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
Jiu Jitsu Exercise Tier List (Simplified)
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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 S-tier exercise for BJJ strength what am I talking about? I'm talking about super, I'm talking about supreme, I'm talking about God-level exercise that's going to make you strong for BJJ and its subsequent close relatives, which will also help you get strong for BJJ. So you gave me a little rundown on this S tier bullshit before. It's not bullshit, man. This is legit. Tell me again what the fuck is S tier? This is legit.
Speaker 1:So if you look at the scale of something on the internet, it's not just like a top five. There is something, a certain item, a certain thing which stands out above everything else, whether it be a type of fighter, a type of grappler, it could be a supplement, it could be anything. Now this actually comes from gaming. What that is better than number one? Yes, it is Ichiban. Yeah, it is the number. It is superior to everything else. But then that also then sets up the ranking for everything else. What if I want to fucking? What if I just go 10XS? You could, and then it becomes the whole new category fam yeah, all your S-Tiers shit. It could. You'd be surprised, fuck it. I need Rap Name Fogel to weigh in on this. Stay with me now. So we're doing the S-Tier scale and we've talked some other stuff before, but I think it's good to put some context around why we think certain things are better, the best, superior, right on.
Speaker 1:Now I'm going to start at the bottom. Wait, wait, wait, wait. What's your criteria for ranking? Okay, so the criteria for this scale is that it has to give you multiple benefits. It can't just be a one thing. Don't get me wrong. It's great to have a tool that does a specific job, but for me, having seen a million different exercises, I want you to get bang for your fricking buck. So if you're going to spend 10, 15 minutes working on a thing, you want to not only be training one quality, but also be improving mobility, or also be improving your proprioception, all this shit, so that you don't have to spend hours, you just do a couple of good things to give you mad leverage across the board. Gotcha, yeah, and so I feel like that's where I'm.
Speaker 1:So I'm actually going to start at the bottom. We're going to start at C, so we're going five. It's like C working up to S being superior. That's in the number one. Fuck me, keep you in suspense. A, b, c, s. So we're going to start at the bottom, which is C, which is D, sorry, d, c, b, a, s. Guys, the S tier thing is really easy to understand. No, I can't count. I can't count. Stay with me.
Speaker 1:So at the bottom, actually, I'm going to put a pressing movement, because actually, in truth, pressing isn't like whether you think of bench pressing, overhead pressing. It's not as important for jiu-jitsu as many other movements, in my opinion, and that's what this is all about. This is our take on it, mark. And that's what this is all about. This is our take on it. Mark's comment section is blowing up, of course, why not? Someone's going to tell me what they think, which I will not necessarily care much about, but hey, I'll be polite in the comments.
Speaker 1:Overhead press, I believe, is the best of all presses. Why do I say that? Because for those of you out there who love a bench press, good luck to you. It is more limited in its scope than an overhead press, because when you press overhead, you have to have healthy shoulders. You also need to have a strong core. You also need to be able to lift that motherfucker up to your shoulder height potentially, if you're not pressing out of a rack, so it doesn't matter if it is a barbell, if it's a kettlebell, if it's a dumbbell, so it doesn't matter if it is a barbell, if it's a kettlebell, if it's a dumbbell. Putting heavy ass weight up and hoisting it above your head tells us a lot more about how strong you are than lying down on a bench and pushing the weight off your chest. Yeah, the reason why I say this is if we do it reductively and we look at someone who's got big, strong bench press right, like we take one of the strongest bench presses in the world and we're like okay, now push up above your head.
Speaker 1:Generally, because they've become so specialized at this thing, they are restricted and they don't have that capacity, and we all know that in jujitsu you need to be able to be strong in an overhead position. Yeah, Not only for I don't know Flanagan's trying to fucking give you the brother's milk or some shit. You know like not only do you need to be able to like function up here, but you don't want to tap to immobility, yeah, and so that's why I think, um, people need to get on board with an overhead press and if it's not something you spend time on, you've got to get it in the vocabulary. Do you have something similar to that? Yeah, so, yeah, I would kind of agree that pressing is probably on the lower end of the the For me. I'm going to go with a ring dip, weighted ring dip, nice, yeah, and my reasoning for that is I did them this morning, oh shit. But I'm like I've done a lot of pressing things. I just dips for me are really satisfying as a press, and the instability and people are going to hang shit on this idea but the instability of the rings, specifically for the shoulder joint, is awesome Because the shoulder joint is a fucking very complex joint.
