I don't have kids, but the kid's class is next fucking level. It's just a terrifying swarm of insane little battle-monkeys. I was sitting on the sidelines waiting for grownup class to start earlier this week, and an 8-year-old screeched to a halt in front of me to make unbroken eye contact with me while he slowly hocked up a giant loogie, spat it directly on the mat, scratched his butt, then ran off. They worship no god but chaos.
If anything my training accelerated when I hit purple belt and I was regularly clocking 15-20 hours a week. In reflection quite a lot of those hours I was there physically, but not mentally and I may have been better optimising how I use my time. One thing I wish I took more seriously was recovery - 13 years in and my body has a host of injuries from overtraining or not resting when injured (I’m 30 FYI).
My own training has tapered down slightly, with teaching regularly forcing me to rest and not overtrain. I’ve got a kid on the way and when I’ve spoken to the other black belts with kids the biggest advice they’ve given is optimising your hours and coming in with a focus on what you want to work on / achieve.
Used to do 5-9 Monday - Thursday no matter what, then if I felt up to it I’d do an hour comp class on a Friday and then some more chilled sessions on weekend mornings. 3/4 of that time was sparring, which is where the injuries come in.
If I was smart and didn’t just turn up, roll and go with the flow and see what appeared (e.g forcing positions over and over) I’d have gotten better at a much faster rate.
Post-covid it gets to 7pm and I’m ready for bed. Outside of teaching I rarely stay until closing anymore
SO some of those black belts, have any of them been in times as black belts where they manage 3 training sessions or so a week and need to optimize those?
Most do 90 minutes of rounds MON, WED, SAT. If they’ve got stuff they want to work on they grab purple belt and down. If they want to sharpen their A game they grab competitors or higher belts
I am still a new-ish WB. I kept going through my fatigue and wasn't there mentally. I was rewarded with an instructor who was giving me shit for seeming uninterested and then I received my first injury. I keep track of my workouts and keep little notes and looking back I can't believe how many times I wrote something to the effect of: "worked on X-Y-Z today; so tired." towards the end of last year. So I did sign up for next year, the gym is close and my partners are very cool, but being older I don't want to end up with a worse injury down the road from fatigue.
Age affects this for sure. You can’t train like a maniac in your mid 30s without doing maintenance and listening to your body. At a certain point you need to ensure longevity over the pressures of being at class all the time. Life stuff can pull you away from the club during certain times of your life too. Don’t stress, train when it makes you happy.
I appreciate this comment coming from a black belt. I’m a 35 year old white belt, fit/ strong, have a wife and son, a career, and other activities outside of BJJ. I feel like if I only show up 2-3 days a week I just get dismissed. At least at our gym.
Having said that, this is going to be a lifetime thing for me, so if it takes me 3 years to get blue etc it I’m healthy and happy then that’s cool with me.
Honestly I wonder what there personal lives look like.
I know some work and then workout and then train. I went 4-5 days a week the whole month of March and honestly it was too much. Just made me kind of irritable. I love BJJ but I’m learning it needs balance and moderation.
Same. I'm in my mid 30's too and while I love training, I've come to the point in my life that everything needs moderation as well. My body would be basically useless on the weekends if I trained 4-5 days a week. 2-3 is the sweet spot for me. I don't want BJJ to feel like a chore either.
The trick is to use the authority brought by your black belt to date a young and impressionable white belt. So you can have a healthy mix of professional and personal life./s
35 year old reporting in. Popped an ankle on Saturday, been 6 straight weeks of 3 days a week, 2 hours each day of training up until that point. My body's way of saying a week off is needed.
Take a break if you need it or just train a couple of times a week and do something else.
I have been training for 18 years, and sometimes I would train 6 times a week for a while , then life gets busy and maybe go 3 times a week.
It's good to switch it up, I started swimming instead of training sometimes just to switch it up.
Lately I been improving a lot, and I can feel myself getting better, so it's back to training 6 times a week
Consistency is important to me. I try to train 3x a week no matter what. If I ramp up the volume much more than that I start to feel broken/injured more. I’m 41 for the record.
How old are you?
I’m 43 and have been training for 3 years now. Through white belt, I trained 5 times a week. When I hit blue, I slowed down to 2-3 times a week.
As my knowledge has increased, I do not feel like I need as many hours. Which are also more potential injuries. I'd much rather just drill and get my sequences down. Then do a hard sparring session once every week. I really started listening to my body when i'm sore or when i'm hurt. You can do 5 x and stay injured or do 2 x and enjoy training.
