Bulletproof For BJJ Podcast
Discussions on improving your BJJ, navigating mat-politics and all aspects of the jiu jitsu lifestyle. Multiple weekly episodes for grapplers of any level. Hosted by JT and Joey - Australian jiu jitsu black belts, strength coaches, and creators of Bulletproof For BJJ App. Based out of Sydney, Australia
Bulletproof For BJJ Podcast
BJJ Hygiene Advice No One Will Tell You
Do you have a solid hygiene routine? Do you trim your nails regularly? Do you have hot breath but don't know it? No one will tell you these hygiene problems you may have, even though they really really really want to. Let your BJJ big brothers fill you in on all the things you need to know...
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A good martial artist does not become tense, but ready. Essentially, at this point the fight is over, so you pretty much flow with the goal who is worthy to be trusted with the secret to limitless power? I'm ready, the five pieces of hygiene advice you need to hear, but no one's telling you because they're talking behind your back. No one's going to tell you this shit. No, it's one of those things where you kind of see people talking in corners and then like you, you go, come past, hey guys, and then stop talking. You're like that's the chat gun, that's the, that's the stinky guy. You're like what I'm? I smell okay, right, and this is the hard thing, bjj, it's up close and personal. People are sweating on each other, pubes in your mouth, it's all kinds of grossness. But we can negotiate this, we can minimize the grossness, but really we're coming with the advice.
Speaker 1:You might have this, joe, where you've got a friend it's a very honest friend, maybe it's me when the person will just tell you You'll be talking to them and they're like you've got something in your teeth. Uh, where the person would just tell you you know you'll be talking to them, they're like you got something in your teeth, you got a chunk of nonsense in your teeth. You're like, oh thanks Jesus, no one told me all day. You're like, how long has that been? There Is usually your next question yeah, like I wish someone told me sooner. And that's what we're doing today, guys. We are, we're telling you, we are the, the mates who are too honest and we're going to let you know where your jujitsu big brothers and we're prepared to tell you the truths that, frankly, others just will not, because it's embarrassing shit. It's embarrassing to tell someone hey, man, you smell, yeah, all the time. You need to fix that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hey, bro, like we had a kid in our gym. Yeah, he trained with us for years and, um, he, when he came to start training with us, he was, he was, he was an odd kid, neurodivergent, sure, right, very quiet, but he really became part of the fabric here. But he was a kid when he started training with us. He grew into a man over the seven years or so that he trained here Big, fucking, strong, strapping, and there's this period of fucking puberty hormones where most young blokes smell, yeah, and their skin's oily and you know, and it's this and it's all and it was like you know what? I don't know if anyone's ever told timmy how to like scrub his underarms with soap in the shower rice, yeah, but it was like as, and it was like someone needs to tell him. So, because he's showing up for class, he stinks, it's offending other people, not to the point that they're just talking behind his back or they're trying not to partner up with him.
Speaker 1:Sure, now, we weren't even doing jiu-jitsu, man, right, and we know that we've encountered those people on the mats, definitely that they fucking stink, or their nails are long and grubby and and you clock it and you're like dirty cunt and but I don't know if I'd say that, but yes, no, but in your head, mentally, in your head, you're right. And then you're like I'm not gonna try, I'm gonna avoid that person, yeah, and that's actually really shit, because that person, no one might have told them, yeah, and then that person is having a like a reduced experience in their jits becausejitsu, because people are actively avoiding them and you don't know what. You don't know, you don't know your coach isn't going to tell you because it's embarrassing shit. They're just really happy that you just signed up, sure, right, and it's like you're meeting all these new people, we're sort of talking to you, those people who haven't been doing this for that long, because no one's given you this information. So we're going to lay it down here, five things, so that you can just not have any of these issues and you can be clean, hygienic and have the best possible training experience For sure. So, straight out the gate.
