Less Drilling and More Situation Wrestling in Practices

A coach recently asked for advice on using situation wrestling effectively. 

I was hoping that you could give me some of the main lessons or key points you’re stressing in situation wrestling. Which situations you have found the most effective to practice?  What do you recommend in terms of duration and frequency of the situations wrestled in practice?

Here was my response:

                Your choice of which situations to use, how often to do them or how long they should last are based on two things:

1.       Your objective for using the situation

2.       The experience level of the athletes

                I believe that every time you teach a move, you should teach the counter at the same time.  Use drilling (where the drill partner is giving little or no resistance) only to teach wrestlers how to execute and enhance their timing.  After that, I don’t believe it is very effective to drill a move against a partner who is not offering significant resistance.  I think the main reason we drill is to use it as a form of wrestling-specific conditioning. 

Think about it for a minute.  We drill a lot of takedowns, but we don’t typically hit 30 cradles in a row in every practice or 30 tilts in a row.  Why not? Because they don’t have the conditioning effect of takedown drilling, therefore, we feel like it is a waste of time.  But when you watch a match, most of the takedowns don’t look very much like the way we drill them, unless the offensive guy catches an opponent with his head up his butt or he or she is wrestling a poor wrestler. 

  This isn’t to say we shouldn’t be drilling.  However, it should be done mostly to reinforce the movements prior to situation wrestling.  Do we need 50 reps on a move each day or even 15 for that matter?  I don’t think so.  After athletes get their timing down, I think 4-5 reps might be sufficient, if effective situations follow and we coaches are paying attention to helping kids improve the technique during the situation.

  How long your situation lasts will depend on your goal for the situation.  If your objective is to teach kids to score or simply dominate, then situations will be longer with an emphasis on winning.  In these situations, you may start with a head-inside single leg, for example, but you don’t really care what techniques positions evolve after you start the athletes, because the goal is to teach them to fight for the win.  Give a specific amount of time (20 seconds, for example) and maybe add some common scenarios:  “You are down by one point, with 20 seconds left and you are in the top position with a crab ride.”  Most coaches see to do this already.

 If you have inexperienced wrestlers and the goal is to help kids improve in positions in which they are reluctant to try or have limited experience, then use shorter durations, and stop when someone scores from the position or the wrestlers get too far from the position you are trying to work on. 

For example during a situation that starts with the wrestlers in the referee’s position, if you want the bottom wrestler to primarily work for a stand-up, you may only have them fight for 4-6 seconds initially.  This would help the bottom wrestler focus on moving off the whistle quickly and possibly teach him or her how to put moves together to get an escape.   

When a wrestler is inexperienced, you don’t want him to get discouraged if he gets broken down to his belly.  Often, we leave inexperienced wrestlers on the bottom for a minute or more to try to figure things out when we may not have effectively taught them what to do or given them enough chances to be successful with it.  As you see the wrestler’s confidence improving and his or her ability to stay in good position for longer periods of time, then increase the duration of the situation. 

The length of a situation may also depend on which position you are focusing on at the moment.  Using the same situation as before (referee’s position), you can use a longer situation and put an experienced wrestler in the top position “ride the bull” for a longer period of time.  This will help the top wrestler develop the confidence to ride a very motivated bottom wrestler in a close match when there may be 15-20 seconds left in a period.

                I believe that a lot of early season situation wrestling should not be timed.  Rather dedicate about 5 minutes to working each position and let the athletes start themselves for each repetition and wrestle only until a score or they get out of position.  (This self-directedness may not work for younger kids.)  Let them catch their breath between each rep while you as a coach emphasize why they scored or failed to score and have them start again.  I call these “feedback situations” and I blogged about it on an earlier post.

The moves you select to use in situations will be dictated by trends you seen in matches, but here are a few that I believe should be stressed regardless of what is happening in competitions. 

