The first time you register for a jiu jitsu tournament, the entry form quietly hands you a Portuguese lesson. Rooster. Light Feather. Medium Heavy. Ultra Heavy. The English names are odd enough — but they're all translations, and the originals are better: galo, pluma, meio-pesado, pesadíssimo.

Here's the complete IBJJF weight class system — every division with its limits in kilos and pounds, what the Portuguese names literally mean, how weigh-ins work, and the one suffix that turns "heavy" into "the heaviest of them all."

The Short Answer

IBJJF competition has nine adult male weight classes and eight female, from Rooster (galo) at the lightest to Ultra Heavy (pesadíssimo) with no limit — plus the Open Class (absoluto), where all weights compete together. Gi divisions are weighed in the gi, right before your first match, with no allowance. No-gi limits run 1.5 kg lighter across the board. Kids, juveniles, and masters use the same Portuguese names with adjusted limits.

The Names Are Portuguese — and They're Great

Jiu jitsu inherited its division names from the Brazilian confederation, so even at a tournament in Texas you're competing in a Portuguese word. Most are simple: leve is "light," médio is "middle," pesado is "heavy." The light divisions borrow from older combat-sports tradition — galo is "rooster" and pena is "feather," just like bantamweight and featherweight in boxing, with pluma ("plume") slotted between them.

The best one is the heaviest. Portuguese has a superlative suffix, -íssimo, that cranks any adjective to the maximum: bom (good) becomes boníssimo, caro (expensive) becomes caríssimo. Bolt it onto pesado (heavy) and you get pesadíssimo — "heaviest of all," "extremely heavy." It's a grammar lesson wearing a gi: learn the suffix from the bracket sheet and you can use it all over Portuguese.

Adult Male Divisions (Gi)

Limits are with the gi on; pounds are the IBJJF’s official published figures.

Division	Portuguese	Pronunciation	Literally	Limit
Rooster	galo	GAH-loo	rooster	57.5 kg / 127.0 lbs
Light Feather	pluma	PLOO-mah	plume	64.0 kg / 141.6 lbs
Feather	pena	PEH-nah	feather	70.0 kg / 154.6 lbs
Light	leve	LEH-vee	light	76.0 kg / 168.0 lbs
Middle	médio	MEH-jee-oo	middle	82.3 kg / 181.6 lbs
Medium Heavy	meio-pesado	MAY-oo peh-ZAH-doo	half-heavy	88.3 kg / 195.0 lbs
Heavy	pesado	peh-ZAH-doo	heavy	94.3 kg / 208.0 lbs
Super Heavy	super-pesado	SOO-pehr peh-ZAH-doo	super heavy	100.5 kg / 222.0 lbs
Ultra Heavy	pesadíssimo	peh-zah-JEE-see-moo	heaviest of all	no limit

Adult Female Divisions (Gi)

Women compete in eight classes with the same names; the heaviest female division is Super Heavy, with no upper limit.

Division	Portuguese	Limit
Rooster	galo	48.5 kg / 107.0 lbs
Light Feather	pluma	53.5 kg / 118.0 lbs
Feather	pena	58.5 kg / 129.0 lbs
Light	leve	64.0 kg / 141.6 lbs
Middle	médio	69.0 kg / 152.6 lbs
Medium Heavy	meio-pesado	74.0 kg / 163.6 lbs
Heavy	pesado	79.3 kg / 175.0 lbs
Super Heavy	super-pesado	no limit

No-Gi: Everything Gets 1.5 kg Lighter

No-gi divisions use the same names with limits 1.5 kg lower — the difference is roughly the weight of the gi you're not wearing. Male Rooster becomes 55.5 kg, Feather 67.5 kg, Heavy 91.5 kg, and so on; Super Heavy tops at 97.5 kg with pesadíssimo unlimited above it. (For everything else that changes when the kimono comes off, see Gi vs. No-Gi Jiu Jitsu.)

How IBJJF Weigh-Ins Actually Work

This surprises everyone coming from wrestling or MMA: there is no day-before weigh-in and no weight allowance. You step on the scale minutes before your first match, in your competition gi, and the limit is the limit — over by 100 grams and you're disqualified before you've fought. The system is deliberately hostile to big weight cuts: you compete at the weight you actually walk around at, which is why hard cutting is rare in jiu jitsu and "bater o peso" — making weight — is mostly about skipping the açaí the week before.

The Absoluto: Everyone in One Bracket

The Open Class — the absoluto — is jiu jitsu's oldest argument made into a division: no weight limit, all sizes welcome, technique against mass. Featherweights have famously entered; giants have famously won. Some of the sport's greatest legends were defined by it — Roger Gracie and Marcus Buchecha built double-gold careers on winning their weight and the absoluto at the same Worlds, and Leandro Lo made a habit of hunting far above his division.

Kids, Juveniles, and Masters

The same Portuguese names run through every age bracket. Kids divisions (4–15) pair fine-grained age groups with lighter limits; juveniles (16–17) get their own scale one notch under the adults; and masters divisions (30 and up, in five-year steps) use the adult limits with age brackets layered on top. One vocabulary, every age — which is very Brazilian of it. Age brackets and belts interact too; that side of the system is covered in the IBJJF belt system guide.

Portuguese Vocabulary for the Scale

Beyond the division names themselves, weigh-in day has its own phrasebook:

Portuguese	Pronunciation	English
peso	PEH-zoo	weight
balança	bah-LAHN-sah	scale
categoria	kah-teh-goh-REE-ah	division, category
bater o peso	bah-TEHR oo PEH-zoo	to make weight
absoluto	ahb-soh-LOO-too	open class

Every word above — and hundreds more — is taught with native-speaker audio and mat-ready phrases in the Fala BJJ app.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you weigh in with the gi on? Yes. IBJJF gi divisions are weighed wearing your competition gi, immediately before your first match, with no allowance. No-gi divisions weigh in wearing the no-gi uniform, with limits set 1.5 kg lighter to compensate.

Why is the lightest division called Rooster? It's borrowed from combat-sports tradition — the same logic as boxing's bantamweight (bantam = a small rooster). In Portuguese it's galo, literally "rooster."

What does pesadíssimo mean? "Heaviest of all." It's pesado (heavy) plus the superlative suffix -íssimo, which maximizes any Portuguese adjective — the Ultra Heavy division, with no upper limit.

What is the absoluto? The Open Class — a division with no weight limit that anyone from any weight class can enter. Winning your weight and the absoluto at the same championship ("double gold") is one of the sport's rarest feats.

Are IBJJF and ADCC weight classes the same? No. ADCC runs its own, much broader divisions (for example 77 kg and 88 kg for men) with different weigh-in rules — one of many differences covered in our ADCC history.

Do people cut weight for jiu jitsu? Far less than in MMA or wrestling. Weighing in minutes before you fight, in the gi, with zero allowance makes dehydration cuts self-defeating — most competitors fight close to their walking weight.

The Bottom Line

Nine words carry you from the lightest rooster to the heaviest of the heavy: galo, pluma, pena, leve, médio, meio-pesado, pesado, super-pesado, pesadíssimo. Learn the limits and you know where you fight; learn the Portuguese and every bracket sheet in the sport becomes a page you can actually read.

That's the Fala BJJ approach in miniature — the language of jiu jitsu, learned from the places it actually lives. Daily lessons cover the divisions, the positions, the numbers on the scale, and everything your coach says in between, with native-speaker audio for all of it.

IBJJF Weight Classes, Decoded