Speaker 1:Right it is. It's got a lot of little muscle groups holding this shit together, and so I feel like the extra kind of proprioceptive difficulty of the rings lends itself to the complexity of that joint. Yeah, for sure. I mean I was inclined to say a dip. I'm a big fan of a weighted dip 100%, one of my favorite movements. But I was thinking about the range Kind of, yeah, and I mean, that's just kind of what it tells us, right, it's more like a health, and I think both movements are great to reflect the health of the shoulder, because you've got people who could maybe do a parallel bar dip, but you put them on the rings and they can't, the shoulders can't hack.
Speaker 1:Just being able to control and then also get that deep range which tells you how healthy the shoulders are, yeah, and you know, to point out to folks, there's nothing that has it all. No, so there's always. So you're always compromising something in making such a selection, right, like, needless to say, yeah, yeah, so there are some things we're missing. So that is D. I'm going to go up from there, and some folks you know whatever they're going to have their opinions, but this is my opinion is a squat variation. So this is actually C. Yeah, I put squat down there. Why do I say it? It's controversial. Yeah, I put squat down there. Why do I say it? It's controversial, this cunt.
Speaker 1:Now, everybody is different in their opinions and we have commonly said before we really rate a pistol squat and I love a barbell back squat, like anyone, but the squat that I actually think is the best for BJJ is a bear hug like a sandbag bear hug squat. Tell me more, now you can. You can mimic something similar Like some people. Just they're like I don't have sandbags, so you could do it like to say, a Zurcher squat, right. And there's plenty of people out there like, oh, zurcher's useless Cool. The reason why I say this is who back squat aficionado? Um, no doubt. No, no, no, no, just some different people.
Speaker 1:Why do I say what I say when you are working with the sandbag? I'm fucking jt and I say what I want. I fucking say what I want and I mean what I say. And it's my podcast. It's like, either like it or get the fuck off the channel. No, no, no. Feel free to troll in the comments, but here's the thing that surprised me, because I've been back squatting longer than any other movement I've done in my life and I love it.
Speaker 1:But what happened which blew me out was how hard it was to brace with a bag against your torso. So the bracing is very different to putting it on your shoulders, like, yeah, you've got to brace, but as much as you can wear a weight belt and do whatever else, you're forcing the weight into you. Yeah, you're putting pressure onto your own torso. It actually requires you to brace fucking ultra hard through the anterior part of your core, like through the front, but it also requires you to use your lats and your back in a very different way that you don't necessarily use when you do a back squat. Yeah, when you do a back squat and so in so doing, because the weight is at the front, it enables you to actually get into a deeper squat, even if you don't have great squat mechanics. It almost, in a lot of ways, forces you down into the squat position, even if you've got poor ankles and say you couldn't. And don't get me wrong, I'm not making an excuse for having poor mechanics and just not fixing it.
Speaker 1:But I have done this where I've taken someone who sucks with a back squat and I've been able to load them up with the sandbag bear hug squat and they squatted deeper and better and they can't lift as much weight. And this is a funny thing. People are like well, how can you get stronger if you're not lifting as much weight? Like, well, how can you get stronger if you're not lifting as much weight? Actually, because it is mechanically so hard to do. Globally, your whole body gets stronger with less weight. Therefore, I feel it is superior because you don't just have to endlessly chuck weight on Less weight, more, yeah, and actually over time, you can load it up ultra heavy. It's not that you're trying to be weak with it, but I've seen such huge strength gains gains not only in myself, but in in people I work with doing this movement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. I fucking love a sandbag squat mine's not far off. It's a zurcher squat, right, yeah, and it's really just um, it's pretty much for all the same reasons. Um, however, most people have access to a barbell, so, in in my criteria, I'm like well, that that place that's like fucking more accessible for more folks. But, um, here's the thing if you've ever coached someone on a, if you've ever coached back squats which any good coach has you've ever coached zurcher squats or sandbag squats. Any good coach has.
Speaker 1:Um, what you will have noticed more than likely is that the barrier to entry is much lower for everything that's not a back squat. Yes, you get a new person in that's not particularly adept at strength training and you're teaching them back squat. You got tight ankles to overcome. You got poor squat mechanics, bad glutes, bracing, moving the spine, shoulders yeah, the whole thing right, whereas you get someone hey, squeeze this bag or pull this barbell, chuck it in much better squat in much shorter time, yeah. And for grapplers and criteria as well.
