arms, running is going to have minimal benefit for you compared to something that also utilizes your upper body.

There's also the issue of heart-rate variance (HRV). If you're never letting your heart-rate come back down while training you essentially are stuck in only being able to go as hard as you can till you reach your heart rate max, and then you're screwed because your nervous system isn't familiar enough with the concept of recovering the heart-rate to a manageable level.  HRV is a key in many of the conditioning programs i follow and implement. You could be one of the strongest, explosive athletes in the world but if you can only go till you hit your HR-max and then have a very hard time recovering in a realistic amount of time, you're in trouble. So even if you were able to overwhelm your opponent at first, once you hit that wall, its very hard to come back if you don't constantly train HRV.

Scott Sonnon once again leads from the front in this regard. He coined the term "tactical fitness" to describe the phenomena of being able to accelerate to 100% intensity, and be able to recover from it in a very short time, 

"Most PT programs overemphasize aerobic energy, through long, slow duration training; others overemphasize size and limit strength. Physical preparedness must follow function within the energy system of tactical response: the capacity to work at high intensity in multi-planar movement for repeated bursts of short duration with fast recovery. Current PT programs fall sorely short of these demands." Sonnon Writes.

So without knowing your sport or activity, i can offer a very simple, yet effective form of whats called a   "complex." These are very useful and be used with any variety of tools from barbells and dumbbells to even kettlebells and clubbells.

Keep in mind, this is building a foundational level  of strength, power and tactical fitness. To be truely "tactically" fit, you need movement sophistication to put greater demands on your nervous system, because your body and mind crave it, and without it, you will find yourself plateauing. 

I was first introduced to the "barbell complex" with Martin Rooney while attending a seminar in Fairlawn, New Jersey. Rooney put us throw the grinder with these, and i greatly appreciated the challenge. 

Foundational Barbell Complex- 

Each minute on the minute, 6 reps each movement ( Don't set the barbell down untill finished with the set), 6-9 rounds.

Deadlift
Shrugs
Hang cleans 
Front squat
Push press
Backsquat
Jump Squat

Start with a lighter weight than you think you need, because the anaerobic demand is very high. A good place to start would be with  5 pounds a side. Time yourself on the first set, and if you finish under 60 seconds, you add weight to the bar. If again, you do another round and finish under 60 seconds you would add more weight, and keep doing so until you finish off each round at around roughly a minute.

When finished with the set, make sure to take your heartrate, and record where you were at when you finished. Time how long it takes your heart rate to return down to 120 BPM. You might notice at first it could take very long to return down to 120 BPM. That's your gauge for tactical fitness.

Heres some gauge numbers:

If your HR drops under 10BPM in the minute following exercise close to heart rate max, you need to get your heart checked.

If it drops 10-20 BPM your average in tactical fitness 

If 20-40BPM you're above average tactically fit.

If 40-80BPM, you have exceptional tactical fitness.

80BMP and above is almost pure fantasy, save super heroes.


Repeat this program 2-3 times a week, for 4-8 weeks.

Why do you do it?

Back a couple months ago, i was working out at a gym in Rochester Hills. I imagine it's what many gyms around the nation to be like. Its not a big Lifetime Fitness, or was it a Planet Fitness cookie cutter. It was locally owned.

I was at this gym for 6 months. It's my only basis for what a "normal" gym is like. I usually workout at home, or more recently at an off the beaten track gym. 

You start to notice common trends about people. Tank the meathead (no joke, his nickname was Tank.) would groan like his nuts were on fire every hamstring curl he did. There was the 50 year old cougar who painted her face like it was the renaissance, taking extra care not to sweat, so she could still hit on guys half her age. There was the man in his mid-forties with graying hair with a horrible look of pain on his face after repeating his daily workout for the 10,000th time. He would never switch anything. It would be the same old med-ball slams for X number of reps then right on to some sort of pathetic jumping up and down, then knocking out a bastardized bench press for 50 reps. 

                                                                  Face palm.

All these things make you chuckle, but they're also very sad.  It's real peoples lives.

Why do you do the things you do?

