BJJ for Your Health & Fitness Resolutions

Sure, this post seems a little early. We haven’t made it through the holiday gauntlet just yet, and not many people are ready to start thinking about New Year’s resolutions. But even you’re even idly thinking that 2023 is the year you really want to get serious about prioritizing health, we want to put a little bug in your ear — BJJ is a great option for any health and fitness resolutions. Here’s why.

Physical Activity

Clearly, grappling is a physical endeavor. But most people aren’t drawn to BJJ solely because it’s a form of fitness. That’s more of an excellent benefit. By its very nature, BJJ is high-intensity interval training. You use your entire body to work hard for specific amounts of time, with minimal rest in between. If you’re showing up consistently and putting out the effort, you really can’t help but increase mobility, strength, and aerobic and anaerobic capacity. It’s a fantastic blend of yoga, resistance training, and cardio in one, and that’s not something that can be said of most forms of exercise.

Mental Fitness

Mental health is a byproduct of consistent exercise. Our bodies are built for movement and our brain rewards us for it with a flood of feel-good hormones. You also sleep better when you exercise regularly, and it can be the motivation you need to make other healthy lifestyle choices, like more mindful nutrition or less alcohol. But BJJ itself challenges the mind. The end game really is mental fitness, learning how to defuse and control an opponent in the moment. Not only does training BJJ improve your innate self defense skills, it hones the mind at the same time.

More Energy

More energy is a chief driver for people who want to make physical changes, and it’s a good one. Sedentary lifestyles make us listless and tired. It seems counter-intuitive, but the best way to increase energy is to be more active, not less. In BJJ classes, there’s a physical and a mental requirement that means you have to be fully present, fully in the moment, fully focused. It’s tiring in the best way, and you’ll learn early on how to conserve energy when you need to and exert it fully when the time is right. Plus, regular activity means you’ll feel more energized in general.

Stress Relief

Finding healthy outlets for stress is critical in this day and age. Too many people turn to numbing devices, like food, alcohol, recreational drugs, all the stuff that really doesn’t serve you in any way at all. Channeling anxiety, tension and stress in a controlled environment is good for your head and your body. And here at Guerrilla BJJ in Reno, as in many BJJ gyms, you get the benefit of a strong community as well. Learning how to roll with a group of like-minded people creates a sense of family, and that’s good for stress as well.

Discipline

Motivation is fleeting, and that’s why so many people fail within just a few weeks of setting those ambitious New Year’s resolutions. To really be successful, you need to be disciplined. And when you start BJJ, consistency pays off. The more you train, the better you get. And the more you train, the more it becomes a habit. Your BJJ community expects you to show up, so there’s the added benefit of accountability. When motivation fails you — and it will — you’ll have habits and discipline to fall back on.

The takeaway

Joining a gym is one of the most popular New Year’s resolutions for a reason. And it’s a fact that over three-quarters of the people who promise themselves they’re going to “get healthy” in a given year fail within the first three weeks. This year, think differently. Come and tour Guerrilla BJJ here in Reno. Talk to our team. Watch a class. Push yourself way out of your comfort zone and give it a shot. We think you’ll find it’s exactly what you’ve been looking for.

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