have just strted training and am keen to improve my grappling but am in need of a few routines to do alone when not in training. Re there any single person exercises that a few of you grapplers use to improve your game?

Bench, Squat, Deadlift, Rows, interval sprints, burpees...

Are you talking about strength and conditioning, or drills that you can do alone?

If you're looking for drills, check out the "Grappling Drills" videos that I posted in the training instructional forum.

lay on your stomach and get to your feet as fast as you can, do it from down on your knees too it should help with explosiveness

good begginner excersise

I'm no expert, but I have a few that I've been doing lately that help some.

1. Put a yoga brick on the ground and practice armbars from the mount. (the ones where you put one hand on top of the other, hop up and spin)

2. There is a foam tube that is about the size of a leg that I've been using to practice over the leg guard passing. It's hard to explain, but I'll post on my hands, drive my knee over the tube and switch to side control with my chest still on the tube so I can practice passing and applying pressure while staying low to the ground.

3. Practicing armbars and triangles from the guard. Basically I lay flat on my back and place my hands at my sides at downward 45 degree angles, like breakfalling. Then I jump my hips high off of the ground and turn my hips like I'm jumping them up for armbars. Then I'll do the same thing, except triangle my legs.

4. On a giant yoga ball. I'll sit on top of the yoga ball, like I'm waiting for it to hatch, lol. Then I'll slide forward down the ball and turn my body, sprawling my hips fast like I'm sprawling for a single leg. Then I'll turn my hips down on the other side to practice applying pressure with my hips and shoulders.

It's tough for me to explain exactly what I mean, but I hope that helped some.

stretch the hell out of your knees, hips, hams, and lower back. work on getting your feet tucked behind your head as a goal, work on being able to bring your ankle to your chest using the wrist of your opposite hand. there is the heal hook stretch, toe hold stretch, americana stretch, armbar stretch. these are all where you put yourself in the actual submission and stretch it out, doing these on a regular basis will make it harder for you to be submitted, and doing the stretching will open up your ability to submit people greatly. especially the stretches i was talking about will help improve your guard and half guard unbelieveably.

i do these all on a regular basis

thanks

Headstands are great to help strengthen your neck. You need a strong neck to give you extra time to escape from chokes. This is the only neck exercise I do and it works for me.

Don't bother with the armbar from mount drill once you can perform the spin adequately. You'll never catch anyone with that submission once they've been training longer than a month.

Hip escape drills (shrimping) are great.

One of the best things to do is practise your escapes with an imagined partner. e.g. Lie on your back and imagine that you're being mounted. Make sure you've got good posture - back of the head glued to the floor, shoulders up, hands defending your neck. Imagine that your opponent is going for a cross lapel choke. Grab his hands, bridge hard and turn to your knees to escape the mount.

These types of imaginary drills are really underrated but they help a lot.

nothing substitutes real live training with another human being.