If I was a friend of theirs, I would ask these people why they were here, and what they were doing. I can almost guarantee the answers I would get are, "I'm tryna' get big"said by a kid who looks like he should have a TV commercial for you to donate a nickel a day to or "i'm trying to drop my pregnancy weight" said by a women who has clearly not ovulated in the last 15 years.

Do you know why you use it?

If you've got a goal of dropping weight, what the hell are you doing alternate arm rows on the free-motion machine with no pin in the weight stack?

Why are you running for 8 miles on a treadmill?

Truth is, most people don't even know why they are doing something. Yeah, thats cool that you do a neat little trick on a stability ball. I'm not interested in tricks. Hows your foundation? If you can't perform at least 40 pushups in two minutes, and you're a man, i don't care how fun something looks, we're not doing it till you have a solid foundation.

                                                Let me know how getting strong goes, bro.

You don't build a house in a swamp.

The same workout the actors from "300" did to get into shape for the role, might not be for you. You wouldn't try to put a square peg in a round hole, would you? Not everyone is the same. Just because some thing else works for someone, doesn't mean it will work for you.

Are you progressively getting stronger? Are you doing better and better each session? Do you even know how to track that?

These are questions of progress. Everything is an opportunity for measurement.  

Know your goals. Even the general fitness enthusiast should have goals. "Get in shape" should not be one of them. How will you know when you get there? Do the plan.

Is exercise your primary, or secondary focus? 

You better know, because that will shape your training.

Are you recovering enough?

Any results you hope to achieve are a direct result of proper recovery. Adaptation is recovery. If you don't recover, you don't adapt.

What are you putting in that hole between your chin and nose? Is it taking you further, or closer to your goal?

                                                                     This one.

Am i trying to lift like the hulk, when i've got less than 6 months of experience?

Safety is primary. 

Learn to question everything. If you have a trainer and he can't tell you how what you're doing is taking you closer to your goals, in a simple, clear manner, then you need a new one. If he needs to use fancy terms to try and trick you into thinking somethings working, you need a new trainer. 

See all these questions leave a lot of unknowns. If you've got some crazy workout plan, its only going to make it harder. The simpler and more down to the point your workout is, the less likely it is to spring holes. 

If i can pick between two movements that will make me strong, or 14 that will also make me strong, what the better plan?

How do you measure 14 exercises with the close to 11 different variables and questions i previously asked?

Answer is, ding ding ding, it's going to be hard. 

When i was traveling in Europe for two months i thought i was going to be miserable with out my workout plans and equipment. I know how to plan out a workout, but lets face it, doing Tabatas ( high intensity training, 20 sec on, 10 off, 8 rounds) in the middle of the park for everyone to see your pain, and then repeating it for 6 exercises, seemed a little weird. Even if you don't care if your a public display or not, your workout gets changed. 

Theres a saying i learned from my Yoga teacher, Johnny Kest, "The observer changes the observed."

So no matter how into the zone you think you are, you're still going to suffer because of the temptation to be something different in front of people.

I also didn't have a heart-rate monitor, so any kind of cardiovascular tracking i wanted to do could be inaccurate, partly due to the fact i refused to wear a watch, and inconvenient for the 10 second rest intervals to see if i was on track.

These are a few of the unknowns among many.

I needed something spartan. I needed something simple and effective. 

So while i reading  Pavel Tsatsouline's book, "The Naked Warrior", i found myself set onto a modified program mentioned in his book.

It came down to two things...

One-arm pushups.

And Pistol squats

That was it. 6 days a week. Both movements.

And i found something rare that i hadn't often experienced. I had measurable, trackable results. Any error in technique i might of had was quickly fixed because the focus i could deliver onto the two simple movements.

I would often journal and take notes of things i could notice in everyday life that i could easily narrow down to one of the two movements i was doing.

"Legs felt very strong climbing up this mountain today."

Ah, well i would say that was the pistol squats.

All these things were measurable, because it was simple. I knew why i was doing it. I wanted to maintain strength while traveling, and then possibly add some more. 

I knew what i was doing and why i was doing it.

I hit on all those questions i asked at the start of this article, because there were no leaks. 

