08/09/2026
I talk a lot about improving cardio in Jiu-Jitsu, and obviously cardio matters. If you improve your conditioning, you increase your ability to work harder and recover faster.
But there’s something worth thinking about: if you train yourself to be able to work harder, most of the time you’ll just work harder.
You get a bigger gas tank... so you use more gas.
That's not necessarily going to improve your performance... but there’s another side to this coin, and that’s becoming more efficient.
As your Jiu-Jitsu improves, you start realizing how much energy you used to waste. You squeezed things that didn’t need squeezing. You fought pressure instead of redirecting it. You used strength where positioning would have worked better. You made three movements to accomplish something that only needed one.
That’s a different kind of conditioning.
Instead of just increasing how much work you’re capable of doing, you’re decreasing how much work it takes to accomplish that thing.
And that’s an important distinction. If all I do is increase my ability to work harder, I may simply just be training myself to be better at just working hard. But if I become more efficient, I can actually make more progress while doing less work.
The best answer, of course, is to develop both.
Build the cardio so you have a bigger reserve when you need it, but keep improving your technique so you need to draw from that reserve less often.
Now you’re attacking performance from both ends... more energy available, and less energy required.
Bigger gas tank AND better MPG!
On the mat and in life, effort matters... but efficiency will allow your effort to take you further! ___________________________________________
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