Strength training for BJJ/ GRAPPLING

December 2, 2025

Strength training for BJJ/ GRAPPLING

Strength training for BJJ or grappling must be specifically built for these sports.
If it isn’t, athletes often end up feeling slower, stiffer, more fatigued, and even more prone to injury. This is exactly why many people try lifting, only to quit after a few weeks because they feel it’s “making their jiu-jitsu worse.”

The truth is simple:
Strength training should support your grappling, not fight against it.

In this article, our team of specialists coaches who work with athletes competing in the UFC, Oktagon, KSW, as well as grapplers preparing for the biggest IBJJF and ADCC events will break down what good strength training should look like for combat-sport athletes.

Whether you’re a complete beginner, a recreational grappler training 2–3 times a week, or someone pushing toward higher-level competitions…
this guide will help you understand how to lift in a way that actually improves your performance on the mats.

Does lifting weights help with BJJ?

Yes, every person who trains BJJ should lift weights.

Strength training not only boosts your performance on the mats but also protects your body from injuries and improves your overall quality of life outside the gym.

BJJ is one of the most technical sports in the world, but you still need strength to execute technique.

Technique is the foundation, but technique without strength is harder to apply, especially against bigger, heavier, or more explosive opponents. When two athletes have a similar technical level, the stronger one almost always has the advantage.

Strength makes everything easier:

keeping balance,
holding positions,
finishing takedowns,
maintaining pressure,
controlling scrambles,
defending submissions.

And here’s something many grapplers don’t realize: improving your strength actually improves your conditioning.

A simple example:

Athlete A can squat or deadlift 160 kg easily.
Athlete B maxes out around 80 kg.

If both of them need to lift an 80 kg opponent during a scramble, a sweep, or a takedown:

For Athlete A, 80 kg is only 50% of his max → low fatigue.
For Athlete B, 80 kg is 100% of his max → huge fatigue, spike in heart rate, and faster exhaustion.

That’s why stronger athletes gas out slower, even if they don’t explicitly train more conditioning.

Strength supports technique.
Strength supports cardio.
Strength supports longevity.

Lifting weights is one of the best things you can do if you want to progress faster in BJJ.

How Many Days a Week Should I Lift for BJJ?

It depends on your goals and your schedule, but for most grapplers, 2–3 strength sessions per week are more than enough.

You don’t need to train like a powerlifter to get stronger for BJJ. What matters is consistency, good exercise selection, and recovery.

If your time is limited and you can’t fit 2–3 lifting sessions on top of your BJJ classes, even one strength session per week is still far better than doing nothing.

One well-structured workout can improve your stability, power, and resistance to injuries.

Another simple option:
If your BJJ academy has a gym area, you can perform a short strength session right after your BJJ class. Combining mat time with a quick lifting session (30-45 minutes) is a great way to build strength without adding extra trips to the gym.

In the next part of this blog, we’ll explain exactly how to combine BJJ and strength training so you build power without burning out.

How to build strength?

Let’s talk about how many repetitions you should perform per set if your goal is to build real strength.

This will be a very simplified explanation a basic introduction, because in reality, the ideal rep range depends on several other factors:

rest periods,
RIR (Reps In Reserve),
tempo,
TUT (Time Under Tension),
your BJJ training load,
and your overall fatigue.

But to avoid overcomplicating things, let’s start with the simplest variable: the number of reps per set.

From a physiological perspective, strength is best developed in lower rep ranges, because they allow you to lift heavier loads and create the neural adaptations required for power and maximal force production.

In general:

1–3 reps → maximal strength & power
4–6 reps → strength development
6–8 reps → strength with some hypertrophy
8–12 reps → hypertrophy (muscle building)
12+ reps → muscular endurance

For most BJJ athletes, the sweet spot for building usable strength is usually 3–6 reps per set, especially in the main lifts the primary compound exercises that target large muscle groups and have the highest impact on overall strength (such as squats, deadlifts, presses, rows, etc.)

What is the best lift for BJJ/ Grappling?

It’s actually difficult to point to one “best” lift or even a small group of lifts for BJJ or grappling. However, there are several fundamental exercises that should almost always appear in a well-designed strength plan. These include:

Bench Press
Deadlift
Squat
Pull-Ups
Rows
Hip Thrust

These lifts can be performed in many variations depending on your needs: different equipment (barbell, dumbbells, kettlebells), single-leg or unilateral versions, tempo changes, pauses, or different ranges of motion.

On top of the main lifts, there is a huge category of accessory exercises that support weak links, improve joint health, and help with injury prevention or rehabilitation. These can (and should) be adjusted based on the individual athlete their mobility, previous injuries, training experience, and game style.

So the best answer to “What are the best exercises for BJJ?” is:

it depends.

It depends on your level, your goals, your weak points, your injury history, and how many times per week you train on the mats. There is no one universal list only good principles and proper individualization.

How to balance BJJ and weightlifting?

Before you even think about planning your week, you must first decide what your current priority is.
If your main focus right now is BJJ drilling, sparring, preparing for competition then strength training should support your mat performance, not destroy it. This is something many athletes and even coaches forget. They chase numbers in the gym without considering that the next day they still have to train on the mats.

On the other hand, if you’re in the off-season and your main goal is to build strength, then it’s perfectly fine if your weightlifting sessions are harder than your BJJ training. Priorities dictate structure.

We’ve seen countless examples of S&C coaches bragging on Instagram about their athletes hitting new PRs… yet those same athletes were exhausted, slow, or constantly injured during BJJ training because their bodies were simply overloaded.
Strong numbers don’t matter if you can’t perform on the mats.

Books will tell you that each muscle group ideally needs 48–72 hours of recovery.
In a perfect world, that’s true but real life is rarely perfect. Most people have jobs, family, and limited training time. That’s why you need simple, practical rules.

The most important one:

Always leave at least one day between strength sessions.

For example:

Monday- BJJ
Tuesday- Strength
Wednesday- BJJ
Thursday- Strength
Friday- BJJ or rest

But this only works if your priorities are aligned.

If BJJ is your main goal, avoid doing your heaviest lifting (like squats or deadlifts) on Monday or Tuesday. Why? Because your muscles, nervous system, and joints won’t recover fast enough, and your Tuesday/Wednesday BJJ sessions will suffer.

This is the question most people ask:

“But if I put heavy squats at the end of the week, I won’t have the strength to lift heavy!”

Yes, and that’s perfectly fine.
Your goal is not to hit lifetime PRs.
Your goal is to become stronger for BJJ, not stronger for powerlifting.

If you had hard sparring rounds earlier in the week, of course your lifting numbers will be lower. That’s normal, and it’s exactly how it should be when BJJ is the priority.

If your Monday and Wednesday BJJ sessions are extremely hard (lots of sparring), then your Tuesday strength session cannot be very heavy.
Same for Thursday.

You always have to balance the stress between the mats and the gym.

This is where periodization becomes very useful organizing training loads across the week so you’re not destroying yourself every day.
We’ll cover this in detail in the next sections of the blog, because it’s a much deeper topic.