Speaker 1:Number one when you first start jujitsu, generally people just buy, like one gi or like one rashie, one pair of shorts, right. But that's not enough, because if you're planning to train multiple times in the week, you need at least two sets, because even if you're only training two or three times a week, you can't rely on washing something and turning it around quick enough, and you definitely. This is what you want to avoid is, oh, I just I sweated in it a little bit and I just I left it out in the sun. And the sun kills bacteria, right, joe, doesn't it? Of course it does. Sun air, yeah, it could be cleaner. Actually, heat breeds bacteria, my friends.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's the tough thing, you gotta wash your geese and you gotta wash your no-gee stuff and you gotta be really thorough, because here's the deal. As much as we know, a gee person is a laundry person. For any of you out there who've got a couple of ghees you know what I'm talking about, but also no ghee stuff Sometimes it can hold the stink, well, I would say yeah. So if you're like, if you're like in your first six to 12 months, you haven't encountered this yet because you haven't done enough, you haven't got enough miles on the clock Maybe. But there is a time that's going to come where there is an accumulative buildup of like bacteria in the fabric of your gi and no-gi stuff. And you did wash it, probably more your no-gi stuff, because it's all polyester, artificial, it's all plastic and shit. So, yeah, and you know, when you notice this I actually had it yesterday with an old gym t-shirt, right this I actually had it yesterday with an old gym t-shirt, right whereby you put it on, it's clean, smells, fine.
Speaker 1:Put it on and then you go and start doing your day, whatever body temperature comes up. Body temperature comes up, you're not sweating yet, but there's this activation of odor, stink and you're like, how does it stink? That's, that's when, right, quickly, you know, I'm I'm assuming that your increased temperature has activated the bacteria, like woken it up or some shit, and it just starts fucking making a bad Ghost of body odor. Yeah, so I I spoke about this before but I soaked my no gear shit for the first time stuff that I'd worn for a few years and the fucking like, soaked it in nappy sand, right Like some some heavy shit, and the fucking water, like overnight, the water was brown the next day and that was clean gear. Yes, I washed it, it was clean, but still had this odor thing, fucking brown. Yes, soaked it twice, much less brown. The second time washed it and then it's like brand new again. Yeah, now your shit might not survive, like you do.
Speaker 1:Wear away at the integrity of fabrics, sure, but this is the lifespan of such an article of clothing and I think that we've got to go to this as a point of etiquette, for, like, if we think about, jujitsu just brings you in such close proximity with a human. It's a proximity you just don't get other than your intimate partner. A lot of people probably don't even get that intimate with their significant other. You know what I mean. You've got a couple of positions that you hit on the regular and that's it. You got your, you got your system down, you know you go jiu-jitsu and it's like you're hitting new positions reverse triangled yeah, you've got. I've never been here. I've got anus in my face. What the fuck? I did not sign up for this and I guess this is where the the washing of gays and no gays stuff.
Speaker 1:You gotta fucking wash your belt. Oh, belt, you gotta wash your belt. Any of that bullshit about don't wash your belt like all right man, you can keep your fucking 1980s staph infections like gotta wash it all. Yeah, you just chuck it all in, chuck it all in and, plus, the belt gets that little bit more weathered so it makes you look more senior straight up. But, um, this goes to the personal hygiene piece, which is two, because if you have unwashed gear and it's about respecting each other, right, you might not be thinking about it for yourself, but then when someone else has a slimy gear, you're like you got to grip it and you're like, oh, what is this? Is this some unique probiotic mold that you have here?
Speaker 1:Skin infections, hygiene being stinky, like not only is it kind of antisocial in a way and maybe someone's not telling you because you are the person who's not smelling so fresh a staph infection is going to get you Some fucking shit and it's going to take you out. It's an injury, essentially, and it can take you out for weeks. And I mean, right now, ben Askren is like almost dying because of like severe staff. Oh wow, pneumonia and oh it's awful, yeah, and I mean it killed rent, like it. Well, it didn't kill randallman, it almost killed randallman back in the days he had basically had a crater of a hole in his back from staff. If you're not washing your geese.
Speaker 1:This then takes us to this second move, which is personal hygiene skin infections, bacteria on your skin and and and also you. Maybe your stuff is clean, but maybe you are not, and so this is where we need to talk about that. So, personal hygiene, we're talking about your body. So you got the okay, good, yep, got the clean clothes, got. Here's the deal. If I've been working all day in an office and then I go to jujitsu at night, probably I'm pretty clean.
