Inseason Weight Training

Weight training can be a vital part of an athlete’s workout plan. But weight training during the wrestling season is not about lifting heavy weights. Instead, the way young athletes are being trained by today's wrestling and strength coaches has evolved to focus more on body weight movements, core exercises and stretching.

"During the season we don't do any organized weight training with the squad," says Nate Naasz, head wrestling coach for the Lincoln, Kansas High School wrestling program. Most athletes at the school are enrolled in the school’s strength and conditioning class, led by a certified strength and conditioning coach. This gives athletes a chance to lift weights, but allows wrestlers to dedicate more time to technique, live drilling, and conditioning during practice, he adds.

At Lincoln they have also incorporated gymnastics movements into their training to create a dynamic warm-up and improve body control, Naasz says. That includes exercises such as cartwheels, hand-walks, round-offs, and an assortment of forward and backward rolls. His wrestlers also include pushups, crunches, buddy squats, buddy sit-ups, and any exercises that create resistance through their own body weight or drilling with their partner. In addition, the team no longer focuses on distance running. Instead the emphasis has shifted to more on explosive, fast-twitch movements such as short sprints, squat jumps, and knee-to-feet explosions.

"We really want our athletes to get in wrestling shape by doing wrestling actions," Naasz explains. "We focus on live drilling every day. This is where the majority of our conditioning comes from."

Matt Nagel, the head coach at Concordia University in Moorhead, Minnesota, says he focuses on implementing core exercises with his college wrestlers, but also preaches the importance of muscle endurance. Nagel, who was an All-American at the University of Minnesota and five-time Minnesota state high school champion, says: "You can be the biggest, strongest guy in the weight room and do one rep with the most amount of weight possible, but when you have a guy that takes you deep into the third period, will you be strong enough and have enough muscle endurance to last?"

To combat fatigue, Nagel says Concordia wrestlers spend a lot time during the season practicing “burnouts”—exercises that test one's mental ability. "When you think you can’t do one more, you find the energy to do one more," says Nagel.

Since wrestling is a sport where moves are dynamic, exercises should be as well, says Jim Harshaw, a former Division I head coach at Slippery Rock University, who was an All-American wrestler at the University of Virginia. He says that coaches should emphasize functional strength where athletes are using multiple muscle groups. An example would be carrying something like a five-gallon jug of water.

“The water sloshes back and forth and carrying it requires lower and upper body muscles, making the exercise dynamic like the sport of wrestling,” says Harshaw. Like Naasz, Harshaw agrees that focusing on body-weight exercises are ideal for youth wrestlers.

"As wrestlers get (into their high school years) and the body matures, weight lifting can be incorporated," says Harshaw. Wrestlers have a tendency to over-train their bodies, he points out. At the 2014 Minnesota Gophers' annual fall clinic, Andy Hrovat, a 2008 USA Olympian in freestyle wrestling, gave a breakout session focusing on the importance of incorporating stretching into any workout routine—something often overlooked by coaches and wrestlers. It’s an aspect of training that Harshaw also believes is too often overlooked.

"Train hard and rest," Harshaw says. "Use downtime to watch film, stretch, rehab injuries or do alternative workouts like yoga, bike riding and swimming."

Michael Favre, Director of Olympic Sports Strength and Conditioning at the University of Michigan, says that offseason goals should be about preparation—building strength, size, and power through weight training. In-season goals, on the other hand, should be focused on performance. But so many athletes think if they don't continue to build upon strength gained in the offseason, they will lose it in-season.

To incorporate some weight training into the season routine, Favre recommends focusing on one major muscle group exercises only one or two days week. Those exercises include bench press, squats, dead lifts and presses. For each exercise complete 2 to 4 sets of 2 to 6 repetitions, within 75 to 80 percent of one's max weight. If one's max squat is 150 pounds, for example, then a wrestler should be lifting no more than 120 pounds, says Favre. This allows wrestlers to continue to maintain the gains made in the summer without overdoing it, while still maintaining a focus on in-season conditioning. All of this should be done with a certified strength and conditioning coach guiding the athlete, says Favre.

"Remember, in-season is the time to perform, while the off-season was the time to prepare," says Favre. "In other words, this is the time to focus on wrestling success."