Bulletproof For BJJ Podcast
This is the official podcast of the Bulletproof For BJJ movement. Hosted by JT & Joey. Each episode the founders break down problems that Jiu-jitsu people experience, giving guidance and tips to improve your training for BJJ. With the goal of helping every body on the Brazilian jiu-jitsu path reduce their chance of injury, improve their strength and mobility to become more resilient.
Bulletproof For BJJ Podcast
Transform Your Upper Body for Jiu Jitsu
Is your upper body strength holding you back on the mats? Get ready to unlock the secrets to building a bigger, stronger upper body tailored for Jiu Jitsu or just because you want to get swole! In this episode of the Bulletproof for BJJ podcast, JT and Joey explore the rapid gains beginners can achieve thanks to neurological and physical adaptations. Drawing parallels between the early successes in Jiu Jitsu and those in strength training, they provide a straightforward roadmap for exercises and training frequencies. Discover how critical nutrition is in supporting your muscle-building goals and how to optimize everything for maximum growth.
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A good martial artist does not become tense, but ready.
Speaker 2:Essentially, at this point, the fight is over.
Speaker 1:So you pretty much flow with the goal. Who is worthy to be trusted with the secret to limitless power? I'm ready.
Speaker 2:Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Bulletproof for BJJ podcast. Jt in the house, joey in the house, and today we're talking about how you can build a big, strong upper body for Jiu Jitsu, or maybe just because you fucking want one.
Speaker 1:Why not Just get the guns?
Speaker 2:Sometimes you just want to get a bit bigger, don't you, James? Why not?
Speaker 1:I don't see there being anything wrong with it. I don't know why we have to explain why it's a good thing.
Speaker 2:No, I think in our maturity we've come around to the idea that if you want to be bigger, it's okay. That our maturity we've come around to the idea that if you want to be bigger, it's okay, that's okay. I know, as a young man I was like that's vain, it's not about aesthetics, it's about performance. But really we're all like sure, some performance, some aesthetics, maybe equal mix of both is great yeah, definitely, and it's not.
Speaker 1:It's not just. It's not just the look, it's, it's the, the function that comes with. It's your ability to just throw people around. It's a good time squeeze cunts squash so talk to us joe enlighten us as how we do this yeah.
Speaker 2:so what we're going to cover today, we're going to talk about, like, why you want to do it, what the key elements of it are, and it's really it's not all that difficult, right. We're going to lay out a pretty simple roadmap for y'all, but then we're going to give you sort of our top exercises, or or families of exercises, so that you could go and rip in and do it, and then we're going to talk about how often you need to do that and then, if you want to like, dial it up and sprinkle some magic sauce on that, you know, what else could you do, right? So hopefully, at the end of this, you can go and get hench and it's easy gains.
Speaker 1:Yes indeed.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you want to get stronger, you want to get bigger. For the sake of this discussion, let's bias it towards getting bigger. Yes, now, in the world of strength training and this is really this is more for the for the less initiated there is a difference, right? If you're training specifically for strength, that's one approach. If you're training specifically for muscle gain, it's a slightly different approach. But at the end of the day, and especially when you're new, it's more or less the same shit. It's very similar. Yeah, if you go do bodybuilding stuff, you are going to get stronger, and if you go do you know strength work, you're going to get a bit bigger, right? So? So, that being said, let's talk about it from the, from the perspective of gaining mass. Um, a couple of things here. The gains come easier for those that haven't trained in the past. Right, that's right if right.
Speaker 1:If you haven't trained before, newbie gains is a real thing, because you get like two major adaptations. You have this kind of neurological adaptation where the body's like, oh, this is okay, what's this? And so you actually find the weights are going up almost every week, which if you have trained for a couple of years, it's usually not that easy, especially with upper body, maybe lower body maybe a bit different. And then also just and we're going to probably touch on the nutrition piece here too If you start eating a bit more and lifting a bit more, you're like, oh my God, I'm getting swole, oh, getting yoked, and that is a very encouraging experience, and I think that's why people get like very frothy early when they start in the hypertrophy realm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would actually liken it to when you start jujitsu and you start getting some early successes yeah, oh, like that person that was always kicking my ass, Like I passed their guard and like held him in side control, or I like I tapped a blue belt, Like I caught a blue belt and like you're like man, I'm really getting the hang of this shit. And then the time comes where you stop having those easy successes and you often you take a big dip mentally, don't you? Because you're like I thought I was really good. I'm actually just not.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm not as good as I thought, yeah.
Speaker 2:Still good, still good, and I mean that's the journey, right.
Speaker 1:but it's the same with strength training, where it's like maybe the first 12 months are like far kicking goals every week and then, once you've settled in a bit, the goals don't come so often. Yeah, and and that's and I mean that's like any, any skill or any new thing there's always going to be that initial magic period where it's like oh, it's, it's new and there's a novelty to it, and then also your body just adapts. Your body's like I don't need to grow to get stronger here and you do have to work harder. But let's, let's talk about that early stage. Joe, somebody hasn't done a lot of gym. They do jiu-jitsu. Where are we going to start for the upper body jackness?