I didn't try to build my house (foundation) in a swamp.

                            "Simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication"- Leonardo Da Vinci

Martin Rooney of Training for Warriors fame brilliantly came up with what he calls "The illogical four"

People do things for 4 reasons in the fitness world.

1. It's new.

2. It makes me sore.

3. It makes me fatigued.

4. It looks cool.

If you're work out includes one of these, its not necessary wrong. I'm just trying to get you to probe your decisions, and really figure out if what you're doing is helping or hurting you.

It's only these two things. Something is either helping or hurting you. Theres no middle ground. So question everything you do, and why you do it. 

 Feel free to contact me anytime on facebook, or send me an e-mail at ctwigg@cstcoach.com

Chael Sonnen Implementing The Gable Method

This video only reaffirms what i said before about The Gable Method.  Whether conscious or not, Chael does exactly what i described. Take it from one hell of a fighter.

Chael Starts talking about it at 59 Seconds in.

The Number One Thing Most S&C Programs Miss

Theres a lot of ways to get "in shape" out there. Of course theres a lot of things that are right, but from my point of view theres even more garbage clouding people's mind. In fact I would go as far to say that many people would actually benefit to not have the constant whisper and allure of "How to get a six pack in 7 days!" and other claims like "With biceps this big, people will finally love you despite your insecurities. Heres how to get them in a simple 48 seconds a day."

You get out what you put in. I think everyone knows that. If you don't feel like you're putting in hard work, you can probably surmise you're not going to get great results. With all this marketing people try so hard to believe the claims they hear, about this being the next big thing, or this being the one little secret they were missing.

We talked about it yesterday, theres something special about working hard. I also went onto say working hard isn't enough. Yeah, it will give you a great mental advantage, but you have to train smart. Now, theres a million ways to cycle workouts, to build intensity, and to get your heart going. I'm not going to talk about those today.

I'm talking about the number one thing most strength and conditioning programs miss.

Now this isn't some mysterious secret. It just so happens to fit in what strength and conditioning should be.  You see, a lot of strength and conditioning( S&C) programs draw influence from bodybuilding.

Thats okay. (In the long run no...but i'm not here to tell anyone they're wrong.)

But if you're a fighter its not. Its not enough to simply be stronger.

Its not enough to have more gas in the tank then the other guy.

And you can bet your ass its not enough to look better than the other dude.

The missing ingredient is mobility. You may also know it by the name movement.

If you aren't on a daily program of joint mobility, and fairly consistent movement drills, you're holding yourself back.

I had heard, and read about movement and mobility during my first Circular Strength Training (CST) seminar. When i first started doing joint mobility, i thought it was alright.

"Cool, i can move my neck side to side. I couldn't do that before."

So I continued for a bit after the seminar, and sporadically after that.  After all, immediately after the seminar I went to the small country of Brazil. The last thing i needed my apartment ( grossly undersized for the amount of people we had at times) was people giving me shit for "Throasic extension, flexion, and yaw."  Which ends up looking more like a weird dance move. So i did it in secret.

When i had returned home, i was unsure how to continue my fitness career. I thought Yoga teacher training would be a great start for me. Part of my yoga teacher training required a daily practice. At least an hour, every day. Most of the time the class i went to started at 6AM, which mean i was up at 4:30AM to drive to yoga. While i was never happy waking up, i started to notice changes, not quick, but noticeable .

I felt better for the rest of the day. My BJJ practice was immensely improving. I had developed flow.  Everything i did seemed to take less effort. My power to weight ratio was increasing everyday, despite insignificant strength training. My balance was better than it had ever been.

So what was happening? Yoga was the missing ingredient i had been looking for. It had done all these wonderful things for me.

A problem arose.

That practice was an hour everyday, and you can bet i wasn't going to keep waking up at 4:30AM if i didn't  have to. Not to mention the price was almost double what i pay for my martial arts training.

What was the compromise?

Enter Prasara Yoga. Sanskrit for "flow without thought." It was exactly what i was looking for.

