3 Reasons You Need Sandbag Training for BJJ/MMA

Somehow the functional fitness tools of CrossFit and mixed martial arts don’t cross-over as much as they should. And that’s a shame, because best sandbags for training, among other CrossFit techniques, could seriously help you maximize your BJJ/MMA game.

DEAD WEIGHT REPS: The emphasis here is on dead-weight. You know, the difficulty of moving a human body, limp or otherwise. As all BJJers know, moving another human body in grappling is no easy task. And while BJJ is often about fancy leverage, strength matters too. And here you can use your fitness sandbag, which is a great model of a body’s dead-weight, to mimic those moves where you really need to up your strength game. And practice it as reps.

FULL BODY EXTENSIONS: Functional fitness sandbag workouts involve the whole body is a way standard weight-lifting does not. By creating full body movements, in combination of the instability inherent in sandbag workouts, sandbags become the ultimate tool for MMA/BJJ training.


INSTABILITY EXERCISES: Yes, instability is a theme here, but I thought I’d focus on in this one. Live rolling in BJJ creates all sorts of unique situations and movements that simply cannot be replicated with standard weights. But sandbags can do! Whether overhead lifts, dead-weight rolls, or cross body drags, sandbag maybe the tool you’re missing out on.