Long Game Playbook: Training Jiu-Jitsu Past Forty, Fifty, and Beyond

Mat Manual companion guide to "Training at Fifty Is a Different Sport (And It Is Still Jiu-Jitsu)." Print it. The article lays out the new arithmetic. This book runs it: the joint-by-joint warm-up, the benchmarks, the technique menus filtered for the older game, weekly structures at three volumes, the minimum effective strength dose, partner policy, injury return protocols, and the academy's half of the bargain.

Name: ______________________________ Academy: ______________________________ Age band: ______________ Belt: ______________ Training since: ______________

SAFETY, BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE — THIS BOOK'S BOX MATTERS MOST ☐ This book is training guidance for healthy adults, not medical advice. Joint replacements, cardiac history, medications that affect bleeding or balance, and any diagnosis belong in a conversation with your clinician before the program's loads are adopted. Bring this book to that conversation; good clinicians coach better with the plan in hand. ☐ The tap rules in Part 5 are absolute and they outrank every drill, round, and ego in the building. ☐ Pain that changes how you move the next day is data, logged (Part 10) and answered with dose changes — never with denial. ☐ Strength work loads are progressed conservatively. The program defends a twenty-year career; it is not in a hurry, and neither are you. ☐ Warm-up (Part 2) is not optional and not social. Arrive early enough for it, every session, including competition days.

Part 1: The Honest Inventory — Benchmarks

Test quarterly; the trend is the report.

Failures route to: mobility → Part 2's daily dose + the library's stretching system; strength → Part 7; pain anywhere → out of this book and into a clinician's office, in that order.