Standard yoga is fantastic. Don't get me wrong. It happens however, that my chosen activity is very dynamic in nature.  In traditional yoga, you stretch, and hold for a  certain number of breaths, which is normal terms "static stretching." So my training demanding Dynamic movement, mobility, and flexibility, while tradition yoga gave me more static, holding, and ridged postures.

I obviously had to change it up a little, to meet the demands. Thats where Prasara comes in. Not only was it yoga, but it incorporated all this dynamic movement i needed to keep improving.

I'll touch a bit more on Prsara another time, but for those of you curious to what it is, have a look here.

As i did more reading, i found that Coach Scott Sonnon also believed mobility was the missing piece.

Now heres the discrepancy, you may think by mobility, i mean the same thing as flexibility. I don't.

The word mobile is defined as follows:

mo·bile

   [moh-buhl, -beel or, especially Brit., -bahyl] 

adjective

1.

capable of moving or being moved readily

2. flowing freely, as a liquid.


Mobility is flexibilities practical cousin.  Just because someone is flexible, doesn't mean there capable to move to that range of motion when they need it. Nor is flexibility a prime characteristic of health, contrary to popular belief.

When you hear about a senior citizen, you don't hear "Well, you know, Mom was doing okay by herself but between her losing her flexibility, and her thinking the web cam was going to steal her credit card information, we just had to put her in a  group home."

You instead hear how they lost their mobility. Their ability to be capable of movement. They've lost the flow.

Lets bring this back full circle with an example.


Fighter pilot John Boyd theorized that a moderately armed and armored jet that was highly mobile would be victorious over the bricks (heavy) and the fast (needles).

He theorized that  a Jet that could outmaneuver both the power and the speed, and respond decisively to fast-changing conditions could defeat rivals consistently. This eventual lead to the development of one of the greatest planes ever developed, the F-16.

So ask yourself  " Are you training to be a F16 or a B2 bomber?" 

Are you training to be highly adaptable, and efficient? I'd say the majority of people are B2 bombers. They get the strength, and power, but they can't take the parking brakes off to truly be able to express this strength or power in real situations.

Thats the whole philosophy of current functional training systems. To be able to have expressible power in real life activities, rather than just the gym. They will however fall short if you don't have mobility.

The body is supposed to work as one unit. So what happens is when you free up this tension in your muscles, smooth out all the adhesions in your myo-fasial matrix, and mobilize each joint so you can utilize it to its full potential, is that you become the F16. Suddenly, your strength training means something. You feel like superman because you aren't feeling the normal aches, pains, and injuries.  Parts of your body that were once shut off, are finally activated, giving your more strength. 

So mobility is the key to be able to express power and strength you've worked hard to attain. Just add the last ingredient,  or else you're baking bread without yeast. Your end product is going to be flat, and tough. 

Be pliable, plastic, have the ability to move your body not only in the way you want, but the way you need.

Keep watch for upcoming videos on body-weight mobility drills, as well as joint mobility, and compensatory movement.

The Gut Check

Hard work is ugly. You aren't going to be happy about it. More than likely the amount of obscenities  running through your head might very well rival that of Bobby Knight. Maybe you're too the point you're too tired to even put together coherent thoughts. Maybe you aren't working hard enough and all you can think of is the next due date on your latest report.

Where you put in work, that place is holy ground. My training used to be hard, but i never implemented what most military folks like to call "The Gut Check." That means in that moment, you're going to be tested. You're going to go through something you don't like, and what carries you to the finish isn't the kind of shape your in (although this no doubt will go a long way) but the kind of guts you have. A measure of heart. Theres something very rare in those times, where you get a glimpse of yourself, Maybe it's fleeting, or momentary, but in that instant you find nirvana. You find the middle ground between heaven in hell. It's the kind of place where you go to live, and to die. Theres no lying there. It's you, and no one else.

Not the same kind of gut check.

We each deal with those situations differently, when were dug deep into a hole.

Some will cower.
Some hear voices.
Some only focus on pain.
Some on time.
Some on breathing.
Some on fatigue.

These are the deepest darkest parts of our mind. All our self-doubt, self- hate, self-critisim, and weakness are sure to come out.

