How To Do One Strength Training Session A Week For Judo

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00:00 Intro
01:20 Is training once per week useful?
01:57 Once per week for Strength
03:42 Once per week for Hypertrophy
05:00 What is the problem?
05:53 What does that session look like?
07:40 Weekly Structure
08:50 What exercises?
10:53 How to know if you are pushing Hard enough?

[Yupppi]

Thanks for addressing these difficult questions of imperfect circumstances. A lot of useful thoughts and concepts to try to adapt to your own case. Big fan of these judo/grappling videos, there's always something new to think about in them. Eventually I'll have to try the Sika combat program and probably get rekt. I got lengthy on thoughts but maybe somebody finds it useful, at least I got it off my mind.

My personal difficulty hasn't been the frequency of gym sessions - almost the opposite, I can go to the gym most of the days if I want to. My challenge has been recovering, or adjusting volume to feel decent. I eventually started training only when I felt decently energetic after judo and so far I've luckily felt better but still progressed in strength and hypertrophy. That probably depends a lot on where you are in your training age and genetic capacity. The experiments will continue, next I'll actually do the work capacity phase like you guys always suggest, to see if I'm already past expiration date on low volume and can start faster progress with volume block, perhaps more sustainable training experience as well having both gym and judo after that lighter volume block.

I approach core training so that I do it at home, usually after judo and gym, before taking a shower. You tend to have some snack for energy between and it's slightly separated from the other sessions so completing it might feel a bit easier, and it doesn't take many minutes in the end. And you could do it every day (night) if you were serious about it.

Measuring tape can be a trippy experience if you're not a big eater or track calories. I found that it's difficult to maintain weight when doing both judo and gym 3x a week without extra focus on eating, so you might just be recomping. I actually started putting mayo on things and drinking soda to get more calories without reflux over night. You can probably notice that either your bodyweight doesn't drop but you look leaner, or that the circumferences aren't changing despite bodyweight slowly going down. Or you're just getting stronger at the gym, it's not that bad of a measure of training effectively for hypertrophy. But with only 1 times a week gym training I assume you really have to be on point with your rest as in quality and quantity of sleep. You really can't afford poorly slept nights where you're hurting your gains and having the calories go to fat storages.

One surprising thing I found about weightlifting with judo is that weightlifting is about the only exercises that get your wrists and side delts challenged similar to judo (doing sets of lateral raises with dumbbells always just felt like waste of time for me, some snatching or snatch pulls made a huge difference). They're not nice body parts to feel sore on, but the experience is very similar. And despite weightlifting being much smaller weights than heavy squats, I found that amount of work to be fairly effective on quads anyway. Perhaps the demand for power did also something. From back training I'd emphasize any exercises that grow lats and lower back in particular. So probably pullups and barbell rows are high up on the list. Right there after high bar back squat. Being able to have your back upright under load or not rounding your back in more horizontal posture is a big deal. You can have a back angle in judo sometimes but the moment you create an arc from your body, you're flying.

On more of nice to have accessory side I also found some benefit from doing overhead pressing/overhead squatting even thought OHP isn't rated high in strength or hypertrophy exercises. That scapulae control comes handy in some unbalancing patterns where one hand is doing almost an uppercut to lift the partner's feet on toes. As well as shoulder external rotation ability. And you often times find yourself having to squat upright while having arms do something silly on shoulder level or above. And those strong hips can be really nice so I suppose unilateral stuff is important if you can fit it in. Bulgarian split squats and single leg rdl. And just that good internal + external hip rotation pattern. Like it's pretty terrible in uchi mata or osoto gari if you shift your hips too much to compensate standing on a single leg. If you start adding power you'll find uncomfortable ache in hip or knee very fast.

[freddurst]

Excellent video. Love your work. This was exactly what I needed and answered all the questions I had regarding S&C for judo with limited time. Thanks!

[vidchannel]

Even in a once a week 12 setup like this, would you still move from higher->lower rep sets like you would in other programs?

[froggy]

going to the gym once a week is crazy. I'd feel like throwing my money away if I'm paying a monthly subscription lol

[adriansmith]

minor quibble Judoka not Judoko :> otherwise brilliant mate

every ~4 day (heavy barbell workout) and some calisthenics (core) and sprints/ interval runnng in between, beside the mat or whateva sport specific exercise.
I'd include mix some snatches, cleans + push press/ power jerk (maybe "easy" 6-8 reps) along with deadlift, front squat... better for coordination, more fun...
You can even lift tree logs (dead lift) while interval running (I do that myself) depends on enviro (city, countryside) and "pace" - likes.

[Angellus]

I would be adding very slow, controled, mind muscle connection, very high rep, push ups, diamond push ups, split squats, calf raises, and if possible ( able to find somewhere to do them) pull ups and dips 3-4 times a week. 30 rep sets are killer if you think youre to strong for these pansy exercises, then start adding rest pause and iso holds at the end (John Medows used to do 80 rep sets of this kinda stuff). Even if your only doing a quick 2-3 sets of split squats in the morning on the edge of your bed, and 2-3 sets of push ups in the evening which takes no time, you're getting an extra 9-12 good sets of legs, chest and tri's in every week. More importantly you're triggering growth stimulus 4 times a week over distroying yourself once a week, which seems to need great genetics or gear to recover properly and keep growth stimulus going for the rest of the week