Lucas Pinheiro. Cooper Neil
Lucas Pinheiro’s year is in full swing, to say the least. If in 2016 he didn’t compete much because of a serious car accident that sidelined him for eight months, this year the 23-year-old is obsessed with making up for it. After participating in more than ten competitions this season, winning nine gold medals and a bronze at the World Championship, he will try for a tenth title at the Pan IBJJF Jiu-Jitsu No-Gi Championship, which kicks off Sept. 30th in New York.
Ron Incerta, Lucas’s strength and conditioning coach, shed some light on some of the work that has been going on behind the scenes. “We are using methods that will give Lucas peak power in both relative strength, which is the amount of force for a body size, and in the strength endurance,” he said. “His specific conditioning will primarily come from his skills training jiu-jitsu — or, in other words, rolling on the mat. The goal of all his strength training is to complement the energy system that he will need to win the gold for his next competition.”