Speaker 2:all right. Well, hey, before we get into that, um, for you guys listening, you need to do one thing for us. Go and give us a five-star review. Whatever platform you're on, subscribe five-star review, do that. Follow the show. You're going to get notified when we release new episodes and all that thing. Uh, but it's the one thing that you can do to support the show, because it tells the platform that the show is half decent and that other people should listen to it. We appreciate it.
Speaker 2:All, right, look, the first piece is consistency. Right, and this is kind of let's get a couple of these sort of housekeeping pieces out of the way. First, you might be super motivated after you hear this and you might go sick. I'm going to go do it and you train every week for a couple of times a week for a month, and then you kind of take a couple of weeks off and then you get back into it six months down the path. You're like nothing much has changed.
Speaker 2:Now, consistency piece implies that you have to do this every week. Right, it's really like sure, you can miss a week here and there, but if you find that you're sporadic in your efforts to train and to eat the amount of protein that we're going to tell you you need to eat and sleep and all that stuff, then you're just going to derail your chances of making the gains, and so this is where it really needs to become a habit. So don't look at it as, okay, I'm going to do this for like a month. So no, do this for six months, right, and then you can stop and review and see where you're at. But it is our hope and the people that we know who have the greatest success with their training are the ones that can adopt it as a habit and make it part of their life that can adopt it as a habit and make it part of their life.
Speaker 2:Definitely All right. Second piece of housekeeping the essential items Protein you've got to eat it, you have to, You've got to eat it, guys, and that's the thing.
Speaker 1:I had this conversation. A friend of mine over in the United States, slim Lady, a model lady, and she said Wait, that's her Instagram handle Slim Lady Slim the real Slim Lady no that's her Instagram handle Slim Lady the real Slim Lady.
Speaker 2:No, that's not.
Speaker 1:She's A and this is a very, very skinny lady, but she wants to grow her booty Right, and so this woman eats in calorie deficit always. And she's like how do I grow my butt? And I'm like you need to eat more. And she's like but how do I grow my butt?
Speaker 2:and not eat more. That's not an option.
Speaker 1:That's not an option. That's not how it works. If you want to build an extension on your house, you need building materials. So if you don't supply more bricks, more timber, whatever you know you need to build the house, you're not building shit. So don't get it confused, folks. The essential building blocks for muscle for you is protein. So, however, you get around that because everybody's a little bit different. People have different dietary preferences, blah, blah. But I mean, my preferences are always like from whole foods, like getting it from meat, whether it be chicken, fish, steak, whatever it might be Yep, still counts burger patties. And then you know eggs, know eggs, and you know protein powders and and protein bars. But you know the thing, you know it always says on the protein bar this should not be a sole source of nutrition. I'm like, but what if I eat five? Yeah, but that could it. Could it be a sole?
Speaker 2:source of nutrition. Then what if I turn it into a protein bar loaf? Just stack 10 of them together. What?
Speaker 1:if I put it on bread, does that count as a food? So, if you're not having the protein, you're just not going to build the muscle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and look, as a basic starting point and we'll kind of leave you with this because we have explored this in depth in other episodes but as a basic starting point, you should be having protein at every meal, and's three times a day breakfast, lunch and dinner and like a decent serve of protein, and then you should probably be having at least one, if not two, protein rich snacks yes which is your protein powders, shakes, you know, high protein, yogurt, whatever, that's all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 2:so if you're like, oh shit, like I often just have whatever, like I eat a salad sandwich for lunch or I often skip, I don't know, I have cereal for breakfast, these things are not bad for you. But if your goal is to build muscle, you got to add some protein to that meal as well, definitely.
Speaker 1:And also just a little thing which might be a misunderstanding If you have 200 grams of chicken, say, in whatever format you happen to eat, that that doesn't mean you're getting 200 grams of protein. You know, protein is only, uh, like 30 or 40 of what you're eating. So you know, if you're trying to get, you know, say, you're an 80 kilo human and you're trying to get 1.5, you know grams per kilo of body weight, then you're going to need, you know, 120 grams of protein. That's at least four times 30 grams of protein. Yeah, you know, if you do the bro math. So, yeah, you just got to factor that in folks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and for those that want to know scientifically, want to geek out on it one and a half to two and a half grams of protein per kilogram of body mass is your goal.
Speaker 1:It depends on the human, but it is a fair bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's like, 1.5 is like moderate 2.5 is a lot so you've got a bit of room there, don't you?
Speaker 1:I can't hit 2.5.
Speaker 2:I think I've tried and it's just fucked up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's the thing. It's the same thing with the lifting, it's whatever you can sustain yeah, so yeah, spot on, but have that as your minimum so the second thing is you got to be eating like enough food.
Speaker 2:Generally, so great, you got protein, but you just also need to be eating plenty of food. You can't be kind of starving yourself and expect to be growing muscle, right. So we talk about calorie deficit, calorie surplus. You ideally want to be in a slight surplus here, um, or you know, a moderate surplus, um. So enough food, right. So whatever the other foods are for you sourdough bread, carbohydrates, fruits, vegetables, fucking you know, quinoa and shit, avocados, like eat it all of it.