·         Fighting off back from various pin holds—top guy will be about 70% intensity, so bottom guys learns how to move

·         Building up to a base from the belly

·         Getting out of a leg ride and crab ride

·         Leg attacks: finishing/countering inside and outside singles (high crotches)

·         Referees position: trying to get a fast stand-up and escape and trying to keep the guy down

·         Front headlock

·         Tilts-when first using the tilt let the top guy be in tilt position, he has to try to hold the defensive wrestler.  As the wrestlers get more experienced start them with less control until they are starting with only wrist control, for example.

The tilt situation above suggests and important point.  There are numerous positions that evolve as a wrestler completes a move.  When wrestlers are first learning a move, give the wrestler on whom you are focusing a lot of advantage.   You may start by giving an inexperienced offensive wrestler a crossface cradle where the partner starts on his or her back and the offensive wrestler must learn to hold the opponent there.  As the wrestler gains more experience, start the situation from a more even position (cradle locked up, but defensive wrestler not on his back) until eventually the offensive wrestler is starting with very little such as only having a crossface.

The most important thing about incorporating situation wrestling into your practices is to think about what you want to accomplish with the situation and then set it up in such a way as to facilitate that outcome.

Before You Accept That Wrestling Scholarship...

So you are thinking about wrestling in college...

               With the high school season coming to an end, you might be thinking of wrestling in college.  Whether you are a graduating senior or an underclassman, it is never too early to begin planning for the future. 

                Many wrestlers figure that if they are good enough, the college coaches will contact them.  They have the workman mentality that if they just work hard enough everything will work out in the end.  While that is true to a certain degree, there are several reasons why a wrestler should market himself to college coaches.

                First of all, you don’t have to be a four-time state champion to be a potential college wrestler.  While it is true that college coaches usually go after multi-time state champions, they often miss out on the state champion or state place winner that has not fully achieved his potential. 

                Just because a college coach may not be calling you doesn’t mean that you are not good enough to wrestle in college. Think about it.  There are hundreds of high school state champions at every weight class throughout the United States each year.  In fact, there are probably dozens of two-time state champions at most weight classes each year.  However, there are relatively few college wrestling programs where all these athletes can wrestle.  Most college coaches know about the multi-time state champions, wherever they are located in the country, but they don’t know very much about the one- or two-time state champions unless they are from the states where the college is located.  Excellent high school wrestlers with college potential reside in places like Nevada and Texas that do not have college wrestling programs. 

                A second reason to market yourself to college coaches is that the very act of researching college programs will enable you to learn more about the programs where you could wrestle.  There are many excellent schools that don’t get the national media attention like the perennial powerhouses such as Iowa or Oklahoma State.  Until the last few years nobody talked much about Cornell University as a place to go wrestle, but now in 2011, people are looking at them as a serious contender for the Division I national championship!

                A school like Cornell is looking for a special kind of student-athlete.   I’ve been impressed with the ability of Cornell’s coaching staff to take athletes that weren’t necessarily multi-time state champions and develop them into outstanding college wrestlers. 

                Another important reason to market yourself to college coaches is that you can initiate a contact with them several months before NCAA rules will permit them to contact you.  This gets you on their radar early in your career.  By the time you are a senior, they will have heard of you, whether you are located in their state and close to their campus or far away from them.

                Part of your efforts to market yourself can include sending a letter and a profile sheet, updates on your progress and invitations to watch you wrestle as well as providing them with videos of a few of your matches.  There are some specific things you can do beginning your freshman year in high school, which are too extensive to describe here. 

                I’ve included all of this in my book Wrestle and Win: The Wrestler’s Guide to Strength, Conditioning, Nutrition and College Preparation which you can order here on this blog site.  Three chapters will help you understand how to evaluate college programs, how to maximize your chances of getting a scholarship and walk you through the timeline of things to do each year before you graduate from high school.  There are even sample letters for you to use as you write to college coaches as well as a checklist of what to do on a campus visit.

Warm-up to Win Your Wrestling Match!

                Most wrestlers seem to know that warming up before physical training is an important way to reduce the risks of an injury.  But few wrestlers effectively use a good warm-up routine to help them win matches.  When I attend a wrestling event, I can often tell how a wrestler will perform in a match based on what I see in the warm-up. 