It's also the fastest way to get rid of them. You see, something special happens when your pushed over a perceived edge. The potential you thought you knew gets blown out of the water.  You become something more than you were. This is instantaneous. You don't have to drink 30g of protein, or 4:1 ratio drink of carbs to protein to secure its spot. Its with you, and no matter where you go after that work out, it can't be taken.

                                   In the SEALs BUD/s class, every moment amounts to a gut check.

Theres the saying in sports, that "Sport X is 80% mental, and 20% physical." While i cannot attest to these concrete numbers, i will say mental conditioning is physical conditioning. Of course you can have your meditation, your mantra, your affirmation, or whatever mechanism you are currently using to expand the mental side of your conditioning, but the bare bones of it is mental conditioning is a direct result of physical conditioning.

These last few weeks i've had brought the hammer down on me. Disregarding the pros and cons of doing so, to which there are many, my potential has increased much more than my physical conditioning could adapt to.

You see, i've been doubled over. I've had the doubt, and the fear that comes with the unknown, but with my support system at the gym, i've pushed through.

I've been training by myself, or with my Dad for close to 2 years now.  I can push myself pretty damn hard. It's nice to have a training partner to keep you committed to working out. Someone to keep you for the most part accountable. But a workout partner is not a Coach. He's in the zone doing his own work, just as i'm doing mine. Neither of us is pushing eachother. It's a personal motivation.

Yeah this works very well.
But a Coach makes you something more.
Someone to test you, and someone to make you hurt in the best possible way, when you need it the most.

So with my experience training with a coach the last couple weeks is a big change.

My BJJ conditioning, as i said, has jumped leaps and bounds. Not because the physical attributes i've developed, but because the perception of pain and fatigue i've developed.

Pain is a impermanent perception. You can always break that boundary. So the next time you find your self in a situation where your really sucking wind, or getting mounted by a guy double your size, you can just remember that circuit from monday. Yeah that one. The one you would rank as your hardest workout ever, until then inevitable (hopefully) time you break that pain perception again. You can remember that this isn't half as bad as that. That comparing gives you strength. You know you have more left. You've made friends with pain and already, and it's no longer a mystery.

Pain is our greatest teacher. For a while.

You see thats where most people in that mindset fail. They get addicted to that high, of breaking through the perception of pain, and the feeling of triumph afterwards. Contrary to what you think of every morning when your doing your flexing in the mirror to see if that six pack has come in yet, while your body is torn to pieces, it's not sustainable. Nor is it healthy.

The point i'm trying to get across is this...

"Every workout is either a test drive, or a tune up."

Before i elaborate, i'd like to pay homage to Berkey, who passed this on to me when he heard it from Gym Jones founder, Mark Twight.

There are times, and places to run yourself into the ground. Be careful with this as well. Develop a taste between crushing previous barriers, and being stupid.

                                                   Please don't test drive yourself this hard.

Which brings me to another staple of training i regularlary used, taught to me by Coach Scott Sonnon. The intuitive training scale. Make sure that intensity there, only if you have the right perceived technique, discomfort, and effort. Lots of times thats hard for you to tell. Thats also where a good coach comes in.

Getting back to the point, as Berkey went on to say, is you need to have these so called tests. Sometimes it's to gauge whether your ready for a specific event. Sometimes it is in fact just a gut check. Since we went over the latter, i'll talk about sport specific tests.

Whats my gauge? How will i know if i get somewhere? How do i know this is working?

Thats something you should look for in a coach. Not a coach who is happy to put you through a workout, because anyone can do that. You want a coach who can make you better, and then prove to you in a clear-cut manner that he did.

His bench marks should give you confidence. They should take you to the depths of hell you might hit in a competition.  Thats the true mental game. If a opponent can't take you somewhere you haven't already been, then he loses a big advantage.

If you fail the bench mark, you still win. Now you know what you need to work on.

Do you not see this common trend in life?

The great Coach Scott Sonnon says in his book The 3-D Performance Pyramid  that

" Your threshold of pain = your threshold of performance." 

He also goes on to say " How much you resist determines how much you are able to accomplish." and "Increasing the threshold of pain and decreasing the threshold of fear-reactivity are the two protocols for creating flow in fighting."