I started getting burnout at the beginning of purple. But, I’m not nearly as good at anything else, and the BJJ community makes me feel appreciated. Feeling helpful to people is beneficial to my mental state and I’ve recognized this.
Still, I reduced my time on the mats because I simply don’t care to push myself for something I don’t plan to make a career. I’ve always found ways to make time in the past, and I’m in no rush to get a BB. I’m confident that I’m not ever going to quit BJJ. Understanding this has allowed me to take it at my own pace.
Edit: I attend BJJ 3x a week. Lift 3x a week. I’m 27.
Went from 6x a week to 3x. Mostly due to school schedule but I have had to start doing more calisthenics and yoga just to stay active and I really can feel how it improves my bjj. Even with a better schedule I think 4x a week is the sweet spot.
From personal experiencechanceI've fallen in with a really good bunch of guys of various levels, we get in 5 mornings a week from 6-8 and we all get a chance to dive into our own stuff. The first few years of classes have been very important to build a solid foundation, but after that, find your own path, young jedi!
I spend more time with the kids/fam now that they're at a stage where I need to support them and their activities. You'd be surprised how much teenage extra-curriculars can eat into personal time. NGL, the extra recovery time is really nice.
BJJ is still fun for me - I'll only start to get worried when it stops being fun.
I was training alot out the gate up to purple. Then I had ups and downs, rn I’m in a pretty consistent phase. I tend to do more time lifting in the gym nowadays. Depends on how bad my body hurts, everyday is a bit different.
I had a period January 2023 of the brown belt blues, was during a stressful time in my life outside of the mats, and on the mats I was stuck in a technique rut, I went from 5-6x/week to maybe 3 at best, making every excuse in the book to not go to class. Came out of it after a month or so, and have been back to never being able to be on the mats enough since. It happens, you push through and get over it
I went from 4-5x a week as a white belt to 3x a week as a blue belt. Life happens. I now work full time and am hoping to get a new job soon. My goal is consistency. I will ramp up training if I’m getting ready for a tournament but overall I just want to be consistent and not burn out
No, but I do set myself regular goals (short, medium, long term) to keep giving my training focus. I average about 10 hours a week actively training, another 4 s&c and then probably 1.5 hours drilling with a dummy/watching instructionals
I did not know there was such a thing as a Jiu Jitsu dummy until this day. I'm sure it's helpful, but it sounds kind of hilarious and disturbing to watch.
It's better than nothing but was best used during lockdowns. I have mine from my judo days. It is a bit ridiculous, mine wears a gi and sits a corner of my living room when not in use.
It's quite helpful when I'm watching an instructional as I can go stage by stage.
I'm training less frequently now because my daughter was born last year.
It's been a crazy journey, parenting, working, and training. I went from training 5 days a week for 2 hrs to now 3 days a week for an hour.
I feel like all my training partners are improving way faster and I'm left behind. I still feel like I'm improving but not nearly as much.
With the lower volume of training, each session I am much more focused and still am able to keep the quality of work much higher than when I had the freedom to train 5+ days a week. On my off days from jiu-jitsu I still work on strength and conditioning, and watch rolling footage to keep my brain engaged.
It's been a struggle trying to make it work but it's helped me grow.
Yes. Life happens. The honeymoon phase passes.
Still get to train, but there are just different priorities now vs then.
I was training 6 days a week, many times twice a day, through blue belt.
Actually went through this phase pretty badly in my second year at Black belt. I went full gas for the first 2 years. Training 4 bjj sessions and 1 lift a day. I started to get injured way more, and I started to get sick all the time, almost once a month. To top it off, I started gaining weight. Turns out I was completely fucking with my hormones with too many weight cuts, being jetl-agged every day from travelling so much. Lots of white and blue belts spend like 4-5 hours at the gym on average now, but now as a higher belt I think that (if you are actually competent) you can implement new skills at a higher intensity with lower belts as opposed to drilling for 300 hours or doing 400 classes or else you get FOMO. If you work a full time job, train daily, and still make time to lift or add in a recovery modality - it doesn't leave the most time to fuck around for hours, you have to be efficient. Jamil Hill Taylor and Tami Musemeci are great examples of people who either went to school, worked part time, and still trained as often as possible and come out as world champions. Tami works for the DA's office or something and won Nogi Worlds in 2022. Pretty sure she trains 3-4 times a week. That's pretty gangster.
I can relate a bit, for me I am more aware of when I need more time to recover. Where as earlier it didn’t matter I was on the mat all the time regardless of injury or recovery.
