Jiu-Jitsu Practitioners Have More Blood Flow to Their Brains And Why That Matters for Everyone
By Live Thumos | Brain Health | Combat Sports Science | Neuroprotection | Cognitive Performance
There is a moment every Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner knows well. You are on the mat, tangled up with a training partner, and a choke begins to close around your neck. Blood flow to your brain slows. Your vision narrows. Seconds later you tap, the choke releases, and everything floods back... clarity, color, awareness, relief.
That moment has been happening millions of times across the BJJ community for decades. And it turns out that the brain's response to it may be producing something unexpected: a measurable, sustained upgrade to the brain's own blood supply.
New research from the University of South Wales's Neurovascular Research Laboratory, published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, found that elite BJJ athletes have significantly higher resting blood flow to the brain than matched controls even when they're sitting completely still, hours after any training. This isn't a temporary exercise effect. It is a resting physiological adaptation that the brain appears to make in response to years of BJJ training.
And what it reveals about the brain's adaptability, its hunger for blood flow, and what happens to cognitive performance when that flow is optimized has implications that extend far beyond the mat.
THUMOS is here for you no matter what.
The Study: What the Science Actually Found
The research team, Benjamin Stacey, Zac Campbell, and Professor Damian Bailey, studied eleven elite BJJ athletes (averaging 30 years old, training 12 hours per week for 8 years) and compared them against eleven matched controls of the same age, sex, and cardiorespiratory fitness level. This last point is critical: the control group was not sedentary. They were fit, active people. The researchers specifically matched for cardiovascular fitness to isolate what was unique about BJJ itself, not just exercise in general.
To measure cerebral blood flow, they used duplex ultrasound measuring blood flow through the internal carotid arteries (ICA) and vertebral arteries (VA), the two primary vascular highways that carry blood from the heart to the brain. Together these measurements produce a figure called global cerebral blood flow (gCBF) the total volume of blood flowing to the brain per minute.
The results were striking.
Resting global cerebral blood flow was selectively elevated in the BJJ athletes — 741 ± 186 mL/min versus 573 ± 166 mL/min in matched controls a statistically significant difference driven by combined increases through the internal carotid artery (+65 mL/min) and vertebral artery (+19 mL/min).</cite>
That is approximately 29% more blood reaching the brain at rest in the BJJ athletes compared to equally fit peers who did not train BJJ.
The researchers found preliminary evidence that the BJJ athletes had a higher resting blood flow to the brain, alongside intact cognitive function, when compared to a control group of athletes matched by age, gender, and cardiorespiratory fitness.
Critically, there was no evidence of mild cognitive impairment in the athletes, and cognitive function was comparable between groups across all domains tested memory, attention, visual motor coordination, and executive function. The brains of long-term BJJ athletes were not damaged. They were better supplied.
The study found preliminary evidence suggesting that BJJ athletes experience a sustained increase in resting global cerebral blood flow and preserved cognitive function, indicating accelerated neuroprotection compared to the control group.
The researchers concluded that this sustained elevation in resting cerebral perfusion provides preliminary evidence for adaptive neuroprotection that is independent of CRF and likely mediated by choke-induced cerebral preconditioning and/or lifelong exposure to BJJ-specific high-intensity interval training.
Two mechanisms. Both worth understanding in detail.
Mechanism 1: Cerebral Preconditioning — The Brain That Prepares for the Choke
The first proposed mechanism is one of the most fascinating concepts in neuroscience: ischemic or hypoxic preconditioning.
When a BJJ choke is applied correctly, it compresses the carotid arteries and/or jugular veins, temporarily reducing blood and oxygen delivery to the brain. This is a controlled, brief, sub-lethal reduction in cerebral perfusion not enough to cause damage when applied for the seconds typical of a training roll, but enough for the brain to register as a meaningful physiological challenge.
