Structure your wrestling workouts right

Practice in your sport is the #1 priority. Always. Athleticism means nothing without technique. Once we establish our practice days, we can write in our ideal training structure.

Practice 3 days/week (Off-Season)

We like to train 4 days per week here. If practice is Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for example our training split may look like this:

NOTE: LB: Lower Body, UB: Upper Body, P: Practice, FB: Full Body/Weakness

Note: Very few elite level wrestlers will ever be at 3 or less practices/week.

Practice 4 days/week (Off-Season)

In this scenario we have a Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday split. Here’s how we may structure it.

There will always be days with 2 training sessions which is fine as long as we are properly fueling our bodies and hydrating! Full Body/Weakness is a day we use to address problem areas, or bring up weak bodyparts or movements.

Practice 5+ days/week (In-Season)

Assuming an In-Season schedule, we are seeing a MINIMUM of 5 days of practice, and up to 10! Keep in mind weight cuts will sap glycogen and water stores. 2 days is generally enough to maintain strength and not overtrain. Keep in mind-this is not football practice with some days in-season being light, no pads practices. Wrestling practices will be much tougher and training prescription should reflect that.

I find the most success with whole body/weakness sessions during the season. This does not mean I don’t ever break it up into Lower/Upper, however, there are very few wrestlers during the season without a nagging injury here or there. Bone bruised knee, sprained wrist, bruised ribs, etc. I have a GENERAL plan of attack, but most of the time it has to be modified individually.

One of the toughest things to do as an athlete is fit in all the practices, strength training, recovery, and conditioning sessions required without overtraining. It is very important to monitor this as an athlete/coach. If you are not moving the bar fast enough, not jumping as high as you normally do, etc. then it is time to back off on the intensity, and go light that day.