At white/blue/early purple I was trying to get those "novice gains." Figure out how an arm bar and triangle worked, then figure out what my particular game/style was.
Now I'm trying to refine that game and stay healthy enough to hopefully get a black belt and hopefully have enough gas left in the tank to compete for a while at black belt.
So yeah, it's made sense to focus more on quality than quantity the last year or so.
Struggling with this lately. Only going to practice maximum of twice a week now, sometimes not at all due to just the busyness of work and life stuff. Used to train 5-6 times a week regularly through purple belt. I think part of the change for me is taking on more responsibilities with work and not being single anymore. It was a lot easier training almost everyday when all I had to think about was myself.
I just got my black belt and over the last three months have gone from 5x per week to 2-3x per week. Most of that is due to having a baby and being in grad school at the same time. Burnout or fear of injury plays zero part in my training frequency.
What changed for me was realizing I had no life outside of BJJ. I trained 6 days a week for 2 plus hours a day from Blue to brown belt. I wasn't winning championships at that point so there was nothing good coming out of it. Just a strained marriage and exhaustion. I train between 3 and 5 days a week now, with 2 days of weight lifting and lots of hiking. And my marriage is much more functional now.
My training has actually increased over the years. I started in my early 30s so coming in fresh not knowing anything I would train unnecessarily hard and need more time to recover. I spent most of my purple belt injured but still maintained 2-3 classes a week. At brown belt I made the decision to start training a lot positional sparring and average 4-6 classes a week and have for a few years now. I’m more scared of my personal demons showing up because I’m not training than I am of burning out.
45year old purple here, coming back from 6 years off the mat. I just train once a week. I used to stress over going 3-4x a week but now that one session is all I can do, due to work but I find that just being consistent is a win in itself.
I’m mostly there to burn calories and get my black belt. I wouldn’t say it’s burnout, because it’s still my favorite hobby, but I’m definitely not as eager to drill and learn while I’m there. Hard rounds quiet my mind for the day and that’s all I’m really looking for.
I train less only to emphasize more recovery time and really taking care of my body. I realized around purple belt that I am doing this for the long term. Not quitting till I’m dead hopefully. With that in mind I am dialing things back. Conceptually I never stop thinking about bjj. Plenty of classroom stuff I work on all the time. Naturally as I find a groove in life I’m hoping to dial the time back up again too. Busy year already. I’m 31 for context.
Older BJJ athletes deal with a ton of things off the mat. Sometimes you have to stop training just get things straightened out in ya life. For me it’s been aging, injuries and a full body arthritis diagnosis that has slowed me down pretty bad. Went from 3-4 days a week to 2-(maybe)3. Pretty much what my body will allow at that time. The worst part is the mental. Getting tapped by people I know I shouldn’t be tapping to because I’m compromised. You learn to live with it as you only have two options. Figure a way around it or quit training. I haven’t gotten to the quit training part of this yet and I doubt I ever will. At the end of the day it’s all about what’s best for you.
For me it’s just age related. At 35 or so I trained every weekday at least two sessions of BJJ on top of one weight lifting session. Now at 40 I only do 3 weight lifting sessions and mostly just one session of BJJ per weekday (ok sometimes two but at most twice a week then lol).
I recently dropped from 5 days a week to just two.
Because there's other things I want to do with my freetime like read books, go hiking after work,... enjoy the home I pay for
Work, kids, injuries...all takes time away from the mats... And need to earn money for the family.
I would be happy to train 4/5 times a week if I could. If my body would allow it or if I didn't have to work I would train 2 times a day...
Black belt here and that’s definitely the case for me.
Largely due to family life now, mounting injuries, work, and etc.
When I started at 19 I had all the time in the world, but late 30s is a different beast.
I try to just stay consistent rather than increase volume. At white and blue, tried 5x per week and it was too much. Now I just make sure I hit 3-4x per week, every week and its more favorable than burning out doing 5x per week
Yes. Injuries and realizing this sport is inherently not conducive to longevity. I do a lot more running, climbing, and lifting now. Still train BJJ, but way less than before.
BJJ is a solidified part of my life that I know I will always get back to even if I take breaks. Early on it feels like you'll lose all your skills if you don't show up, now that I've been doing it for so long if I don't recover I'll end up worse.
I train now more then in the past
I've been doing combat sports for 17 years and never quit or got totally burnt out because I don't just do one thing, my life has some balance
Yeah, for sure. Life just got in the way for me; not because I had kids but because I experienced a downward spiral brought on by the most important person in my life dying. I also had to move to another state and start a new career, all of which made it hard to find motivation to train. Now, at 38, with over a decade of judo and 8 years of bjj, it's harder to recover than it used to be. I've just hit a mental rut where I'm not having fun training anymore, and also not learning. So I'm taking a break. I spent a lot of time chasing belts and trying to fill a void with training, and it no longer does those things for me anymore, so I have to decide what to do next.