Here is where the biology becomes remarkable. Ischemic/hypoxic preconditioning refers to giving the body a short period of mild ischemic/hypoxic stimulus which can significantly improve the body's tolerance to subsequent more severe ischemia/hypoxia. It has been extensively studied and been considered as an effective therapeutic strategy in CNS diseases.
In other words: controlled, brief, repeated exposure to reduced blood flow makes the brain better at managing blood flow. This is not a new concept in neuroscience, it has been studied in the context of stroke prevention and cardiac surgery for decades, where deliberate brief periods of reduced blood flow to an organ before a major procedure reduce damage from the procedure itself. The brain, like the heart, responds to sublethal stress by upregulating its own protective machinery.
Ischemic preconditioning, referring to a non-injurious and sublethal ischemic insult, can mediate complex endogenous protective mechanisms and provide ischemic tolerance and potent protection against a subsequent, otherwise lethal, ischemia.
The mechanisms activated by this preconditioning are specific and multilayered. They include members of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs), mitochondrial ATP-sensitive K+ channels, Akt signaling, and protein kinase C, all components of the cell survival and adaptation pathway. Nitric oxide, the same molecule that governs blood vessel dilation and healthy cardiovascular function, plays a central role in this preconditioning cascade, promoting vasodilation and protecting mitochondrial function in the cells that most need it.
Recent papers support the hypothesis that mitochondria might act as master regulators of preconditioning-triggered endogenous neuroprotection due to their ability to control cytosolic calcium homeostasis. This connects the preconditioning mechanism to mitochondrial function and to the same cellular energy infrastructure that CoQ10 and taurine in THUMOS support directly.
What the BJJ athlete experiences is a recurrent training stimulus that tells the brain, repeatedly, over years of practice: optimize your blood supply, strengthen your vascular infrastructure, prepare for the next challenge. And the brain, being extraordinarily adaptive, does exactly that — upregulating its resting cerebral perfusion as a standing adaptation to the recurring demand.
Mechanism 2: BJJ-Specific High-Intensity Interval Training
The second proposed mechanism is the nature of BJJ training itself as a form of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and the growing body of evidence that HIIT is one of the most powerful known stimuli for improving cerebral blood flow and cognitive function.
A BJJ training session is not steady-state cardio. It is an unpredictable, high-intensity, full-body exertion explosive bursts of effort followed by brief recovery periods, repeated across multiple rounds. This structure maps almost precisely onto the HIIT protocol that exercise science has studied most carefully for its brain effects.
Research published in Scientific Reports examining the effect of HIIT versus moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT) on cerebral blood flow and executive function in young adults found that HIIT leads to greater improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness and vascular function compared to MICT with HIIT-specific improvements in cerebral blood flow mechanisms underlying the executive function gains observed.
A review published in IJERPH on HIIT and cognitive aging confirmed that higher cardiorespiratory fitness shows protection against brain atrophy, reductions in cerebral blood flow, and cognitive decline and that HIIT represents a potent stimulus for improving these outcomes, particularly in populations where cerebral hypoperfusion is a concern.
The mechanism runs through nitric oxide, BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), and vascular remodeling: high-intensity effort signals blood vessels to become more efficient, more responsive, and better calibrated to meet the brain's demand. Over years of training 12 hours per week for 8 years in the case of the BJJ athletes studied this vascular adaptation becomes structural. The internal carotid arteries appear to become more efficient conduits. The resting blood flow baseline climbs. And it stays there, even at rest.
Why Blood Flow to the Brain Matters More Than Almost Anything Else
To appreciate what the BJJ finding means, you need to understand how dependent the brain is on its blood supply and how quickly and severely cognitive function deteriorates when that supply is compromised.
The brain consumes approximately 20% of the body's total oxygen and glucose despite being only 2% of body weight. It has virtually no energy reserves of its own no glycogen stores comparable to muscle, no fat reserves to draw on during shortage. Every second of consciousness, every thought, every memory, every decision runs on a continuous real-time delivery of oxygenated blood.
