Lower body progress

Hello all,

 

Apologies if this is something thats been asked ad nausea. I just started out on Foundation One and Handstand One and i'm loving it. My primary decision for getting into this is something of an experiment to see if it helps my BJJ game more than typical heavy weight training.

 

Question is: i understand a great deal of what i'll be getting into here is upper body work. Should i also supplement with compound lifts for my lower body or is the foundation & handstand series sufficient for building lower strength?

 

I'm sure no one will reply that their legs have atrophied to sticks! I'm curious to hear what your strategies are concerning this.

 

Thanks.

There is a lot of mobility work in Foundation for the legs. Also exercises to strengthen the connective tissue. There are numerous people here do supliment with extra leg work. Some Olympic lift, I add front squats and dead lifts. A warning though dead lifts trashed my sl progress, the trade off is worth it to me though because the deads help me at work. Also coach has said unless your legs can hanlde all of the mobility and strength exercises in the foundation series it wouldn't make sense to load a bar on your back. So.... do what you will but it's a risk vs. Reward situation.

I sometimes test my progress by using the compound lifts (squat, deadlift, bench press). All of my lifts have increased by only sticking to F1 and H1. The only observation I can make for the squat is that the weight feels heavy. When I would regularly lift weights they didn't feel as if the load was heavy. I guess that is my CNS getting used to the load.

Hmmm not sure I communicated that well!

If BJJ is your sport than gymnastics will definitely benefit you more than weight training. Especially mobility part. I was always wondering as part of my judo training we spent hours doing gymnastics drills and used kettlebell daily but BJJ teachers in many places completely ignore this very important part.