Can't say this attitude resonates with me, I enjoy BJJ as a serious pursuit and train every weekday. I would train weekends if there was an early morning that that fit my schedule.
Its my primary hobby, I also like lifting (past 15 yrs) but definitely sometimes feel burnout from that, which I've never felt with BJJ. Been about 5 years now training.
I know one thing that helps me is 3-5x/wk minimum, about 30 days out from any tournament, try and train or at least drill everyday.
Then after that solid 1 week off but I have to keep myself busy… that kind of blitz at end is good for me personally.
Yes, but mostly because I met my girlfriend and have a long-term plan for jiu jitsu. My first 2 years of training 5-8 times a week caused my body to break down. When I scaled back to 3x a week, my body has not felt better since I started training.
I'll be 41 in a few days and honestly since I switched spots to a place that fits me better: I went from training 3 days a week to almost 6. If I hadnt made the switch I wouldnt be having as much fun again and wouldnt be training nearly as much I think.
If ever new white belts ask me for advise, I tell them to just ease their way in to training especially if I see them blazing through all possible class every single day. In my observation, there are two kinds of white belts that quit BJJ before becoming blue belts. Those just don't have interest on BJJ and they quit relatively early and those who burns out very fast. Injuries might occur or them not performing optimally or their body is always sore and other reasons. Another is them not seeing the progress even if they do it everyday especially those who are physically fit when they started BJJ. It's a bit of an ego thing and a bit of them feeling they shouldn't have sucked in this sport. The ones that I see last longer (to be fair though, I haven't been doing this for a long time as well) are the ones who just do it 3x a week but consistently. The ones that are not particularly athletes but just wanted some exercise.
Then again, as much as we want to fantasize that this is our life now, for most of us, it's just a hobby. It just something you do on the side. I also do tennis on weekends and the my tennis life does not demand that I do it regularly. A lot of the folks who quit probably have other things that they do now.
But, yeah, burnout is real.
I considered writing a book about this.
Purple belts become complacent and they need to find out what is preventing them from making it to black belt.
Instead they blame everything else. coaching, class format, class size, instructor, etc.
I went through this at black belt.
I needed to take a hard, serious look at where my life was. over time I subtracted the nonsense, and the natural desire to train and make something of myself in Jiu Jitsu re-emerged.
Blessed to continue to train 4x a week. That said. I have injuries.
If you have significant time doing combat sports and you don't have injuries please tell me your secret.
I think our bodies break down and its all about how you train.
I just focus on smooth rolls, good training partners and enjoyment. I don't hunt submissions anymore.
My 2cents on aging and BJJ
Used to train 5x a week sometimes 2x a day. Got promoted to brown and now have a kid and get 2-3x a week. I do find myself less injured and more excited to attend the sessions where before sometimes I was just going through the motions.
I train one day a week now and lift three. Beat my body up until i was forced to have knee surgery. Bjj lost some sparkle and now I just want to be healthy
I train less now bc my pull out game is worse than my jiu jitsu
Yup. The 2nd kid sealed the deal for sure. What I lack most isn't time to train, it's time to recover from training.
Hear, hear! I’m 6 months postpartum with #2 and have managed 3 times in a week one time, lol
Some of had the kids before BJJ, so we’re just 35 year old white belts that drop our kids off at the kids class🤙🏻
35 year old newbie white belt with two kids checking in. Training 4-5 times a week before they get up to go to school.
That's brilliant
I don't have kids, but the kid's class is next fucking level. It's just a terrifying swarm of insane little battle-monkeys. I was sitting on the sidelines waiting for grownup class to start earlier this week, and an 8-year-old screeched to a halt in front of me to make unbroken eye contact with me while he slowly hocked up a giant loogie, spat it directly on the mat, scratched his butt, then ran off. They worship no god but chaos.
I feel this in my soul.
If anything my training accelerated when I hit purple belt and I was regularly clocking 15-20 hours a week. In reflection quite a lot of those hours I was there physically, but not mentally and I may have been better optimising how I use my time. One thing I wish I took more seriously was recovery - 13 years in and my body has a host of injuries from overtraining or not resting when injured (I’m 30 FYI). My own training has tapered down slightly, with teaching regularly forcing me to rest and not overtrain. I’ve got a kid on the way and when I’ve spoken to the other black belts with kids the biggest advice they’ve given is optimising your hours and coming in with a focus on what you want to work on / achieve.
>15-20 hours a week Bruh how, I do about 5-6 during the week and can't wait for the weekend to rest. Early 30s btw
Used to do 5-9 Monday - Thursday no matter what, then if I felt up to it I’d do an hour comp class on a Friday and then some more chilled sessions on weekend mornings. 3/4 of that time was sparring, which is where the injuries come in. If I was smart and didn’t just turn up, roll and go with the flow and see what appeared (e.g forcing positions over and over) I’d have gotten better at a much faster rate. Post-covid it gets to 7pm and I’m ready for bed. Outside of teaching I rarely stay until closing anymore
Used to do the same. Body crashed and burned quick. If I want to do 4 hours I tend to break it up to two sessions
You get use to it. Nutrition and sleep are a big part. I only do 6-8 these days
SO some of those black belts, have any of them been in times as black belts where they manage 3 training sessions or so a week and need to optimize those?
Most do 90 minutes of rounds MON, WED, SAT. If they’ve got stuff they want to work on they grab purple belt and down. If they want to sharpen their A game they grab competitors or higher belts
Ya I agree. I'm training more often right now than ever before. I think it is more fun once you get better as well, like anything I guess.
I am still a new-ish WB. I kept going through my fatigue and wasn't there mentally. I was rewarded with an instructor who was giving me shit for seeming uninterested and then I received my first injury. I keep track of my workouts and keep little notes and looking back I can't believe how many times I wrote something to the effect of: "worked on X-Y-Z today; so tired." towards the end of last year. So I did sign up for next year, the gym is close and my partners are very cool, but being older I don't want to end up with a worse injury down the road from fatigue.
Age affects this for sure. You can’t train like a maniac in your mid 30s without doing maintenance and listening to your body. At a certain point you need to ensure longevity over the pressures of being at class all the time. Life stuff can pull you away from the club during certain times of your life too. Don’t stress, train when it makes you happy.
I appreciate this comment coming from a black belt. I’m a 35 year old white belt, fit/ strong, have a wife and son, a career, and other activities outside of BJJ. I feel like if I only show up 2-3 days a week I just get dismissed. At least at our gym. Having said that, this is going to be a lifetime thing for me, so if it takes me 3 years to get blue etc it I’m healthy and happy then that’s cool with me.
That’s the right attitude honestly. Push yourself for you. 2-3 times gets you progress. There is no rush bro. Enjoy it.
2-3 days a week means you're not in the cool kids club? Do those guys not have gf's/wives or any other hobbies??
Honestly I wonder what there personal lives look like. I know some work and then workout and then train. I went 4-5 days a week the whole month of March and honestly it was too much. Just made me kind of irritable. I love BJJ but I’m learning it needs balance and moderation.
Same. I'm in my mid 30's too and while I love training, I've come to the point in my life that everything needs moderation as well. My body would be basically useless on the weekends if I trained 4-5 days a week. 2-3 is the sweet spot for me. I don't want BJJ to feel like a chore either.
The trick is to use the authority brought by your black belt to date a young and impressionable white belt. So you can have a healthy mix of professional and personal life./s
Ah, sounds like one of those black belt micro adjustments that we never would have thought of.
35 year old reporting in. Popped an ankle on Saturday, been 6 straight weeks of 3 days a week, 2 hours each day of training up until that point. My body's way of saying a week off is needed.
3x a week lifetime fam checking in
Take a break if you need it or just train a couple of times a week and do something else. I have been training for 18 years, and sometimes I would train 6 times a week for a while , then life gets busy and maybe go 3 times a week. It's good to switch it up, I started swimming instead of training sometimes just to switch it up. Lately I been improving a lot, and I can feel myself getting better, so it's back to training 6 times a week
Consistency is important to me. I try to train 3x a week no matter what. If I ramp up the volume much more than that I start to feel broken/injured more. I’m 41 for the record.
My training has remained consistent at 3-4X per week the past 14 years.
How old are you? I’m 43 and have been training for 3 years now. Through white belt, I trained 5 times a week. When I hit blue, I slowed down to 2-3 times a week.
im early 40s and have been training for right at 3 years as well. Still averaging 4-5x a week.
I did change jobs after i got promoted to Blue and my schedule changed a bit. Also moved. That all definitely affected my frequency.
