Stretches Designed to Improve Your Guard

Posted by Fanatics Authors on August 01, 2018

Having a well-rounded guard game is one of the most important skills you can develop in your training of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Tom DeBlass is fond of saying that having your guard passed should be looked at as a tragedy and should be taken seriously.

Besides understanding the nuances of the different guards, from closed guard, half guard, butterfly guard, X guard, De La Riva, and many, many more, having a good understanding is just part of the battle. For each of these guards, there is a level of flexibility demanded. For open guards especially, practitioners with a higher degree of flexibility tend to be more successful. It's extremely difficult for an inflexible person to perform Spider Guard without difficulty.

In the video below, Lachlan Giles, a trained physiotherapist, competitor and coach of grapplers like Craig Jones, shares a series of stretches that he feels most effectively impact the improvement of the guard game. One of the key takeaways from this video is the importance of not just stretching our muscles, tendons and joints, but to make the move more perfectly mimic the movements you are trying to achieve. Check out the video below!