Should I Taper My Training Before a Jiu Jitsu Tournament?
In recent years, the question I’ve been asked most by jiu jitsu athletes competing in all promotions, whether its IBJJF, ADCC, Grappling Industries or otherwise is:
Should I taper my training before a jiu jitsu tournament?
It’s an excellent question that can be answered a few different ways, depending on your skill level and training experience. Let’s explore…
What is a Taper (or Deload)?
Tapering, or deloading your training, refers to the strategic practice of slowing down or decreasing training, or resting entirely before an important tournament or match. You do this in order to be at your sharpest, most recovered, and most energetic state when you arrive for your first match.
It’s all based on the idea that if your body has been pushed as close to “the edge” via sport and weight room training in the lead up to your tournament, that you cannot and will not experience your “top form” unless you are properly recovered and healed from all of the training.
The way in which you would heal and recover in time for your competition would be to utilize a deload or tapering of your training.
Put even more simply: every athlete wants to be their sharpest and most ready for a tournament - not sore and fatigued.
This is why coaches, both sport and S&C, will often taper the training down over the course of the week leading up to a tournament.
In the case of athletes who have more experience, and those earning money from jiu jitsu and grappling, the longer term periodization and planning of the athlete’s training will usually have these tapers and deloads built in to their larger scale training program.
What is Periodization?
Periodization is essentially a fancy word for planning. It’s the idea and practice of managing your training load (load meaning frequency, intensity, volume in this case) to elicit predictable results. Strength and conditioning coaches love predictability. Unfortunately, it's rare to have any level of predictability because of the nature of being human and sport itself.
Assuming you take care of yourself and train in a way that promotes staying healthy, periodization in the weight room (the proper application of progressive overload, and promoting good technique) will lead to relatively predictable gains and progress in your training.
Jiu jitsu and sports more generally have a lot less predictability, which can lead to difficultly in planning for tournaments.
Big Picture, Should You Taper Before Your Next Tournament?
The answer to this question depends on the person asking, so I’ve broken down my best advice below.
Beginners in the gym and grappling novices
It’s helpful to slow down your training in the final 1-2 days before a tournament, but talk to any jiu jitsu coach and they’ll tell you some degree of continuity is best. While it doesn’t make much sense to train your hardest the day before a tournament, it may make sense to take 2 days at the most to stop, or simply drill. Therefore, you will probably be best served training relatively normally in your final week before a tournament with 1-2 days rest or reduced training intensity. Talk to your coach, and most of all, listen to them.
The gym on the other hand may need a little more of a reduction than your time on the mats, and that’s for two reasons:
You don’t want to be sore before a match that actually counts for something.
“Fatigue masks fitness,” as Charles Poliquin used to say, so don't completely smash yourself or you won’t be able to display your strength.
Therefore, take at least 2-3 days off lifting in the gym, unless you need to manage your weight for weigh-ins, in which case you’ll likely be utilizing your choice of cardio machines.
At the end of the day, the most important thing for newer competitors is to be consistent, and too much management of your training will interfere with that. Keep training minding the advice above.
Intermediate Grapplers and Gym Goers
Intermediate grapplers and people with some gym experience can also benefit from the above advice. However, that advice will change depending on how frequently you compete.
It’s at the intermediate level that I recommend athletes choose 1-2 tournaments in the year that they wish to be their absolute best for. These are the tournaments that we build your weight room periodization around and hope to have you at your absolute sharpest for. These are generally major tournaments such as IBJJF Worlds, IBJJF No-Gi Worlds, or ADCC Trials. In the case of someone who doesn’t often travel to compete, it can also be the biggest local tournament of the year where you hope to feel and perform your best.
With those 1-2 tournaments identified, you’ll want to have a qualified strength and conditioning coach work with you to peak and devise the right program for you.
Every other smaller tournament on your calendar for the year should just be treated like training. Take the necessary steps to stay ready, but do not materially alter your typical training routine much, if at all, for those smaller tournaments. 1-2 days before or you and your coach’s preference work just fine here.
Professional athletes / Highly Experienced Competitors
The professional athletes of the jiu jitsu world suffer from a problem that athletes across many other individual sports also suffer from: there is no off-season.
Over the years, this is largely due to the fact that fighters can’t turn down an opportunity to compete and get paid simply because it doesn’t vibe with their “schedule.”
Because of a lack of “off season,” athletes in jiu jitsu chronically compete and train year round, often not reducing their intensity of training at all. This leads to chronic injury management, a feeling like they’re never able to actually “peak” for a big tournament, or worse, not recovering from the last one. There is an overall chaos to their reality, and it makes periodization and self management really difficult.
For the professional or highly experienced competitor, there are two essential steps:
Hire a professional strength and conditioning coach to help you organize your year and overall body management.
Make sure this S&C coach and your jiu jitsu coach have a relationship and are able to communicate about you regularly.
The better the synergy between your jiu jitsu and strength coaches, the better you’ll be able to make sure your training time is meaningful and not redundant. At the highest levels of training, it’s most important that you are ready when you need to be, and only an outside and qualified party can help you stay conditioned while not over (or under) training you.
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In Conclusion
The simple advice I can give is the less experienced you are in jiu jitsu and competition, the shorter of a taper or deload you require to be ready for competition. Continuity generally is the best approach, with some care taken for being recovered and ready to rock on competition day.
Similarly, for the hobbyist and jiu jitsu enthusiast who competes regularly, I also recommend you only let off the gas before a tournament if it’s a major one or one that’s particularly important to you. Save a longer and more planned taper for your big tournaments.
And lastly, for the professional athletes, I recommend you take a total inventory of your training, competition and earning schedule and make the appropriate adjustments to your training before you start making wholesale changes. Sometimes doing what got you to your level is not what will keep you there. It’s these times when professional help is required.
The common thread for all athletes is to listen to your jiu jitsu coach and have a conversation with them about it.
About the Author:
Mark DiSalvo, CSCS
Mark is the founder and owner of DiSalvo Performance Training. He brings over a decade of experience training clients and athletes of all backgrounds and is the strength and conditioning coach to athletes of all levels and disciplines, from youth to professional and Olympic-level.
Mark is currently purple belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, with over 10 years of experience grappling.
A graduate of Northeastern University, he’s an NSCA Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) and Sports Performance Expert. He’s also a Steve Maxwell Certified Kettlebell Instructor (Levels 1 & 2).
You can read more about him here.