The great thing about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (and most grappling martial arts) is that the mats do not lie. It is a mirror that reflects our constant pursuit of improvement. Even more so, what we do off the mats impacts our training performance. Some grapplers go the extra mile and put in additional work in the weight room to improve their overall game. In this article, we will talk about the accessory equipment you can use to improve your BJJ.
The Top 7 Accessory Equipment For BJJ
Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned grappler, building a strong body not only helps you improve your performance on the mats but also prevents injury. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to strengthening a body for BJJ, but we mostly want to train our balance, mobility, flexibility, pulling and pushing strength, grips, and ability to recover.
Investing in accessory equipment is a must for committed practitioners to ensure consistency in progress and the top spot, especially for competitors. Below are some accessory equipment you should consider.
1) Swiss Ball
The Swiss ball plays a vital role in strengthening your muscles and fundamental skills in BJJ. It helps improve your athletic performance and overall fitness, keeping you alert and your reaction time on point, especially during scrambles.
In BJJ, maintaining a dominant position and transitioning to another is critical to maintaining an advantage during a match. The Swiss ball allows you to mimic being in the top position and transition from one dominant position to another, helping you develop agility, flexibility, and mobility, which are essential when performing quick maneuvers.
The Swiss ball also helps develop the strength of our limbs and muscles, working our core muscles and spine flexibility while strengthening the back muscles. Using the Swiss ball can be compared to surfing, which requires stability and balance to maintain your position — an essential skill to have in Jiu-Jitsu.
Resistance bands are proven to build and strengthen muscles, which can be evident to wrestlers. They are compact and lightweight, taking up less space in your luggage and allowing you to carry them anywhere.
It provides a whole-body workout while also allowing you to drill different techniques, keeping you sharp when it’s time to train on the mats. While it is commonly used for warm-ups, resistance bands, as the name suggests, offer various resistance difficulties to choose from, helping grapplers with their conditioning and building muscle strength and endurance.
The great thing about resistance bands is that you can use them daily, anywhere, and at any time, with countless ways to use them. Typically, from a grappling perspective, they are used when drilling takedowns or doing BJJ-specific drills such as shrimping, different guard passes, or grip fighting.
3) Kettlebell
The kettlebell is effective for a grappler’s strength and conditioning routine. Its versatility helps develop functional strength, endurance, and explosive power that will surely carry over to BJJ. When it comes to grappling, most fundamental kettlebell movements, when done correctly, are effective for targeting the specific movements done in Jiu-Jitsu.
Kettlebell workouts are typically short, usually under an hour, and simple, but the effect is significant and long-lasting for one’s BJJ journey. It is a good way for beginners to start with the kettlebell to build fundamental strength before going for the typical heavy barbell exercises. Regardless of what exercise you perform with the kettlebell, you are holding it, so the building of grip strength is there.
It also helps build core strength, as most exercises can be done unilaterally or in isolation. Pulling strength is vital in BJJ, and utilizing the kettlebell offers different back exercises, such as rows. When the going gets easy, you can always upgrade to a heavier kettlebell to aid in higher-intensity training.
4) Grappling Dummy
The grappling dummy is a beneficial tool, especially if you have no available training partner to drill techniques with. It allows you to drill techniques as long as you want without holding back. Grappling dummies help build speed, endurance, precision, and mastery of techniques.
Typically, grappling dummies are used to perform techniques swiftly and with power without hurting your training partners. In the standup, grappling dummies allow you to drill different throws and takedowns, especially the suplex, without harming a training partner. The grappling dummy can be used on the ground to drill different submissions and transitions from the top position.
Depending on the dummy, having a bent knee grappling dummy allows you to drill guard passes. Like the ones mentioned above, a grappling dummy will enable you to train any time you want, improving your core muscles, grip strength, and posterior chain, especially when lifting it off the ground.
5) Bulgarian Bag
The Bulgarian bag was made famous by the Bulgarian wrestling coach Ivan Ivanov. Widely used by wrestlers, the Bulgarian bag helps grapplers strengthen the upper and lower body and the core. It also helps improve grapplers’ cardiovascular health and grip strength.
Along with the resistance bands and grappling dummy, the Bulgarian bag allows grapplers to train and drill their techniques without having a training partner. It greatly helps with the grip strength, which is vital for BJJ. It offers a whole-body exercise and promotes flexibility and stability while building endurance through the high volume of repetition you can perform with it, like with the kettlebell.
6) Rope (Climbing)
Keeping in mind that grip strength is vital in BJJ, rope climbing is one of the classic grip training exercises used in Judo and Wrestling. Matches are initiated by first having a grip on the opponent. A powerful grip allows you to dictate where the opponent goes.
Rope climbing helps grapplers build pulling and core strength, both essential in building a solid grappling base. While it can be challenging at first and may even be considered an advanced exercise to some, try building your back and pulling strength with pull-ups if you’re having difficulties.
7) Foam Roller
A body free from injury keeps a practitioner in the game in the long run. The foam roller aids as a self-massage tool grapplers use to improve the mobility and flexibility of the muscles, often as part of the warm-up or cool-down.
As can usually be seen with grapplers who have spent quite some time on the mats, investing in a foam roller is essential for longevity. It’s an effective way to support the body and improve physical performance on and off the mats.
Conclusion
To many, BJJ is a worthy investment for the body and mind. There are different ways to improve in BJJ, and many can be done even when off the mats. Consider the ones mentioned above and see how they benefit your overall game.
You may also like:
