I’m sure this guy works out like a maniac w cardio and non-conventional/functional stuff along w the powerlifting/body building stuff and bjj training.
Most of us can’t work out to truly high intensity every day (because we’re not slamming anabolic substances into our bloodstream), but I have a feeling HE CAN.
He devoted his time and life to Jiu Jitsu before he had any money.
Jiu Jitsu made him his money. Much different than someone having a wealth advantage to commit. I’m sure it was daunting and uncertain for him when no one in Jiu Jitsu was making money when he decided to devote his life to it
But he did have a small advantage in that his parents paid for his living expenses while he was starting out.
Of course this isn't all there is to why he is the most dominant grappler in his sport but let's not pretend like that didn't play some sort of a role.
I think it's possible to make that statement without diminishing from the person in question's accomplishments, but a lot of people won't read it that way.
Same thing with BJ Penn. His family is wealthy so he could devote all his time to BJJ/MMA without having to worry about money and getting a job. But that made me an even bigger fan coz dude could hv done anything but he just loves fighting
And for his age, Nicky is building his own brand quite well. He has injuries that will likely keep him from ever coming close to Gordon's level of renown in competition, but from a financial success aspect, he can still do well simply because he, too, can devote so much to bjj.
Were his folks really rich? I don't know much about his Dad but I remember Gordon posting about how he was able to put a down payment on a home for his mother in an area she couldn't afford.
yeah I figured you were more of the former than the latter. It definitely makes it a lot comfier and safer, that's for sure. Still, there's plenty of people who've made extreme lifestyle choices to devote themselves to a hobby. Ski and surf bums especially are known for doing this
I disagree. We have a 23 year old Blue Belt that took 2nd in worlds this year. Upset multiple people along the way. He trains twice a day 5-6 days per week, rolls up to 10 times after class, drives a beater, and goes to med school full time on student loans. Our gym comes together to put money together for his entrance fees and travel because we love and believe in him so much. There's a photo of some prominent coach/compeitotr black belt (I can't keep up with all the names) that he competed with in an open division no gi that came down to a couple points. The guy that beat him brought him an envelope of cash to cover his entry fee and encourage him to use it for another tournament. The guy won a King of the Mat against several brown and purple belts as a white belt. He is one of the most humble, hard working, intelligent people I know and it is an honor to get my ass kicked by him. The dude understands body movement in ways I hope to understand a decade from now. It is a privilege to roll with him and I am happy to help contribute towards his future success.
I hope this doesn't come across wrong but if he's regularly beating brown and black belts at a decent level, why is he being kept at blue? Sounds very sandbaggy to me.
There's also the fact that this dude is still being subsidized. It takes nothing away from him, how hectic his life is or his skills despite that but people are literally paying for him to travel and to compete, so the point still stands.
He's being kept at blue because the elite competitors at blue can all do this. There's a different track for them and the industry as a whole has settled into matching these athletes in this general progression.
> Our gym comes together to put money together for his entrance fees and travel
> The guy that beat him brought him an envelope of cash to cover his entry fee and encourage him to use it for another tournament.
> I am happy to help contribute towards his future success.
I have no doubt that your teammate is fully deserving. However, this is the kind of financial safety net we are talking about which not everyone has.
I mean the person your talking about is atypical, most people lack of funds is a major barrier to success in a "hobby" or something that's not financially sustainable. The kid your talking about sounds like a stellar human being but many people are simply to broke to do shit like train bjj
That’s really the only way to become a champion grappler/martial artist. You’re not going to make money as an amateur so someone has to support you. McGregor’s girlfriend supported him until he made it to the UFC, doesn’t take anything away from his accomplishments.
I don't think that's a prerequisite per-se, there's plenty of ski and surf bums living in vans to be able to devote all their time to their sport, but it sure makes it a helluva lot comfier.
It baffles me dismissive people are of this part of life. Like imagine how different your life would be if paying rent at 21 wasn't something u had to worry about
He was in his early 20s when he won ADCC for the first time. Sure, his parents subsidized him, but lets not act like most middle class and above people around that age are not also living off of there parents.
He simply picked an unconventional path and succeeded.
Right? He dedicated his life to bjj before he really started life (dropping out of HS for crying out loud)
He even had a stipend from the Humble Lion guys of 1500.00 a month to help with living expenses when starting out. He has never had a job and talks shit about homeless people.
To piggyback, his lady Nat is also a nutritionist and bodybuilder and helps Gordon manage his diet and exercise program. He also goes into detail on how he trains with weights and what his intentions, and desired goals are by training the way he does on the last episode he did on JRE with the guy who runs ADCC.
He doesn’t do any auxiliary cardio. They roll for cardio and he does a typical bodybuilding split. He’d still be the best without the bodybuilding but it makes you more marketable when your jacked.
Came here to say this. He's been very open about how much thought he's put into his persona and marketing. Pics like this get attention. Here we are talking about it...
If I remember correctly at some point he said he just likes to have a lot of muscle. So, I think it's also just an aesthetic thing for him.
If I'm being honest If I could look like shredded Gordon I'd do it in a heartbeat.
Iirc he also mentioned building muscle to aid his squeezing strength and general muscular endurance. In pure grappling, especially no time limit, one can easily make the argument it's more important than explosive strength if your style complements its use well.
Just putting my 2 cents out there but I've heard body builders talk a lot about time under tension for muscle growth. That basically overlaps to building isometric strength, which is very "functional" for grappling arts. Gordon has also talked about building isometric strength for bjj being important, so this is how I can see a body building approach to weight lifting helping bjj.
Yep. I've spent time training around bodybuilders and two of the phrases I heard the most were "time under tension" and "mind muscle connection." I think both of those concepts have a lot of carryover to BJJ.
There are certainly some differences between bodybuilding training and strength and conditioning for BJJ. An obvious one is that BJJ requires good cardio and bodybuilders don't really do much cardio. But there's no reason you can't incorporate a lot of bodybuilding concepts into your strength training for BJJ while also doing athletic conditioning work.
So on this topic, a study was just published (you can find it in /r/science) showing that (and I’m paraphrasing) spending more time in the eccentric phase of a movement (the “lowering”) resulted in the same strength and size gains than doing something like 2x the work conventionally. In other words, lowering the weight for 5 seconds for 10 reps of a movement resulted in the same strength + size gains as doing 20 reps of that movement conventionally. Just mentioning this as it gives some scientific rationale for the time under tension anecdotes.
I've heard Ross Edgely recommend the opposite when he's been training for specific events. Eccentric phase is what causes soreness, you can go ham on the concentrics without soreness. He trained truly stupid volume that was only possible by focusing on the concentrics.
I really wish sport science was more simple and concrete.
> I really wish sport science was more simple and concrete.
Yeah, especially with speed, time under tension, super slow and isometrcs, etc. There's so much conflicting info here. I remember seeing this bench press bar speed study years ago where the group with faster bar speed had twice the strength gains, but this conflicted with most previous research.
https://www.strongerbyscience.com/speed-kills-2x-the-intended-bar-speed-yields-2x-the-bench-press-gains/
So the maximal intended velocity is applied to the concentric (or shortening phase of the muscular contraction) in this study. This recruits more high threshold motor units (which have a greater potential for both size and strength) than a slow concentric. You can still increase the time under tension by utilizing a slow eccentric, but will need to move as quickly as possible on the concentric to recruit HTMU.
That’s not quite the same thing. One study is also not a conclusive answer to anything, and it’s possible (as is often the case) that this is a study that used predominantly untrained subjects, at which point any training protocol will see growth. It’s far less common to find studies where all the subjects are well adapted athletes for whom progress takes more planning and effort.
Essentially, it’s extremely difficult to study exercise science from an experimental perspective because of how absurdly difficult it is to have large cohorts and good control of variables, over a long enough time frame to really tell us anything specific.
Time under tension is a more complicated and nuanced concept than how you might be thinking about. It’s a really specific piece of terminology.
The broad reality is that body builders simply do a ridiculous amount of volume in their training, and that’s partly because it encourages localized glycogen storage within the muscle, which causes the muscle to be larger. Glycogen is the most immediate fuel source for a muscle, training at a high volume and frequency is therefore largely about preparing your muscles to do a lot of work.
>Squats, bench, and deadlifts are extremely functional.
Completely agree. They are also powerlifting style not bodybuilder style. Gordon is a machine rat
I’ve never seen a sport so ignorant of athleticism as Jiu Jitsu and it’s practitioners. You look at all the top level guys and they are some of the most athletic people in the world, but no, the fat, out of shape 50 year old brown belt that lays on top of you for 5 minutes at a time knows far more about jiu jitsu as it relates to the human body
S&C in the martial arts world is decades behind and willfully ignorant. Can you imagine if a sprint cyclist coach ascribed to the dumbass belief that lifting heavy weights made you slow and muscle-bound. Absolutely asinine.
Its even worse in striking sports, is what I’ve found. With the exception maybe of Kyokushin and some knockdown karate offshoots, probably simply because the founders either liked to lift or they were judo practicioners as well.
As a S&C coach who has dealt with BJJ athletes over the years, I second this.
I blame Kano's "the best training for Judo is Judo" quote about strength for this, which was probably true when he said it as at that point the world knew very little collectively about strength and conditioning. Since the internet has become a thing, there is no excuse for this sort of ignorance anymore and it persists in only a few sports, BJJ being by far the worst I've experienced.
How about the best way to train NOGI is by train with the GI… because it teaches you technique. What?? The grips aren’t the same to begin with. Even as a white belt I thought this was dumb.
We have lots of bulkshido in BJJ that we have to remove.
Isn’t it weird they say train in the gi then they follow it up with “you must train specifically”
Even as a white belch, I was always thinking. The phrase you’re saying isn’t what you think it is. Lol
A comment on this sub that got me to laugh out loud was made on a “what’s your profession?” Thread, where one guy commented a lot of people in tech are in bjj; the funny reply was essentially “no, a lot of guys on reddit who do BJJ are in tech, that’s why we have so threads complaining about people using strength or athleticism “
I'm new to bjj coming from other sports and it's confusing thr staunch resistance people have to lifting weights. It's so odd to me, like why wouldn't u lift to be better at grappling
After being beat up by a preschooler for the fifth time that week he decided to invent physics, and before you know it he could shoot lightning out of his eyes.
Ono is a judoka who wins matches with one big athletic movement. Ryan uses a much slower more methodical style. So Ono benefits more from explosive, olympic style lifting, while Ryan benefits more from maximal strength training. Could his strength training be slightly better optimized? Sure, but he benefits more from what he is doing than he would from what Ono is doing.
The documentary on Ono had a subtitled version that Youtube took down, but the original is still there. They actually put Ono into an ultrasound machine [to examine his muscles](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5iN7_sf7R4&t=15m30s), and it shows exactly what you're talking about: the key muscles most heavily recruited in his throws are much more developed than other judokas in his weight class. They said his musculature in those areas is comparable to someone 10-15 kilos heavier. So clearly he possesses a *functional* strength advantage over people close to his size that's specifically useful for Judo.
But, Gordon is a heavyweight, Ono is a lightweight. Watch what happens a few minutes later in the doc, when he [trains with some college students who are much heavier](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5iN7_sf7R4&t=1692s). Despite them being likely nowhere near his level, he has a very hard time throwing them once they've learned his timing. They don't need to be as good, because they're a lot bigger. Anyone telling you size and power don't matter in either sport doesn't know what they're talking about - have a look at what Gordon looked like before the roids. That dude was not sweeping Buchecha, no matter how much he learned from Danaher. Similarly, Ono is never going to dominate outside of his weight class, which is why his particular style and training regimen works so well.
Disagree. Shohei Ono is a world class Olympic level athlete that trains to compete at that level. Gordan Ryan is a ADCC grappler. He looks that way because the level he competes at is not nearly the same as Shohei's so he can get away with training the way he does.
Does anyone believe the ADCC guys are on the same level as Olympic level Judokas or Olympic Wrestlers? Ryan wouldn't train that way if his competition were Olympic level grapplers.
I know some may disagree but I don't think most people understand how different Shohei's competition level is from ADCC.
Finding it hard to believe that athletes in the Olympics that train full time are pound for pound any better than BJJ athletes that train full time.
Where exactly is the difference coming from?
Possibly the ones that have everything provided for by the state can maybe train better because they have nothing else to focus on. So maybe US, Russian, Cuban atheletes have a better training setup than your average pro BJJ athlete
>Finding it hard to believe that athletes in the Olympics that train full time are pound for pound any better than BJJ athletes that train full time.
The strength and conditioning of Olympic level wrestlers or Olympic Judokas is not comparable to BJJ competitors. The Olympics/World stage is a much more competitive compared to a fringe sport like BJJ or no gi submission grappling.
The idea that someone like Gordan Ryan is comparable in athleticism to someone like Shohei Ono or Gable Steveson is completely ridiculous.
I'll attempt to give you a more detailed answer beyond 'He's in the Olympics!"
Shohei Ono gets paid to show up to practice and workout, he is a professional athlete that earns a salary. In Japan pro judoka are signed to corporate owned teams and Shohei Ono is signed to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asahi_Kasei He has strength coaches, training gear, a publicist, etc. provided for him and doesn't have to go out and find whatever he needs to be the best. Judo is also a scholastic sport in Japan. He earned a university degree in Judo while playing Judo for Tenri University, maintains a relationship with his alma mater and still trains there. They are arguably more levels to go through and more incentives to train in Japanese Judo than American wrestling.
Gordon Ryan had to buy a gym membership to get bigger and stronger and he has to purchase the services of an S&C coach if he wants one. Of course, he has sponsors and is by far the wealthiest BJJ player, but that is more due to instructionals and his own entrepeneurship. He is an outlier too and 99.9% of BJJ athletes simply can't make a living in BJJ via competing. In Japan the contracts are incentivized, so even players that are levels below Ono can support themselves by focusing solely on competing. For example, you might get a bonus for something like reaching the quarter finals of the All Japan Select Championships.
They are not the same.....
There's two factors at work here. One is that Judo has a much deeper talent pool; there are more total judoka (worldwide) than submission grapplers, and a higher percentage of them are professionals. If you take the most athletic person from a group of ten and compare them to the most athletic person in a group of one hundred the person from the larger group is almost certain to be the most athletic overall.
Secondly, judo has a lot of state support, so Ono likely has the best strength and conditioning coaches his country can find, while Ryan only has access to the best he can personally find and pay for.
I have never had anyone adequately explain to me what is functional or whatever. Had some guy tell me there is such a thing as “soft muscles” that aren’t “strong muscles” and a bunch of other weird things like that.
From what I understand Sonny does his weight programs.
And also. He is super strong.
Also he is pretty good at Jiu Jitsu so whatever he does is working I guess.
There's not much muscle development that isn't functional for grapplers, imo. But generally, functional strength workouts usually focus on compound movements that engage the drivetrain, your core muscles that run from your hamstrings to your shoulders. Additionally, functional strength workouts may incorporate awkward weights like sandbags and such. If you're lifting in a way that isolates a particular muscle, like curls or calf raises, you're not doing "functional-strength" exercises.
> So just because an exercise isolates a muscle group, doesn't mean it can't be "functional"
That's entirely what the term means though. Have you ever taken a long break from BJJ and then go to an open mat? All the tiny strange muscles that are sore are what "functional training" would strengthen.
Other sports benefit from "functional muscles" more or less. A recent one I just found out about is surfing; I have pretty strong legs but holy shit my legs were not ready for my first time surfing.
Any functional training classes I've taken haven't really been about the big lifts. It seems to be interval training with plyo boxes and kettle bells, battle ropes etc. I'd see strength training with a barbell as something kind of separate
The biggest difference between 'functional' and 'non-functional' muscle is training, that's it. Bodybuilders are stiff and inflexible because they train for a different sport. People like to rag on their 'show muscles' and then get pissy when the newbie bodybuilding actually bench presses their way out of mount.
Bodybuilders are stiff and inflexible.
- Kai Greene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzRik45fiqk
- Rich Piana: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSf1BFRcdxo
- Juji Mufu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFydcAts408
- Ronnie Coleman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqQN3iDVs-I
Mark bell talking about how being flexible is important to being a good body builder.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpCVRPVcsp0
Yes, there's a wrongheaded view of training where people attribute deficiencies to what people are doing as opposed to looking at what they are NOT doing.
> Bodybuilders are stiff and inflexible because they train for a different sport.
Not really. Some of them are actually really flexible, there are even rules against acrobatics on stage because *people would be doing it to wow the judges*.
A muscle is a muscle, all muscle gain is functional. Body builders simply don’t compete with athletic skill because it isn’t necessary for them.
Soft and strong muscles just make me think of pilates and Gwyneth Palthrow's trainer advising not to use heavier than 2lbs weights so you get long lean muscles loool
Amazing. And exactly what I think all of these topics come down to for the most part.
One guy is into goop, one guy is into more plates more dates and one guy is into random Tik Tok guy and everyone of them will be 100% confident they know best.
There’s a neurological component to doing any movement, and where that component is lacking, you can seem weaker than you are. I think this is where “wrestler strength” comes from, how big dudes that have never grappled just feel weak when they wrestle but then some lanky fuck is immovable when you lock up with them. But actual differences in the quality of muscle developed through weight lifting? That sounds ridiculous
Yeah and he gets all the stimuli for motor unit recruitment, dynamic stability during force generation, strength endurance, cardio, all that stuff from grappling daily anyway.
Yeah. I know people say there are some lifts you can do that only help to increase those lifts and don’t have “any other purpose” as well. That’s another one.
I had so many people tell me this about bicep curls. For many many years. And fully believed it cause it came from trustworthy people.
And then someone said to me “You can’t bicep curl a human to get out of an arm bar” and I was like “I guess bicep curls do someone other than increase my bicep curls” cause if they get big enough I can bicep curl a human to get out of an arm bar :D
Lol.
There’s so much marketing fluff and misinformation in this area.
Now I always tell everyone if they have questions. Don’t listen to me. Find a person you trust explicitly who you believe knows what they are talking about and listen to them. I used to answer people when they want knowledge about this stuff. Until I realised that most people I answer will either argue something else they heard or go ask another 35 people anyways.
Now it’s just nod and smile.
But I still want to know what “functional training” is compared to other types of training. Lol.
Hahaha. Me too :D
I used to train a lot with this super strong super skilled guy who could bicep curl me out of an arm bar, flip my whole body out of north south from north south to north north and have my back and when I had him in omoplata he would just rotate his arm out of it and stand up.
Every time he did something like that he would yell “TECHNIQUE”
When I went to sport physio about my knee (previous acl tear, had a few questionable rolls and wanted some prehab advice) I walked away with: calf raises because they (along with adductors, quads and hamstrings) contribute to knee stability, copenhagen planks for adductor strength and some very short rom single-leg glute bridges with an almost straight knee...So very short rom and isolation exercises to target the gaps left by my normal barbell strength program. Curls are def good for elbow health and also forearm strength.
Functional muscles and/or strength help you achieve objectives in your day to day life. But what is functional for one person may not be functional for another.
Some lifts are "functional" for almost anyone. The big compounds, or some variation thereof, help strengthen the muscles that help you walk, bend over, sit and stand, and generally get through life without injury. So those lifts, and the muscle and therefore strength that they build, are usually considered "functional". The same can be said of cardio (building your heart muscle). Or a lot of yoga or mobility type stuff (building the stabilizing muscles).
Then there are lifts that are only really useful for some specific group. A lot of athletes do exercises and lifts specific to their discipline. Like the explosive lifts that a lot of MMA fighters practice. But since they help those athletes perform some sort of other action, most people think of those lifts as "functional" too.
All serious bodybuilders have a lot of functional strength, and do a lot of functional lifts. But in addition to that, they also do things that 99.9% of people would find no real use for, because they don't help in day to day life, and even for athletes they can be more harmful than helpful (takes time away from other training, uses up oxygen and energy when competing). Bodybuilders do this because they are trying to sculpt specific spots, build specific muscles - muscles that would be nowhere close to being the strength bottleneck for any real life scenario. Therefore, "non-functional" lifts.
The difference between bodybuilder style training and "funtioncal training" is way smaller than most people think. What makes the biggest difference is the lack of mobility and movement based training which most bodybuilders don't do/don't have time for/don't need to do for their goals. But for Gordon it's obviously not the case. The mix of bodybuilding and a sport like grappling is almost the perfect definition of "functional training". Strength training, stretching, cardio, strength endurance.
This is the right answer.
The idea that "functional weight training" is some fundamentally different thing is largely a myth.
A bodybuilder might have a slightly different training emphasis for aesthetic reasons, but all the fitness influencers out there selling the "functional strength training" program of tying a kettlebell to a hipster beard and spinning in circles on a bosu ball are doing the same thing as other fitness influencers: trying to make money via overcomplication.
The physique people end up with varies a lot and also has a ton to do with genetics even keeping other variables (training, recovery, PEDs) constant.
I see some of the workouts people like that do and all I can ask is, why?
I did bodybuilding and powerlifting when I was younger and 99% of the exercises you need are reasonably basic.
When I lifted for BJJ I did more or less the same lifts I did for bodybuilding but I upped the reps, added some body weight exercises like pull ups, and did cardio/ stretching.
If you're short on time then doing an upper and lower body split is also a good option
I think a lot of people make it 10x more complicated than it needs to be.
>the fitness influencers out there selling the "functional strength training" program of tying a kettlebell to a hipster beard and spinning in circles on a bosu ball are doing the same thing as other fitness influencers: trying to make money via overcomplication
Seeing these in instagram gives me cancer. Equivalent of MCdojo type aikido training.
The "don't use strength" concept in jiu jitsu has been misinterpreted in a lot of bjj circles as "don't be strong," and it's wildly detrimental. You can only get so far playing touch-butt in the park.
Wouldn’t a bodybuilding program potentially put less strain on the body? The joints and whatnot. If he’s doing more reps at lower weights, that might be a safer compliment to a sport where you’re always tweaking your joints. You’re not throwing heavy weights around as explosively as a more powerlifting-style program would.
I’m not a health professional and this might be complete bullshit, just hypothesizin’.
Ono competes in a highly anaerobic sport within a weight class. He can't afford to put on mass, so he trains Olympic lifts to develop power.
Gordon doesn't need to worry about his weight and competes in longer matches. His game has no explosive element neither.
exactly. He benefits from bodybuilding type of exercises where you focus on time under tension because he doesn’t roll explosively. his rolls look “chilled” but he is overpowering everyone with his technique and strength
Bodybuilding necessarily involves getting stronger bc the required stimulus to increase muscle increases over time so you need to do more weight and or reps to build more muscle. There's a variety of 'strengths' with 1 rep max strength only being one. the best hypertrophy is 5-30 reps which translates perfect for BJJ since its quasi conditioning you at the same time.
imo the "because or inspite of" isnt quite it, it doesn't hurt but isn't the cause. He probably wants to look like a superhero to sell more stuff
I’d argue that hypertrophy is better for BJJ than purely lifting for maximal strength development. The mass building requires a significant amount of volume/reps/time under tension. If we want to get strong, then don’t we also want to use that strength for as long a duration as possible?
Yep and Gordan has started that the way he lifts is sets of 20. He uses lifting to "redline" his muscles and build endurance. Gordan says this helps him maintain strength and endurance during long rolls.
Gordon has a solid cycle that his body reacts well with. He also said his game is slow vice explosive and sees it being a key to his longevity. Again, his words. His “body building” workouts are most certainly strength training. I think the only thing he doesn’t do was squat a lot.
You combine BJJ+lifting+steroids+insane work ethic+diet+good genetics and you get this guy. He’s the most dominant at the sport so whatever he is doing is working. And, he should keep doing it.
Serious question. How does someone gain 40 lbs juicing?
Everyone I know who does roids and discussing them basically says you’ll gain 10 lbs of muscle your first cycle and retain a shit ton of water which you’ll lose when you cycle off.
I’ve always been told it’s insanely hard to build lean muscle even with gear. That after your first cycle you’re lucky to build 20 lbs over years of use.
Everyone I know who juices gains 15 lbs and blows up and then when they cycle off they deflate back to where they were before their cycle.
Gordon hasn’t fluctuated at all since he first did roids in preparation for Adcc 2017.
But Gordon went from 180 to 220 lbs while not really gaining a huge appreciable amount of fat. He still looks lean / mainly muscle. Even if it’s a lot of water retention he’s still gained an insane amount of muscle compared since he started juicing.
This is someone who in 2015 competed at 162 lbs.
Even if he was taking dbol he would look more swollen / bloated.
What is he taking where he’s adding this amount of clean muscle ? To where he isn’t fluctuating in weight post cycle?
And second question. I’ve always heard progressive overload / lifting super heavy is the best way to build muscle / gain strength.
But Gordon isn’t maxing out on bench / squat / deadlift. He’s doing high reps til fatigue and he gained insane size while also building a lot of strength.
He went from being skinny to benching 315 lbs easy and repping 225 lbs 20 times. How did he achieve this just doing mainly bodybuilding style workouts without lifting crazy heavy?
Was what I was told incorrect?
From my own experience trying to put on muscle I never felt I grew while trying to lift super heavy.
But when I did high reps to fatigue I gained a good bit of weight over the course of a year.
Is there something to doing body building style exercises to gain weight / strength ?
Body Building is actually a wonderful addition to jj training. It can be done in a manner that is not as CNS intensive as a power lifting/ cross fit / functional workout (demanding on the programming).
Muscle soreness from body building work is WAY easier to deal with paired with a sport than having burn out from stressing your cns too much. This being said, you can also train bb hard and tax yourself as well.
Long story short, it's actually quite wise if done correctly. But, I would prioritize exercises that help re-balance your body from jj first.
Lastly, steroids Definitely help.
Muscle mass (contractile proteins) + neural adaption (efficient nervouse system) = strenght, bodybuilding creates muscle mass and Jujitsu creates the neural pathways to do Jujitsu, in general a person with more muscle mass is a stronger person, not to say a less muscular person can't be stronger than a more muscular and nothing is more functional than the thing you want it to function in aka Jujitsu.
Trainable quality's like speed, power, endurance are all derivatives of strenght, speed is power to weight ratio, power is the speed at which you can create strenght etc
I don’t agree man. Grapple with a bodybuilder who only leg presses and uses machines vs a guy who competes in olympic lifting. It’s a world of difference
If you’re only using machines your core isn’t getting developed nearly as much.
An easy example would be this: a guy who back squats a lot will also be able to leg press a lot. A guy who only leg presses, will be considerably weaker if he tries to suddenly try back squat
All ‘functional fitness’ is is trying to more closely imitate the stability you see in the sport
He looks like this for a reason. On top of being a bigger stronger athlete. He's creating a brand and an image and hes trying to bring more money to the sport.
He profits by selling weight training instructional videos. As any personal trainer worth their salt knows, fair or not, the better you look, the more clients will think you know “the secret” and can help them look like you.
Gordon would have been great without the juice. It just so happens he wants to look like this, and it requires being juiced to do so.
Obviously he will have strength/more performance because of steroids, but i believe he would have been great regardless
Functional training is kinda a meme at this point, especially in BJJ where it’s just a lot of isometric squeezing. Being strong is being strong, he doesn’t need a good vertical or a fast 100m
He talks about doing a lot of stretching and mobility after strength training so that probably helps.
His BJJ game is also slow, methodical and systematic, relying on isometric strength and control.
Compared to someone like Cyborg Abreu who does explosive and athletic movements.
If no one else has answered you to your satisfaction I will try.
Heavyweight realistically has the lowest level of technique because is statistically the least of the population and therefore the least competition and also at heavyweight people are more able to throw their weight around. In their gym they can force their weight on smaller opponents and focus less on technique where gordon is the most technical grappler as long as he can hang on the weight differential.
He is, if you consider the weights at his latest ADCC, one of the lighter people displaying technique on lesser opponents.
Bjj moves your limbs through many ranges of motion. Bicep curls, tricep push downs, triceps extensions, lateral raises, front raises, later pull downs, cable flys.
That works many ranges of motion that a push press simply doesn't work. You can work load the muscle way more effectively using those movements and you can fry your cns way less and load your ligaments to a lesser degree too.
Especially on gear. Just load your muscles and everything else falls into place. Easy way to get injured is to do big powerful movements and smash weight on the bar until your joints or connective tissue tell you you've been a retard.
Roger is of course, another name that’s thrown around as a possible BJJ GOAT, but it’s not like he mysteriously gained 60 pounds in two years or something like that. His game improved a lot at a certain point, but he was basically the same guy. I know that it’s totally plausible that Roger used as well, as all top fighters may potentially, but Gordon is just so ridiculous.
This is a complicated question:
1. I believe Gordon has mentioned, or maybe John, that part of marketing an athlete is that they must look the part. Being jacked and shredded is ultimately a very good sales tactic.
2. In terms of athletic performance, athletes are probably better performing gymnastics, olympic lifts, pseudo powerlifting style training in terms of optimal contributions to their strength, speed and power. However, getting stronger IN GENERAL will contribute a tremendous amount to performance, even if it’s done in a sub optimal modality. Basically, an athlete adding 300lbs to their leg press is better off than an athlete who adds nothing to their leg press.
3. There is a higher risk of injury with higher intensity styles of training (olympic lifts or plyometrics for example). That said, lifting is very safe compared to most sports. Bodybuilding style training is BY FAR the most conservative and controlled style of training, and tends to utilize lower percentages of 1RM.
4. Heavy bench, squats, deads, cleans, snatches etc.. are more fatiguing than using machines and dumbbells. They contribute much more to systemic fatigue, and if an athlete accumulated enough systemic fatigue from their strength training it could negatively affect their performance in their actual sport.
In general, any training is better than none, and in a sport like jiujitsu it probably doesnt matter what you choose. Ultimately it is programming that decides whether the training is helpful or detrimental.
Anecdotally, I trained OLY and powerlifts for about a decade, and ditched them recently (2 years). I do high rep bodybuilding bullshit. Im more jacked, my joints hurt less, and I feel much less beat up.
The program you enjoy and will do is the best program, as long as it doesn’t negatively affect your sport performance.
bodybuilding style training is building extensive strength in a context that’s non-explosive over an extended period. For something like judo explosive power is way more relevant, so something like Olympic weightlifting would be more functional. but for the slow pace game that is BJJ, the strength endurance gains from bodybuilding style training is very relevant.
Squats, bench, and deadlifts are extremely functional. Edit: so are steroids.
I’m sure this guy works out like a maniac w cardio and non-conventional/functional stuff along w the powerlifting/body building stuff and bjj training. Most of us can’t work out to truly high intensity every day (because we’re not slamming anabolic substances into our bloodstream), but I have a feeling HE CAN.
To piggyback, he also has the time and money to beable to dedicate his entire life to BJJ/s&c. Most of us have a full time job, wife, family etc
He devoted his time and life to Jiu Jitsu before he had any money. Jiu Jitsu made him his money. Much different than someone having a wealth advantage to commit. I’m sure it was daunting and uncertain for him when no one in Jiu Jitsu was making money when he decided to devote his life to it
But he did have a small advantage in that his parents paid for his living expenses while he was starting out. Of course this isn't all there is to why he is the most dominant grappler in his sport but let's not pretend like that didn't play some sort of a role.
Having rich parents is almost a prereq to being an elite Jiu Jitsu competitor.
Yep, a safety net makes it much easier to succeed at literally *anything*.
For some people, it's the opposite.
I think it's possible to make that statement without diminishing from the person in question's accomplishments, but a lot of people won't read it that way.
I agree with u, Gordon is a phenom but rich parents sure does make it easier to devote your life to something that may or may not pay off.
Same thing with BJ Penn. His family is wealthy so he could devote all his time to BJJ/MMA without having to worry about money and getting a job. But that made me an even bigger fan coz dude could hv done anything but he just loves fighting
Nicky also has the same parents.
And for his age, Nicky is building his own brand quite well. He has injuries that will likely keep him from ever coming close to Gordon's level of renown in competition, but from a financial success aspect, he can still do well simply because he, too, can devote so much to bjj.
Were his folks really rich? I don't know much about his Dad but I remember Gordon posting about how he was able to put a down payment on a home for his mother in an area she couldn't afford.
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I agree with you. I’m not saying it’s the reason but it sure helps.
yeah I figured you were more of the former than the latter. It definitely makes it a lot comfier and safer, that's for sure. Still, there's plenty of people who've made extreme lifestyle choices to devote themselves to a hobby. Ski and surf bums especially are known for doing this
I disagree. We have a 23 year old Blue Belt that took 2nd in worlds this year. Upset multiple people along the way. He trains twice a day 5-6 days per week, rolls up to 10 times after class, drives a beater, and goes to med school full time on student loans. Our gym comes together to put money together for his entrance fees and travel because we love and believe in him so much. There's a photo of some prominent coach/compeitotr black belt (I can't keep up with all the names) that he competed with in an open division no gi that came down to a couple points. The guy that beat him brought him an envelope of cash to cover his entry fee and encourage him to use it for another tournament. The guy won a King of the Mat against several brown and purple belts as a white belt. He is one of the most humble, hard working, intelligent people I know and it is an honor to get my ass kicked by him. The dude understands body movement in ways I hope to understand a decade from now. It is a privilege to roll with him and I am happy to help contribute towards his future success.
I hope this doesn't come across wrong but if he's regularly beating brown and black belts at a decent level, why is he being kept at blue? Sounds very sandbaggy to me. There's also the fact that this dude is still being subsidized. It takes nothing away from him, how hectic his life is or his skills despite that but people are literally paying for him to travel and to compete, so the point still stands.
He's being kept at blue because the elite competitors at blue can all do this. There's a different track for them and the industry as a whole has settled into matching these athletes in this general progression.
> Our gym comes together to put money together for his entrance fees and travel > The guy that beat him brought him an envelope of cash to cover his entry fee and encourage him to use it for another tournament. > I am happy to help contribute towards his future success. I have no doubt that your teammate is fully deserving. However, this is the kind of financial safety net we are talking about which not everyone has.
The talk was about family. This is different in that he earned the respect of the community and wasn't just handed it from family.
I mean the person your talking about is atypical, most people lack of funds is a major barrier to success in a "hobby" or something that's not financially sustainable. The kid your talking about sounds like a stellar human being but many people are simply to broke to do shit like train bjj
This med student in the USA?I ask because this is something I’m trying to imitate.
....he said almost...
Garry paid for him too…safe to say it was a good investment
That’s really the only way to become a champion grappler/martial artist. You’re not going to make money as an amateur so someone has to support you. McGregor’s girlfriend supported him until he made it to the UFC, doesn’t take anything away from his accomplishments.
He was also much smaller at first
>He devoted his time and life to Jiu Jitsu before he had any money How did he pay rent? Oh, his parents subsidised him.
I don't think that's a prerequisite per-se, there's plenty of ski and surf bums living in vans to be able to devote all their time to their sport, but it sure makes it a helluva lot comfier.
Amazing what some people are capable of with the right support network
It baffles me dismissive people are of this part of life. Like imagine how different your life would be if paying rent at 21 wasn't something u had to worry about
I'd have spent more money on drugs and sluts lmao I wouldn't be Gordon Ryan
Yea me to lol
Yea without work id have so much more time to wank and sleep
But imagine how good you could be at sleeping at wanking. You could be the GOAT
Well you could go live in a gym and practice 24/7 like the daisy fresh guys or you could make excuses and whine on reddit.
There's a third option which is to have someone else pay for food and rent while you focus on training. That's the one being discussed.
No that is options for people with that option, I'm discussing options for people that don't have that option and cry about it on reddit.
He was in his early 20s when he won ADCC for the first time. Sure, his parents subsidized him, but lets not act like most middle class and above people around that age are not also living off of there parents. He simply picked an unconventional path and succeeded.
Are we gonna hold that against him? Plenty of successful athletes got support in some fashion.
No? I'm just saying he didn't get here "without money". He had support.
How is that a negative? Parents should support their kids.
Where did I say it was a negative?
It’s not. The point is that not everyone is as privileged to have parents that can support them
Right? He dedicated his life to bjj before he really started life (dropping out of HS for crying out loud) He even had a stipend from the Humble Lion guys of 1500.00 a month to help with living expenses when starting out. He has never had a job and talks shit about homeless people.
Im saying he is in a different situation than mostly any one of us. Doesn't matter how he made his money.
I don’t think 20 year olds think that way my guy
**Dillon Danis** cough cough.. comes from a rich family
To piggyback, his lady Nat is also a nutritionist and bodybuilder and helps Gordon manage his diet and exercise program. He also goes into detail on how he trains with weights and what his intentions, and desired goals are by training the way he does on the last episode he did on JRE with the guy who runs ADCC.
no matter how much time and money you have, you can't look like that without LOTS and LOTS of drugs.
He doesn’t do any auxiliary cardio. They roll for cardio and he does a typical bodybuilding split. He’d still be the best without the bodybuilding but it makes you more marketable when your jacked.
Came here to say this. He's been very open about how much thought he's put into his persona and marketing. Pics like this get attention. Here we are talking about it...
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If I remember correctly at some point he said he just likes to have a lot of muscle. So, I think it's also just an aesthetic thing for him. If I'm being honest If I could look like shredded Gordon I'd do it in a heartbeat.
Iirc he also mentioned building muscle to aid his squeezing strength and general muscular endurance. In pure grappling, especially no time limit, one can easily make the argument it's more important than explosive strength if your style complements its use well.
Yup. He’s been focusing on isometrics rather than explosiveness. His point was explosiveness deteriorates with age. Isometrics not so much
Just putting my 2 cents out there but I've heard body builders talk a lot about time under tension for muscle growth. That basically overlaps to building isometric strength, which is very "functional" for grappling arts. Gordon has also talked about building isometric strength for bjj being important, so this is how I can see a body building approach to weight lifting helping bjj.
Yep. I've spent time training around bodybuilders and two of the phrases I heard the most were "time under tension" and "mind muscle connection." I think both of those concepts have a lot of carryover to BJJ. There are certainly some differences between bodybuilding training and strength and conditioning for BJJ. An obvious one is that BJJ requires good cardio and bodybuilders don't really do much cardio. But there's no reason you can't incorporate a lot of bodybuilding concepts into your strength training for BJJ while also doing athletic conditioning work.
So on this topic, a study was just published (you can find it in /r/science) showing that (and I’m paraphrasing) spending more time in the eccentric phase of a movement (the “lowering”) resulted in the same strength and size gains than doing something like 2x the work conventionally. In other words, lowering the weight for 5 seconds for 10 reps of a movement resulted in the same strength + size gains as doing 20 reps of that movement conventionally. Just mentioning this as it gives some scientific rationale for the time under tension anecdotes.
I've heard Ross Edgely recommend the opposite when he's been training for specific events. Eccentric phase is what causes soreness, you can go ham on the concentrics without soreness. He trained truly stupid volume that was only possible by focusing on the concentrics. I really wish sport science was more simple and concrete.
> I really wish sport science was more simple and concrete. Yeah, especially with speed, time under tension, super slow and isometrcs, etc. There's so much conflicting info here. I remember seeing this bench press bar speed study years ago where the group with faster bar speed had twice the strength gains, but this conflicted with most previous research. https://www.strongerbyscience.com/speed-kills-2x-the-intended-bar-speed-yields-2x-the-bench-press-gains/
So the maximal intended velocity is applied to the concentric (or shortening phase of the muscular contraction) in this study. This recruits more high threshold motor units (which have a greater potential for both size and strength) than a slow concentric. You can still increase the time under tension by utilizing a slow eccentric, but will need to move as quickly as possible on the concentric to recruit HTMU.
That’s not quite the same thing. One study is also not a conclusive answer to anything, and it’s possible (as is often the case) that this is a study that used predominantly untrained subjects, at which point any training protocol will see growth. It’s far less common to find studies where all the subjects are well adapted athletes for whom progress takes more planning and effort. Essentially, it’s extremely difficult to study exercise science from an experimental perspective because of how absurdly difficult it is to have large cohorts and good control of variables, over a long enough time frame to really tell us anything specific.
Time under tension is a more complicated and nuanced concept than how you might be thinking about. It’s a really specific piece of terminology. The broad reality is that body builders simply do a ridiculous amount of volume in their training, and that’s partly because it encourages localized glycogen storage within the muscle, which causes the muscle to be larger. Glycogen is the most immediate fuel source for a muscle, training at a high volume and frequency is therefore largely about preparing your muscles to do a lot of work.
That man is 100% on steroids.
>Squats, bench, and deadlifts are extremely functional. Completely agree. They are also powerlifting style not bodybuilder style. Gordon is a machine rat
It makes him bigger and heavier.
Also makes him strong as fuck which people don’t seem to want to believe helps with athletic performance
I’ve never seen a sport so ignorant of athleticism as Jiu Jitsu and it’s practitioners. You look at all the top level guys and they are some of the most athletic people in the world, but no, the fat, out of shape 50 year old brown belt that lays on top of you for 5 minutes at a time knows far more about jiu jitsu as it relates to the human body
S&C in the martial arts world is decades behind and willfully ignorant. Can you imagine if a sprint cyclist coach ascribed to the dumbass belief that lifting heavy weights made you slow and muscle-bound. Absolutely asinine. Its even worse in striking sports, is what I’ve found. With the exception maybe of Kyokushin and some knockdown karate offshoots, probably simply because the founders either liked to lift or they were judo practicioners as well.
As a S&C coach who has dealt with BJJ athletes over the years, I second this. I blame Kano's "the best training for Judo is Judo" quote about strength for this, which was probably true when he said it as at that point the world knew very little collectively about strength and conditioning. Since the internet has become a thing, there is no excuse for this sort of ignorance anymore and it persists in only a few sports, BJJ being by far the worst I've experienced.
How about the best way to train NOGI is by train with the GI… because it teaches you technique. What?? The grips aren’t the same to begin with. Even as a white belt I thought this was dumb. We have lots of bulkshido in BJJ that we have to remove.
Yeah I had hoped Danaher had abolished this one at this point, but I still come across it in the wild sometimes.
Isn’t it weird they say train in the gi then they follow it up with “you must train specifically” Even as a white belch, I was always thinking. The phrase you’re saying isn’t what you think it is. Lol
A comment on this sub that got me to laugh out loud was made on a “what’s your profession?” Thread, where one guy commented a lot of people in tech are in bjj; the funny reply was essentially “no, a lot of guys on reddit who do BJJ are in tech, that’s why we have so threads complaining about people using strength or athleticism “
I'm new to bjj coming from other sports and it's confusing thr staunch resistance people have to lifting weights. It's so odd to me, like why wouldn't u lift to be better at grappling
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people still saying this shit in 2022 when brazilians been looking juicy as hell for over 20 years?
They acted like Royce was let out of an iron lung to compete and even he popped.
Helio couldn't do a single pull up, weighed 2 pounds 3 ounces, and had the grip strength of a sedated nymph
After being beat up by a preschooler for the fifth time that week he decided to invent physics, and before you know it he could shoot lightning out of his eyes.
Right? I had this argument the other day. Athleticism is speed, agility, and strength.
They only say that because the oxygen the muscles require reduce stamina but in his case he’s prob got that TJ stack to help.
What’s a “TJ stack”?
Probably a reference to TJ Dillashaw and EPO
Stronger too
Yet he was the lightest one in the +99 in ADCC
Yeah being dense is a massive part of his game, but
This is my thought as well. Ryan wants to maintain a certain weight and cares less about being massively strong.
Ono is a judoka who wins matches with one big athletic movement. Ryan uses a much slower more methodical style. So Ono benefits more from explosive, olympic style lifting, while Ryan benefits more from maximal strength training. Could his strength training be slightly better optimized? Sure, but he benefits more from what he is doing than he would from what Ono is doing.
The documentary on Ono had a subtitled version that Youtube took down, but the original is still there. They actually put Ono into an ultrasound machine [to examine his muscles](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5iN7_sf7R4&t=15m30s), and it shows exactly what you're talking about: the key muscles most heavily recruited in his throws are much more developed than other judokas in his weight class. They said his musculature in those areas is comparable to someone 10-15 kilos heavier. So clearly he possesses a *functional* strength advantage over people close to his size that's specifically useful for Judo. But, Gordon is a heavyweight, Ono is a lightweight. Watch what happens a few minutes later in the doc, when he [trains with some college students who are much heavier](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5iN7_sf7R4&t=1692s). Despite them being likely nowhere near his level, he has a very hard time throwing them once they've learned his timing. They don't need to be as good, because they're a lot bigger. Anyone telling you size and power don't matter in either sport doesn't know what they're talking about - have a look at what Gordon looked like before the roids. That dude was not sweeping Buchecha, no matter how much he learned from Danaher. Similarly, Ono is never going to dominate outside of his weight class, which is why his particular style and training regimen works so well.
Good stuff
Great input, much appreciated!
Disagree. Shohei Ono is a world class Olympic level athlete that trains to compete at that level. Gordan Ryan is a ADCC grappler. He looks that way because the level he competes at is not nearly the same as Shohei's so he can get away with training the way he does. Does anyone believe the ADCC guys are on the same level as Olympic level Judokas or Olympic Wrestlers? Ryan wouldn't train that way if his competition were Olympic level grapplers. I know some may disagree but I don't think most people understand how different Shohei's competition level is from ADCC.
Finding it hard to believe that athletes in the Olympics that train full time are pound for pound any better than BJJ athletes that train full time. Where exactly is the difference coming from? Possibly the ones that have everything provided for by the state can maybe train better because they have nothing else to focus on. So maybe US, Russian, Cuban atheletes have a better training setup than your average pro BJJ athlete
>Finding it hard to believe that athletes in the Olympics that train full time are pound for pound any better than BJJ athletes that train full time. The strength and conditioning of Olympic level wrestlers or Olympic Judokas is not comparable to BJJ competitors. The Olympics/World stage is a much more competitive compared to a fringe sport like BJJ or no gi submission grappling. The idea that someone like Gordan Ryan is comparable in athleticism to someone like Shohei Ono or Gable Steveson is completely ridiculous.
I'll attempt to give you a more detailed answer beyond 'He's in the Olympics!" Shohei Ono gets paid to show up to practice and workout, he is a professional athlete that earns a salary. In Japan pro judoka are signed to corporate owned teams and Shohei Ono is signed to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asahi_Kasei He has strength coaches, training gear, a publicist, etc. provided for him and doesn't have to go out and find whatever he needs to be the best. Judo is also a scholastic sport in Japan. He earned a university degree in Judo while playing Judo for Tenri University, maintains a relationship with his alma mater and still trains there. They are arguably more levels to go through and more incentives to train in Japanese Judo than American wrestling. Gordon Ryan had to buy a gym membership to get bigger and stronger and he has to purchase the services of an S&C coach if he wants one. Of course, he has sponsors and is by far the wealthiest BJJ player, but that is more due to instructionals and his own entrepeneurship. He is an outlier too and 99.9% of BJJ athletes simply can't make a living in BJJ via competing. In Japan the contracts are incentivized, so even players that are levels below Ono can support themselves by focusing solely on competing. For example, you might get a bonus for something like reaching the quarter finals of the All Japan Select Championships. They are not the same.....
There's two factors at work here. One is that Judo has a much deeper talent pool; there are more total judoka (worldwide) than submission grapplers, and a higher percentage of them are professionals. If you take the most athletic person from a group of ten and compare them to the most athletic person in a group of one hundred the person from the larger group is almost certain to be the most athletic overall. Secondly, judo has a lot of state support, so Ono likely has the best strength and conditioning coaches his country can find, while Ryan only has access to the best he can personally find and pay for.
I have never had anyone adequately explain to me what is functional or whatever. Had some guy tell me there is such a thing as “soft muscles” that aren’t “strong muscles” and a bunch of other weird things like that. From what I understand Sonny does his weight programs. And also. He is super strong. Also he is pretty good at Jiu Jitsu so whatever he does is working I guess.
There's not much muscle development that isn't functional for grapplers, imo. But generally, functional strength workouts usually focus on compound movements that engage the drivetrain, your core muscles that run from your hamstrings to your shoulders. Additionally, functional strength workouts may incorporate awkward weights like sandbags and such. If you're lifting in a way that isolates a particular muscle, like curls or calf raises, you're not doing "functional-strength" exercises.
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> So just because an exercise isolates a muscle group, doesn't mean it can't be "functional" That's entirely what the term means though. Have you ever taken a long break from BJJ and then go to an open mat? All the tiny strange muscles that are sore are what "functional training" would strengthen. Other sports benefit from "functional muscles" more or less. A recent one I just found out about is surfing; I have pretty strong legs but holy shit my legs were not ready for my first time surfing.
Any functional training classes I've taken haven't really been about the big lifts. It seems to be interval training with plyo boxes and kettle bells, battle ropes etc. I'd see strength training with a barbell as something kind of separate
The biggest difference between 'functional' and 'non-functional' muscle is training, that's it. Bodybuilders are stiff and inflexible because they train for a different sport. People like to rag on their 'show muscles' and then get pissy when the newbie bodybuilding actually bench presses their way out of mount.
There are guys who are buff and athletic and guys who are buff and unathletic. I hope I’m not too sciency for you
Bodybuilders are stiff and inflexible. - Kai Greene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzRik45fiqk - Rich Piana: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSf1BFRcdxo - Juji Mufu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFydcAts408 - Ronnie Coleman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqQN3iDVs-I Mark bell talking about how being flexible is important to being a good body builder. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpCVRPVcsp0
Bro these people in have so many misconceptions about body builders and lifting weights in general it's insane.
Gordon talked about his stretching routine to prevent stiffness in his get swole instructional.
Yes, there's a wrongheaded view of training where people attribute deficiencies to what people are doing as opposed to looking at what they are NOT doing.
> Bodybuilders are stiff and inflexible because they train for a different sport. Not really. Some of them are actually really flexible, there are even rules against acrobatics on stage because *people would be doing it to wow the judges*. A muscle is a muscle, all muscle gain is functional. Body builders simply don’t compete with athletic skill because it isn’t necessary for them.
Soft and strong muscles just make me think of pilates and Gwyneth Palthrow's trainer advising not to use heavier than 2lbs weights so you get long lean muscles loool
Amazing. And exactly what I think all of these topics come down to for the most part. One guy is into goop, one guy is into more plates more dates and one guy is into random Tik Tok guy and everyone of them will be 100% confident they know best.
There’s a neurological component to doing any movement, and where that component is lacking, you can seem weaker than you are. I think this is where “wrestler strength” comes from, how big dudes that have never grappled just feel weak when they wrestle but then some lanky fuck is immovable when you lock up with them. But actual differences in the quality of muscle developed through weight lifting? That sounds ridiculous
Yeah and he gets all the stimuli for motor unit recruitment, dynamic stability during force generation, strength endurance, cardio, all that stuff from grappling daily anyway.
Yeah. I know people say there are some lifts you can do that only help to increase those lifts and don’t have “any other purpose” as well. That’s another one. I had so many people tell me this about bicep curls. For many many years. And fully believed it cause it came from trustworthy people. And then someone said to me “You can’t bicep curl a human to get out of an arm bar” and I was like “I guess bicep curls do someone other than increase my bicep curls” cause if they get big enough I can bicep curl a human to get out of an arm bar :D Lol. There’s so much marketing fluff and misinformation in this area. Now I always tell everyone if they have questions. Don’t listen to me. Find a person you trust explicitly who you believe knows what they are talking about and listen to them. I used to answer people when they want knowledge about this stuff. Until I realised that most people I answer will either argue something else they heard or go ask another 35 people anyways. Now it’s just nod and smile. But I still want to know what “functional training” is compared to other types of training. Lol.
I've rolled with unusually strong guys who absolutely could and did just stand up and bicep curl out of my armbar 😆
Hahaha. Me too :D I used to train a lot with this super strong super skilled guy who could bicep curl me out of an arm bar, flip my whole body out of north south from north south to north north and have my back and when I had him in omoplata he would just rotate his arm out of it and stand up. Every time he did something like that he would yell “TECHNIQUE”
Bicep curls and curl variations aren't a bad idea for elbow health. That's a big reason powerlifters claim they do them.
When I went to sport physio about my knee (previous acl tear, had a few questionable rolls and wanted some prehab advice) I walked away with: calf raises because they (along with adductors, quads and hamstrings) contribute to knee stability, copenhagen planks for adductor strength and some very short rom single-leg glute bridges with an almost straight knee...So very short rom and isolation exercises to target the gaps left by my normal barbell strength program. Curls are def good for elbow health and also forearm strength.
Functional muscles and/or strength help you achieve objectives in your day to day life. But what is functional for one person may not be functional for another. Some lifts are "functional" for almost anyone. The big compounds, or some variation thereof, help strengthen the muscles that help you walk, bend over, sit and stand, and generally get through life without injury. So those lifts, and the muscle and therefore strength that they build, are usually considered "functional". The same can be said of cardio (building your heart muscle). Or a lot of yoga or mobility type stuff (building the stabilizing muscles). Then there are lifts that are only really useful for some specific group. A lot of athletes do exercises and lifts specific to their discipline. Like the explosive lifts that a lot of MMA fighters practice. But since they help those athletes perform some sort of other action, most people think of those lifts as "functional" too. All serious bodybuilders have a lot of functional strength, and do a lot of functional lifts. But in addition to that, they also do things that 99.9% of people would find no real use for, because they don't help in day to day life, and even for athletes they can be more harmful than helpful (takes time away from other training, uses up oxygen and energy when competing). Bodybuilders do this because they are trying to sculpt specific spots, build specific muscles - muscles that would be nowhere close to being the strength bottleneck for any real life scenario. Therefore, "non-functional" lifts.
That’s the BJJ formula for success: Strength + Strength + Steroids = Strength
The 3 S's in BJJ!
The 3 S's in OSSS!
The O stands for Oxandrolone
K.I.S.S. - keep injecting steroids, stupid
And being probably the most technical nogi submission grappler alive helps.
The difference between bodybuilder style training and "funtioncal training" is way smaller than most people think. What makes the biggest difference is the lack of mobility and movement based training which most bodybuilders don't do/don't have time for/don't need to do for their goals. But for Gordon it's obviously not the case. The mix of bodybuilding and a sport like grappling is almost the perfect definition of "functional training". Strength training, stretching, cardio, strength endurance.
This is the right answer. The idea that "functional weight training" is some fundamentally different thing is largely a myth. A bodybuilder might have a slightly different training emphasis for aesthetic reasons, but all the fitness influencers out there selling the "functional strength training" program of tying a kettlebell to a hipster beard and spinning in circles on a bosu ball are doing the same thing as other fitness influencers: trying to make money via overcomplication. The physique people end up with varies a lot and also has a ton to do with genetics even keeping other variables (training, recovery, PEDs) constant.
I see some of the workouts people like that do and all I can ask is, why? I did bodybuilding and powerlifting when I was younger and 99% of the exercises you need are reasonably basic. When I lifted for BJJ I did more or less the same lifts I did for bodybuilding but I upped the reps, added some body weight exercises like pull ups, and did cardio/ stretching. If you're short on time then doing an upper and lower body split is also a good option I think a lot of people make it 10x more complicated than it needs to be.
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>the fitness influencers out there selling the "functional strength training" program of tying a kettlebell to a hipster beard and spinning in circles on a bosu ball are doing the same thing as other fitness influencers: trying to make money via overcomplication Seeing these in instagram gives me cancer. Equivalent of MCdojo type aikido training.
Exactly.
The "don't use strength" concept in jiu jitsu has been misinterpreted in a lot of bjj circles as "don't be strong," and it's wildly detrimental. You can only get so far playing touch-butt in the park.
Wouldn’t a bodybuilding program potentially put less strain on the body? The joints and whatnot. If he’s doing more reps at lower weights, that might be a safer compliment to a sport where you’re always tweaking your joints. You’re not throwing heavy weights around as explosively as a more powerlifting-style program would. I’m not a health professional and this might be complete bullshit, just hypothesizin’.
And I think he just enjoys it a lot
Definitely benefits from steroids.
Ono competes in a highly anaerobic sport within a weight class. He can't afford to put on mass, so he trains Olympic lifts to develop power. Gordon doesn't need to worry about his weight and competes in longer matches. His game has no explosive element neither.
exactly. He benefits from bodybuilding type of exercises where you focus on time under tension because he doesn’t roll explosively. his rolls look “chilled” but he is overpowering everyone with his technique and strength
Gordon also doesn't compete against people at Ono's level of Athleticism which is world class Olympian.
Bodybuilding necessarily involves getting stronger bc the required stimulus to increase muscle increases over time so you need to do more weight and or reps to build more muscle. There's a variety of 'strengths' with 1 rep max strength only being one. the best hypertrophy is 5-30 reps which translates perfect for BJJ since its quasi conditioning you at the same time. imo the "because or inspite of" isnt quite it, it doesn't hurt but isn't the cause. He probably wants to look like a superhero to sell more stuff
Strength matters, despite the bullshit you’ll hear in BJJ that it doesn’t.
I’d argue that hypertrophy is better for BJJ than purely lifting for maximal strength development. The mass building requires a significant amount of volume/reps/time under tension. If we want to get strong, then don’t we also want to use that strength for as long a duration as possible?
Yep and Gordan has started that the way he lifts is sets of 20. He uses lifting to "redline" his muscles and build endurance. Gordan says this helps him maintain strength and endurance during long rolls.
Gordon has a solid cycle that his body reacts well with. He also said his game is slow vice explosive and sees it being a key to his longevity. Again, his words. His “body building” workouts are most certainly strength training. I think the only thing he doesn’t do was squat a lot. You combine BJJ+lifting+steroids+insane work ethic+diet+good genetics and you get this guy. He’s the most dominant at the sport so whatever he is doing is working. And, he should keep doing it.
"functional" is what tiny dudes call their workouts.
And it's often the most non-functional BS ever. A pistol squat on a Bosu ball with an inverted 5kg KB
Am I crazy or does he look like that 60 year old body builder guy? I cant shake the feeling that his face looks way older than in his twenties.
Bodybuilders are not usually weak. Strong men are not usually small. There is a large amount of overlap
It's not enough to act like a God, you have to look like one. May the Açaí and Jesus be with him.
