Grip strength is one thing when it comes to chokes in BJJ, but adding in some strength and conditioning exercises that prepare your hands and wrists for the very specific demands of BJJ, will go a long way in improving your chokes. Let me show you how.
Video transcript:
"[00:28] Hi Guys. Today I wanted to record a video and show you some exercises that are very specific to conditioning the wrists that are going to help you with cross chokes in Jiu Jitsu / BJJ. The reason I wanted to film this is I've been teaching cross choke from mount over the last couple of weeks and on more than one occasion a couple of students have asked me if your wrists hurt when you are trying to do the cross choke and do you have problems?
It was something that I experienced as well up through brown belt and early black belt level until, I started implementing some exercises. The really helped a condition wrists for the very specific demands that you have in Jiu Jitsu.
But, first things first. If you are performing a cross choke and it's hurting your wrists, first you need to look at your technique and the placement of the grips.
[01:17] I think also adding in some of these exercises is going to go a long way to strengthening the wrists. We talk about with the cross choke, whether you've got both hands like this, your hands like this, it's all, it's all in the wrists and the movement of the wrists that actually put the choke on, not the rest of the rest of the body. I think there are some very specific ways that you can help condition the wrist to make it a little bit easier and hopefully make you a lot more effective when you're applying these chokes in BJJ. It helped a lot with me and I'm sure it's going to help you guys. So, the first thing's first is general grip strength. I'm not going to show any exercises and we're going to put a link to a video and an article in the sea in the description below.
"[00:28] Hi Guys. Today I wanted to record a video and show you some exercises that are very specific to conditioning the wrists that are going to help you with cross chokes in Jiu Jitsu / BJJ. The reason I wanted to film this is I've been teaching cross choke from mount over the last couple of weeks and on more than one occasion a couple of students have asked me if your wrists hurt when you are trying to do the cross choke and do you have problems?
It was something that I experienced as well up through brown belt and early black belt level until, I started implementing some exercises. The really helped a condition wrists for the very specific demands that you have in Jiu Jitsu.
But, first things first. If you are performing a cross choke and it's hurting your wrists, first you need to look at your technique and the placement of the grips.
[01:17] I think also adding in some of these exercises is going to go a long way to strengthening the wrists. We talk about with the cross choke, whether you've got both hands like this, your hands like this, it's all, it's all in the wrists and the movement of the wrists that actually put the choke on, not the rest of the rest of the body. I think there are some very specific ways that you can help condition the wrist to make it a little bit easier and hopefully make you a lot more effective when you're applying these chokes in BJJ. It helped a lot with me and I'm sure it's going to help you guys. So, the first thing's first is general grip strength. I'm not going to show any exercises and we're going to put a link to a video and an article in the sea in the description below.
A great wrist strengthening exercise to help with your chokes
[02:01] It's going to talk about what I think is the best way to develop grip strength for Jiu Jitsu, but generally, if you've got better grip strength, you're gonna be able to hold on for longer. So that's one thing that you want to consider.
Specifically with the wrists, and I think the problem with a lot of grip strength training is you're going to keep your keep your wrist in a very straight position, but when you performing a cross choke, you're trying to drive through the wrist. So you need to condition your body in that way to help.
[02:43] First of all, you've probably seen this one where you put your fingers facing towards you and then you sink back and you just stay on your knees and you find your end range of motion. But you know, then you can start just dropping further and further bark. I'm putting more and more weight on your hands and eventually what I want you to try to get to is actually coming up into, into this position, and then you sink back. You put more weight on the wrists. It's partly mobility, but it's also conditioning as well. Conditioning the ligaments and tendons in the wrist, so from there, once you are able to hold a top position, then you're going to drop your knees back and you're going to work on some some pressing movements and when you can do that comfortably, then you can start going into
[03:39] full pressing movement. Next you're going to do it, but now with your fingers pointing the other way. So we'll start off in this position on gradually. You know you find your end range of motion. You sink back further and further and then you can drive your nice box so there's a little bit more weight on the wrist. And now we're going to go into a tall poles and the pricing position, but you're going to adjust your hand slightly for the purpose of the, of the this. You're going to put your fingers pointing towards each other. So when you get comfortable with the first two movements, then you're going to come up to holding that top position for, you know, 15, 20 seconds. Then you can do presses on your knees and then from there you can do full pushups. So the combination on mobility, but also strengthening the ligaments and tendons and strengthened in the hand and the real and range of motion that's going to make a to make a huge difference.
