Wrestling requires a special type and level of courage.The arduous training,periodic weight cutting,and public arena for performing are challenges that intimidate all but special breed of athlete.Not to mention the sports very essence-facing off against an opponent who wants to dominate you physically,destroy you emotionally,and humiliate you mentally!
Mike Chapman
After you have wrestled,everything else in life is easy!
Great Dan Gable
Anybody who has ever wrestled knows that no other sport tests your will to win quite the same way.
Five minutes on the mat in a tough match can seem like an hour of hell.
i played othercsports growing up and nothing pushed me to the limits of my endurance and conditioning like wrestling.
Kurt Angle,2 times NCAA
champion,world champion
and Olympic champion
[quote]Jason B wrote:
I don’t follow Ultimate Fighting much, but I know when Tank Abbott ruled it,
[/quote]
You sure don’t know much about ultimate fighting. Tank Abbott never ruled it.
[quote]luburic wrote:
After you have wrestled,everything else in life is easy!
Great Dan Gable[/quote]
THIS IS SO TRUE! I started wrestling junior year in high school, and I realized my only regret of my life: not wrestling for 16 years. Wrestling completely changed my outlook on life; I could do things faster and easier. This quote should be taken literally.
as someone who trained in grappling and ground fighting starting at 21… i gotta say there are times i wish i could turn back time and start wrestling in junior high like i wanted to.
thanks balbo’s!
and there isn’t too specific of a strength program that we use.
we do concentrate on compound movements with extra concentration on leg and back strength.
high reps and endurance are important.
most of the strength comes from practice and wrestling experience. it is more functional than anything.
picking people up, slamming them down, pushing them around, struggling your way out of really weird positions etc will build strength as fast, if not faster, than weights will.
weights help, but it is the actual movements and muscle utilizations we perform that make us the athletes we are.
[quote]Edders wrote:
Jason B wrote:
I don’t follow Ultimate Fighting much, but I know when Tank Abbott ruled it,
You sure don’t know much about ultimate fighting. Tank Abbott never ruled it.[/quote]
True, true, Tank was put down many times. I think I saw him get his ass kicked more than he won. With that said, I wouldn’t fuck with him i a street fight. I saw him fight a dude multiple times outside, I think it was called, Rumpelestilskin’s in Newport Beach, Ca.
The dudes would see each other and go into pummeling one another for what seemed to be hours!!! He was the bouncer there, but he was a pure brawler, not like a Gracie type polished fighter!
Top level Judo players are also very very crazy.
If you think about what they do it is very much like wrestling.
Any judo players in the house? I don’t do Judo but a good friend does Judo and came 5th at the Nationals last year. He does OLifting to help with his power and speed.
Koing
Prove me wrong,but wrestlers are the best athletes…mentally toughest,very skillfull,immensely strong,great endurance,great flexibility,extremely competitive!
Ahh…memories…
One aspect of wrestling that makes us even more badass beyond the conditioning is the fact that we would cut weight in the process. I would regularly have 3 hour workouts in a windowless room so hot there were literally clouds of steam collecting in the ceiling and not take water breaks. Then, go home and not eat or drink anything for 3 days before a match or tournament. Senior year I cut 35 lbs to reach my weight class.
As for the workout itself: every day would end with (no breaks in between):
Run in place and up-downs on the coach’s whistle
Pushup position, hold, down, hold, back up: that’s 1. Do 20 at coach’s pace (sllloooowwww)
Live wrestle for a 6 minute match with no break between periods, then sudden death overtime: who ever got the take down wins (more on this later). Everyone does situps until all weight classes are done.
Spin Drills: One man down, one up with hand behind your back. On the whistle, start spinning on the opponent’s back. On the whistle, reverse direction. Do this for 1 minute then switch positions with your partner. We would usually switch at least 3 times.
Do as many situps as you can in 1 minute, then happy valleys until the coach says stop (seems like an eternity). A happy valley is raise up like a V sit up (your butt is the only part touching the ground) and you pedal your legs like you are riding a bike as fast as possible. Your arms are crossed over your abdomen.
More running in place with Up Downs
Find a spot on the wall. Squat against the wall with thighs parallel to the ground and hold until the coach says to stop. If anyone quit, the timer starts over.
Find a spot on the wall. Hands touching the wall at chest height. On the whistle, run in place pushing in to the wall as hard and fast as you can. 1 minute, 45 sec, 30, 15, 10, 5. If anyone slacks off, everyone starts over.
