I’d be keen for your thoughts on the approach to programming RT for judo.
If your training judo two or three times per week, do you have any thoughts on the below?
I understand it’s a good idea to go quite heavy on the conditioning?
RT twice per week seems sensible, would it be best to stick to push / pull / squat pattern as a three exercise per session approach or is it a good idea to add in some other movements like carries and rotations (carries for the grip demands of judo and rotations for the twisting demands) and increasing the number of exercises per gym session?
I understand it’s a good idea to vary up the rep ranges, exercise selection and velocity if your sport if judo / BJJ. How would you approach this with programming, would this be sometimes lifting fast, sometimes slower, sometimes doing close grip bench, sometimes doing wide grip? I’m just not clear on how structured I should be with this approach as in could you just go to the gym and do a different push / pull / squat variation and different rep ranges each gym session depending on what you feel like doing?
would you recommend any dedicated grip strengthening training?
I think for a recreational Judo player, I’d train more than 2x/wk. For samples of our programming, check out our templates.
I don’t think I would vary exercises, tempo, etc. of a particular exercise within a mesocycle. This is laid out in our templates.
No.
I think if you’re not competing in Judo and/or have not been doing it for a long time, I probably wouldn’t do any specific RT programming for it. This is especially true if you haven’t been lifting weights very long either.
Without knowing your training history, I’m less confident in recommending one over the other. Still, I’d feel comfortable recommending our Beginner template if you have been lifting using an organized program for less than a year. Otherwise, I’d pick powerbuilding I or general s/c I probably.