                Some of the important physical reasons to warm-up include getting the heart rate elevated, the blood circulating, and the muscles ready for action.  A good warm-up also stimulates your body’s nervous system to release important hormones associated with the “fight or flight” response.  Warming up before a competition has psychological benefits as well.  These are more important than the physical benefits. 

                The more we care about our performance in a match (and the tougher we perceive the opponent to be) the more we tend to think about it.  As a person thinks about things, he begins to draw more inside himself.  In fact, there is a funny stereotype about nerdy people that are socially awkward because their brains are moving 100 miles an hour and they are not really focused on what is going on around them.  When this happens to a wrestler, we say that his “head is not in the game.”  In reality, the opposite is true; his head is TOO MUCH in the game.  The conscious, thinking part of the brain is turned up and the reacting part is turned down. 

                Here are some signs that tell me that my brain is turned up too high:

1.       My feels a little cold and I feel drawn into myself.

2.       I feel tired, even though I am in shape to wrestle hard for a two-hour practice.

3.       I just want to get the match started and “get it over with.”

4.       I feel tightness in my chest—just a little squeezing pressure that makes me want to take a deep breath and get things stretched out.

To a certain degree, these responses are completely normal.  In fact, a certain amount of mental stress is necessary for optimal performance.  When these feelings are on a higher level than usual, it’s time to get your body moving.

A good warm-up that will prepare you physiologically and mentally will take about 15-20 minutes.  Keys to a good precompetition warm-up:

GET WARM! 

The light jog that I see most wrestlers doing before a tournament is a good start, but make sure to actually get warm.  Either jog a little faster or put on extra clothes.  You can cheat this a little by taking a hot shower before you warm-up.  I once saw world champion Dennis Hall jumping rope with a plastic top on (before the days that they were banned).  One your body starts to sweat a lot you can move to specific wrestling activities. 

DO EXPLOSIVE MOVEMENTS

                Prime your body’s fast-twitch muscles by doing explosive jumping movements, clapping push-ups, short bear crawls and spin drills.  Each of these should be short in duration (4-6 seconds).  Because you are already warm, their purpose is simply to prepare yourself to move fast.

SITUATION WRESTLING AT 100% INTENSITY

                You can do some light drills of your favorite moves if you really want, but is that really necessary at this point? Is the 5^th time you hit the move in a warm-up any better than the first time?

                I remember watching two wrestlers warm up about 45 minutes before the NCAA finals one year and what they were doing made a lot of sense to me.  They would wrestle at what appeared to be 100% intensity for about 10-20 seconds in the positions they were most likely to get into in their matches.   They were in shape to wrestle hard for two hours, so they weren’t likely to tire themselves out.

AFTER THE WARM-UP, BEFORE THE MATCH

                After the warm up, change into dry clothes.  Have a clean, dry t-shirt so you don’t develop a chill before your match.  Even a stocking cap or a ball cap is a good idea to help you stay warm.   If you have 30-40 minutes before you compete, it might be helpful to take in about 12-16 ounces of a sports drink like Gatorade. 

Once you have established a good warm-up, all you need to do before your match is elevate your heart rate with a few short sprints, even if you have several matches throughout the day.  Ten minutes before each match do about five or six 10-yard sprints.  Some shadow drilling will keep your heart rate up and keep you in the right mindset.  They key is not to push it too hard in the minutes before the match.  Just stay loose.

Using Set-up Tactics to Score from the Neutral Position

            When I was in college, our team placed a heavy emphasis on using tactics to set-up an opponent for a takedown.  Tactics are not necessarily specific moves, like an arm drag, but they are like, well, tactics.  It’s probably easier just to describe them.  Before I start, I should mention that the original source (that I am aware of) of the concept of tactics was published in an article entitled “Tactics” by Ed Yarovinski, sometime in the 1980s. 

            You should use tactics several times in a match and be able to switch from one to another as the situation dictates increases their effectiveness. 