Sonnon brings up up a great point. If your constantly injured because you've done one too many gut checks, your body is going to fighting you all the way through training. In that case, you've reached your threshold of performance.

Sonnon continues " How much you can take (toughly) determines how much you are able to accomplish."

Now this refers to what in martial arts is called "hard work" The grind. The suck. Real application of intensity. Theres a whole different thing called soft work, but that doesn't exactly fit into the topic at hand.

Which brings me back to a point I've experienced, the fact that i have increased my threshold of pain, i have in turn increased my performance.

Like so many things with the genius that is Sonnon, things i thought were cutting edge, and that i have discovered myself, Sonnon not only has done it years before, but put it into a much clearer, concise,  and even somewhat scientific formula.  I'd highly recommend any of his work.
                 

Life is all about blowing past what you thought you could do. If you can't think of one thing you've done in the past year to get yourself thinking like that, then what kind of life are you living?

One great thing my father has told me he does is set one goal a year that is way to far out of reach. Seemingly impossible. Put the work in and do it, and then crush it. If you live to be 80, and start doing this at 20, my limited math skills tell me that you will have 50, hard, tangible moments in your life where you're better than before. I've met people who have lived there whole life on 1 or 2 things like that. Expand your horizon.  Push your boundaries. See yourself live a life that people can only dream of having.

The Gable Philosophy

Few people in any sport of the world have achieved what a soda-bottle glasses wearing, balding, gruff, and seeming unremarkable man by the name Dan Gable ever has. Aside from having 2 personal NCAA championships, an Olympic gold medal, and a world championship win, Gable was only ever noted to have lost one match in his career.   In the 1972 Olympics, against some of the worlds fiercest competition, Gable did not allow even a single point scored against him in his chosen sport of wrestling.
While these achievements are incredible, Gable didn't stop there. He went on to coach for Iowa State and went on to win a record 9 consecutive championships for his team. He went on to coach till 1997, winning 7 more NCAA titles with his team, for a total of 16. He was a coach for the US Olympic team for 3 separate Olympics.

Its said by people in the know, that Michael Jordan is the Dan Gable of basketball. I wouldn't go as far to say that. Michael Jordan's accomplishments are eclipsed by Gable.

I don't say this to impress you, I say this to impress upon you that you should heed every word of advice from this man as if it was law.

So while i was recently reading a fantastic book by  Dan John, "Never Let Go," it really struck a note when he pulled inspiration from Gable in molding his own coaching.

In what Dan John refers to as "The Gable Method," few words of simplicity can often never take you so far.

"If it is important, do it every day. If it's not important, don't do it at all."

It makes simple sense to me. Why would you ever want to waste your time on something that's not important? Is squatting on a bosu-ball, on top of a stability ball, while hula-hopping and doing a uni-lateral one arm press really going to get you your next big win? If you said yes, the methods of training i teach will not be for you. Plain and simple. If you're more worried about the entertainment value of your workouts, rather than the effect, and proximity to your goal, my coaching isn't for you. However, if you want a no-bullshit, highly effective, clear cut way to succeed, read on.

A good coach knows whats important. He knows the reason why, and he knows how to build on it.

So wheres this come into your life?

There's basically two categories i see here. What you need as any athlete to be successful in the sport, and what you need to do on a personal level of development .

If you can't tell me three examples of each, you need to rethink your training, or consult with someone who can do it for you.

Lets start in the venue of exercise. I'm a BJJ player, so I'll use my own thoughts on the sport to get the point across.

Three things everyone needs to succeed in BJJ
1.Live Sparring.
2. Implementation of techniques (either drilling, or live)
3. Be healthy enough to do both.