[04:43] Next I'm going to show you how to use this form roller and to help condition the wrists and you, you're probably going to look at this and think this is, you know, Jiu JItsu specific strength and conditioning gone mad.I think it works very, very well. And what you're going to do is you're going to get a foam roller and I'm doing a cross choke from mount normally. I've got one set of fingers pointing up and ride with my thumb inside, but specifically for this exercise I want both of my palms facing up. So I'm going to set up, set up biggie and then take all the slack out and practice that twisting motion of driving my wrists into the foam roller.
[05:47] So I'm not going to cover all of the specifics of proper technique. You should look that up elsewhere if you don't know it already, but it's this part of the wrist that I'm trying to drive into the carotid artery. And that's what I'm trying to do here. So I'm practicing this motion. And if you were to do this on a partner, um, and you choke is effective, you're not going to find someone tough enough where you can hold it for 10, 15, 20, 30 seconds at a time. So this is a really good way to, I think the conditions it's strengthening, but it's more think about it more as conditioning, prepare in your joints and preparing your body to go through the demands that are specific to Jiu Jitsu and I think it's a very, very good motion. And once you, once you get comfortable with doing it from say this position, then you could actually put the, put the foam roller on the floor and you know, drive into it and put all your weight into it to practice that as well.
[06:44] So nothing is going to substitute practicing a cross choke in training and working out the details. But the thing that this is a very good condition in exercise and this helped me a lot when I was having problems. First of all, when I first really got into using the cross choke from mount. This helped me a lot too to condition the wrist. So, yes it's going to strengthen the wrist, but think about a kind of conditioning, the joints, all the ligaments, the fingers, everything that needs to be involved in there. And the next exercise, and this is more of a strengthening exercise, um, it's something that I like to call a viking hold. So when we're talking about the proper wrist action for a choke, you can see I'm flexing my fingers towards the wrist.
[07:33] You're going to get a kettle bell and you're going to put it bottom up and you're going to hold it for time. And the closer your elbow is to your body, the easier it's going to be easy. You want to make it more challenging. You can bring the elbow away and you've really got to fight to hold that Kettlebell in place. Um, and in reality, when you normally do in a cross chalk, you very rarely will you hand your band like that. It's typically the risks, the risks of going to be straight to. You need to be strong in that position and be able to manage that flexion and extension of the hand in relation to the rest of. I find this to be a very, very good exercise.
[08:16] So the other exercises with, you know, the, the risk pro press apps and the, all of the stretches that we would do in and also with the foam roller in the Gi, you know, once you can get to say you know, five or 30 seconds on this, do three or four sets, maybe a few times a week, but don't, don't worry too much about trying to choke out a formula for five minutes. I think the benefit of the returns you get started diminish over time, but this is the one that over time, once you could hold it for say 20 to 30 seconds for a few sets them, you want to then increase the weight. So this is the one that's going to dry strengthened these exercises. Then the more just conditioning and getting the tendons and ligaments and everything in, in the joints, the use of the movements that you're going to be doing in BJJ.
[09:08] What I would also suggest is just to finish off then is you know, one of the more gentle stretches in this direction and also in this direction for about 30 to 60 seconds just to help loosen everything up after you'd been working in the groups. Okay. And one last point that I forgot to mention when you're doing the chokes on the foam roller, do it with both hands over and above. So if I start off with my left hand on the bottom and I do like say I do 15 to 20 seconds, I'm going to switch it over and do 15 to 20 seconds with the other arm on top as well. So you're conditioning both, both equally. So give those a go. Well guys, hopefully some some new interesting in exercises for you that and I really think it's going to help prepare that wrist joint for the demands that are put on you and you're trying to choke someone in Jiu Jitsu. Thank you."
An unconventional way to use a foam roller for BJJ
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