11 Incredible Fitness And Mental Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Health Benefits That You Should Know
In this article we are exploring some of the most important fitness and mental brazilian jiu jitsu health benefits. More specifically eleven of them. The article on brazilian jiu jitsu health benefits is written by one of our contributors. If you want to contribute a well researched article like this one, contact us here.
Although all martial arts, whether it be a karate session, a boxing training (hitting a punching bag with your boxing gloves), an MMA class, or a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu workout, are great to improve your physical and mental health and to enhance your physical and mental abilities. Among these martial arts, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a difficult but rewarding physical activity that involves no striking – instead mostly taking place on the ground and utilizing chokes, strangles, and joint locks.
It draws people to itself with a variety of goals, including learning self-defense, improving fitness, or competing. However, the majority of people choose this combat sport – over others – because it brings changes like improved agility, sharper reflexes, more acute senses, improved blood circulation and respiration, and a sense of absolute tranquility, as a result of boosted self-confidence.
Furthermore, this fighting sport helps you ward off health problems like diabetes, hypertension, heart-related ailments, and some types of cancers. This is why Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is considered something more than a martial art. It changes your way of life. Here are just a few of the health and fitness benefits you can expect when learning different techniques of jiu-jitsu.
Fitness And Mental Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Health Benefits
- Weight-Loss and Getting in Shape
One of the first benefits that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training will offer you is an easy and fun way to lose weight and keep it off. Jiu-jitsu is a full-body workout, so it works every muscle in your body. This is why it is said to be the best way to lose some belly fat and gain some muscle mass. The best part of this whole effort of losing some pounds is that you will not even notice how hard you are working!
As obesity is the issue of the one-fourth population of the world and to deal with this problem, people often start some kind of physical activity but due boredom of the nature of traditional workouts, they lose interest in living an active lifestyle.
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During conventional physical activities, we start focusing on how much time we are on the treadmill or how many calories we have burned and these thoughts divert our focus from the actual goal. But in the case of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, your mind is focused on technique while facing off against your partner rather than staring at a blinking screen of information. This is why
Brazilian jiu-jitsu keeps fitness enthusiasts engaged and they eventually get rewarded in the form of the best shape of their bodies. Moreover, maintaining a healthy weight with the help of this great physical activity will save you from many obesity-related ailments like diabetes, some types of cancers, hypertension, and heart diseases.
- Flexibility and Mobility
Different techniques involved in jiu-jitsu including grappling require tons of flexibility and mobility, so different types of warm-ups and stretching before and after are a very important part of this art.
Flexibility and mobility – which are very important not only to train in martial arts but in every physical activity you perform – usually go hand in hand. Flexibility helps you in stretching a particular muscle or muscle group in a certain direction through a range of motion.
You can enhance your flexibility with even the simplest physical activity like standing straight and bending over touching your toes while keeping your legs straight. Mobility, on the other hand, has more to do with the movement of your body. Or you can say that the ability of your body to use a full range of motion through different joints and muscle groups is what mobility is all about. Squats are one of the exercises that help you test your mobility.
Doing squats requires your body to use different joints and muscle groups to be able to complete the movement in general. Ameliorating your flexibility will help you boost your mobility. When you practice the art of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, you definitely do squatting in your matches, but being able to withstand it all comes from increasing your flexibility through stretching or some other warm-up exercise. This will finally improve your mobility.
- Improved Endurance
To enhance your endurance, you normally do activities like running, biking, and swimming. Yes, these activities are good for the purpose but they are not the only ways to improve your endurance. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a more effective and fun way that can help you improve your aerobic endurance, no treadmill required.
In fact, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is both an aerobic and anaerobic activity. This training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu provides you with heart-healthy benefits while getting some shorter, more powerful interval training as well. Also, this martial art helps in strengthening the immune system that will help you fight many chronic ailments.
- Increased Strength
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training is a sure way of increasing your strength. Because in this physical activity, you use all parts of your body, as a result, it builds muscles and increases your strength somewhere in there. Other physical activities done as pre-workout training or done in the cool-down after training in this art are pretty intense too, so when you do them you have to put your all into it.
These exercises also escalate the strength of your body and build some muscle mass. Although these are very basic types of exercises, yet the kicker is to see how many repetitions you can get done within a minute. These exercises usually include jumping rope, squat jumps, and burpees, just to name a few.
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- Enhanced the Energy Level
It might seem unrealistic that working out intensively will make you feel more energized than not, but it is true.
According to many studies and researches, watching television or checking social media, while seemingly very passive activities are actually not relaxing at all.
Rather these activities increase anxiety and depression in the majority of people. Similarly, physical activities that seem to make you tired and less energized not only relieve your stress but are re-energizing too, given that you are not pushing yourself more than your comfortable limit.
This is why most martial arts academies organize early morning classes, professionals find they are better prepared for a long day after having a good workout in the morning. Whether you read about the daily routine of a tv star, a sportsman, or a successful businessman, you will find that they all start their days with a vigorous workout.
Furthermore, students can also benefit from physical activity like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu because physical activity actually aids in studying and helps students to focus more and learn better. So if you are a student, it will be tremendously beneficial for you if you take a break from the books and from the desk and find your way to the mat. Once done this, you’ll find that you actually have more energy than if you had not trained.
- It’s fun
Above all those benefits of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the art is difficult but a fun-filled activity. Learning every move after days, months, and even years of practice and then successfully executing that move will make you elated. You will feel like you have done some kind of wonder. After lots of training, when your game plan comes off perfectly, or you roll with a trusted training partner and mix in some healthy trash-talking you’ll realize just how much fun it is.
- Stress Reducer
By committing to jiu-jitsu, you will see yourself in the best shape of your life. That alone is enough to ward off all the stress you have. Additionally, when you focus closely on learning different techniques of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, your mind gets clear from negative feelings.
Training in this art will teach you how to master your thoughts and impulses, which will help to combat stress and anxiety. Sticking with this great martial art will give you a new level of inner peace.
- It teaches patience
While training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, you have to practice each move for hundreds and even thousands of times to master it which instills a great level of patience in you.
Furthermore, when fighting in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, you’ll often have to wait for the best time to make an escape or bait an opponent. While trying to escape the move of your opponent, you’ll need to patiently defeat each of your opponent’s obstacles before finding the right time to try your move.
- Fight Mental Illness
Besides helping you deal with stress, jiu-jitsu might also aid in fighting certain kinds of mental illness. Emotional and mental challenges like depression, anxiety, aggression, family losses, or relationship issues are very common in the world of today.
People who are facing any of these negative emotions could benefit from engaging in jiu-jitsu on a normal basis. Regular practicing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu will help you learn how to survive while under pressure, and it can lead to a more balanced mental state.
- It builds discipline
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is an activity that is challenging both physically and mentally. And in the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class, you learn how to become disciplined. You have to follow certain rules of the class and despite normal “losses” in sparring, you have to continuously make it to class each week consistently which instills some discipline in you.
- It builds confidence
After training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for an extended period of time you’ll have some defensive skills to defend yourself and your loved ones. Additionally, you will get better shape, have more peace in life, and enhanced mental capabilities. All these lists of successes and positive outcomes of training in BJJ will build a great level of confidence in you.
Conclusion
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and any other martial art offers so much health benefits both physically and mentally. It is a great work out method because you get yourself in a good shape and actually learning something useful. If you liked our article on Brazilian Jiu Jitsu health benefits, consider sharing it with friends and family who might think start practising a martial art.
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