Jiu Jitsu and gymnastics training = too much?

[RatioFitness]

No worries Ratio, I'm a true ectomorph as well. Genetics determine your peak potential, and it might take a long time for you to reach it. I began pouring through journals and magazines at 17, weighing 150lbs with probably 20lbs of that being muscle! haha After 11 years of learning, dedicated exercise regimens and diets, certifications in training, a Masters in Physical Therapy, and years of jiu jitsu and boxing, I am a very lean 170lbs. I've taken on bodybuilding, powerlifting, and always competed in martial arts. Despite my knowledge in the field, and diligent and strict adherence to programs and diets, the majority of my friends would show better gains. You have to learn to accept it. It has always motivated me to work harder in the gym or the ring. I can assure you that there is a distinct advantage that you hold over others as well. My inordinately long arms might be a disadvantage in lifting and gymnastics, but they give me a great advantage in boxing, and even in jits when I learned how to adapt to them properly. It's the cards you are dealt, and now you have to push yourself as hard as you can. Let your body dictate when you have trained too much or too little. You can follow templates as guides, but if you listen to your body, it will tell you when to push it harder or hit the brakes.

I can't even get to a lean 170 (I'm 5'8")!!! I got to 172 and I was faaaaaaaat. Now I'm at 158 and probably 14% bodyfat. Any attempt to lose fat causes massive muscle and strength loss. And attempt to gain weight causes major fat gain. I've been working out for probably 14 years and either I have no idea what I'm doing or I have the worst genetics ever.

Reaching my potential is long long gone, as I am now speeding past 30.

[atxmatteo]

I'm about 5'11", so a lean 170lb leaves an athletic build. At 5'8", a lean 170lbs would be pretty solid; much bigger than me. Form follows function, and all of my time spent boxing greatly reduces my ability to retain big muscles (although I do not want to, as it is contraindicated for those later rounds in boxing). Ignore the 30 rule, as that is applicable to the body's natural production of free testosterone, outside of activity. You do not lose cell receptor ability, or have a decrease in myostatin. The athletes you hear complaining about it have generally abused anabolics, and have a resultant tandem decrease in testosterone at that age. You can still be in the best shape of your life if you tailor your workouts properly; especially if you have never really activated many target motor points.

[RatioFitness]

I'm about 5'11", so a lean 170lb leaves an athletic build. At 5'8", a lean 170lbs would be pretty solid; much bigger than me. Form follows function, and all of my time spent boxing greatly reduces my ability to retain big muscles (although I do not want to, as it is contraindicated for those later rounds in boxing). Ignore the 30 rule, as that is applicable to the body's natural production of free testosterone, outside of activity. You do not lose cell receptor ability, or have a decrease in myostatin. The athletes you hear complaining about it have generally abused anabolics, and have a resultant tandem decrease in testosterone at that age. You can still be in the best shape of your life if you tailor your workouts properly; especially if you have never really activated many target motor points.

Dude, a decrease in myostatin would cause an increase in muscle mass. I actually want to be about 163 with a six pack because I would prefer to compete in BJJ as a lightweight which is 167.5 with a gi on. I competed at this weight earlier this year at the Pan Am's but was visually small. If I weight the same with a six pack I would be more competitive.

I just don't understand how to be leaner and bigger, especially while doing BJJ at the same time. I wish there were genetics tests would could tell me whether or not I've reached my potential. If only I wasn't born so early...

[atxmatteo]

You're correct; I typed that incorrectly. Why wouldn't you want to compete at your natural weight? Also, why be bigger with a six pack, unless you compete in no-gi? Sadly, you did pick a difficult sport to accrue muscle in. The vast majority of your jits players are lean because you expend so many calories in an aerobic fashion. There is DNA testing available through skeletal tissue that can measure your GDF8 (myo) levels. Did you ever hear about the "Balco scandal" with Victor Conte? It was huge for a while. He had been testing a lot of guys for it. The tests were initially undertaken for MD and aging I believe, but several others found out about it and began replicating the process. It's still being performed by many researchers. That couldn't tell you an absolute objective number for output, but I bet it could outline a good projection. We're both in the inchoate stages of genetic manipulation and neuroscience, so we will miss out on all the fun.

