What belt are you? What height and weight?
If you can’t go more than 1-2 rounds of sparring, take everything everyone suggested above and toss it out the window.
If you can’t roll beyond that, you’re VERY out of shape.
From white to early purple, I’d gas out after 3-4 rounds, take rounds off, etc… but I was 265-270lbs. I got sick of it… so I showed up early and left late. I took every single match, regardless of fatigue, and sucked it up. NO DRUGS ARE NEEDED.
I can’t emphasize this enough. You need to work, not take drugs.
I’m 14 years in, first degree black belt. I can roll for over an hour (5-6 min matches, 30-60 sec rest) EASILY… and I’m still unreasonably big. It’s not because of cardarine, carnitine, meldonium.
Work more. That is the solution.
Blue.. 5’8.5” (yes the .5” matters! lol) and 180lbs (ish)
And I’m not talking about regular sparring/flow rolling.. I can do that for a whole class..
I’m talking about competition style, balls to the wall, your life depends on this roll lol
My gym isn’t the type of gym with guys that go slow and the higher level guys let you work and everyone is super chill… No… Everyone is super competitive and the belief is the harder you train the better you get..
Sure, for newer guys the higher levels guys will slow it down or if you’ve got questions etc then they’ll work with you, but if you’re both on the same page about this round, it’s balls to the wall, kill or be killed…
I regularly roll with a brown belt who competes at the Pan Am/ADCC level, and the whole roll is a smash and shit talk fest lol I’ll talk shit to him and he’ll pick up the pace and put me in the worst positions and when I try to make a move he’ll say shit like “oh you think that’s gona work, go ahead and try it, you’re fucked, I’ll never let you win”
And I love training that way. Because when I do good against guys like that, it’s because I actually did good, I earned it, they weren’t letting me get the positions or letting me win..
The Blue Belt I referenced earlier regularly beats Purple and Brown belts in competition..
I honestly don’t think belts even matter anymore, I don’t care about it as much as I care about actually being good competitively.. The whole game has changed in the last few years.. Now a days if you’re not a competitive Blue/Purple belt submitting Brown and Black belts, then you’re not good enough..
It’s all about creating systems now, not going through the whole step by step, belt by belt learning like the old days..
Look at Jay Rod for example, he won Gold at ADCC Trials as a Blue Belt with only 18 months of BJJ, but of course training with his brother and Craig Jones among other high level guys 3x a day.. He submitted 7 high level Black belts in a row… That kid is a Black Belt who just got promoted to Purple Belt …
They have a system, they don’t go by the traditional way of doing things..
My coach (who’s also trained with Craig and many other high level coaches around the world) doesn’t either, he builds a system.. And I do privates with him regularly (he’s a good friend of mine too) so we just build a system based on what my strengths and preferences are..
So anyway, back to the main subject lol
I do extra cardio, maybe I should do more, but as I said above, we do some conditioning, have a good amount of live roll time (most of the time it’s high paced and intense) and competition roll days, as well as my resistance training and I do privates with my coach at least twice per week and we do roll for about 4-5 rounds in those sessions too..
So the work is being done to the best of my ability while still maintaining the rest of my life..
I just wanted to use something to push the pace a little harder and for a little longer, as the sessions are very competitive and high paced..
I can go 1-2 rounds of 5-6 minutes at that pace but after I’m absolutely gassed.. But I know if I can push harder and be relentless, I can beat some of these guys, and if I do that then I know for sure I can do well competitively as well..