Speaker 2:Don't, don't starve yourself, because you won't be able to grow muscle, definitely. Um, and then you gotta sleep. And so this is really to the people that just are chronically bad sleepers. Jt said it many times before sleep is when you are growing the muscle. Sleep is when your body growing the muscle. Sleep is when your body's recovering from the training, and so you do all this work, you invest all this time to get the gains, but then often we throw it away when we sleep like shit. So you got to sleep as best you can, you got to get to bed early, you got to try and get eight hours and you got to do that every, every night, and don't go out boozing on the weekends. Don't fuck up. Don't have like five good nights during the week and then have two horrendous nights of sleep. If you're 21 you might get away with it, but for the rest of you you probably won't no, it's not the way.
Speaker 1:and look, just think captain america. Right, he's such a scrawny little dude at the start and then they're like I love that, captain america. The embodiment of like what is america is steroids juiced up, dweeb turns into Chad, just hyperbaric chamber and just fucking drugs. Gagoosh, that's what sleep is, you know, when you go to bed and you sleep and you wake up well-rested, fucking Captain America.
Speaker 2:Captain America is your recipe for success. That's it, right there. This episode is brought to you by Parry Athletics. Parry Athletics make the best no-gi training gear in the world of jiu-jitsu. They've been a show sponsor of ours for some time now. We love them. We love their gear. They make the greatest training shorts, both for in the gym lifting weights and doing your mobility as well as being on the mat. You can get 20% off when you use the code bulletproof 20 at checkout. Go to parryathleticscom and make sure to use the code bulletproof 20 to get 20 off.
Speaker 2:All right, so let's get into the training. So we're going to talk about exercises here now. We'll probably maybe in the. If you're watching this on youtube, there might be some little pop-ups of exercise examples, but we'll try and do a separate video where we kind of go into these exercises. This is really going to help for those who are somewhat more familiar with this stuff.
Speaker 2:Now here's the deal. We don't want to get this shit complicated, right? I want to keep it pretty simple. We have three categories of exercises that we want to explore Pressing, pulling, and then trunk exercises, or core call it what you will um, and we're going to look at a few different variations for each of those. You only really need one exercise for each of those as a starting point. Okay, we're going to give you some options so that you have some variety here.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about pressing first, jt, yes, sir, um, favorite press of mine dip, yep, dips, huge, fan, fuck, super satisfying. Get you a good pump, feel great, look beast in the gym. Chest triceps, shoulders, goosh, yeah. And when we're talking about pressing work that's jt just described the muscle groups we're building right chest triceps, shoulders. That's essentially what's growing through all pressing exercises. So any, any variations of dips, whether you're doing it on bars or you're doing it on rings or you're doing it on a bench good stuff. Next up, we have overhead presses Essential. You can press with a single arm kettlebells, dumbbells. You can press two arms with a barbell. You can do some push presses, you can press a sandbag it doesn't really matter, right? But pressing something overhead, going from that front rack position to a full lockout, that's really what we're looking at building the same muscle groups.
Speaker 1:Similar, probably more of a bias on shoulders than chest, and a little bit traps as well. But I find also heavy pressing, I feel in my core as well, Like I feel like oh, you got to really brace Because you're trying to resist that arch, aren't you? Yeah, and that's a tough thing too. So I think people neglect it because they have crappy posture and weak shoulders. So people are like oh, I don't feel strong there and that's why people prefer to maybe do some other exercises to feel strong. But actually doing the thing that tests you and makes you feel weak is the thing that's actually going to make you strong and make you jacked yeah, and it's a good point.
Speaker 2:Like, if you generally have bad overhead range of motion position, um, let's say you've done like many years of jiu-jitsu and a shitload of bench presses in the gym, then going overhead is probably going to be quite hard for you. And yeah, like if your goal is to put on mass, like feel like, hey, next three months I want to put on mass, it might take you like a few months to just address your overhead positioning. So in that way, like, yeah, I wouldn't say neglect it altogether, but a better option for you would be single arm stuff, because single arm you can kind of organize your body in a way that's a bit more comfortable Work around it. But obviously our view is always to not avoid the thing that you're shit at, because it's obviously a glaring weakness in your capacity. So do try and weave it in there. I think the nicest mix is when you've got some overhead pressing and then you've got some overhead pressing and then you've got some like perpendicular pressing, like bench presses and stuff right, which brings us to the next one, which is bench press. Yes, now bench press. We've got a bunch of different varieties. I'm going to be honest, I don't really care if it's flat, it's inclined, if it's dumbbells, if it's barbells.