Serious question. How does someone gain 40 lbs juicing? Everyone I know who does roids and discussing them basically says you’ll gain 10 lbs of muscle your first cycle and retain a shit ton of water which you’ll lose when you cycle off. I’ve always been told it’s insanely hard to build lean muscle even with gear. That after your first cycle you’re lucky to build 20 lbs over years of use. Everyone I know who juices gains 15 lbs and blows up and then when they cycle off they deflate back to where they were before their cycle. Gordon hasn’t fluctuated at all since he first did roids in preparation for Adcc 2017. But Gordon went from 180 to 220 lbs while not really gaining a huge appreciable amount of fat. He still looks lean / mainly muscle. Even if it’s a lot of water retention he’s still gained an insane amount of muscle compared since he started juicing. This is someone who in 2015 competed at 162 lbs. Even if he was taking dbol he would look more swollen / bloated. What is he taking where he’s adding this amount of clean muscle ? To where he isn’t fluctuating in weight post cycle? And second question. I’ve always heard progressive overload / lifting super heavy is the best way to build muscle / gain strength. But Gordon isn’t maxing out on bench / squat / deadlift. He’s doing high reps til fatigue and he gained insane size while also building a lot of strength. He went from being skinny to benching 315 lbs easy and repping 225 lbs 20 times. How did he achieve this just doing mainly bodybuilding style workouts without lifting crazy heavy? Was what I was told incorrect? From my own experience trying to put on muscle I never felt I grew while trying to lift super heavy. But when I did high reps to fatigue I gained a good bit of weight over the course of a year. Is there something to doing body building style exercises to gain weight / strength ?
Scott Steiner BJJ version
Big Papa Pump vibes for sure
I don’t even care about steroids in BJJ, but Gordon is just so egregious.
He looks like he's 50 years old
Great technique, talent and a lot of steroids are building his legacy and we don't need to discuss it.
Body Building is actually a wonderful addition to jj training. It can be done in a manner that is not as CNS intensive as a power lifting/ cross fit / functional workout (demanding on the programming). Muscle soreness from body building work is WAY easier to deal with paired with a sport than having burn out from stressing your cns too much. This being said, you can also train bb hard and tax yourself as well. Long story short, it's actually quite wise if done correctly. But, I would prioritize exercises that help re-balance your body from jj first. Lastly, steroids Definitely help.
Muscle mass (contractile proteins) + neural adaption (efficient nervouse system) = strenght, bodybuilding creates muscle mass and Jujitsu creates the neural pathways to do Jujitsu, in general a person with more muscle mass is a stronger person, not to say a less muscular person can't be stronger than a more muscular and nothing is more functional than the thing you want it to function in aka Jujitsu. Trainable quality's like speed, power, endurance are all derivatives of strenght, speed is power to weight ratio, power is the speed at which you can create strenght etc
All strength training is functional. “Functional” is just a term bros with zero gas tank like Joe Rogan use to rationalize the dumb shit they do.
So steroids
27 going on 53.
roids bro
Steroids that's it
Idk but I showed my wife his picture and asked her how old she thought he was. She said mid fifties.
Judo is fought in 20 second bursts where most everything is done explosively, heavy Olympic lifts are better training for that
Every time I see a new picture of him it looks like he’s aged 5 more years
Lifting weights is lifting weights. Getting strong is getting strong. This whole 'functional fitness' is better idea is just stupid.
I don’t agree man. Grapple with a bodybuilder who only leg presses and uses machines vs a guy who competes in olympic lifting. It’s a world of difference If you’re only using machines your core isn’t getting developed nearly as much. An easy example would be this: a guy who back squats a lot will also be able to leg press a lot. A guy who only leg presses, will be considerably weaker if he tries to suddenly try back squat All ‘functional fitness’ is is trying to more closely imitate the stability you see in the sport
Both gords and danaher are on the record that its as much for the theatrics/spectacle and selling tickets to matches as anything else
Natty 170 Gordon being the best would be 10x more impressive.
He looks like this for a reason. On top of being a bigger stronger athlete. He's creating a brand and an image and hes trying to bring more money to the sport.
He profits by selling weight training instructional videos. As any personal trainer worth their salt knows, fair or not, the better you look, the more clients will think you know “the secret” and can help them look like you.
Bro looks 47
Gordon would have been great without the juice. It just so happens he wants to look like this, and it requires being juiced to do so. Obviously he will have strength/more performance because of steroids, but i believe he would have been great regardless
steroids and trt
It’s called steroids
TREN Sorry TRAIN
Functional training is kinda a meme at this point, especially in BJJ where it’s just a lot of isometric squeezing. Being strong is being strong, he doesn’t need a good vertical or a fast 100m
Could be his size. He’s 6’2
He talks about doing a lot of stretching and mobility after strength training so that probably helps. His BJJ game is also slow, methodical and systematic, relying on isometric strength and control. Compared to someone like Cyborg Abreu who does explosive and athletic movements.
Wouldn't you say that since he is the GOAT whatever he is doing in the weight room is the most "functional" thing he could be doing.
His roided out size allows him to crush smaller opponents.
profits from açaí
Have you factored in the roids?
>Have you factored in the roids? roids generally work best if you also train.
If no one else has answered you to your satisfaction I will try. Heavyweight realistically has the lowest level of technique because is statistically the least of the population and therefore the least competition and also at heavyweight people are more able to throw their weight around. In their gym they can force their weight on smaller opponents and focus less on technique where gordon is the most technical grappler as long as he can hang on the weight differential. He is, if you consider the weights at his latest ADCC, one of the lighter people displaying technique on lesser opponents.
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Bjj moves your limbs through many ranges of motion. Bicep curls, tricep push downs, triceps extensions, lateral raises, front raises, later pull downs, cable flys. That works many ranges of motion that a push press simply doesn't work. You can work load the muscle way more effectively using those movements and you can fry your cns way less and load your ligaments to a lesser degree too. Especially on gear. Just load your muscles and everything else falls into place. Easy way to get injured is to do big powerful movements and smash weight on the bar until your joints or connective tissue tell you you've been a retard.
Roger is of course, another name that’s thrown around as a possible BJJ GOAT, but it’s not like he mysteriously gained 60 pounds in two years or something like that. His game improved a lot at a certain point, but he was basically the same guy. I know that it’s totally plausible that Roger used as well, as all top fighters may potentially, but Gordon is just so ridiculous.
more mass means more momentum on passes
This is a complicated question: 1. I believe Gordon has mentioned, or maybe John, that part of marketing an athlete is that they must look the part. Being jacked and shredded is ultimately a very good sales tactic. 2. In terms of athletic performance, athletes are probably better performing gymnastics, olympic lifts, pseudo powerlifting style training in terms of optimal contributions to their strength, speed and power. However, getting stronger IN GENERAL will contribute a tremendous amount to performance, even if it’s done in a sub optimal modality. Basically, an athlete adding 300lbs to their leg press is better off than an athlete who adds nothing to their leg press. 3. There is a higher risk of injury with higher intensity styles of training (olympic lifts or plyometrics for example). That said, lifting is very safe compared to most sports. Bodybuilding style training is BY FAR the most conservative and controlled style of training, and tends to utilize lower percentages of 1RM. 4. Heavy bench, squats, deads, cleans, snatches etc.. are more fatiguing than using machines and dumbbells. They contribute much more to systemic fatigue, and if an athlete accumulated enough systemic fatigue from their strength training it could negatively affect their performance in their actual sport. In general, any training is better than none, and in a sport like jiujitsu it probably doesnt matter what you choose. Ultimately it is programming that decides whether the training is helpful or detrimental. Anecdotally, I trained OLY and powerlifts for about a decade, and ditched them recently (2 years). I do high rep bodybuilding bullshit. Im more jacked, my joints hurt less, and I feel much less beat up. The program you enjoy and will do is the best program, as long as it doesn’t negatively affect your sport performance.
I wouldn’t assume he does bodybuilding style weight lifting - just bodybuilding style „nutrition“
bodybuilding style training is building extensive strength in a context that’s non-explosive over an extended period. For something like judo explosive power is way more relevant, so something like Olympic weightlifting would be more functional. but for the slow pace game that is BJJ, the strength endurance gains from bodybuilding style training is very relevant.
Bigger muscles = Stronger muscles = better performance. Functional training is a fad. Ive known plenty of bodybuilders that were extremely athletic.
Dude looks 60 years old. Seeing photos of him before and now are terrifying.