Speaker 1:You're working in an office, it's air conditioned, you're sitting down most of the time. You're not breaking a sweat right Now, some of you, arguably you might still get up a sweat in that kind of environment, right, and if you do, and if you are a bit stinky, need to have but like, let's put it in the context of it's the middle of summer and you're a bricklayer Sure, and you're fucking out there on the job site all day long and there's construction materials and saw dust and fucking concrete dust and shit and you're wearing, you know, a wife beater and a pair of fucking King G's Sure, and then you come and do a no-gi session and you literally take off your king jays and your wife beater and you and you chuck on a fucking rash in it. You know what I mean? Yeah, man, you got all sorts of like, not even your personal stench, but you've got fucking concrete and yeah, on your fucking skin, right, yes, and you know this if you've worked in that environment. Yeah, I don't know if I've spent a day in the workshop. You get in the shower, like that initial flow of water is like brown. Yeah, right, like. And so you got to fucking obligation to your fellow training partners to wash yourself beforehand. Yeah, now, if you are stinky in the pits and whatnot, you're going to fucking get in there with some soap, like, like young Timmy, like brother, you got to scrub that shit, true? And I mean, look for me, the, the, the halfway step on this is, let's just say, for example, the gym you train at doesn't have showers and because of work and timing and stuff, you're getting there.
Speaker 1:Me personally, hygiene wipes antibacterial wipes is a good halfway step to at least getting some dirt off you. Some people, I've seen it, you can have. So solvol is like this industrial grade soap with the grit yeah, you can get liquid solvol, you can get like a thing of it which just really gets the grease and the bullshit off. And if you've just got like a bottle of water and fucking solvol and just scrub, you scrub shit out yourself. It's also like a self-defense mechanism. Right, because it's not just hygiene and being nice for your partners.
Speaker 1:It's like if you've got dirt on your skin and you sweat and your skin absorbs the bacteria, that can lead to skin infections too, right, can that happen? If you're sweating, is it pushing the shit out? No, it opens the pores. So if you've got all this dirt and shit on there, like, the chance of skin infection is incredibly high and you don't want to end up like, yeah, you don't want to. It's one of those things that through some small, simple measures whether it be quick shower or hygiene wipes or some soap and some whatever, whatever you can do to make that little bit of effort before you train, better for the training partners, better for you.
Speaker 1:And if you took a shit, if you went and took a big sloppy shit that afternoon and you're like one of those, one of those, and I'm going to say one of those guys that still manages himself like a six year old kind of, like the half wipe and then like, stumble out of the toilet, forget to flush, kind of thing, cause I know that, I know you guys are out there. Fuck man, you got to. Um, fuck man, you gotta wipe your ass. You get the wet wipes. Do, do, do the needful so that when you reverse mount your training partner, they're not copping a face full of your ass, half wiped ass, butt crack. It's honestly like it's fucking disgusting. It's tough and you, we've, we've been, we've all been there. Yeah, you're getting caloric and dude's sitting on your head and yeah, you're like I don't need that odor. Yeah, yeah, bad enough. You're fucking about to rip my shoulder out of the socket.
Speaker 1:The suffering is compounded. What's our third one? Our third one is nails, and this is something that's like maybe your gym has a policy, maybe they don't. I, as default mode, always just cut myself to the quick, like I just cut until I bleed, like I just toes and fingers just to be safe, because I I, I have been, I've suffered getting scratched and it's quite terrible.
Speaker 1:Joe, you've you've got your own routine with nail maintenance. Well, I mean, I used to. I used to cut mine like yours, and it was always very short and it was always a little bit too short, cause I'd like I'd trim them and then I'd file them. And then you're like, oh fuck, they're really short. And then if you go and do a gig class that night and it's a bit of spider, you're like, fuck man, it hurts. I've started playing guitar in the last year, that's right, which necessitates me having a bit more length in the nails. And at first I'm like this is not going, because I'd grown my nails quite long on the right hand. But I've actually settled on, like this mid ground that allows me to play guitar, and so I have longer nails than I used to keep, but I'm not scratching anyone. They're still short and maintained.
Speaker 1:But here's the thing. Here's the thing that no one told me, and this is what no one told me as a kid. When you're an adult, you're probably going to need to have a routine around cutting your nails. You're probably going to need to have a routine around cutting your nails, sure, right. And that routine means you're going to need tools for it. So you need, right, you need some good nail clippers or scissors clippers, I think, are the ultimate. And you need a good file file.