Speaker 2:I tell you what I? What, for me, was a game changer with benching, and I still don't bench that much, but when I do I pause in the bottom position. Okay, and I tell you why I do this. I went to a gym called new strength up in Newcastle Okay, and I'm Jacob, and I can't remember the other lad's name but a couple of really good guys that own this gym up there, all about strength work, and he had us do pause bench press in a class and it was the first time I'd done bench press and had sore pecs afterwards. I think for me, benching is just like More triceps, triceps and delts maybe. Yeah, yeah, you know. And I was like, fuck, my pecs are actually sore and I don't have big pecs. So I was like this is significant, I big pecs. I was like this is significant, I'm growing right here, you feel it. And, uh, I was like the pause, that's key for me.
Speaker 1:And then, interestingly, I heard your best mate, mike isratel oh, yeah, mention uh, the tgu king, the muscle, muscle head, champion of the world, most muscular, the most muscular pose, but his head yeah um, but he was saying that he only bench presses with dumbbells and always with a pause.
Speaker 1:Okay, and he's all about hypertrophy, right, but that's now I was going to say just in regards to that I believe there was a time when Mike Isratel bench pressed with a barbell right? Oh, sure, of course, and that is very well known to fuck your shoulders. That's why, like, I just want to put this out there real quick, like part of the reason why we have not been huge proponents of like jujitsu folks doing like a straight barbell bench. It's not that the exercise itself is bad, but if you have suspect shoulders, which can be the case if you do jujitsu, or if you've got bad posture, it is more likely to put pressure through the front from being internally rotated. Many, many top level bench presses will switch to like a more like a neutral grip, like a swiss bar, or they'll do dumbbell, or they'll do even like a suicide grip, a reverse grip bench press to take the pressure off their fucking shoulder. Yeah, so anyway, I just want to put that in there no, it's a fair point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the exercise is good and you can use it to good effect, but it's it's one. It's it's one of the classics of the gym isn't, it is. It's a staple yeah, and you do see a lot of people that you're like, ah, you'd probably do better fucking with something else yeah, just a variation on the same thing yep um and then the last one is push-ups.
Speaker 2:Yes, now here's the deal with push-ups. We're not saying like the push-ups that your coach gets you to do in the warm-up. Where I think push-ups are excellent is when you go a little bit wider than shoulder width, you elevate your hands onto a couple of kettlebells or a couple of parallel bars so you can get extra deep and you hold in that bottom position. So same deal, you're really stretching the pec and taxing Like mechanically. It's a much more challenging position than just banging out push ups on the floor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like those and I, you know I would use them often as, like, maybe I'll do some overhead presses as the main work and then I would do some push-ups as the accessory work the deficit will surprise you, I think I I the thing that got me, uh, when I was working on these a while back, was just doing them on kettlebell handles, still elevating the feet, some horizontal um, but yeah, that extra bit of range being able to bring your chest almost lower than your hands is like that. Even just without the pause, that stretch really gets you and that's really healthy for your shoulders in terms of being able to work through a full range of motion.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I rate that very and that's absolutely where this crossover between strength and flexibility lies, right, like if you're doing the strength drill, the push-up, but you're taking that muscle to its end range, like that stretch position, you're getting the best of both worlds. Yeah, so that's it for the pressing pieces. Right, and there's a fuckload of exercise in there, but really you could just go like one variation of each or pick two of those and rip in. Let's talk about pulling work now. Yes, sir, so you notice a theme with the pressing stuff. We had some body weight exercises and some weighted exercises, same shit with the pool, and I I'm sure you'd agree, I think having the mix is always optimal. Definitely, I think like it it. It just covers a lot of bases.
Speaker 1:The interesting thing for me is this is that we you being a jujitsu athlete we want you to be as well-rounded as possible, so we want you to be able to do strong barbell, dumbbell work, but we also want you to be good with the body weight work too. I have seen many very big, strong folks who are good with a barbell, but when you get them to do like body weight pull-ups or push-ups, they struggle and it's like their maximal strength's great, but their relative strength, their strength relative to their body weight, is terrible, and we don't want you to have any glaring weaknesses. That's why we're kind of I guess we're structuring it in this way so we can have the best of both worlds.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so for pulling work. Okay, the staple here are chin-ups. Yes, sir, now, generally people call them different things, but that's an underhand grip.
Speaker 2:Chin-up yeah, exactly, and chin-ups and pull-ups, these are like, these are a staple forever, like I can't ever think of a program where I haven't had some form of chin up and pull up. And actually, whenever I neglect it from a program which does happen because you want to focus on other things on time, you pay the price because then, when it comes around again, you're like oh, this is so fucking hard yeah, like it's one of those things.
Speaker 2:It's like when you stop doing it, and especially as you get a bit older and you get a bit heavier and you do put on more muscle mass, probably a little bit more body fat too, it just gets fucking hard to lift your own body weight. It does so for me. Now I'm like I think I'm gonna keep doing those forever.
Speaker 1:It keeps you honest yeah, it absolutely keeps you honest. And and for folks out there, if you, if you're like, oh man, I've I've never done a chin up or I've never done a pull up, there are many variations that can help you. So don't sweat. If you're like I can't even do that, you know like if that feels like it's too far, there's ways for you to build up.
