Deeply confused on a training modality for me

Hello all,

I'm very new and wanted to gather some opinions on something i've been struggling with and obsessing over, quite honestly. 

I'm a fresh white belt brazillian jiu jitsu player and i love it. So my goals are to get as strong as i can while remaining light and increase my mobility significantly. A huge concern of mine is staying injury free as herniated discs and neck injuries are a major problem in BJJ. The "structural integrity" that GST provides is really attractive to me and i've only just begun playing with the foundation one & handstand one courses.

I have an online personal trainer i've been working with for around 6 months and only just switched up my training to be more BJJ geared. The said trainer happens to be a seasoned black belt / champion as well. Here is what the recommend protocol looks like roughly:

Reverse Get-up
Sumo barbell dead lift
Weighted towel chin-ups
Single leg standing calf raise
Hanging Leg Raise
Kettlebell Swings heavy

Zercher Squats

Weighted dips

Weighted Pull ups
Neck Work 
Guard Sit ups on a heavy bag

Its pretty good and only performed a couple of times a week to prevent overtraining. 

I guess i'm just confused as to what i should do. Because of my goals, stay the course with this heavy weight work or cut the personal trainer loose and jump into GST?

I'd love to hear from some people on the benefits GST has given them over previous weight training experiences.

Apologies if what i'm asking doesn't make much sense, i'm just tired of weighing the pros and cons in my head constantly. Thanks for any help.

The program has a lot of shoulder internal rotation and zero external rotation or even horizontal pulling (eg. Rows), that may cause shoulder problems down the line. Don't really need both chin ups and pull-ups either. Also since there's already deadlifts, don't need heavy kettle bell swings, instead go for lighter for more reps and power development

i did bjj for four years, so i have some knowledge about this.

i don't think you're going to have time or energy to do bjj, the online trainer workout, and foundations.  

in my opinion, you're going to have to choose 2 out of the 3.

if you choose bjj + foundations, you might want to supplement in the neck work and additional lower body work (zercher squats and/or any other extra lower body work you'd like to do).

fyi, if you do foundations, you may need to spend a lot of time stretching outside of the official foundations workouts to pass some of the im's.

I've been doing Jiu-Jitsu for about 13 years now and recently have begun training under and become affiliated with a BJJ world champ. The truth is that most of the supplemental strength and conditioning that grapplers (even the really good ones) engage in is neither all that well thought out in the long run, nor all that well designed. Most of their performance increases come from sport specific conditioning in the form of drilling and rolling, not their supplementary strength training.

I would honestly suggest that you drop your trainer's strength program and put your effort into Foundation, it will take you further and keep you healthier.

If you still wanted to keep your online coach on as a technical advisor or to give you BJJ specific exercises (stuff like penetration steps, sit-outs, rolls, shrimps, etc...), then that could still be beneficial; but since you are training somewhere in person that might not be necessary (depending on your in person instructor).

Definitely Foundation. It's the best thing that has happen to my jiu-jitsu.

You need to add neck work and some more legs if you like. I dont.

I have gotten a little weight on but now i can truly perform. I was in too small weight class before i started foundation and dident even realise it. I had ijuries all the time.

Echo the GST + a whole lot of rolling. Gymnastics strength and more so the mobility improved my BJJ a whole lot.

Fantastic. Thanks for all of the help everyone. And for the record, i am not really looking at a strength program so that i may perform really well at BJJ. Sure, that is certainly a concern but my real goal is having a program that will get me strong everywhere so that i may reliably prevent BJJ injuries. Herniated discs and shoulder issues are scary stuff.

The mobility and strength work in foundation and handstand seems to be the most comprehensive and well rounded programming i've ever seen, so i'll do this and drop the trainer. It will save me a ton of money too!

Thanks again.

Patrick Laughlin said:

Fantastic. Thanks for all of the help everyone. And for the record, i am not really looking at a strength program so that i may perform really well at BJJ. Sure, that is certainly a concern but my real goal is having a program that will get me strong everywhere so that i may reliably prevent BJJ injuries. Herniated discs and shoulder issues are scary stuff.

 

The mobility and strength work in foundation and handstand seems to be the most comprehensive and well rounded programming i've ever seen, so i'll do this and drop the trainer. It will save me a ton of money too!

 

Thanks again.

so far from the movement families, neck conditioning isn't included. so you'll have to figure that one out

do some stretching on the side, too.  that saved my ass a lot in bjj.  (although i should have done it more).  

even if you can only stretch for 2 min. after class, i would try to get in a quick stretch or two after rolling.  static stretching is better after the workout than before