This Is How Many Times You Should Train Judo Per Week

You want to give judo a shot? Great!

Wait a minute… I see you stumped. Stumped with the age-old question of “just how many times a week should I do this thing?”.

Three? Four? What if the gym I want to join only has two classes per week? Is that enough?!?

Don’t worry, once you get done with this blog post, it’ll be clear as day.

2 to 3 times is perfect

I had always trained at least 3 times a week.

And while that is a common number for class availability in many of the clubs out there (like Monday, Wednesday and Friday), it’s not always the case.

A lot of the dojos only have two available classes per week. And while this may seem a little low for some, I think it can be better than training even 3 times a week, particularly so after a certain point.

The thing is, judo is a hard activity on your body. The sport literally revolves around you getting thrown, over and over again, with chokes and armbars added on top of it.

Doing less here can actually be better, especially if you just want to do it recreationally and have fun for as long as you can. That’s the important part.

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I wish I had switched to training twice a week, like, after 3 years or so.

It was common for me to feel rather beat up the day after practice. And it’s not like I was old; I was in my teens. To add to it, my progress was plateauing (not getting any better).

I don’t know, I didn’t train too hard. And while at that time feeling rather “rough” made it seem like it was a good thing, I can see how that could of lead me to the injuries I sustained.

I just wish I took those Wednesdays off, and put them to more recovery-based use, like doing yoga or something.

It’s not that training 3 times a week is somehow bad right away, I just feel like at a certain point even that becomes too much. And if you’re in your 30s, that’s even more of a thing to think.

Let me put it this way – if you can only train judo two times per week, perfect. If you want to, you can even bump that up to 3. But whenever you feel like that becomes too much, feel free to reduce the days accordingly.

BJJ is a lot more forgiving to your casual recreational person. You simply do not get thrown nowhere near as much in jiu-jitsu.

That’s where all the damage I feel is done. Drilling techniques is where you get thrown the most. This is where you have to be careful – being paired with an over the top person who tries to take your head off every single time he throws you is not good, at all, for your body.

Always take a day, or more off, if you feel off

If you don’t feel too well, or sprained a wrist, shoulder or something, but you still feel like you could potentially train, do not do it.

If you get actually injured because you went in there and practiced with the mild symptoms you had, you will regret it dearly, I’m telling you.

I know that feeling all to well – the feeling of skipping a class. But sometimes you just have to do it. Listen to your body, that’s all I’m trying to say.

Less is more when it comes to training judo, it really is.

You’ll need to train more often if you want to reach higher levels

It goes without saying that training more is going to be required if you have your eyes set for competitions’ gold.

Many pros train every single day, with morning and evening session. Not to mention, with strength and conditioning workouts too.

But if the place you’re eyeing only has a couple of sessions a week, you will have to do what many judo players do – go to different dojos.

There isn’t much stigma about this sort of thing in judo world, as opposed to some other sports.

It’s good to do anyway, as you are able to expand your skill set with different kinds of competitors; you know what they say, iron sharpens iron.