Speaker 1:For me is like, well, what's the shortest path towards effective strength training? And I'm like, yeah, front loaded squat like that yeah, it's funny. The other thing is it's just when you hold a weight in front of you. You can't hold that weight in front of you without working really hard through the anterior chain, yeah, as well as the posterior chain, front of your torso, yeah. So like yeah, obviously you've got to use your back muscles to stay upright. Everything switches on. Yeah, it's crazy what that does for the engagement. So that's why I love it. And the other thing too, just for those out there doing Zurcher squats doesn't give you tendinitis. You're a fucking idiot if you think that. Yeah, in the comments of a previous video Look, it is uncomfortable if you've got-. I love that. One person comments and Jetsy's like to all you motherfuckers that are saying yeah, the legions of people Like, yes, okay, the tendonitis army out there? No, but the thing is it's just a misunderstanding. Like, yeah, if you're tight through your forearms and having it in the crook of the strongest cunts we know he's pretty good. Yeah, will Grant shout out Homey, all right. Well, no, when he comes in Fucking forearms are too jacked, too much handstand work and one arm pull up Lies. When he comes in, I'm going to make him do it and we're going to B now. So we're entering the top three. Fuck yeah, now for all of you, fucking Dr Mike, israel-a-tights out there.
Speaker 1:Turkish get up. Motherfucker, that's right. I said it Top three, turkish get up. Why do I say this and why do motherfuckers misunderstand this movement? The Turkish get up is fantastic for training your arm and your shoulder straight. It's rare that we do straight arm strength training in BJJ related training, right? So much of it is like bent arm, and so for you to stabilize and organize your body around a weight is skillful.
Speaker 1:Now people out there go no, it's a circus trick, it's this, it's that. It doesn't really make you strong, motherfucker. You're just not doing it that heavy Like. If you do a heavy getup, you cannot be weak and do a heavy getup. You can also not lack good shoulder stability. You know good hip range and good core strength and do a heavy getup, but you can get away with that shit with other movements Like I know folks who have got a fucking hectic bench press can't do a Turkish getup. I know a motherfucker who's got huge back squats got a shit Turkish getup.
Speaker 1:What we're doing here is it's not that we're like oh, it's exactly like a technical standup and therefore do it weighted.
Speaker 1:That's a misunderstanding, but it trains movement qualities you need for jujitsu.
Speaker 1:You need to have stability as you like laterally flex. You need to have stability from your knees. You need to have strength from a dead stop off the ground and for those who rubbish it, they typically haven't spent a lot of time trying to come up off their back. You know, like I know, josh Setledge talks shit about it, but really, when you look at his pedigree, he's more of a wrestler than he is a BJJ guy. So you're like of course it doesn't make sense for you to. You want to be on your feet, you want to lunge, you want to shoot, and if you want to do that, that's fine, but what it does for you is so huge. And also, if you're bad at a Turkish getup, this points out where you can improve. So it's a really good feedback tool for getting rid of your weaknesses, whether it be shoulder stability, core strength, whatever it might be, right, yeah, so that is why I'm such a fucking, huge, fucking fan of the TGU.
Speaker 1:And for those of you out there who don't like it, you probably haven't necessarily been instructed with it or you haven't fucked with it enough, because a lot of variations and I know it helps get motherfuckers strong I'm a big fan of the TGU, but I'm going to go different here, please. I'm going to go and I mean I've been lumped into your fucking, pulled into my beefs. I'm like we're fucking putting the squat all the way down there. The Snoop Dogg of my Tupac, yeah, you're like fuck East Coast, fuck Biggie, fuck bad boys. Oh, was he up on stage? No, no, he wasn't, but Snoop Dogg and Tupac were friends on Death Row. And then Snoop's like shit, I just got to smoke my weed and get the fuck out. I don't want to be on this. Still another 40 years of performing. I don't want this beef. I need to be at the 2024 Olympics Shit, olympics, shit.
Speaker 1:Commentating on horse riding. Um, we got a flashing battery, fucking light right here. Uh, I'm gonna go with skin the cat, wow, okay, and you know what I was thinking, because I'm like I want something that's fucking. I want something trunk related. I want something abs, heavy abs, yes. And then I'm also like what packages up abs, shoulders, shoulders and the fucking and the shoulder extension stretch and all of it. And I'm like motherfucking, skin the cat? Yeah, you can not skin the cat. Well, cunts can do it in a playful kind of way, yeah, but to do it properly, technically, well, you got to be strong through a lot of this trunk, and that's why I'm going with it. Do you say ring or bar? Yeah, because you can get the rotation. Yeah, and you can really just build that shoulder extension, which is the arms behind you. Anyone that's followed standards will understand this and stretch that fucking range in a way that it's crazy, yeah, it's gnarly, yeah, no, definitely it's a great move, and I mean, for me, tgu is my trunk oriented move, but the number one thing you can do to improve your BJJ training is develop a strength and mobility routine, and we have the routine for you the Bulletproof for BJJ app.
