Want to know a little secret that can make all the difference to your wrestling team’s success??

… In-Season Training!

This is one of the most-neglected aspects of a wrestler’s season (besides food and water while cutting weight… but that’s a topic for another discussion).

In-Season strength training is crucial so that you maintain the level of strength that you worked hard to develop during your offseason training.  It doesn’t make any sense to train hard for the entire year leading up to your wrestling season, and then neglecting it all season.

The key is to dominate your opponents by being stronger.  When you are stronger for wrestling by using wrestling-specific strength training, it will have a carry-over to your speed, power AND conditioning on the mat.  This means faster take-downs, sprawls, standups, rolls etc.

The reasons most guys stop training during the season are that they either:

1.  Try to continue their off-season training program and wind up over-trained, frustrated, and quit after a couple of weeks.

2.  Skip training all-together to focus on wrestling.

As a Sports Performance Specialist, I have always advocated for In-Season training for wrestlers… and it gets more important as you hit High School and College.

With that said, here are 5 tips to ensure you’re on the right track with your In-Season Strength Training for Wrestling:

1.  Train 1-1/2 Days per Week No, that’s not a misprint.  It’s simply an average from training 2 times on week 1, then only 1 time during week 2.  Week 3 would go back to 2 times, and week 4 would again be only 1 time.  This averages out to 1-1/2 times per week of strength training during the In-Season.  (It’s the system that thousands of wrestlers have used with my Ultimate Wrestling Strength Program)

Now, if you can train 2 x every week that’s fantastic… and I recommend it.  BUT, if recovery and weight-cutting are crushing you, then go with the 1-1/2 x per week approach.  You will maintain your strength much better.  This means better wrestling and less nagging injuries.

2.  Keep Up Your Strength AND Power I like to include training to maintain overall strength and training to keep power/speed optimal.  This is done with a combination of heavier weight (sets of 5 repetitions) on key exercises, and plyometric exercises for both the upper body and lower body.  I’ll show you an example in a bit.

3.  Include a Unilateral Leg Exercise When you include one-leg exercises in your wrestling training program, you get an increased benefit of developing stabilizing muscles throughout your hips, knees and ankles.  This increased joint stability, along with the increased muscular strength give them a high recommendation.  You also help with your balance on the mat because of the increased stability and overall strength.

4.  Train the Back Half of Your Body Hardest Turn 100 wrestlers lose in a weight room and I promise most of them will migrate towards the Bench Press or start curling.  Nothing wrong with these exercises, and I do like them… BUT, the key to In-Season strength is to concentrate on the muscles on the back of your body:  Traps, Rhomboids, Erectors, Lats, Glutes, Hamstrings).  This is the key to your In-Season training program, and will provide the best result for your efforts.

5.  Perform Lateral Raises One little area of a wrestler’s body that should always be strong are the Middle Deltoids.  This is the “cap” on the end of your shoulders that gives you “width”.  This area is responsible for “cranking a half” on your opponent, and is valuable in most pinning situations.  It is a hard to train area unless you include some sort of lateral raises in your training:

• DB Laterals
• Cable Laterals
• 1 Arm DB Laterals
• 1 Arm Cable laterals

There are a ton of variations, but the above exercises are basics that can really do you some good.

Ok, now that you have an understanding on why you should train during the In-Season, here is a sample workout for you:

In-Season Strength Training for Wrestlers (sample)

Day 1

- Weighted Dips, Bench Press, or Incline Bench Press – Work up to one max set of 3-5 reps

- Inverted Bodyweight Rows – 3 sets of max reps

- Barbell Step-Ups – 3 x 8 reps

- Seated Cable Rows – 3 x 10-12 reps

- DB Shrugs – 3 x 10 – 12 reps

- Abs Circuit (choose 4 exercises, and perform each for max reps.  No rest in between exercises. Do 2 circuits.)

Day 2

- Scramble to Balance – 3 x 10 each leg

- Trap Bar Deadlift OR Barbell Squat – Work up to 1 max set of 5 reps.

- DB Bench Press – 3 x 8 – 12 reps

- Face Pulls – 3 x 8 – 12 reps

- DB Lateral Raises – 2 x 12 – 15 reps

- Reverse Hyperextensions or Glute/Ham Raise – 2-3 sets of 8 – 12 reps