Speaker 1:And he is, and I was talking to my brother about it. I'm like how do you? And he's like every Sunday, every Sunday, me and the kids I do their nails and then I do mine. And I was like fuck, I've never had that. I've always just been like when they get long, but usually by the time I realize that it takes me like four or five days of being like, fuck, nails are too long, need to do it. Yeah, so I was like every Sunday, I love that. But what I'm getting at is here is you need a process and you need the toolkit and you need to stick to it. So, yeah, if you don't have like a manicure or nail clipping set, they're actually pretty cheap. If you go to the chemist or Walgreens or whatever, you can get a little kit for like 10 bucks, yeah, something like that. But you want the big file, not the fucking, that little short one. No, of course, the fucking big one, ideally, ideally. But you've got to start somewhere.
Speaker 1:And the reason why I also say this is toenails. I was trying to pass this guy's guard and he was not the cleanliness of humans and his big toe scratched my forehead and it started to bleed and I was like I just got cut with a toenail and it's like if a dog or a dog or a cat scratches you, you gotta be careful. Right, there's a lot of bacteria under those nails. Yeah, I mean, I didn't go get a tetanus shot, but I was like I gotta really stay up on on this because I don't want it to get infected. And that's the thing.
Speaker 1:If I think, what is good about this is if no one said to you hey, man, cut your nails, you go do it and you pay attention to it. You then start to notice it in other people and you're like, hang on, this guy seems to have fucking freddy krueger, esque, fucking talons. I'm gonna get sliced up. And until it happens you're like, oh, that's no, that's no good. It's really just trying to make this process of jujitsu easier for you, easier for the training partners. So you are not. You're not the bad guy, you know, and and this is the thing no one's going to tell you. No one's going to tell you other than they'll just kind of maybe resent you quietly because people feel people feel like self-conscious, that they don't want to be rude, yeah, but then they'll also talk shit behind your back, which is kind of rude.
Speaker 1:Let me make a quick point too. When you cut your nails just with, like clippers or scissors, you leave a very sharp edge on them. It is a sharp edge, yeah, so you actually need the file just to take that sharp edge off. Like, if I just clip these motherfuckers, they will slice and dice. You know, sure, dehydration can cause a 30% to 40% drop in athletic performance.
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Speaker 1:What's number four? Number four is footwear. Ah yes, this is one of the kind of biggest crimes in terms of like just not knowing. You don't know what you don't know. And if your gym doesn't have like spare slides or flip-flops on the side, you just obviously every gym is quite strict about like no footwear on the mats. Right, this is like jujitsu. That's the one thing that jujitsu like don't wear your shoes on the mats. And then they usually say nothing else.
Speaker 1:And then people are walking into the toilet, walk out into the street, coming back, you're like that's not good now, even though the gym may have a really good policy around cleaning the mats and stuff like that. If you have just walked into the bathroom with bare feet and then you walk back, you've just walked all that bacteria onto the mat. And if you're that fucking dude who meant, who manages himself like a six-year-old where you go, like I'll piss half in the toilet, half on the floor. Sure, there's a little bit on my feet. That's fun. You know it gets complicated.
Speaker 1:But having your own flip-flops, even for showers this is, this is a thing too. Um, good friend of mine, matt carmichael, shout out, he always had, he had javaianas that he wore um off the mat and then he had a spare set for gym and I was like how interesting he always slipped them in the side of his training bag. And he's like, no, that's for the shower and the bathrooms and they're actually separate. The Havaianas I would wear in the street and not the Havaianas I would wear in the bathroom. And I was like wow, that's, and it hit me and I was like actually, that's really, that's um, that's smart.
Speaker 1:And I think for whether it be for your own protection of your feet, because you don't want to like go have a shower and then next thing, you got crazy tinea, because the shower is like crazy fungal or something, but then also just keeping the mat space clean. So having some flip-flops, thongs, whatever you want to call them, which isn't your shoes that you wear from the street in, is key for the hygiene in the gym. Yeah, you should be wearing your shoes to the edge of the mats and then stepping onto the mats out of your shoes and then vice versa when you get off. Or maybe the gym has a little barefoot section around the mats, but there's going to be a threshold where it's like shoes to here and then, barefoot from here, yeah, and don't don't fucking, even if other people in your gym are fucking break, don't, just stick to it, don't do it. Yeah, be the one to um, lead the way.