Speaker 1:Myself and Joey have put this together with our over 30 years of experience in the health and fitness industry, as well as over 30 years of BJJ training. It is the culmination of everything we know to help you unlock your athleticism for BJJ the perfect mix of strength and mobility training, as well as the perfect amount of advice to keep you on track, minimize your injuries and have you performing like a weapon. Take the 14-day free trial. Just go to the App Store or the Play Store, download the app and you can get in there, use it, benefit and also join our community where you can get advice, get coaching and get your training better. Today, go to the app store, download the app and we'll see you on the inside. Okay, now we're up to the A tier.
Speaker 1:Wow, almost the top, not quite the fucking top, penultimate, if you will. It's pretty close, pretty fucking close. I'm going to say a weighted pull-up or a pull-up of sorts, wow. Why do I fucking say this? Because really, you cannot do like.
Speaker 1:A weighted pull-up tells you so much about a person's grip, their lats, their core, the upper body strength it takes to do a weighted pull-up is, in my opinion, for grappling, superior to almost anything. Now, there'll be folks out there who love a rope climb. Now, yeah, rope climb's fucking incredible right, but almost no one has access to a climbing rope, right, and don't get me wrong. I fucking love it. And obviously, maybe if you go to a climbing gym or some shit like that, that's fine, but almost everyone, if you go to a gym or you go to a park, there's a pull-up bar right, and, even though it may not be obvious, there are many methods for you to get better at lifting there, and being able to lift your own body weight multiple times is great. But to then add weight weight that tells you so much about shoulder stability, grip, core, like there's so much shit going on there that is incredibly desirable for being really good for gi or no gi jiu-jitsu, yeah, way to pull ups are a fucking monster, and I'm gonna agree with you on this one jt, yeah, fucking time right there.
Speaker 1:We actually did them this morning too. Oh, there you go. Yeah, I um didn't superset them with bottoms up presses before the ring dips, but um, yeah, way to pull up. I mean, you've got the hang piece which nourishes the overhead range. It's good, right, and uh, and obviously you just got.
Speaker 1:You know, like all I, it's very hard to meet a pulling exercise that isn't effective. Yes, they're all great. Yeah, rows inverted isn't effective. Yes, they're all great. Yeah, rows inverted, rows pendlay, you know, whatever, they're all fucking awesome, but there's just something in being able to do it with your body weight. And then, of course, if you can add load, that is just fucking gangster, that's great, and it just here's the thing. You might be getting good at pull-ups, right, and you're like, yeah, put some weight on that, and it just the level goes up dramatically. It goes from being like, oh, I'm pretty capable at this. You add five or 10 kilos and it's like you've gone from 10 pull-ups to two. Yeah, and you're like, fucking hell, amazing, right and so right. And so you don't have to add a lot of weight to this move for it to be really fucking hard, but for this to have huge crossover to your strength relevant to gripping, pulling and bracing through the core.
Speaker 1:You know, the interesting thing with pull-ups, too, is that they're always hard. Yep, it doesn't matter how strong you are, like. You know, for me, like a bent over row is never that hard. Yeah, right, well, your feet are grounded, right. Yeah, yeah. And it's just like I don't know, you just do it and you're like, yeah, it was great.
Speaker 1:Or a dumbbell row, like they're hard, but it's, but they're not hard in the way I fucking pull up or chin up is where you're just like, oh shit, I haven't done these for like a month or two. These are really hard today. Well, it's very. It's like a dumbbell. Anything that's a barbell or dumbbell is very scalable, right, even a machine. But your body weight's your body weight. Gravity is fucking gravity. Your lightest dumbbell is 90 kilos. Like, here's your warmup. Fuck, you know.
Speaker 1:Like and don't get me wrong, there's many ways that you can change the variables on this. But if you're someone who is really craving like how do I get my upper body stronger, pull-ups, and then once you're kind of at the kind of couple of sets of 10 kind of domain, I believe you've got to start to load it up, like you don't have to go Goggins, you don't have to be like oh, I do a thousand pull-ups a day, like, no, like once you can do multiple sets of 10, my belief is that you add, load and go from there. Yeah, fucking earth, any more than eight is superfluous. Yeah, it's a bit unnecessary if you're trying to get stronger and that's what we're talking about.