When cerebral blood flow drops whether from aging, cardiovascular disease, sedentary lifestyle, chronic stress, or reduced vascular efficiency the consequences are immediate and measurable: slower processing speed, reduced working memory, impaired executive function, increased brain fog, and over time, accelerated cognitive aging and neurodegenerative risk.
Conversely, when cerebral blood flow is elevated as the BJJ research documents the brain has more oxygen and glucose available for every operation it performs. Neurons fire more reliably. Neurotransmitter synthesis rates improve. Synaptic connections strengthen. The brain's capacity to maintain attention, process information rapidly, regulate emotion, and execute complex decisions under pressure all improve.
Higher resting cerebral blood flow is, in biological terms, a richer operating environment for the brain. And what the BJJ research suggests is that this richer environment can be trained that the brain's vascular supply is not a fixed parameter, but an adaptable one that responds to the right kind of stimulus.
What This Means If You Train BJJ
If you train BJJ whether you're a white belt six months in or a black belt with decades on the mat the University of South Wales research offers something the sport has long intuited but rarely seen documented in peer-reviewed data: the training may be building a more resilient, better-supplied brain.
The cognitive demands of BJJ are extraordinary. Reading your opponent's body, anticipating transitions, choosing between dozens of possible techniques in fractions of a second, managing your breath, maintaining composure when choked, executing fine motor control while physically exhausted BJJ demands more from the brain simultaneously than almost any other physical activity. It is genuinely a full-contact chess match.
It turns out that meeting those demands, consistently, over years of training, may be doing something measurable to the brain's blood supply. The preconditioning from controlled chokes and the HIIT stimulus of rounds on the mat appear to be, together, producing an upregulation of resting cerebral perfusion that persists outside the gym and that may provide long-term neuroprotective benefits that extend well beyond athletic performance.
The researchers at the University of South Wales noted this explicitly: These findings challenge the idea that BJJ leads to cognitive decline due to impaired cerebrovascular function," said Benjamin Stacey, a lecturer in Clinical Science and member of the Neurovascular Research Laboratory.</cite> The fear that repeated chokes were silently damaging BJJ brains was not supported. The data pointed in the opposite direction.
What This Means for Your Brain Whether You Train or Not
The BJJ finding raises a more universal question: if this sport produces measurably higher resting cerebral blood flow through its specific combination of preconditioning stimuli and high-intensity training, what are the rest of us leaving on the table by not supporting our brain's vascular health?
Most people's daily lives offer no meaningful cerebral blood flow optimization stimulus at all. Sedentary work, chronic low-grade stress, poor sleep, and high caffeine consumption all trend in the opposite direction toward reduced cerebrovascular efficiency, lower BDNF, and the gradual, often unnoticed cognitive decline that correlates with reduced cerebral perfusion over decades.
The BJJ athlete's advantage is not just that they train hard. It is that they train in a way that specifically challenges the brain's blood supply and the brain, in response, adapts upward. This is the same adaptive principle that underlies all physical training: challenge the system appropriately, and it gets stronger.
For those not on the mat, two paths exist: find training that replicates the cerebral challenge (HIIT, in particular, has strong evidence for cerebrovascular benefit), and support the biological systems that govern how efficiently the brain uses the blood supply it does have.
How THUMOS Supports the Neurobiological Systems the BJJ Research Points To
The University of South Wales research identifies two mechanisms driving the BJJ brain advantage: cerebral preconditioning (operating through mitochondrial adaptation, nitric oxide signaling, and cellular survival pathways) and HIIT-driven vascular remodeling (operating through cardiorespiratory adaptation and neurotrophic signaling).
Both mechanisms ultimately converge on the same biological systems that THUMOS was designed to support.