Do you mix in any high intensity interval training? You spend so much time with aerobic exercise that you are really developing those slow-twitch fibers, and missing out on the fast-twitch fibers "track athlete" type of body. Did you find your way here from Crossfit, cause it has some examples of workouts that can build and burn pretty well.

[Rik de Kort]

Reaching my potential is long long gone, as I am now speeding past 30.

You tell that to Frits.

[RatioFitness]

Why wouldn't you want to compete at your natural weight?

Well, it's kind of is my natural weight but just not at the right body composition. I don't want to be a skinny fat looking weakling for my whole life. At least for some of my life I'd like to say that I was somewhat ripped. I could probably put swicheroo 15 pounds of fat for muscle. After Pan's I tried to lose weight and get down to 150, so I would be lean and then build myself back up to 163 with muscle. I got to 152 but seen drastic decrease in strength and muscle mass. I did not see much fat loss. I've now crawled back up to 158.

The next weight class down is 154 (which is your weight plus the gi). So I would need to weight about 150. Therefore, I either maintain a lower body weigh than is natural, or I keep my natural bodyweight but as a fat ass. I'm screwed unless I can figure how to weigh 163 with a six pack.

Also, why be bigger with a six pack, unless you compete in no-gi?

I don't understand the question.

Do you mix in any high intensity interval training? You spend so much time with aerobic exercise that you are really developing those slow-twitch fibers, and missing out on the fast-twitch fibers "track athlete" type of body. Did you find your way here from Crossfit, cause it has some examples of workouts that can build and burn pretty well.

No, I don't do HIIT training. I don't have the time or recovery ability to do so. I have to do strength training to keep muscle and strength best I can -I do that 2 times per week. Then I do BJJ 4 times per week. I think it would be a mistake to decrease my volume of BJJ since it's such a skill based sport. BJJ for a small guy takes a LOT out of you, unless you only train with other small guys (which I do not have the luxury of doing). Adding HIIT would just destroy me.

I have done Crossfit in the past for a good while. I did not gain any muscle from it. It's also too intense for my poor genes/recovery abilities. I don't think it's a good match for me, especially while doing BJJ at the same time.

[RatioFitness]

Here's another example of my poor genetics.

Anytime I get injured, it takes me longer to get back to where I was than the time I was injured.

For example, if I lose 3 weeks do to injury, the it will probably take me 3 months or so to get back to where I was before.

[Rik de Kort]

Here's another example of my poor genetics.

Anytime I get injured, it takes me longer to get back to where I was than the time I was injured.

For example, if I lose 3 weeks do to injury, the it will probably take me 3 months or so to get back to where I was before.

Would you please stop being such a crybaby? If anything, your 'poor genetics' should be motivating. Show us what you've got, how far you can get. Spit in the face of fate, refuse to give up!

[RatioFitness]

I train 6 days a week. What more do you want from me?

[Philip Chubb]

You can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped. It is in the attitude. Even my wife who is also an ecto and has a hyper thyroid is building up her work capacity. At this point, I'm hearing mostly just excuses here.

[Cole Dano]

Ratio you're taking a beating here.

Look, if you are serious about this,

1) start recording what you are doing so you can very accurately gauge your performance ups and downs, there is a log available here if you like, or just use a notebook.

2) look at the factors that affect your recovery particularly sleep and nutrition

3) if it is all an option, seek out a Coach who can help you put it altogether

I'm not sure how long your BJJ sessions are, or what the rest of your life is like, but it's very likely you need to have at least a couple of days a week where you do more than one session, that's just reality.

With GST work, if you follow a simplified Kilroy style template the workouts can be done in less than an hour and shouldn't be that draining. As part of the Kilroy, every fourth workout reduce volume as a deload week.

[RatioFitness]

Well, hopefully I take home a lesson from this righteous beating I am receiving.

My BJJ sessions last between 2-2.5 hours, but if I need to reduce volume for recovery is ok for me to come late or leave early.

I'll write down everything I do in the log here in case anyone wants to critique me.

[Joshua Naterman]

How much of each session is conditioning, hard rolls, and how much is no strength, pure 1/4 to 1/2 speed movement practice?

Regardless, working for that long without getting considerable extra calories during that time will definitely set you back all by itself. Combined with other training... well, it is like a second job to eat that much food.

Chances are very high that you are either not eating near enough at the right times to keep the muscle mass you build after each workout or that you are doing way too much work for the food you are eating. Depends on how you want to look at it.

