Welcome, Starks!

Awesome to have you here! Today is all about practical tools to make your joints healthier, improve your movement on the mats, and build resilience against common BJJ injuries.

We're focusing on building MOBILITY – not just being flexible, but being strong and controlled through your entire range of motion. This is key for everything from guard retention to finishing submissions safely.

Flexibility vs. Mobility: Why Control Matters

• Flexibility: Just being able to reach a position passively (like someone pushing your leg). It's being "bendy."
• Mobility: Being able to actively get into, control, and be strong in a position. This is usable range.
• For BJJ: We NEED mobility. Passive flexibility won't stop a guard pass or protect your shoulder in a kimura. Strength + Control + Range = Mobility.

For BJJ we need to focus on internal and external rotation of the hip and shoulder.

A joint that can't rotate is an unhealthy joint, this is why we always need to start there to prevent injury.

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Hip External Rotation is king

For BJJ external rotation of the hip is what allows us to bring our feet to our shoulders. If there's a place where we can't put our feet, we don't have a guard there. This is why this has to be a priority.

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Shoulder rotation helps with escapes

Kimuras and Americanas are your opponent forcing rotation on you. But even in armbar escapes your rotation helps you slip out.

1. Joint Circles: Your Daily System Scan

• What They Are: Slow, controlled circles for each major joint, exploring your maximum pain-free range. Keep everything else TIGHT and still.
• Why Do Them: 
• It makes sure you don't lose the range you already have
• It's a tool to measure your progress
• It helps you find issues to work on
• How-To Reminder:
1. TENSE UP (Irradiate!): Brace everything except the moving joint.
2. MOVE SLOW & CONTROLLED.
3. BIGGEST PAIN-FREE CIRCLE: Explore your edges. NO pinching pain!
4. ISOLATE: Don't let other body parts "help" or compensate.
• Action: Do these every day (2-3 smooth reps each way). Follow the demo videos!

🤳 Let's do them live

So let's do the most important circles live. It's good to film these as a way of measuring your mobility process over time. If these don't improve you are probably doing too little volume on the other exercises.

Neck Circle

Spine Circle

Shoulder Circle

Hip Circle

2. Increasing Your Range Of Motion: PAILS & RAILS

What are PAILS & RAILS?

• A powerful method combining stretching with maximal isometric contractions.
• PAILs (Progressive): Contracting the tissue you're stretching (e.g., pushing down in 90/90).
• RAILs (Regressive): Contracting the opposite tissue to actively pull deeper (e.g., trying to lift shin in 90/90).

Why do PAILS & RAILS?

• Rapidly increase usable range of motion.
• Build strength in your end ranges, making them safer and more functional for BJJ.
• Teaches your nervous system it's safe to access more range.

How-To:

1. Stretch: Hold target position (~2 mins 1st set, ~1 min after). Relax & breathe (long exhales).
2. PAILs Contract: TENSE WHOLE BODY. Slowly ramp up contraction in stretched tissue (pushing against immovable object). Safest MAX effort. Hold 10-15s.
3. RAILs Contract: Immediately switch! Contract opposite muscles to pull deeper. Max intent. Hold 10-15s.
4. Relax & Hold New Range: Keep the new depth. Relax passively ~1 min.
5. Repeat: 2-3 cycles total.

3. End Range Control: Making Your Gains Usable & Strong!

• What It Is: Once PAILS & RAILS helps you unlock new range, these drills are the next crucial step. They teach your nervous system how to actively control and be strong in that new territory without any external help. We progress through these exercises, adding more difficulty and control challenges over time.
• Why Do It for BJJ? This is how you truly own your mobility. It makes the new range permanent, much safer (less injury risk when forced into positions), and more useful for dynamic BJJ movements like scrambles, guard passes, and submissions.

The End Range Control Progression:

Key Cues for ALL End Range Control Drills:

• TENSE UP (Irradiate!): Keep your core and non-moving body parts tight!
• ISOLATE: Make sure the work is coming from the target joint, not compensations.
• CONTROL THE ECCENTRIC: Always lower the limb back down slowly and with control (don't just let it drop!).
• QUALITY > QUANTITY: Focus on clean movement, even if the range or reps are small initially.

Action: Add these drills after doing PAILS & RAILS for the same joint/movement. Start with PRH and PRLO. Once you feel good control there, introduce Hovers, and finally ERR for hips/shoulders if applicable. Progress reps/duration/complexity slowly over weeks as your control improves.

Let's do some other exercises:

Sleeper Stretch

Note: She does PAILS/ RAILS till 4:11 min, afterwards she does lifts & eccentric Neural Grooving

Shoulder External Rotation

Note: She does PAILS/ RAILS till 4:20 min, afterwards she does lifts

90/90 (Hip IR & ER)

Note: She does PAILS & RAILS for both Internal & External Rotation on one side., but she also does lifts, hovers, Neural grooving etc. If you're short on time Just PAILS/ RAILS & Lifts should be enough.

Hip Extension

Note: PAILS & RAILS For Hip Extension

Note: LIFTS For Hip Extension

Hip Flexion

Hip Abduction

Your Weekly Program

Notes:

• Daily CARS: Do these every day, separate from this schedule!
• Videos: Click the links for detailed demos of each exercise.
• For focus areas you wan to do it 2-4 times per week (this program focuses on IR & ER for hips and shoulders)
• For maintenance or general preparation one set per week seems fine (Abduction, hip flexion, extension & abduction
• If something hurts or you want to shift focus you can just change the spread over the week
• If some stretches become too easy or they're maxed out you would need to move to advanced versions
• Example: Butterfly stretch → Frog → Half split → Full split

Final Tips

• Consistency: Daily CARS + 2-3 focused sessions/week = results.
• No Pinching: Back off if you feel sharp pain on the closing side of a joint.
• Tension: Use it! It makes everything safer and more effective.
• Quality: Slow, controlled reps are better than fast, sloppy ones.
• Cramping: Normal initially. Breathe, ease off slightly. It improves.
• Patience: This takes time. Stick with it!

Great work today! Keep applying these tools consistently.

(Disclaimer: This is for informational purposes. Follow instructor guidance. Train safely.)

What's next

With the above sample program you can work on the basics of mobility. Especially Internal and external rotation for the hips and shoulders.

When you're flexible, there are many other mobility things you can improve further. For example shoulder extension for armbar escapes and working on the splits for passing or the pancake stretch for playing guard.

Ultimately, for strength & conditioning for BJJ mobility is important, but it's just one of many attributes you can work on:

1. Max strength → what the max amount of weight you can move
2. Strength endurance → Using strength over time
3. Aerobic cardio → Move with gassing out, recover between rounds, recovery off the mat
4. Anaerobic cardio → Ability to explode from an energy standpoint
5. Explosive strength → Ability of the muscles and tendons to create explosive strength

Ideally, you have a program that brings all of these together with mobility, this is something that needs to be tailored on the personal level, if you're interested in this you can reach out to me for personal training.