CoQ10 (100mg, Nano-Emulsified) — Mitochondrial Support for Preconditioning
The preconditioning research explicitly identifies mitochondria as master regulators of the neuroprotective response. Mitochondria might act as master regulators of preconditioning-triggered endogenous neuroprotection due to their ability to control cytosolic calcium homeostasis. CoQ10 is the electron shuttle at the center of mitochondrial ATP production the same mitochondrial machinery that preconditioning activates and depends on. By supporting mitochondrial efficiency, nano-emulsified CoQ10 in THUMOS reinforces the cellular energy infrastructure that makes neuroprotective adaptation possible.
Taurine (500mg) — Calcium Regulation and Mitochondrial Integrity
The preconditioning mechanism is critically dependent on calcium homeostasis inside neurons the precise variable taurine regulates. Taurine protects mitochondrial membrane potential, moderates calcium ion transport across neuronal membranes, and preserves the structural integrity of the mitochondria that preconditioning activates as its primary neuroprotective machinery. For BJJ athletes specifically, taurine supports both the cardiac demands of high-intensity rolling and the neuronal calcium regulation that makes cerebral preconditioning mechanistically possible.
Cognizin® Citicoline (200mg) — Direct Brain ATP and Neuronal Membrane Support
If elevated cerebral blood flow gives the brain more oxygen and glucose to work with, Cognizin® Citicoline ensures that the neurons receiving that supply can use it maximally. A clinical study using phosphorus MRS brain imaging found that Cognizin® increased frontal lobe ATP by 14%, directly augmenting the neuroenergetic benefit that increased blood flow makes available. Citicoline also supports phosphatidylcholine synthesis, maintaining the integrity of neuronal cell membranes particularly relevant for athletes whose brains are regularly challenged by the controlled hypoxic stress of choke training.
L-Theanine (200mg) + Green Tea Caffeine (50mg) — Calm, Focused Alertness Without Cortisol Burden
The cognitive demands of BJJ real-time tactical decision-making, technique recall under physical exhaustion, emotional composure under threat are exactly the demands that L-Theanine's combination of GABA support, alpha wave induction, and cortisol moderation are designed to support. The calm, focused alertness that L-Theanine + low-dose caffeine produces is the neurological state that BJJ demands: alert but not frantic, present but not panicked, cognitively sharp but not adrenally depleted.
🌱 Agave Inulin (1g) + L-Glutamine (1g) — The Gut-Brain Axis Under Athletic Demand
High-intensity exercise places measurable stress on the gut lining, increasing intestinal permeability and challenging the gut microbiome that produces the neurotransmitter precursors and short-chain fatty acids the brain's recovery depends on. L-Glutamine is the primary fuel source for intestinal epithelial cells and supports gut barrier integrity under exercise-induced stress. Agave Inulin feeds the beneficial bacterial populations that produce serotonin precursors and SCFAs that reduce neuroinflammation. Together, they protect the gut-brain axis that translates the physical demands of BJJ training into durable neurological adaptations rather than inflammatory setbacks.
L-Tyrosine (500mg) — Neurotransmitter Resilience Under Training Load
The prefrontal cortex and dopaminergic motivation system are under sustained demand during hard BJJ training. Under physical and cognitive stress, tyrosine availability in the brain drops and neurotransmitter synthesis slows. L-Tyrosine supplementation replenishes the precursor supply for dopamine and norepinephrine maintaining the neurotransmitter foundation for sharp tactical thinking, sustained effort, and rapid recovery of cognitive function between rounds.
The Bigger Picture
Brazilian jiu-jitsu has always been described by its practitioners as something that changes not just the body but the mind. The research from the University of South Wales gives that intuition a precise biological mechanism: years of training appear to build a brain with measurably superior blood supply at rest a more richly perfused, more neuroprotective primed brain that the researchers describe as evidence of adaptive neuroprotection.
This is what the body does when it is challenged correctly, consistently, and over time. It adapts upward. It becomes more resilient. It prepares itself for the next demand by becoming structurally better at meeting it.