[RatioFitness]

How much of each session is conditioning, hard rolls, and how much is no strength, pure 1/4 to 1/2 speed movement practice?

Regardless, working for that long without getting considerable extra calories during that time will definitely set you back all by itself. Combined with other training... well, it is like a second job to eat that much food.

Chances are very high that you are either not eating near enough at the right times to keep the muscle mass you build after each workout or that you are doing way too much work for the food you are eating. Depends on how you want to look at it.

There's not set schedule for what we do, it's impossible for me to predict what my coach will have us do and base my training around that. In general I would say there are three types of classes.

One class may go like this:

Light warm-up plus light drills for .5hr.

Technique practice (not hard) for .5hr

Hard rolling/positional for 1-1.5hr

Another class may be like this:

Light warm up for 10min

Conditioning - guard sit ups, scarecrows (really hard), ect. 30-45 min.

Hard rolling for 1-1.5hr

The last class may go like this (least used):

Light warm-up for 15min

Hard rolling for 1.5 hours

[Joshua Naterman]

One thing you can definitely count for sure is that the 1.5 hours of hard rolling is between 8 and 10 mets. That's 8-10x your resting metabolic rate for that 1.5 hours, as those are the multipliers for "vigorous martial arts" and "vigorous wrestling," so just try your best to adjust for that by getting a good bit of extra food before and after, and having a somewhat high calorie drink to sip during practice.

A situation like yours is one where mixing some coconut oil into a protein and carbohydrate mixture would be brilliant, because that won't significantly affect the rate of absorption but will give you quite a bit of calories without sitting heavy in your stomach.

I think you'll find that this helps a whole hell of a lot if you try it for a week.

Your basal requirements are around 2000 calories per day, or around 66.6 per hour when you're sleeping and 91.6 or so while you're awake. Keeping that in mind, that 91.6 gets multiplied by at least 8 for that 1.5 hours of hard rolling, and by 1.5 to adjust for the time. That gives you 91.6 x 1.5 x 8 = 1100 calories that you are burning in an hour and a half. All I can say is, you better eat or drink those calories around that time

Maybe this will help you understand why you may not be seeing the lean mass gains you hope for?

[Cole Dano]

I just sent out a newsletter, in part mentioning how I wish I knew this back when I was seriously practicing Ashtanga. I didn't eat for hours before, often spent 4 hours in the studio doing my thing, then starting to teach (or visa versa) and eat some beans and rice later in the day. No wonder I was starting to waste!

That drink during really has made a huge difference in my recovery ability, it will certainly help you as well Ratio.

[Nic Branson]

Either get used to eating and having damn near every liquid you consume contain some sort of calories or taper your workload. The advice given from Josh is excellent. Fixing your nutrition will go a long long ways. Yes it will take some work, yes it will cost some money, at some point here and there you might even get tired of eating, when you do have a bow of ice cream to break it up

Look to add in the food a bit at a time, you should start noticing a difference pretty quick.

[RatioFitness]

Much of the time we do king of the mat style training, so the amount I'm actually rolling during that time all depends on how successful I am that day. I might only be on the mat for 30 minutes over the course of an hour, for example. I actually wish we didn't do so much king of the mat and rolled the whole time, but that's irrelevant to this discussion.

[Joshua Naterman]

Much of the time we do king of the mat style training, so the amount I'm actually rolling during that time all depends on how successful I am that day. I might only be on the mat for 30 minutes over the course of an hour, for example. I actually wish we didn't do so much king of the mat and rolled the whole time, but that's irrelevant to this discussion.

That will make it much easier to eat the food lol

Be sure to adjust the time for that energy expenditure accordingly. A rough estimate will work fine.

