Peak at the Right Time

The month of January can be a tough time for high school and college wrestlers.  Competitions piled upon competitions give little time for strength training and other injury-preventing activities.  It can also be difficult mentally to overcome stale performances and maintain the enthusiasm that was abundant only a few short months ago.

Here are a few tips to help you (or your athletes) peak at the right time.

"FEEDBACK" Situation Wrestling
Situation wrestling is key at this stage of the season.  You will benefit from doing strategy situations and feedback situations.  A strategy situation is performed by creating a hypothetical where something is happening in the match such as: you are losing by one point and there is 30 seconds left in the third period.  this can help you plan for what do do in those instances. 

A feedback situation is an underused tool to help you improve your technique.  To perform feedback situations, focus only on the technique you are trying to improve.  An example would be to begin the situation where you have your training partner in a head-outside single leg.  You both wrestle to score from that position, but you stop as soon as one of you scores or your wrestling takes you well out of that position.  Then you both take a few seconds to figure out why you scored or failed to score.  Repeat this several times.

This training will help you peak your technque in specific ways that will make a difference late in the season.  Here are key positions to use in feedback situations: building up from the belly on the bottom, the first 2 or 3 seconds of trying for a stand-up, finishes to leg attacks, tilts, leg rides and counters to leg rides.

Strength Train
At this stage of the season, many wrestlers and coaches have gone from heavy weight training to high-repetition circuit training.  This is a mistake!  Circuit training will increase muscle endurance (in the pattern you are performing the lift), but the best way to condition for wrestling is BY WRESTLING.  Save the weight room for DEVELOPING STRENGTH. 

Focus on large muscle GROUPS.  Deadlifts (or power cleans), squats, bench press and rowing exercises performed with 3-4 sets of 8 or fewer repetitions is all most wrestlers need to do at this stage of the season.  Avoid rushing between sets.  For heavy lifting allow 2-5 minutes between each set.  You can speed up the workout by performing a GIANT SET or a strength circuit by doing a set of squat, followed by a set of bench press, and a set of rowing and then start again with the second set of the squat.  By the time you get back to the squat, you will have rested that exercise for several minutes. 

Don't worry about doing very many isolation or single-joint exercises like arm curls.  You never isolate that movement in wrestling, and you won't have a lot of time for a long weight room workout.  If you can hit the weights hard two times a week for about 35-45 minutes, you will get a good strength benefit without overtraining.

Focus on Optimal Nutrition
In spite of the new weight management rules instituted for high school and college wrestlers, most of you are still having to cut some weight before each competition.  This is why it is important that whenever you do eat, you are consuming a good mixture of the right calories.  Try this for a strategy each day:

1. Weigh yourself before and after each practice and make sure you drink at least 16 oz of water for every pound you lost in practice as soon as possible.  This will help curb your appetite for highly sugared or fatty foods that are so appealing after practice.
2. Drink a carbohydrate drink during hard practices.  Shoot for a 6% solution, which is about 60 grams of sugar, or 1/4 cup, per quart of water.  (Yeah, I know it sounds like a lot of sugar, but trust, me, you'll burn it up in a hard workout.)  Add some lemon or KoolAid for flavoring.  If you want to get technical about the sugar, you can opt for something like maltodextrine, but table sugar will work just fine.
3. Eat two servings of raw vegetables or fruit each day.  The recommendation is five or more, but I don't know very many people who do that each day.  I try for a carrot and an apple.
4. Get enough protein, but don't overdo it.  If you are eating a pretty normal diet, a protein supplement--shake--with breakfast will probably help you out.
5. Don't forget the complex carbs!  These are strarches (breads, cereals and grains).  They are your energy foundation.  You will have to experiment to see your energy needs, but 6-12 servings depending on your body size (each serving being the equivalent of a slice of bread of 1/2 cup dry cereal) is a range to work within.