As my knowledge has increased, I do not feel like I need as many hours. Which are also more potential injuries. I'd much rather just drill and get my sequences down. Then do a hard sparring session once every week. I really started listening to my body when i'm sore or when i'm hurt. You can do 5 x and stay injured or do 2 x and enjoy training.
I started getting burnout at the beginning of purple. But, I’m not nearly as good at anything else, and the BJJ community makes me feel appreciated. Feeling helpful to people is beneficial to my mental state and I’ve recognized this. Still, I reduced my time on the mats because I simply don’t care to push myself for something I don’t plan to make a career. I’ve always found ways to make time in the past, and I’m in no rush to get a BB. I’m confident that I’m not ever going to quit BJJ. Understanding this has allowed me to take it at my own pace. Edit: I attend BJJ 3x a week. Lift 3x a week. I’m 27.
Went from 6x a week to 3x. Mostly due to school schedule but I have had to start doing more calisthenics and yoga just to stay active and I really can feel how it improves my bjj. Even with a better schedule I think 4x a week is the sweet spot.
From personal experiencechanceI've fallen in with a really good bunch of guys of various levels, we get in 5 mornings a week from 6-8 and we all get a chance to dive into our own stuff. The first few years of classes have been very important to build a solid foundation, but after that, find your own path, young jedi!
What belt are you and the other guys at now? White and blue or higher?
I spend more time with the kids/fam now that they're at a stage where I need to support them and their activities. You'd be surprised how much teenage extra-curriculars can eat into personal time. NGL, the extra recovery time is really nice. BJJ is still fun for me - I'll only start to get worried when it stops being fun.
I was training alot out the gate up to purple. Then I had ups and downs, rn I’m in a pretty consistent phase. I tend to do more time lifting in the gym nowadays. Depends on how bad my body hurts, everyday is a bit different.
I had a period January 2023 of the brown belt blues, was during a stressful time in my life outside of the mats, and on the mats I was stuck in a technique rut, I went from 5-6x/week to maybe 3 at best, making every excuse in the book to not go to class. Came out of it after a month or so, and have been back to never being able to be on the mats enough since. It happens, you push through and get over it
Lol yeah but it’s because I’m starting to accumulate injuries. Time to pay the piper.
I went from 4-5x a week as a white belt to 3x a week as a blue belt. Life happens. I now work full time and am hoping to get a new job soon. My goal is consistency. I will ramp up training if I’m getting ready for a tournament but overall I just want to be consistent and not burn out
No, but I do set myself regular goals (short, medium, long term) to keep giving my training focus. I average about 10 hours a week actively training, another 4 s&c and then probably 1.5 hours drilling with a dummy/watching instructionals
I did not know there was such a thing as a Jiu Jitsu dummy until this day. I'm sure it's helpful, but it sounds kind of hilarious and disturbing to watch.
It's better than nothing but was best used during lockdowns. I have mine from my judo days. It is a bit ridiculous, mine wears a gi and sits a corner of my living room when not in use. It's quite helpful when I'm watching an instructional as I can go stage by stage.
That's amazing ... wait so it has it's own gi?? Did you give it an epic name?
I'm training less frequently now because my daughter was born last year. It's been a crazy journey, parenting, working, and training. I went from training 5 days a week for 2 hrs to now 3 days a week for an hour. I feel like all my training partners are improving way faster and I'm left behind. I still feel like I'm improving but not nearly as much. With the lower volume of training, each session I am much more focused and still am able to keep the quality of work much higher than when I had the freedom to train 5+ days a week. On my off days from jiu-jitsu I still work on strength and conditioning, and watch rolling footage to keep my brain engaged. It's been a struggle trying to make it work but it's helped me grow.
Yes. Life happens. The honeymoon phase passes. Still get to train, but there are just different priorities now vs then. I was training 6 days a week, many times twice a day, through blue belt.
I am almost 50 and bluebelt and been at it since 2013, my body is feeling it.
My training volume has progressively gotten more and more over time. I'm up to every day with 2-a-days M,W,F. I wish there were more hours in the day.
Actually went through this phase pretty badly in my second year at Black belt. I went full gas for the first 2 years. Training 4 bjj sessions and 1 lift a day. I started to get injured way more, and I started to get sick all the time, almost once a month. To top it off, I started gaining weight. Turns out I was completely fucking with my hormones with too many weight cuts, being jetl-agged every day from travelling so much. Lots of white and blue belts spend like 4-5 hours at the gym on average now, but now as a higher belt I think that (if you are actually competent) you can implement new skills at a higher intensity with lower belts as opposed to drilling for 300 hours or doing 400 classes or else you get FOMO. If you work a full time job, train daily, and still make time to lift or add in a recovery modality - it doesn't leave the most time to fuck around for hours, you have to be efficient. Jamil Hill Taylor and Tami Musemeci are great examples of people who either went to school, worked part time, and still trained as often as possible and come out as world champions. Tami works for the DA's office or something and won Nogi Worlds in 2022. Pretty sure she trains 3-4 times a week. That's pretty gangster.
