Building muscle and bettering your physical condition—is difficult. As a result, many people who try to do so seem to give up before they notice any concrete results. One possible way to increase your muscle mass is by doing martial arts, or specifically BJJ.
Building muscle with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is possible when combined with proper nutrition. BJJ training uses all the big muscle groups, including your chest, back, arms, shoulders, and legs. As a result, if you eat and rest correctly, you’ll be building muscle while learning the art of ground grappling.
If you don’t know, BJJ is the art of ground grappling, the most effective group of fighting techniques in the world of martial arts. As a result, you can improve your physical condition while learning how to fight fiercely – and, of course, enjoying yourself.
To build muscle, you must first learn how to eat properly for that purpose. If you don’t eat enough of the right things, you’ll end up not improving what the training has given you. As a result, you won’t see any results.
If, however, you learn how to eat for muscle mass while keeping up with your training schedule, you’ll be on your way to building muscle with BJJ.
So now that we know building muscle with BJJ is possible, let’s understand how to eat for that purpose.
Before diving in, if you want to save money by training BJJ at home, you can definitely do that. I wrote an article explaining what the best grappling dummies for your money are. I encourage you to read it, combined with an article on how to fill grappling dummies correctly.
How to eat for muscle mass
Eating properly—is truly an art. Those who’ve understood how to do it have mastered 80% of bettering their physical selves. Now, the true hard part will rise, changing your eating habits to involve healthy foods than the opposite.
Here’s how to eat for muscle mass.
To increase your muscle mass and “bulk up”, you must consume more calories than the calories you burn per day. As a result, your body will use the excess food it has in its system to build muscle after proper recovery. Of course, eating healthy will help you gain more muscle and remain healthy.
Many folks who want to build muscle mass seem to forget about healthy eating. As a result, they become less healthy, although their muscles become bigger. So, ensure you the right, healthy foods to ensure you reach your fitness goal.
Watch the following video to further learn how to eat properly for muscle growth.
Which muscles does BJJ strengthen?
All martial arts usually work on all the big muscle groups, including your chest, back, shoulders, arms, and legs. However, some don’t; for example, boxing prioritizes back and chest more than the other ones.
BJJ works and strengthens the follow muscles:
- chest
- legs
- back
- shoulders
- arms
Of course, by involving yourself in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu combined with proper recovery and nutrition, you’ll naturally see yourself improving your muscle mass.
If building muscle is your primary goal, consider combining BJJ with weight-lifting. This can be quite tricky to do without forcing your body to overtrain. Because of that, I encourage you to read another article of mine where I go into depth on how to avoid overtraining in BJJ. Do follow the link to learn all about it.
Eventually, if you decide you only want to do BJJ, it’s still a valid choice. Although you won’t maximize your muscle growth, you’ll still be seeing results – and concrete ones.
Thus, if you want to see your chest, back, arms, shoulders, and legs grow, dedicate yourself to proper nutrition combined with consistent training.
Why BJJ builds muscle?
Knowing the science behind muscle growth—is crucial if that’s your goal. Of course, you can start training and hope to see results without trying too hard. Nonetheless, you can be one of the few that knows how this works, and thus, be more motivated. So, why BJJ builds muscle?
BJJ builds muscle because it causes micro tears in your muscles after a workout. Then, when you recover by sleeping well at night, your body will fix the micro tears and build itself to be stronger. As a result, you’ll notice muscle growth by causing micro tears in your muscles; hence, hypertrophy.
Hypertrophy is the name of the process that will eventually lead to muscle growth. Essentially, hypertrophy is when you cause micro tears to your muscles – to eventually force your already existing cells to grow.
It doesn’t mean creating new cells, which is an entirely different process. But, hypertrophy means building your already existing muscle cells by causing micro tears by training them.
It all comes back to BJJ training, if you want to increase muscle growth, you must cause micro tears in your muscles. That will eventually lead to hypertrophy, which is the process of muscle growth. However, to achieve that, you must ensure you use your muscles enough to see results.
That’s why resistance training is so effective for building muscle mass. Regardless of the weight you’re lifting, you’ll naturally cause more micro tears than in any other workout. And still, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu also does the same, but modestly.
Will BJJ get you ripped?
Getting ripped is a desirable trait in both men and women. Our society embraces looking healthy. Therefore, if you can go through what most people aren’t willing to do, you’ll also look and feel better than the majority of people. Here’s why BJJ gets you ripped:
BJJ will get you ripped because it’s an intense exercise that elevates your heart rate and uses all the large muscle groups. As a result, you’ll burn more calories, which is a cornerstone in shedding excess body fat. Nonetheless, you can also build muscle with BJJ, and thus, increase your muscle mass.
Before discussing any further, I want to mention the fact that you shouldn’t shed all your excess body fat. Prior to doing so, it’ll be best if you try to build some muscle by doing BJJ and combining it with resistance training.
If you do so, you’ll both look and feel much better than if you were to be just skinny. That applies if you don’t pack as much muscle mass and are not as overweight.
The following video explains how to eat and train, increasing your size as a BJJ grappler trainee. Do consider giving it a view.
When all is said and done, you can use BJJ training and build muscle with it. Moreover, you can also cooperate resistance training, hence lifting weights, with your current grappling schedule. Both options will give you the opportunity to increase your muscle mass.
Is BJJ suitable for weight loss?
Losing weight, and thus losing excess body fat, is a highly desirable result. If you’re one of the individuals who want to experience these types of results, look no further.
BJJ is suitable for weight loss because it allows you to burn more calories than the average moderate exercise. As a result, if you’re consistent enough in your training, you’ll also burn more calories over the long-term, which will cause you to see concrete fitness results; primarily, toning down and being leaner.
Regardless of how lean you are or how many muscles you have, you can always enjoy the results BJJ grants its trainees.
More importantly, you can notice results while enjoying training. Meaning, you don’t have to worry about being bored from your current training routine, especially if it only includes weight lifting.
By doing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, you’ll allow yourself to also learn how to fight fiercely, which is its main purpose. If you don’t know, BJJ can be first traced to the samurais, who used it to ensure they know how to defend themselves if they find themselves weaponless and afoot.
Read more about the history of BJJ by following the link to an article of mine on the topic.
Final words
Doing any martial art and suddenly expecting to build your dream physique—won’t happen if you don’t further expand your knowledge on other topics. Primarily, if you don’t know how to eat and rest properly, you won’t see as many results.
BJJ is one of the best fighting styles you can learn. Moreover, it’s suitable both for muscle growth and weight loss. Thus, if you know how to combine nutrition with your current fitness goals, you’ll see concrete results—and see them fast.
Regardless of your fitness goal, if you want to feel more fulfilled, while learning to fight, while improving your physical and mental selves, don’t hesitate to begin your training. If you do so, you’ll notice results sooner than if you are to wait for the perfect opportunity, which by the way, will never come.
If you enjoyed reading this article, I recommend reading an article of mine about the physical benefits of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.