Speaker 2:So Will, yeah, absolutely. And look, shameless plug. If you need step-throughs to get to it, your first chin-up or pull-up, go and do our standards program on our app and it'll walk you through. It holds eccentrics, progressions, exactly, um, but so they're the staples, right? And if we're talking about, like that, overhead positioning before right, overhead pressing and stuff, if you do your chin ups or your pull-ups at full range, so you start in a complete dead hang, shoulders as open as you can, with your elbows locked, and then you pull all the way to the top as close as you can get in the bar to your chest.
Speaker 2:You are then again nourishing that range this is helping you to like you're getting the hang portion in there and then you're getting the strength. So I think, like from a general shoulder health, movement perspective, spinal decompression, etc.
Speaker 1:They're a great fucking exercise and there's also a little bit of core in there. Keep it real like you've got a. You know you can't be sloppy and loose downstairs. You've got to kind of tighten up through the abs a bit to get that good like set in the scaps. Yeah, and I actually find that if I haven't done pull-ups for a week or two and I do a couple sets, I'm like oh, abs, abs, you know it'll surprise you, so it's so true yeah you know what I think a lot of that is too.
Speaker 2:You notice, at the top of the pool you go into flexion compress. Yeah, like your, your abs, your abs and like everything on the front chain really compresses there yeah um, yeah, it's a great fucking exercise. So many things. So then we got weighted rows. Now rows are like basically pulling something right. So you got classic dumbbell rows, you got barbell rows, you got body weight rows you do like a ring.
Speaker 1:So like rings. Or even, let's say, there's no rings at your gym, uh, but there's a squat rack or there's something machine, smith machine, right, you can set the bar at a point where you can get yourself at a nice horizontal position, whether your knees are bent or your legs are straight, and you can get that really strong pull through the shoulders and the lats and it's great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, rows are like the fucking best Fundamental when we were in Vegas that day, I think, that day that you came and saw Prince and I at the gym. I didn't do a lot of training that day, right? I just you know holiday sets.
Speaker 2:It was recovery mode, yeah, but one exercise I definitely did because I always do this when I'm at like that kind of gym was seated rows, oh nice, I fucking love seated rows. It's great and it's like you know, I don't really utilize machines all that much, but a seated row where you're just sitting on a bench, plant your feet and fucking gagoosh, yeah, it's the best. And it's like pulling generally is such a like. I find it such a satisfying movement pattern, like the body loves it and it's so applicable to jiu-jitsu right Forearms, biceps, rear delts, lats, scaps, the whole shit.
Speaker 1:Like when you see a big, fucking jack strong person. They generally have a back. You know, like I think Like a truly strong person Like I stood behind Andre Galvan in our vlog.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:And the guy didn't get smaller since Bubbles.
Speaker 2:I call him Bubbles.
Speaker 1:I thought he would have come down a little bit.
Speaker 2:He's gone up, hasn't he?
Speaker 1:No, he looks bigger, dude, but he's just wearing a top. But you just see the rear delts.
Speaker 2:The way the fabric of his T-shirt hangs off the traps and the back.
Speaker 1:mate You're like my God, and really you can never really have a strong enough back. At no point is you having a big, strong back going to be bad for you. No, you know what I mean. It's only ever an advantage. It's only ever especially if you're a grappler. So it's so important that we do not neglect these exercises.
Speaker 2:And for, maybe, folks that haven't observed it because like so here's something. When I was younger, all the dudes wanted big pecs and big biceps.
Speaker 2:right, of course, because what you can see, yeah, wanted big pecs and big biceps right of course, because what you can see, yeah, and so I was like they do heaps of pressing work and grow these big pecs and heaps of biceps and biceps and you don't see your back because it's it's behind you and so dudes, never like those dudes right that were just training sort of the mirror muscles, there was never, there's never, much of a back on them, but you don't even observe it that much like when you have an untrained eye.
Speaker 2:Sure, You're just like fuck, look at the size of his pegs, look how much he's benching right. If you like, look at the inverse of that. You look at, like any of the Dagestani wrestlers in the UFC, or any wrestler right, or even a lot of people like a lot of grapplers, like jiu-jitsu players, even ones that don't train, like don't do lifting, they will have a big back, yeah, and it's like this fucking massive tortoise shell that grows on and it's like, holy shit, they've got like just these slabs of muscle on the backside of their body from all the pulling and squeezing right. That's the shit we want, yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's not just the look. If you have a big back. A big back can only be built through loading it up time after time. There's strength there, it's hard work, yeah, and so, yeah, there's definite ways to get it. So, whether you're using a dumbbell, a kettlebell, a machine, bands, bands horizontal rowing. It has to be done.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and it's like easy to rip into and just go super hard and load that shit up. I will say, once you've seen it, once you've looked at the wrestlers or you've looked at them and be like then you want it and you've got to have it.
Speaker 2:Get the big back and, to be honest, like if you want to grow like pecs and shoulders and all that, the back is like the foundation that all that shit sits on, in a way which we're building the torso, and when we couple pressing and pulling, it's this real simple way to superset exercises because the pressing stuff is using the opposite muscle groups to the pulling stuff. So you'll see, like, in a lot of our workouts and if you're looking to save time, you can do a set of pressing and then a set of pulling and you can just bounce between them, get your four or five sets done, move on to the next. It's a really efficient way to train in the gym and it also tax.