            The first tactic is Breaking Balance, which is using any kind of control tie to get an opponent out of position so you can shoot.  The best ties for this are simply a collar tie used effectively to snap the head, and underhook, or a Russian tie.  Using this tactic looks a lot like an Iowa-style of wrestling where your are in an opponent’s face and just knock him or her out of position until you can attack the legs.  Probably the best thing about this tactic is that it keeps opponents on the defense.

            Binding is probably the next most effective tactic.  This involves using a control tie such as an underhook, Russian tie, or wrist control to slow down an opponent.  When the opponent works to clear from the ties, there is often an opening for you to attack.  You must be focused on aggressive wrestling, however, because if you just hang on the tie you can be called for stalling.  Avoid getting lazy in this position and don’t get in the habit of hanging in the position too long.

            Maneuvering is kind of the opposite of binding.  Most coaches call this clearing ties.  Use this when an opponent ties you up.  If an opponent hangs onto a collar tie, clear the tie or maneuver out with a slide-by or a duck-under as the situation dictates.  Clear a Russian tie by spinning or attacking the far elbow.  When an opponent has an underhook, battle for head position and go on the offensive.  The key is to look for a scoring opportunity as you are clearing the tie, don’t just clear the tie only to give an opponent another fresh start.

            Another very effective tactic to practice is Repeated Attack.  This is simply planning two or three attacks in a row.  Basically, as soon as an opponent blocks your first shot, you follow it up with a second.  Timing is critical.  You don’t want to take a shot from a poor position, but you can’t wait too long for an opponent to get back to a defendable position.  Your repeated attack can be the same shot, if the opponent is in position or it can be another shot.  Double leg attacks work well for same-shot repeated attacks as long as you keep your head up and don’t get stuck on your knees. You can also follow a double-leg attack with an outside single (high crotch) attempt. 

            Most wrestlers and coaches use Reshots so I won’t spend a lot of time on them here.  A reshot is simply stopping your opponent’s initial attack, and attacking him before he can get back to a defensible position.  Double legs, ankle picks and sweep singles are all effective re-shot attacks depending on the situation.

            Fakes.  I would much rather wrestle an opponent that was very strong than one who was quick and moved well.  Using fakes to set-up an opponent is an easy way to keep an opponent on the defense, because every well-executed fake must be taken seriously.  Unfortunately, I don’t see nearly enough wrestlers using this great tactic.  One wrestler who made a career on this kind of movement is the legendary John Smith, now the head coach at Oklahoma State University.  He would change his levels and fake a shot with his entire body and even world-class opponents could rarely stop his shot. 

            The final tactic I found to be effective is called High and Low.  Using this tactic simply involves alternating between attacking the upper and lower body.  My favorite way to do this was to use a head snap to set up a leg attack or faking a leg attack and then snapping the head for a go-behind takedown.  It can also involve using an upper-body control tie to set-up an inside trip.  If you are a good thrower, there are several opportunities to hit body locks, bear hugs and lateral drops after an opponent fights off an initial shot.

            The key to effective tactic drilling is to have a good training partner.  The reason I like tactics so much is because they are the kind of movement that actually happens in a match.  However, to effectively drill them, your partner should be giving you at least 70% resistance and must react to your set-ups.  I might mention here that when I coach a drilling session, I pay as close attention to the defensive wrestler as I do to the guy who is drilling the shots.  If the defensive drill partner is not reacting realistically (sprawling, level changing and reacting to fakes), then the drill is a waste of time.  Think about it.  Who makes you better?  It’s your training partners.  If they aren’t giving you a good defensive look on your shots, then find a new partner.

            Incorporating tactics into your drilling will give you effective series of attacks from each position.  Eventually, you will get into a rhythm of how the opponent reacts and what effective second- and third moves are available. 

            When I coach a drill session, often I will say that the drill is Breaking Balance to any takedown or I will call for Re-shots.  The key is that I don’t just call for a move like a single leg, I try to call for a set-up, which will open up scoring opportunities for many moves.

            Incorporate tactics into your training and you will find that your takedown success will increase quickly, because your set-ups will be more fluid.

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.