A short explanation. You need to do live sparring in BJJ. Plain and simple. Show me one person with a world championship, and any belt level, who hasn't done there fair share of live sparring, and I'll show you a bear-unicorn hybrid. A uni-bear, or a bearcorn. Its your pick, because either of these is about as imaginary as someone being successful and not sparring. In fact, this is the primary reason BJJ sits atop martial arts mountain as one of the best, most effective ways to fight. The fact we get to practice techniques we learned on a live, resisting opponent after we learn a technique means we get to tailor the small details of the move to make it work for us, and on others. If it doesn't work in sparring for you, you either fix it, or you throw it out. Due to the fact we can train close to 100% intensity in sparring any time we train, means we get put in situations often enough where we don't freak out when we get there. If you try sparring Muay Thai, 100% intensity, everyday, for say maybe a week, you're going to have a flat out bad time. You're going to hurt. You'll be sad. So, this a key to the effectiveness of BJJ.

Number 2 goes hand and hand in number 1. I need to implement the techniques i learn. We've already talked about the benefit against a live opponent. If its not working, i need to change it to make it work, or get rid of it. It's not just good enough to implement any technique though, you have to know what works for you. You can't take any technique out of a bag of tricks and expect it to be the right fit for you. 

My personal build is 5'5, and around 135 pounds. I've got short legs, and i can't change that. I have to adapt my style and the techniques i use to fit my body type. That doesn't mean i have to automatically write anything off, but after trying and tweaking, if i can't get it, then it goes in the trash.  An example, there's a friend of mine at the gym who is about 6'0 tall. I know from a range of experimentation,  and failures, that I'm not going to ankle lock him. 9 times out of 10, he'll tap me first because i can't put enough pressure on his ankle to tap him, before him. I don't use that technique on him.

Last note on #2, as i was saying you have to make techniques fit you. But you also have to know them. This is where drilling comes in. Drill, drill, and drill some more. This boring, monotonous task will allow you to more readily pull out techniques when you need them.

Number 3, Be healthy enough to do both.  If I'm always injured and can never train, both of those go out the door. I should look at what makes me not only a successful athlete, but what allows me to continue being so. If you have joint aches. don't just leave it be. Find the root cause, and attack it. Attack it every single day. As a fighter, lots of tension is often built up in my body. If i don't release that some how, its going to end up bad. That's where daily joint mobility comes in. If i can't get rid of it with that, i do some compensatory stretching. If that doesn't work, i use the foam roller. If that doesn't work i get a message, and so on. Maybe I'm the type of person that is deeply bound up. And if you aren't wait about 3 weeks into BJJ without doing any of that, and e-mail me when you need some ideas for injury recovery.

This also goes hand in hand with being fit enough for BJJ. If i can't stand in peoples guards, i should work on the strength of my posterior chain. If i can't break someones posture, i need to work on my pulling strength. If my gas tank is on empty 2 minutes into the first 5 minute round, and i need to stop to "re-tie" my belt every 14 seconds, and convince myself i lost because someone was only muscling me, you need to look at that.

So we've identified what i consider the general three keys to success in BJJ. I'm not going to go into specifics for what someone needs to win, because that's on a person to person basis. Plus, that's my job. If you need helping figuring it out, and implementing it, contact me, and i'll do my best to get it sorted out for you.

So the last thing i want to touch on is doing it everyday.

"But won't i overtrain?!?! Don't my muscles need proper recovery?! I read in men's health you need at least 4-7 days in between big arm workouts!"

There is no such thing as over-training there is only under recovery. A friend wrote that in a journal of mine while i was in Brazil, and i hold that as sacred advice to this day.

I don't have to run myself into the ground sparring everyday. I could do 5 minutes. I can roll light.
I don't have to do 300 reps of technique x. I can hit it 5-10 times before or after practice.
I don't need a deep tissue massage everyday, I can spare 10 minutes out of my day for some full body joint mobility.

If my back is weak, i can deadlift everyday. Maybe its 50-60% of my 1 rep max( RM). But if i pop out a couple sets of 6-10, and do that everyday, you will get stronger. Do it for 2 months and tell me how much your 1RM shoots up. Congrats, you just became stronger with very little effort expended. If I'm not going to heavy muscular fatigue, there's next to no recovery. I'll be set for the next day, and the one after that. Just doing the movement will make my nervous system much more efficient. Strength isn't a muscular event, its a neurological one.

You can apply this to anything. If its too much, back it off, but keep doing it. If you need to recover, do so, but don't forget whats important. And if it is important, do it everyday.