Speaker 1:I find like the supersetting just taxes you kind of more than the sum of its parts it creates more fatigue, like I've definitely found that if you're in the superset setup where you're not working the same muscle groups, you're working opposing muscle groups, because you can do a superset where you work like a the same muscle group in a different way, but if you're doing opposing muscle groups, you get double pump Like. I actually find that like doing dips, v pull-ups, my arms just oh bro, oh, it's a ridiculous feeling, right, you look like bloody Tommy Laniker at fucking CJI, just the Popeye arms, right. And the interesting thing about it is they have shown that by engendering this certain amount of fatigue, it does help growth Like it does. It's been studied kind of over and over over the last 20, 30 years that this format of supersetting engenders a certain amount of fatigue which sparks growth Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I've had that situation a couple of times recently where I've come to training with some water but I haven't had any electrolytes, and I've finished training and I've had to go to a convenience shop and buy myself some kind of sports drink, usually a Gatorade. It cost me like seven bucks, it's small and it really doesn't contain that much of the good stuff that I'm looking for, which are the electrolytes. Sodi, on the other hand, is my partner when it comes to hydration and I'd simply just run out of it and it sucks because I got to go buy expensive stuff that doesn't do anywhere near as good a job. I'm super stoked that we've been restocked with the Sodi and now I can be properly hydrated when I train jujitsu. This has always been an underexplored aspect of my training and I'm so stoked that we now have these guys in place to support us and also the listeners of the show. So if you want to be hydrated on the mats so that you can perform at your best and have the best mental clarity while training, get yourself some Sodi. Go to sodicomau that's S-O-D-I-Icomau. Get yourself some delicious hydration salts and use the code bulletproof 15 for 15 off. Go to sodycomau, get yourself hydrated, all right.
Speaker 2:So, final category of movements, we get to the, the core or the trunk work, and so there's a lot going on here, right? Um, I want to keep it pretty simple for the for the sake here. Like we can talk about flexion and extension and rotation. It's all good stuff and you should be doing it all, but let's give you a couple of simple starting points Toes to bar and variations thereof great starting point. Definitely you won't be able to start with a toes to bar more than likely, but you can start with knee raises, hanging leg raises, and build your way up slowly over time, progressing your way towards a full toes-to-bar.
Speaker 1:And I think another little secret thing that is built into the toes-to-bar which I found when I first started doing a hanging leg raise, because you might have seen it at the gym those like chair, the kind of it's got a back pad and the handles and you kind of suspend yourself on your forearms and you like knee raises or leg raises in that position.
Speaker 2:I haven't seen that one, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's old.
Speaker 2:I remember the rotating one.
Speaker 1:Oh no, but this is just kind of like a frame you step up into it. It's usually maybe got some dip bars attached to it, right, nice?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, sorry, of course Like the dip station.
Speaker 1:You just kind of brace yourself, lock in the thing about this. The reason why I brought that up is that is inferior to the hanging, because there's always a bar right. It doesn't matter if you're at any gym, there will be a horizontal bar of some sort that you can hang off. What is so good about that is the grip and lat work that comes in with the trunk. I think can't be underestimated.
Speaker 1:Like yeah, it's pretty dope and most people, I think, avoid this movement because maybe they suck there yeah, so fucking hard yeah, so you are also going to get really strong forearms and lats, as well as getting the abs and serratus and the superhero muscles. Like when you see the like Batman suits and the fucking. You know maybe the actor that they've got playing the superhero is out of shape, but they just slap the fucking suit on him the sculpted pecs and the serratus Bang.
Speaker 2:We're going to need a bigger muscle suit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it was. Jason Momoa was talking shit about Wolverine, about Hugh Jackman oh yeah, Because Jason Momoa, the guy who plays Aquaman legendarily, doesn't work out. He's just got amazing like genes, yeah right, and he kind of plays it up because he drinks beers and smashes cigars and shit like that. And he was saying that Wolverine looks skinny and he was like well, I don't use a muscle suit and it just had Hugh Jackman just going like Wolverine just being ripped and super jacked, right yeah. And I mean Jason Momoa is a massive human.
Speaker 2:Yeah, big guy. But that's the thing, guys, reminds me of my own.
Speaker 1:Bro, I couldn't even believe how big he was. You see him standing next to Gordon Ryan. Gordon Ryan went and hung out with him a while back. Oh, that thing, yeah, yeah, and he dwarfs Gordon Ryan. You're like, gordon Ryan looks tiny next to Momoa, but toes to bar really develops the whole front, the whole front section.
Speaker 2:Hip flexors, quads yeah, Like front, the whole front section, hip flexors quads yeah, like it's amazing. Yeah, and that and hip flexors quads, as jt said, is great stuff for guard work and a bunch of other positions in jujitsu, so there's like a multitude of benefits with that drill so if someone couldn't do a toaster bar joey and they're just getting started what would you recommend is like first step hanging knee raise, yep, you know.