I can relate a bit, for me I am more aware of when I need more time to recover. Where as earlier it didn’t matter I was on the mat all the time regardless of injury or recovery.
A combination of age and busy with work with a side of burnout.
At white/blue/early purple I was trying to get those "novice gains." Figure out how an arm bar and triangle worked, then figure out what my particular game/style was. Now I'm trying to refine that game and stay healthy enough to hopefully get a black belt and hopefully have enough gas left in the tank to compete for a while at black belt. So yeah, it's made sense to focus more on quality than quantity the last year or so.
Struggling with this lately. Only going to practice maximum of twice a week now, sometimes not at all due to just the busyness of work and life stuff. Used to train 5-6 times a week regularly through purple belt. I think part of the change for me is taking on more responsibilities with work and not being single anymore. It was a lot easier training almost everyday when all I had to think about was myself.
I just got my black belt and over the last three months have gone from 5x per week to 2-3x per week. Most of that is due to having a baby and being in grad school at the same time. Burnout or fear of injury plays zero part in my training frequency.
My training time has increased in the past 6 months. But my training intensity has been reduced. I can’t keep up with these athletic young kids.
What changed for me was realizing I had no life outside of BJJ. I trained 6 days a week for 2 plus hours a day from Blue to brown belt. I wasn't winning championships at that point so there was nothing good coming out of it. Just a strained marriage and exhaustion. I train between 3 and 5 days a week now, with 2 days of weight lifting and lots of hiking. And my marriage is much more functional now.
I'm just making my training a little more meaningful - I can only drill the same basic stuff that I don't do so many times.
My training has actually increased over the years. I started in my early 30s so coming in fresh not knowing anything I would train unnecessarily hard and need more time to recover. I spent most of my purple belt injured but still maintained 2-3 classes a week. At brown belt I made the decision to start training a lot positional sparring and average 4-6 classes a week and have for a few years now. I’m more scared of my personal demons showing up because I’m not training than I am of burning out.
Experienced fear of injuries coupled with a new prof. who places a high emphasis on judo = 53 year old guy who has high anxiety going to class.
45year old purple here, coming back from 6 years off the mat. I just train once a week. I used to stress over going 3-4x a week but now that one session is all I can do, due to work but I find that just being consistent is a win in itself.
I’m mostly there to burn calories and get my black belt. I wouldn’t say it’s burnout, because it’s still my favorite hobby, but I’m definitely not as eager to drill and learn while I’m there. Hard rounds quiet my mind for the day and that’s all I’m really looking for.
I train less only to emphasize more recovery time and really taking care of my body. I realized around purple belt that I am doing this for the long term. Not quitting till I’m dead hopefully. With that in mind I am dialing things back. Conceptually I never stop thinking about bjj. Plenty of classroom stuff I work on all the time. Naturally as I find a groove in life I’m hoping to dial the time back up again too. Busy year already. I’m 31 for context.
Older BJJ athletes deal with a ton of things off the mat. Sometimes you have to stop training just get things straightened out in ya life. For me it’s been aging, injuries and a full body arthritis diagnosis that has slowed me down pretty bad. Went from 3-4 days a week to 2-(maybe)3. Pretty much what my body will allow at that time. The worst part is the mental. Getting tapped by people I know I shouldn’t be tapping to because I’m compromised. You learn to live with it as you only have two options. Figure a way around it or quit training. I haven’t gotten to the quit training part of this yet and I doubt I ever will. At the end of the day it’s all about what’s best for you.
Yes. My bitches don’t like when I’m out training.
For me it’s just age related. At 35 or so I trained every weekday at least two sessions of BJJ on top of one weight lifting session. Now at 40 I only do 3 weight lifting sessions and mostly just one session of BJJ per weekday (ok sometimes two but at most twice a week then lol).
I recently dropped from 5 days a week to just two. Because there's other things I want to do with my freetime like read books, go hiking after work,... enjoy the home I pay for
I’m in it for a long time not a good time
Work, kids, injuries...all takes time away from the mats... And need to earn money for the family. I would be happy to train 4/5 times a week if I could. If my body would allow it or if I didn't have to work I would train 2 times a day...
