BJJ for Weight Loss: Top BJJ Exercises to Get in Shape

Among a lot of benefits of practicing BJJ, one of the most important is weight loss. Whether you are practicing BJJ with a Gi or No-Gi, you put a lot of effort into getting your opponent submitted by using different BJJ techniques such as grappling choking and mounts. All these efforts make you sweat and burn a massive number of calories that help with weight loss.

In this post, we are going to discuss how effective BJJ is for weight loss and what exercises you should be doing for that purpose. 

Staying fit is important in plenty of ways. It keeps you active, healthy, and more importantly, improves your quality of life. Putting on weight makes you dull and prone to a lot of chronic diseases. These are some of the key reasons, you should be doing physical activities. Moreover, physical activities can help you stay fit and firm to cope with routine work. It also helps in reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart diseases, and even some types of cancer.

It has been seen that a lot of people struggle to lose weight and try everything but fail to get the desired results. This makes people think that it is quite difficult to lose weight and get in shape. 

Losing weight is simple and tough at the same time. If you take the right steps, you can do it easily in a short period of time, but if you cannot control your hunger and caloric management, it becomes tough despite exercising. The ratio of caloric burning and consumption has much importance when it comes to losing weight. 

According to the scientific point of view, every additional pound of fat in your body means that you consumed 3500 calories but didn’t burn them. This also means that you need to burn 3500 calories for each pound of the fat you want to lose.

Maintaining a caloric deficit for a long time is the real challenge in the course of weight loss. Our temptation towards junk foods and oily products makes it tough to remain stick to diet plans.

BJJ training is exceptional for weight loss in multiple ways and a few of them are listed below.

The thing that makes BJJ effective for weight loss is the massive caloric burn during the grappling classes and practicing. Depending on the intensity of BJJ training and exercises, in a 1.5-hour class, you can burn 700 to 1000 calories. 

Doing BJJ training three times a week means you are burning 2100 to 3000 which is equal to losing about half a pound of weight every week. By increasing the intensity of your BJJ workout, you may increase the number of burning calories and loss of weight as a result.

As after enrolling in a BJJ class, you will have less time to go for outings with friends and leisure time to sit on a couch to eat or drink calories. You will be spending that time attending your BJJ class, sparring, drilling, and washing clothes that you might otherwise be used to eating and drinking foods and drinks that can add fat.

Training BJJ not only burns maximum calories but also encourages healthy living. While practicing BJJ, you meet a lot of people who are healthy or working to get healthier. Being among such people, you will get the motivation to live healthily and make healthy eating choices. Making friends in gyms and going out with them will also make a positive impact on your eating habits and consequently, you will be losing weight. 

Almost every BJJ instructor has a specific diet plan for his students to keep them fit and healthy to take part in the sport actively. Joining a BJJ class will require you to follow the diet plan provided by the instructor. These diet plans always discourage eating unhealthy foods and encourage healthy nutrients. Avoiding unhealthy foods will keep you fit and minimize the chances of weight gain.

It is seen that many people start BJJ training but do not lose as much weight as they want. There are several reasons behind it. Despite doing highly intense exercises you cannot lose much weight if you don’t follow the diet plan. Besides doing BJJ training and exercises, acting on the following tips can help you get the desired results. 

If you are not aware of your caloric demand, you might be taking extra calories that can result in gaining more weight. Particularly, if you don't have great eating habits, you cannot evaluate what you are eating and how many calories you will be taking from it. Tracking your caloric demand is the right way to estimate how many calories you should be taking.

You also need to track the exercises that you do apart from BJJ training. You should be evaluating what exercises you are performing and what their intensity level is. For example, exercises like yoga and Pilates take time to make an impact when it comes to fat burn or weight loss as they are low-impact exercises. On the other hand, high-intensity exercises like cardio workouts burn a greater number of calories and can help you get in shape in a shorter time. 

Hunger management is another important element for you to take care of.  In this regard, it is suggested to use protein shakes to deal with your hunger before and after exercising and training BJJ. You should also use Casein shake before sleeping so you do not wake up hungry. This will help you stay on track to lose weight with BJJ training more effectively.

Though there are multiple ways to lose weight without BJJ, other options will not improve your jiu-jitsu skills. Here are some of the best BJJ exercises that you should be performing for 30 to 60 seconds in a sequence without doing rest in between, however, after the completion of one cycle you can rest for 2 minutes.

One of the basic movements that you should be performing as a BJJ exercise is technical stand-up. This movement is helpful not only in sweeping, transiting, and countering opponents, it can also help you burn fat and lose weight. Performing this move alone is a great way to build muscle memory. It is also a great conditioning exercise because it involves whole-body movement and level change.

Here is how you can perform technical stand-ups in the right way;

• From that position, extend your side leg forward while placing your weight on the other foot.
• Lift yourself up on your palm and other foot while sliding out your extended leg.
• Return to the initial position and repeat the same with the other leg.
• Go for 3 sets comprising 10-15 reps with 30 second rest between sets.

Rolling chair sit is another important BJJ move that you can find every grappler performing. This movement is effective for back taking, sweep execution, and escaping through bad positions. Here are steps to perform it accurately.

• To practice this move, you need to start laying on your back.
• Swing your legs forward while bending one leg.
• The shin of your bent leg should go to the mate to provide a base for sliding.
• Step your other leg in front to be in a lunge-like position while extending your hips forward.
• From this position, roll back and repeat the same to the other side.
• Perform 2-3 sets of this exercise with 10-12 reps followed by a 30 second rest between sets.

Do you want to strengthen your guard retention besides burning fat, the Granby roll is a perfect BJJ movement to practice. Mastering the Granby roll can help you make it hard for opponents to pass your guard. The Perfect way to perform this BJJ move is;

• Start from the seated position and bend forward while placing one shoulder to the ground.
• Roll over your shoulder to the other side while extending your legs above your head.
• While doing so, your feet should be touching the ground all the time.
• Perform 2-3 sets of 10-12 reps with 1-minute rest between sets.

The other intensive exercise that can leave you exhausted and a pound or two lighter are deck squats. They are a basic part of gymnastic strength exercise and are found exceptional for BJJ practitioners for getting out of scrambles and finishing certain sweeps. The execution of this exercise is easy but needs body coordination and flexibility. 

• Start from a standing position by bending your knees with the aim to touch your butts and heels.
• Get as lower as possible and roll back in a way that your legs go over your head.
• Use your legs for getting straight back into a low squat position and stand up. 
• While performing deck squats, you should not forget about keeping your core tight.
• Perform 3 sets of 10-12 reps with 60 second rest between sets.

Bridging is one of the fundamental BJJ movements and is a must-have thing to make progress in the sport like professional athletes. Everything a BJJ practitioner does in jiu-jitsu is the feed of their bridging capabilities. This movement involves glute and hip and can help you improve your grappling power.

To do it rightly, follow these steps;

• Lie on the floor and extend your hips upwards by lifting yourself with the help of your feet and shoulders. 
• You should be adding a twist to each side to mimic this movement in a better way.
• Do 3 sets of 10 to 12 reps with 30 second rest between sets.

So, if you want to burn fat and improve your grappling skills at the same time, training BJJ is the best approach. The above-explained exercises are not just efficient in improving jiu-jitsu skills, they also take a lot of energy and burn calories more than any other type of exercise.