Speaker 2:So starting in that full hang position, and then just pull like feet together, knees together, pulling the knees up until your knees are at the same height as your hip yep, 90 degrees, working those and then gradually build that up to like bringing knees up to armpits. Oh, yeah, so you're now trying to connect the thighs to the torso or to the, to the, to your belly, essentially, um, and then you could start to fuck with like more straighter leg varieties yeah, straight legs to 90, and building it up from there. Yeah, and again, you could start to fuck with like more straighter leg varieties yeah, straight legs to 90, and building it up from there yeah and again, you wouldn't believe it, it's also in the standards program.
Speaker 2:Oh, there you go. Um. Second piece for core work is hollow body and this is just like static holds done on the floor very simple position, but it's extremely valuable and particularly early on when you're trying to build a bit of mind muscle connection with how to like, how to control the trunk and the torso. Um, this is where you're lying on your back. You're making like a hollow shape or a dish shape comes from gymnastics and a lot of people know it as dish. But like sets of 30, 45, even 60 second holds are fucking brutal, no matter how fit or strong you are, and will always produce a good result.
Speaker 1:Man, the time under tension. Here's the thing Like. When I was younger, you know, I was obsessed with Bruce Lee and having abs. Because I didn't have abs, I really wanted to have a six pack and so I used to do like a bajillion sit-ups, but the time under tension was nothing.
Speaker 2:you know, just like 75% of the rep is kind of fluff, yeah, and you know, just like, because like 75% of the rep is kind of fluff, yeah, and you're just getting momentum and just going.
Speaker 1:You know, and you know. Here's the thing if you get to a position, you hold any position, whether it's a squat, you know a lunge, a tuck position, and you stay there. It's brutal and every second past where you get tired is harder and harder and harder. And then you just got the Dyson. I don't know how much longer I can hold it. Abs explode Like it's so hard. So there is ways like we do have the variations in there for like a, like a tuck, the tuck version slightly extending, and how to take it out to the full hollow body hold yeah, because most folks can't do a good quality like full hollow body straight off.
Speaker 2:It's that it's very tough, um, and then I would say back extensions yes, a huge. And we're just so you know we're talking about the trunk, like people often kind of only think about the abs yep, this is I fucking hate the word course, I always call it trunk but, um, it's all the muscles on the back of the body too, right, so you think about all the muscles along your lower back and around, like and around the sides, like there's a lot of shit there, right to build. And so back extensions, any kinds of back extensions, weighted, not weighted, going to a neutral position, going to full extension, um, even taking that to like barbell, good mornings and stuff, yeah, all that shit is solid gold for grapplers and for building muscle in the trunk yeah, and and probably the thing that, uh, we forget here is we always think about like a deadlift is building our back.
Speaker 1:But if you like, break that down a little bit and you're like, all right, well, let's actually spend some time, because you definitely in jujitsu it feels very anteriorly focused, like you spend a lot of time flexed top or bottom, like you're staying tight. So having the abs tight and doing that is something we spend a lot of time doing. Anyway, to help balance that out, you got to spend some time. Even the glutes. I feel like the glutes get a bit of work when you start doing weighted back extensions. Or also in our program is reverse hypers, where you fix the upper body but then you move the legs, yeah, and that gets the lower back going qls, but also top of glutes.
Speaker 2:I remember when I taught the reverse hyper. Louis simmons, please carry on.
Speaker 1:It's just when I showed him how to build the machine that became later famous, but I'll let him have that rip. Shout out louis. Shout out westside. No, I think it's. It's one of those things that, um, we neglect it like we really do, and part of the reason why people like, oh, I've got a sore lower back, it's also because you've got a weak lower back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it is because we don't see it it's it's rare and you jack up your hip flexors playing jiu-jitsu all the time, so that just sort of exacerbates your back feeling like shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if you don't spend some time building the slabs of muscle on your lower back, it will be harder for you to have more muscle in your upper back, and so, by having this stronger foundation around the lower back, it's going to enable you to be more jacked so let's talk about frequency, how much you need to do this.
Speaker 2:So here's a guide. Now, yeah, stick to this guide. Let me just say that one to two times a week right now one is like minimum, you know, minimum effective dose. So you got to get into the gym one time per week and train your upper body. Right now you might do, say, a program like um, say like we have with swole or with with strength 101, where we mix upper and lower body, and so in that regard, you'll have two workouts in the week but there'll be upper body in each right as well as some lower body stuff. Doesn't really matter as long as you are getting the total amount of work sets one to two times per week.
Speaker 2:Now a guide on the working sets. Interested to hear what you think about this. I think there are sort of different approaches, but I would say that generally, six to 10 working sets per workout is sufficient. Now, if we go low into that, six that's not a lot right. That means you're doing like three sets of pull-ups and three sets of seated rows, right Couple in mix in three pull-ups and three sets of seated rows, right Couple in mix in three sets of dips and three sets of overhead presses. Great, you've done six working sets for both pressing and pulling. If you took it up to 10 working sets, that's a pretty meaty workout. Now it's a bit five sets, five sets, five sets, five that's chunky.