Speaker 1:And actually, what was interesting to me? Um, they're these things. They're like these kind of rubber shoe covers that wrestlers have so they can run off the mat. They've got the wrestling boots from, but, yeah, um, yeah, talgut, who was our wrestling coach at Absolute, he had them. They're like shoe covers so you can go to the bathroom and come back and you take them off. Oh, wow, yeah, and they were just like slip them on, they stick on. Yeah, it was like smart, because obviously it's a set of shoes that you are wearing on the mat Now, on the mat.
Speaker 1:Now, number five is contentious because Joe and I were having a little bit of back and forth on this. So, uh, I'll, I'll let you introduce number five and let's go back and forth on it. Joe, yeah, your breath can't stink like shit. Now let me expand on this. Some people, like some people, have stronger BO than others. Sure, I'd be one of those people that's blessed with not a lot of BO. Sure, to wear deodorant just have just lucky, like that's, those low testosterone levels. Joe, potentially right. Uh, I'm not the same. I'm not the same.
Speaker 1:The the breath thing is yeah, some people, whatever biologically or maybe they have a medical condition have bad breath. This is, this is a thing, right, but I get, I know I got bad breath if I haven't been drinking enough water that day, if I've been punishing a bunch of coffee, if I went out and got a fucking kebab for lunch with extra garlic sauce. You know you ate a fucking heavy onion meal, whatever it is like. There are times when you're like is that I think my breath might be a bit chat. So, whatever it fucking takes to just not be polluting someone else's airspace with your bad breath, whether it's you pump some mints or some chewing gum or maybe you fucking brush your teeth in the afternoon before training, all I'm saying is you got to have inoffensive breath. Look, there's levels to that game, right? So I'm not, I'm not pushing this because I'm, I'm just like fuck, there's only so much you can do. If you are keeping your gi clean, you're keeping yourself clean, you're doing everything else I I.
Speaker 1:The breath thing, I think is hard to control because obviously different people have different habits and ideally, you know, whatever I have developed my habit of, I always have chewing gum on me in the car, you know, in my bag, whatever it comes from personal training, I do drink a ton of coffee and I am aware that that can make my breath not nice. So, on a professional level, as a trainer, I never wanted to bring the bad breath vibe, so I would very regularly, just always, have a piece of gum afterwards to combat that. Now, most people are not thinking about this, but if we, if we think about you, were going on a date, right, and you wanted to make sure that you're able to have another date, you wouldn't want to have bad breath, right? Because you're like, oh, I might get a kiss, yeah, Ooh, you know, and not not that you're trying to kiss your training partners here. I mean, maybe you are, but maybe don't. Um, you think it's just as intimate as a date, right, so you'd show up maybe with More intimate than most dates. You'll go on, yeah, especially depending on how you go with your dating scheme.
Speaker 1:But you know you've got someone's back and you're like breathing, you know, like right here, or even clinching, like stand up, you know, and you might not even be thinking about it at the time you are. You're stand up, you know, and you might not even be thinking about it at the time you are, you, you, you're sharing airspace. You're basically huffing into each other's mouths. Look, have a fucking packet of gum in your training bag, have some mints in the car. You know, just just do it.
Speaker 1:It's it's just, it's just little measures that that just make sure that you're not fucking coming in. You know, I, most people, probably nine times out of ten, are like hitting the mark on these things, sure, but then sometimes it's like that, that one where you're like you did pump the kebab or you know, sure you did chug the fucking barrel of coffee you might have. You just want to have that little thing in place so that no one's like, hey, do you roll with fucking so-and-so? You roll with kebab. Mate, over there, the fucking dragon breath over there. It smells like something died.
Speaker 1:The hardest thing about all of this is no one is going to tell you. And that's why we're bringing it up, because we want you to have a long, enjoyable jiu-jitsu life. And you know it can be clicky and sometimes, when you don't have good, honest friends at jiu-Jitsu, they don't tell you this shit. So we're telling you right now to save you the nonsense later, and even if you're like that's not me, run the checklist. Are you clipping the nails? Are you doing the shower? You know like how frequently are you washing your gi every day, it can't be every second day. You know like it's just by running this checklist you might be able to like go, oh, maybe I'm not doing that. Run the checklist, don't break the laws, and you'll thank us later. Yes, sir.