Speaker 1:Strength S, tier, super, superior, supreme, all of the S's deadlift, specifically barbell deadlift. Wow, yeah, I said it. It that's right now, even though I love it, is gonna fucking hate dog. No, I think everybody's gonna agree on this like why have I put the deadlift up here and put the squat back down here somewhere? Why have I done that? Because it requires grip. You cannot, you cannot. If you don't have the grip, the bar is not coming up off the ground. But it's that simple. If you do not have a good brace, you're I mean, you might get away with it for a little while, but you're likely to injure yourself.
Speaker 1:The barbell is a real truth maker in terms of can you brace, can you anchor, can you coordinate your legs, your hips and your back to work together to lift the weight off the ground? And it's a very yes or no. There's no way to fake it. I think this is the thing, and you can vary it very simply by creating deficits, by pausing. There's so many ways you could do a one-arm deadlift. I'm not super locked in the variation per se, but I am going to say barbell because it enables you to lift the maximum amount of weight to get strong, like the most weight lifted in the history of the world is via a deadlift, you know, yeah, so that's, that's why I'm going there, even though I, you know, I love a kettlebell, I love, I love all this other shit. We're talking max strength, grip, core, hips, back, you name it.
Speaker 1:The deadlift traps is the move. Yeah, I'm a bit conflicted on this one because I'm also like, yeah, a deadlift has to be, but you want to say something different. I don't love a conventional deadlift. Okay, you know, as an exercise they've never been excellent for me. I always feel semi-problematic. I'm like I don't like chasing big strength on these, the maximum numbers.
Speaker 1:I'm inclined to say a trap bar deadlift, because I know it surpasses a lot of those sort of mechanical issues. Oh, okay. But here's the other interesting thing. I've also never done them. Oh, hang on, hang on, you know what I mean. I don't know if you could be saying it if you're not using it. I know, I know I don't know if you could be saying it if you're not using it. I know, I know I don't think I can, but I'm just trying to. I'm just trying to describe to people the fucking articulate, the dilemma inside my head right now.
Speaker 1:It is a form of deadlift, for sure, I think. I think yeah, it's probably a double overhand dead conventional. And look, if I'm thinking about it, most of what I'm envisaging with this is not chasing extremely heavy, one rms with any of this shit. It's like do this exercise consistently and particularly if you're in that like um, novice to intermediate stage, you should just be doing this like and maybe a bit of accessory shit. So I'm gonna go with that, because that's implying that you're not doing it forever. You will constantly be going through different forms of deadlifting or hinging. Yeah, you'd be rotating through a lot of different variations of these movements, right, and you know, sure, there's plenty of people. Yeah, but bench press or, yeah, but how about you know X, y and Z?
Speaker 1:The reason why I've structured it in this way and the reason why I say these things is if you were to only do these five movements, in my opinion you would be a strong, badass, motherfucker. You would be like you can't. Someone who's good at these movements will not be weak. There are some people who are really good at certain movements, but when you get them to do other athletic feats or you get them to try and do day-to-day life shit, they suck, you know. You get to get someone who's like oh, I can like press 500 kilos. You're like all right, run and make that bus. They can't, you know, and that's what we're talking about. We talk about strength. That's going to translate to a degree of athleticism.
Speaker 1:Now, obviously, you've got to go do the practice. You've got to take that strength from the gym and practice it elsewhere. But if you have a really strong deadlift, if you can do weighted pull-ups, if you got a strong turkish get up, you can do a heavy squat, whichever variation you want to choose there, and you have a strong overhead press, you're strong. You're strong, motherfucker, like it doesn't, whatever you might say, that tells me that when you go to jiu-j, you'll be able to handle the physical just burden which can be grappling. Yeah, you can't be doing those exercises and not be a bit of a hench cunt. Yeah, and that's what we want, that's what we want for you.
Speaker 1:And so we don't say this because it's like, oh, we know more than you, it's more that we want to give you, steer you in the right direction, because we've fucked around a fair bit. You're in the right direction because we've fucked around a fair bit and we know more than you. We do, but no, we've fucked around and found out right, like I want to save you some time. I'm not trying to do ecological on this shit. I'm not like given an infinite time scale and you leave a man alone the gym he'll learn how to get strong. Look at the gym there's dudes have been there 40 years. They're still not strong, like they look kind of on an infinite time scale. We don't have the infinite timescale. Let me save you some fucking time. Let's get in, let's do the best shit and let's get strong as fuck for bjj.
