Like any athletic endeavour, Jiu-Jitsu athletes are looking for any competitive advantage they can get but Gordon Ryan believes that cardio ultimately ‘doesn’t matter’. He isn’t the first person to explain why the technical advantage available in Jiu-Jitsu outweighs a physical advantage, but he’s definitely one of the most accomplished competitors to say it. The topic actually came up during the most recent Fight Companion episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, where Eddie Bravo and Brendan Schaub appeared alongside Ryan. Once the event had finished, the conversation turned to Ryan and his incredible Jiu-Jitsu career and he was happy to share some of his secrets.
While many BJJ competitors will look for ways to improve their cardio, Ryan believes that their time would be better spent elsewhere:
“It doesn’t matter how good your cardio is, like how high your VO2 max is. If you’re working twice as hard as I am, you’re gonna get tired faster than I am. Because I’m so much more technical, because the gap in skill is so big between me and the next best guy, their work rate is always three, four, five times as high as mine.”
His train of thought makes perfect sense too, because a technical advantage means that you can force your opponent into more draining situations. Whether that is exploding out of positions or carrying your weight for prolonged periods, Jiu-Jitsu offers the ability to tire an opponent out. Ryan then explained why he’s the perfect example of this principle in action:
“It doesn’t matter how good your cardio is, like if I ran a mile it wouldn’t be impressive, but because I’m so much more efficient, the work rate is so much higher for my opponents that they just fatigue a lot faster.”
Gordon Ryan also explained that there’s something that sets him apart from many other competitors, because they’re more willing to work on cardio than on the mental aspect of the Jiu-Jitsu:
“It’s not just physical. Like everyone has no problem coming in, getting a sweat, going home, being sore, stuff like that… But if you ask them to sit down and watch an hour’s worth of instruction every night from a Gordon Ryan instructional which is proven to work, nobody wants to do that.”