[atxmatteo]

Coming from a hardgainer like you, I can assure you that there is NO such thing as too difficult of a type of workout due to your recovery ability. There is such a thing as not being ready for that type of exercise at the time you perform it. It sounds like you get too despondent and quit. You need to work on ramping up your intensity and getting adequate rest and nutrition. I'm assuming the first time you did jiu jitsu that you couldn't roll for 1.5 hours, so why do you think high intensity or interval training is any different? Your nutrition needs to be your cornerstone, and before you even post your workout schedule, you need to be posting what you eat and when. A lot of people talked about an integral nutrient time, which is during the activity. You will be catabolic during a long and strenuous workout, so ingest some calories. It can even be gatorade as long as you get something in. A protein shake would be great. You also made the point of losing weight, and then trying to add muscle to bring yourself back up to 170 (which by the way, could not be a natural weight for your 5'8" frame, and why you struggle with it). The bodybuilding community has this one correct: You need to gain the weight first, and then cut down. Josh mentioned earlier about how he has seen ectos gain 40lbs in 4 months with around 25lbs being muscle. Even in jits, many players take some time off of competitions to not only work on their technique, but also their body manipulation. Eat clean, but a whole lot, and put on weight that will include fat; from there, you trim the fat off to get to a lean 170lbs. It takes some time, and is not easy, but it can be done.

[Joshua Naterman]

The bodybuilding community does not have that correct. The idea of getting fatter and then leaner is counter-productive and does not work well for the vast majority of truly natural athletes because they lose too much muscle. That works well for the enhanced guys because their oral or injectable enhancements allow for nutrient repartitioning that is abnormal, meaning that it does not happen the same way in undrugged athletes. The best truly natural guys never let themselves get fat, so they never have more than 3-4% body fat to drop in a 16-20 week contest prep period, and at 7-8% in the off-season as measured by calipers that is 1 lb per month or less. Well within what can be done without losing much or any muscle, though true contest prep will usually result in some muscle loss. While either way may be acceptable for a bodybuilder whose only goal is to be a walking statue, when it comes to a performance athlete the same mindset is not smart because the performance athlete is not trying to remove every mL of fluid and fat from underneath their skin. Bodybuilding has a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong, and this is one of the things that more and more people are realizing is completely wrong.

The amount of fat I have seen gained was before I knew many of the specifics I know now, so I can do quite a bit better. Even back then, when I was cooking for my friend Andrew and we were roommates he literally got leaner as he got bigger. He only gained about 30 lbs in 4 months, but I don't think more than 4 lbs of that was fat. Even around the waist his skinny-fat pudge got smaller while his waist stayed relatively stable. He's one of the truest ectos I have ever seen. Not as good a ratio as the Drew at the gym, who as put on virtually nothing but muscle over the past 5 months or so, but he also only gained around 14 lbs in the same time.

Keep in mind, both of these guys are like 6'2-ish and started around 130 lbs. Drew is not under my direct supervision but is doing what we have discussed. Andrew was under my direct supervision and that was spring of 2006, so he and I both realize that if we had my current knowledge back then he would have done even better.

You can absolutely do a very good job of putting on muscle without the fat gain, so I do not advise the strategy of "eat lots and put on some fat too."

atxmatteo makes a good point when he says that a number of players take time off from competition in order to develop the kind of body they need for high level competition, and at times this is a great idea.

RF, if you get your calories lined up I think you will find that you probably don't need to take time off but it would probably be in your best interest to only do the hard rolling session once a week and to spend the rest of the time just doing repetitive drills. If your goal is truly to be a world-level competitor then you absolutely have to do endless repetitive drills. That's the only way you will become smooth and fast enough to keep up with other people who do the drilling. It is best to develop that NOW, because it is physique independent and is by far the most important part of BJJ. I think you already know that, I'm just putting that out there in case it isn't on the table as an idea currently. That period of primarily slow drilling is an ideal time to focus your energy on some body recomposition.

[Nic Branson]

The advice is spot on. When I was doing Muay Thai and BJJ combined the workload was very large but manageable with proper food and planning. The king of the mat type of training we did was structured differently and used for competition prep mainly. You need lots and lots of repetition, being on the ground, on your back etc need to be second nature and smooth. Practicing drills should feel effortless and naturally flow from one to the other. I had the honor to roll with Royce Gracie once and the biggest thing you noticed was the effortless smooth movement. Rolling is hard it really wears you down, learn where you can rest, how to use the minimum effort required. It also can beat you up. Plan a period of time just to drill, get healthy and develop your body, with only the occasional hard session with some one you know very well to not over due things then.

[RatioFitness]

I'd be all for that, but I have no control over things. The only control I have is to come late or leave early. Open mats 1 day per week is the only day where I truly control my training.

Also, winning the worlds wouldn't make me world class. It's just the master's division. Old men with jobs who can't train 2-3 times per day like the young kids.