The BJJ brain finds more blood. The mitochondria activate their protective machinery. The vascular system remodels toward higher baseline perfusion. And the brain that emerges from years on the mat is, by at least one measurable parameter, better supplied than the brain of an equally fit person who never trained.
For BJJ athletes: the science now supports what you already knew in your body. Your training is building your brain.
For everyone else: the question worth asking is what you are doing to build yours.
THUMOS is always here for you.
Learn more at livethumos.com
Citations & References
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Stacey, B., Campbell, Z., & Bailey, D.M. (2021). Elevated Cerebral Perfusion and Preserved Cognition in Elite Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Athletes: Evidence for Neuroprotection. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, 31(12), 2332–2340. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/sms.14031
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University of South Wales Neurovascular Research Laboratory. (2022). Researchers Provide Counterevidence to Concerns of Brain Damage Caused by Participating in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. southwales.ac.uk/news/2022/january/researchers-provide-counterevidence
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BJJ Eastern Europe. (2024). Researchers Provide Evidence for BJJ Training Being Good for Long-Term Brain Health. bjjee.com/articles/researchers-provide-evidence-for-bjj-training-being-good-for-longterm-brain-health
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Combat Sports Law. (2021). Study Suggests BJJ Chokes Do Not Impair Cognitive Function and May Improve Arterial Blood Flow. combatsportslaw.com/2021/08/12/study-suggests-bjj-chokes-do-not-impair-cognitive-function
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ResearchGate. (2021). Elevated Cerebral Perfusion and Preserved Cognition in Elite Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Athletes — Full Paper. researchgate.net/publication/353673489
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PMC / NIH. (2015). Novel Cellular Mechanisms for Neuroprotection in Ischemic Preconditioning: A View from Inside Organelles — Mitochondria as Master Regulators of Preconditioning. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4443717
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Frontiers in Neurology. (2020). Cerebral Ischemic Tolerance and Preconditioning: Methods, Mechanisms, Clinical Applications, and Challenges. frontiersin.org/journals/neurology/articles/10.3389/fneur.2020.00812/full
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PMC / NIH. (2021). Neuroprotective Effects and Mechanisms of Ischemic/Hypoxic Preconditioning on Neurological Diseases. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8265941
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PMC / NIH. (2015). Current Insights into the Molecular Mechanisms of Hypoxic Pre- and Postconditioning Using Hypobaric Hypoxia. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4615940
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Scientific Reports / Nature. (2023). The Effect of Exercise on Cerebral Blood Flow and Executive Function Among Young Adults: A Double-Blinded Randomized Controlled Trial — HIIT vs. MICT. nature.com/articles/s41598-023-33063-9
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PMC / IJERPH. (2022). The Utility of High-Intensity Interval Training to Improve Cognitive Aging — Higher Cardiorespiratory Fitness Protects Against Brain Atrophy and Reductions in Cerebral Blood Flow. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9778921
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Cognizin® / Kyowa Hakko. Cognizin® Citicoline Increases Brain Energy (ATP) by 14% in the Frontal Lobe. cognizin.com/studies/cognizin-citicoline-increases-brain-energy-atp-by-14
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PMC / NIH. (2022). Taurine Supplementation as a Neuroprotective Strategy — Taurine Enhances ATP Production and Protects Mitochondrial Membrane Integrity. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8952284
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Frontiers in Nutrition. (2025). Nano-Emulsified CoQ10: Bioavailability and Cellular Energy. frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2025.1605033/full
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PubMed: L-Tyrosine and Catecholamine Synthesis Under Stress — pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8293316/
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PMC / NIH. (2025). The Gut Microbiome and Its Impact on Mood and Decision-Making — Gut Microbiota Modulate Serotonin, Dopamine, and GABA Neurochemical Pathways. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12609437
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THUMOS. (2025). Science-Backed Cellular Energy and Brain Health. livethumos.com
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