Our pick for BJJ
Armbands
Coospo HW9, Polar Verity Sense, Wahoo TICKR FIT, COROS Heart Rate Monitor, and similar BLE armbands.
The Guard BJJ
Every roll counts
The training app for jiu-jitsu
The Guard BJJ reads your heart rate while you train, works out your real calorie burn, and keeps every belt and stripe along the way.
Practitioners train with The Guard BJJ in schools across countries.
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Know Your Real Burn
Connect a Bluetooth heart rate monitor and see your BPM live, roll after roll. Calories come from your real effort, not a number borrowed from a running app.
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Your Path to Black Belt
Promotions, stripes, competitions, injuries. Your whole timeline in jiu-jitsu, with the date on every milestone from white to black.
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Your Training, Everywhere
Every session saves straight to Apple Health and Health Connect, heart rate and active energy included, right next to the rest of your health data.
Four steps
How it works
The session turns into numbers you keep.
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Connect your band
Any standard Bluetooth heart rate monitor. Pair it once and forget it.
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Train as usual
The app reads from your first roll to your last.
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Log what happened
The technique of the day, how many submissions, what your partner caught you with.
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See what the numbers say
Monthly calories, submissions, readiness and your records, month after month.
Your heart rate band
Compatible devices
Live heart rate tracking uses the standard Bluetooth Heart Rate Service (BLE 180D). We recommend forearm armbands, they stay secure during rolls.
They work, can shift
Chest straps
Garmin HRM-Dual, Polar H10, Cardiosport ZT31D, Xoss Works X2 PRO, and similar BLE straps.
Only with broadcast
Wrist bands / watches
Fitbit and Garmin watches. Sleeve grips can knock them loose during gi training.
New tech
Smart mouthguards
Orb Innovations OSG-001. Heart rate read from inside your mouth. Nothing to grip, nothing to shift under pressure. Rare for now, and already supported.
Athlete Mode
Train with intent. Measure every roll
Turn your heart rate band into a performance cockpit built for BJJ.
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Live cockpit
Your heart rate inside a live zone ring, %HRR, calories, and your 2-minute peak, all while you roll.
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Automatic training blocks
The Guard BJJ splits your session into blocks, warm-up, drilling, rolling, conditioning, straight from your heart rate curve. Relabel any block in a tap.
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Planned vs actual
Set a target zone and see how much of your active time you really spent there. Know whether the session did what you meant it to.
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Train with your coach New
Link to your coach, accept their plan, and your day's focus is set for you, right in the pre-workout check-in.
Cycle & training
Training as a woman is different
We listened. Your body doesn't train the same every day, and The Guard BJJ now works with that instead of around it.
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Your phase, on every session
Each session can carry the phase you were in, so your history shows the cycle behind the numbers instead of hiding it.
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Learned from you, not a table
The Guard BJJ builds your pattern from what you enter and your own history: your cycle length, your ovulation day. Not a standard 28-day chart.
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Calories that follow your body
Your hormonal phase feeds the calorie estimate, so the burn reflects where your body actually is that week.
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Private, and reversible
Only the phase reaches your account, never your coach. What you enter stays on your device, and one row in your profile removes all of it.
Community
Your school, on the leaderboard
Training is better with your crew watching. Follow your partners, see who hit the mat, and climb the ranking together.
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Monthly ranking
Climb the calorie leaderboard for the month, filtered by belt. See exactly where you stand in your school.
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Your crew and your gym
Follow your training partners and your school. See who showed up this week and keep up with their promotions.
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React to the roll
Sessions land in one feed you can react to. You choose what you share, so your data stays yours.
Coaches & schools
Bring your room in
The same sessions your athletes already log can reach the person planning their week.
Practitioners and coaches
From the mats
"I used to run the room on feel and I got it wrong plenty. Now I can see who's cooked and who's got another hard week in them before I ever write the plan."
"One of my guys dropped 4kg for a tournament and still trained hard the whole camp. We only pulled that off because the calorie numbers came from his real rolls instead of a running app's guess."
"I never really knew what my rolls were doing to me until I saw it on screen: the calories, the months I actually showed up, the whole timeline. First training app I've kept past week two."
"I'm not competing and probably never will. But watching my streak climb and my sessions pile up is the thing that gets me off the couch on a Tuesday. Didn't expect that."
What it costs
Free or Premium?
Yes, the app is genuinely free. Track every session and every belt, for as long as you train. Premium is for when you want to dig deeper into your own game.
Free
Everything you need to log and train.
- Unlimited workout logging: heart rate, calories, photos, notes
- Last 30 sessions on the calendar with core stats
- Monthly mat goal with calendar progress
- One belt milestone on your timeline
- Works fully offline, no account or internet required
Premium
Go deep on your own game.
Everything in Free, plus:
- Athlete Mode: live performance cockpit, automatic training blocks, and planned-vs-actual
- Full session history, no 30-session limit
- Heart rate curve for every roll, not just the numbers
- Insights that show where your game really is, like "40% of this month was guard passing"
- Full belt journey, white to black, with auto stats between promotions
- Cloud backup and sync across devices
- Export everything to CSV or PDF, filtered by date
- Watermark-free shareable cards
Before you download
Frequently asked questions
Is the app really free?
Yes. Track every session, log your journey, set monthly goals, use home screen widgets, and share progress cards, all free, forever. No account, no ads. Premium is an optional upgrade for deeper insights, full history, and cloud backup.
Do I need a heart rate band to use the app?
You can use it without one. Logging sessions, your journey, monthly goals, widgets, and progress cards all work band-free. But live heart rate and real calorie tracking, the whole reason this app exists, need a band. Without one you're getting a slice of what The Guard BJJ can do.
What do I get with a heart rate band?
This is the heart of the app. A BLE band gives you live heart rate every roll, calories based on your real effort instead of a rough guess, readiness and recovery guidance, and richer data in Apple Health and Health Connect. A logbook without a band is useful. With a band, The Guard BJJ becomes the only app that shows what your body actually did on the mat.
Does it work for no-gi and MMA?
Absolutely. Heart rate, calories, and session logging work the same for gi, no-gi, or MMA. The journey feature is BJJ-specific, but everything else applies to any grappler.
Does it work without internet?
Completely. The Guard BJJ works fully offline. Log workouts, track heart rate, and check your stats with no connection at all. Your data lives on your device. Upgrade to Premium and cloud backup syncs when you're back online.
Is my training data private?
Yes. Your data stays on your device by default. We don't sell or share your information. If you enable Premium cloud backup, data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Read our privacy policy for details.
Does The Guard BJJ track the menstrual cycle?
If you want it to. Each session can carry your cycle phase, built from what you tell the app and your own training history rather than a generic 28-day table, and your calorie estimate adjusts with your hormonal phase. An Insights card shows how your training shifts across the cycle. It's yours, it stays private, and you can remove all of it from your profile whenever you want.
Which heart rate band do you recommend for BJJ?
- Chest straps can lose contact or shift during heavy pressure positions like side control (100kg).
- Wrist bands and smartwatches tend to slip off during gi training because of sleeve grips.
- Smart mouthguards are a new option, like the Orb Innovations OSG-001: heart rate read from inside your mouth, with nothing to grip and nothing to shift under pressure.
- Forearm bands stay secure. They sit above the wrist (away from grips) and below the chest (away from pressure). Best of both worlds for grappling. We recommend optical bands like the Coospo HW9.
iOS and Android
Download now
You good? Compared to who? With your own data, you find out.
The Guard BJJ is free on the App Store and Google Play. Premium insights come with an optional subscription.