Speaker 1:I mean, look, if you're only working out once a week, you got to go ham, like that's chunky. I mean, look, if you're only working out once a week, you gotta go ham like that's my take on it. If you, if you're like, well, I can only I can only fit one day in a week extra on top of what I'm already doing you need to make it significant. Yeah, because you've also got a bunch of recovery time till you're going to do it again, right? So I feel like if you're someone who has a little bit more time and you can do the two or three a week, you don't have to go as big.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yeah, it all does add up yeah, and so we're kind of looking at it as a as a week total. Um, what's always guided me is like 10 to 15 working sets in a week. If you can hit that, and a working sets mean it was a set, that was hard, you were like like oof, I did some work there. It's not your warm-up sets, they don't count. So you know, let's say you're doing four sets of an exercise and you might do one or two warm-up sets. It's only the four working sets that you did. That count towards this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've got to be clear on that. Like we definitely encourage all of our people to do at least with hypertrophy, you don't need to do much of a walk. Yes, it's good to know where you're at that day, but it's probably more when you're going heavier and you're doing the strength work that you need ramp-ups to build up to the point. But yeah, you should only really count your sets once you're at the weight where you're working. That's the real thing and it's different for everybody. This is the only caveat I was going to put on that. I agree with you with the set and rep volume, but if you're new you might find you blow out way sooner. Like you might do two sets and be like I don't even know if I can do it Like I'm cooked because you've brought a big enthusiasm.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Whereas when experienced you you kind of know what you've got in the tank and you've you can get through it more capacity to work. You've built that because that's what you've done through your experience. So what I'd say is for newer lifters, try to aim to get that set and rep volume, but you know you might fuck out. Also. The other thing on this too is we're talking about it being hard, near failure.
Speaker 2:This is the thing that's been researched a lot recently, Cause back in the days it was like you must go to failure, maximum recruitment like uh no more, no more shaking One more and, like I do like those videos on Instagram of like really shit Personal trainers just driving like inexperienced people to absolute fatigue.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, there's even clips of Tom Platz just screaming at the God's reps like screaming at dudes that go more, and more right, Guys are dying.
Speaker 1:Oh my God. But the thing is they've shown that, like so this all circles back around to the consistency thing and getting a good routine and have it for you to build. They've shown that if you work near failure, that's enough to stimulate growth we're talking about. You can barely get your last rep and maybe if you had Tom Platt standing over you and screaming you could get two or three more. But you don't need to, because the level of soreness and fatigue you get from going to failure actually makes you so sore and fatigued you may not work out again for too long. Yeah, you know it's. It's the consistency of stimulus that you need. It's the exposure to the, to the um reps that you need. So you want to bring yourself close to failure, but you you don't have to, completely, I mean to that point I like I'm really not particularly capable of taking myself to failure.
Speaker 1:You know I'm not that guy like in the gym.
Speaker 2:I'm like, ooh, that was tough, but I'm not. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:But I'm not like like and and you know, like we get it done, you know, and I think. But but I do think if you are maybe a bit gentler on yourself than that and you're like, you know you hardly broke a sweat and you're like, oh, maybe could have done more, I don't know, then okay, you need to push it a bit more yeah, and look, people get really caught up in the um what's my rpe or what's my reps in reserve and like don't.
Speaker 1:Part of the reason why we don't have that as part of our program is that's very subjective. You know, like if you say something, how hard was that? Oh, my god, there was a 10 out of 10. You're like I almost died. You know, can you do five more reps like oh, yeah, yeah, okay, it wasn't 10 out of 10, right, but essentially, do push yourself, because that bit where you're like can only barely just get the rep, that is really where the body is pulling in all sorts of new muscle fibers and recruitment to stimulate you to grow. So, yeah, you want to push that.
Speaker 2:And then here's like a recommendation to wrap it up on. You could take that. You could write all that shit down and go train Perfect done. If you want like a pre-structured plan that's going to adhere to all those rules, you can jump onto our app. Go to the app store, download Bulletproof of BJJ app. You're going to get the SWOL program. I would say jump on that. But really you could probably do any of our programs If there was something that excited you more. They do adhere to the same rules, but you get a 14 day free trial. You don't have to pay anything for it.
Speaker 2:Start doing the program and that's going to guide you and it's going to make it really hard for you to fail because it's going to track your training. It's going to allow you to stay consistent and reward you for when you are. And here's the piece do it for 12 weeks. Yeah, this is kind of what we always say is like just stick, like choose one program, do it for 12 weeks. That's three months. It's not a long period of time, it's a quarter of a year and you will see a result. And then after that you could be like how do I feel about that? Was I happy with the result, reckon you will be, but that's when you'd be like maybe I want to do more, maybe I want to try a different program. Whatever, it's up to you.
Speaker 2:It'll you'll feel fantastic and when you post those fucking pictures at the beach this summer or maybe it's summer already make sure you tag Bulletproof Sun, that's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:Y'all ah you.