Once this is done, we jog the halls for 20 minutes. Then…
…Jane Fonda’s with the loser from the match earlier carrying the winner. Jane Fonda’s are when you jog in a circle and on the whistle, you run as hard as you can. On the whislte, you go back to jogging. This was death for the loser of the match.
These were the easy day ends to our workouts.
[quote]shieldss wrote:
Ahh…memories…
One aspect of wrestling that makes us even more badass beyond the conditioning is the fact that we would cut weight in the process. I would regularly have 3 hour workouts in a windowless room so hot there were literally clouds of steam collecting in the ceiling and not take water breaks. Then, go home and not eat or drink anything for 3 days before a match or tournament. Senior year I cut 35 lbs to reach my weight class.
As for the workout itself: every day would end with (no breaks in between):
Run in place and up-downs on the coach’s whistle
Pushup position, hold, down, hold, back up: that’s 1. Do 20 at coach’s pace (sllloooowwww)
Live wrestle for a 6 minute match with no break between periods, then sudden death overtime: who ever got the take down wins (more on this later). Everyone does situps until all weight classes are done.
Spin Drills: One man down, one up with hand behind your back. On the whistle, start spinning on the opponent’s back. On the whistle, reverse direction. Do this for 1 minute then switch positions with your partner. We would usually switch at least 3 times.
Do as many situps as you can in 1 minute, then happy valleys until the coach says stop (seems like an eternity). A happy valley is raise up like a V sit up (your butt is the only part touching the ground) and you pedal your legs like you are riding a bike as fast as possible. Your arms are crossed over your abdomen.
More running in place with Up Downs
Find a spot on the wall. Squat against the wall with thighs parallel to the ground and hold until the coach says to stop. If anyone quit, the timer starts over.
Find a spot on the wall. Hands touching the wall at chest height. On the whistle, run in place pushing in to the wall as hard and fast as you can. 1 minute, 45 sec, 30, 15, 10, 5. If anyone slacks off, everyone starts over.
Once this is done, we jog the halls for 20 minutes. Then…
…Jane Fonda’s with the loser from the match earlier carrying the winner. Jane Fonda’s are when you jog in a circle and on the whistle, you run as hard as you can. On the whislte, you go back to jogging. This was death for the loser of the match.
These were the easy day ends to our workouts.[/quote]
Man, thats some tough training!
P.S. I can use some of this in my own training.
[quote]shieldss wrote:
Ahh…memories…
One aspect of wrestling that makes us even more badass beyond the conditioning is the fact that we would cut weight in the process.[/quote]
I don’t know about making you more badass, thats probably one thing that kept me from wrestling, but I do regret not doing it. And I can’t deny that wrestlers are some of the most impressive athletes i’ve seen. Seeing one of the smaller guys on our team routinely suplex much bigger guys is a pretty good example of this.
It was the plain hardness of the sport that made me continue wrestling when I was in H.S. Eventhough I fractured 2 ribs in training just 3weeks into it I wanted to continue the following year.
One thing I really liked about my Coach is that he held no “tryouts” he welcomed and encourage eveyone to join. So preseason would start with a LOT of people. Then that number would drop. He would say “If wanna quit, then leave.”
Unfortunately my mother did not see eye-to-eye with me on the wrestling thing. So she didn’t sign the Approval Form for wresting in 12th grade. Needless to say… I was pissed.
Luckily I come from a wrestling family and did not have to deal with my mother’s disapproval. Although, she did try to talk me out of sucking so much weight. Looking back at all of the Thanksgiving meals I missed, I maybe should have listened.
Our team had an open door policy. Anyone at anytime could join practice. At the beginning of the year the room would be packed with every “tough guy” in school but by the end of the second practice all that was left was the true team.
We would also have joint practices with other schools over Christmas break. There would be guys who thought they were in good shape getting pounded by the 112 lb’ers and puking their guts out after the pre-practice warm ups.
Also, every year towards the end of the season we would play the basketball team and then they would come wrestle us. The trash talking would start several weeks before hand. We could hang with them but any smack talking on the court was quickly silenced in about 10 seconds when their star center is thrown in a guillotine and he’s crying like a baby. It was like lambs to the slaughter every year.
I was a wrestler too all throughout high school. The funny part is that insane athletes from other sports at my high school would come out and quit after the first day.
For all of you that are interested in wrestling, I would recomend you see if you can’t get your hands on Mike Chapman’s “Wrestling Tough.” It was a great book about wrestling.