Investing in Your Wrestling Training

DISCLOSURE: I offer training lessons for athletes, so I am admitting up front that what I am about to write will be slanted from my point of view...and it might not sit well with fans or coaches of team sports.

January and February...
AT THIS TIME OF THE SEASON, a wrestler's strengths and weaknesses are becoming obvious as wrestlers move through the gauntlet of increasingly tougher opponents.  The natural tendency for parents and wrestlers is to blame the high school wrestling coaches for shortcomings in their son's or daughter's lack of preparedness.  To a certain extent they are right; the expectation is that a parent can entrust coaches to develop athletes and have kids ready to compete.  However, there are great differences between the knowledge and abilities of coaches.  Most that I have met are very committed and trying to do the right thing, but many will admit that their experience is somewhat limited.  There is a BIG difference between being able to teach a move and understanding how to incorporate that move into drilling and live wrestling in such a way that the wrestler can use it effectively.


A FEW YEARS AGO I moved to an area and was asked to provide private instruction to an athletic high school freshman with limited wrestling experience.  We trained throughout the winter and into late May.  After about a month I was very encouraged, and thought that he could be competitive for at least a couple of top-three finishes in the state tournament by the time he graduated from high school.

His other love was football.  In June of that year, he attended a few football camps, and, after some encouragement from his football coach, determined to specialize in football and their conditioning program and chose not participate in wrestling any more.

As promised by his coach, for being committed to the football program, he was able to earn a starting position and garnered many minutes of playing time.  He also had high hopes of being recruited to play college football and attended camps and participated in combines to assess his skills and playing ability. Unfortunately for him, during his sophomore, junior and senior seasons his football team went 8-18, winning only one game his senior year and losing by nearly 40 points at home on "Senior Night."   I felt terrible for him, because I knew how hard he had worked, and I felt like the system that he bought into had let him down. 

I am NOT SAYING there is anything wrong with football or other team sports.  I am not even suggesting that wrestlers should not play football or other team sports.  What I am saying is that there is only so much an individual can do to create success.  There are so many factors beyond one person's control.   This becomes increasingly challenging when subtle pressure is applied by many team sports coaches (albeit in a positive way) to specialize.

More than likely there are wrestling coaches that apply this same pressure.  The difference is that when a kid specializes in wrestling, his or her efforts are more likely to produce individual wins.  In fact, within about one wrestling season, it is easy to see whether the effort has paid off.  In team sports, sometimes kids get strung along with promises of how the team will be in the future.  When a kid leaves an individual sport to specialize in a team sport, he or she really does roll the dice on whether the team will have success.

ON THE OTHER HAND, in wrestling or other individual sports, when you invest in camps and clinics, your development WILL pay off.  Your team may not win dual meets or tournaments, but an individual can win multiple state championships, get noticed by college coaches and perhaps even get a college scholarship.

Some families with a team sports mentality put a lot more of the responsibility for their child's development on the shoulders of the high school coaches and wonder why their wrestler can't just jump into a season and beat kids who are wrestling in the off season.

The reality is that many wrestlers will probably benefit from specialized instruction and participation in off-season training.  Here are a few things to consider when determining whether to shell out money for private training or camps.

1. Is the additional training really necessary?  A first-year wrestler and kids who are not naturally intense will probably not benefit that much.  Wait until your kid has mastered a few of the basics and has competed enough to understand how the advanced drills relate to competition.
2. Is it too late?  Three weeks before the end of the season is a little late to get a kid with a .500 record to accomplish anything that will make a big difference.  On the other hand. a kid who has won 75 or 80% of the matches may benefit from a little tune-up and some refinement on a few specific things.
3. Are you willing to make a long-term commitment?  I like off-season training programs that are once or twice per week.  (More training might provide more benefit, but a kid still needs the chance to be a kid and have opportunities to do other things.)  I'd rather see a kid train for three or four months once per week, than cramming all the learning into a few camps once in a summer.