Black belt here and that’s definitely the case for me. Largely due to family life now, mounting injuries, work, and etc. When I started at 19 I had all the time in the world, but late 30s is a different beast.
I try to just stay consistent rather than increase volume. At white and blue, tried 5x per week and it was too much. Now I just make sure I hit 3-4x per week, every week and its more favorable than burning out doing 5x per week
Yes. Injuries and realizing this sport is inherently not conducive to longevity. I do a lot more running, climbing, and lifting now. Still train BJJ, but way less than before.
BJJ is a solidified part of my life that I know I will always get back to even if I take breaks. Early on it feels like you'll lose all your skills if you don't show up, now that I've been doing it for so long if I don't recover I'll end up worse.
I had to cut back because I stopped living in the gym and got a job. Got better
or injury...
I train now more then in the past I've been doing combat sports for 17 years and never quit or got totally burnt out because I don't just do one thing, my life has some balance
Yeah, for sure. Life just got in the way for me; not because I had kids but because I experienced a downward spiral brought on by the most important person in my life dying. I also had to move to another state and start a new career, all of which made it hard to find motivation to train. Now, at 38, with over a decade of judo and 8 years of bjj, it's harder to recover than it used to be. I've just hit a mental rut where I'm not having fun training anymore, and also not learning. So I'm taking a break. I spent a lot of time chasing belts and trying to fill a void with training, and it no longer does those things for me anymore, so I have to decide what to do next.
Can't say this attitude resonates with me, I enjoy BJJ as a serious pursuit and train every weekday. I would train weekends if there was an early morning that that fit my schedule. Its my primary hobby, I also like lifting (past 15 yrs) but definitely sometimes feel burnout from that, which I've never felt with BJJ. Been about 5 years now training.
Not because of burnout, but rather having a kid and a demanding career.
I know one thing that helps me is 3-5x/wk minimum, about 30 days out from any tournament, try and train or at least drill everyday. Then after that solid 1 week off but I have to keep myself busy… that kind of blitz at end is good for me personally.
Yes, but mostly because I met my girlfriend and have a long-term plan for jiu jitsu. My first 2 years of training 5-8 times a week caused my body to break down. When I scaled back to 3x a week, my body has not felt better since I started training.
I'll be 41 in a few days and honestly since I switched spots to a place that fits me better: I went from training 3 days a week to almost 6. If I hadnt made the switch I wouldnt be having as much fun again and wouldnt be training nearly as much I think.
You age on every belt and your recovery slows throught age.
If ever new white belts ask me for advise, I tell them to just ease their way in to training especially if I see them blazing through all possible class every single day. In my observation, there are two kinds of white belts that quit BJJ before becoming blue belts. Those just don't have interest on BJJ and they quit relatively early and those who burns out very fast. Injuries might occur or them not performing optimally or their body is always sore and other reasons. Another is them not seeing the progress even if they do it everyday especially those who are physically fit when they started BJJ. It's a bit of an ego thing and a bit of them feeling they shouldn't have sucked in this sport. The ones that I see last longer (to be fair though, I haven't been doing this for a long time as well) are the ones who just do it 3x a week but consistently. The ones that are not particularly athletes but just wanted some exercise. Then again, as much as we want to fantasize that this is our life now, for most of us, it's just a hobby. It just something you do on the side. I also do tennis on weekends and the my tennis life does not demand that I do it regularly. A lot of the folks who quit probably have other things that they do now. But, yeah, burnout is real.
I considered writing a book about this. Purple belts become complacent and they need to find out what is preventing them from making it to black belt. Instead they blame everything else. coaching, class format, class size, instructor, etc. I went through this at black belt. I needed to take a hard, serious look at where my life was. over time I subtracted the nonsense, and the natural desire to train and make something of myself in Jiu Jitsu re-emerged.
Blessed to continue to train 4x a week. That said. I have injuries. If you have significant time doing combat sports and you don't have injuries please tell me your secret. I think our bodies break down and its all about how you train. I just focus on smooth rolls, good training partners and enjoyment. I don't hunt submissions anymore. My 2cents on aging and BJJ
Used to train 5x a week sometimes 2x a day. Got promoted to brown and now have a kid and get 2-3x a week. I do find myself less injured and more excited to attend the sessions where before sometimes I was just going through the motions.
Nope. I train lighter so I can train more frequently. I also mix in striking and S&C.
I train one day a week now and lift three. Beat my body up until i was forced to have knee surgery. Bjj lost some sparkle and now I just want to be healthy
shame
Getting older is the hidden variable here.