*This article is meant to inform and teach others about the best ways to get the most efficiency out of your wrestling practices. This can be applied at any age level of the sport, and the younger you pick these things up… the faster your wrestling will grow throughout your career*
So here are THREE ways you can instantly start improving your training…
DIRECTION:
In my opinion, this is one of the biggest keys in improving the quickest. Having direction going into your practices gives you the opportunity to know what positions to put yourself in while training. If you havent figured this out by now, the goal of practice should never be to win but to find news ways to score or wrestle through positions that you havent mastered yet.
Some good ways to improve this area is to journal your wrestling, so you can better understand it. Good questions to answer within a wrestling journal include “what are my strengths?”, “what are my weaknesses?”, “how can I use my strengths to score points and neutralize opponents?”.
Another good way of finding direction for practices is by watching film. For example, one of my favorite wrestlers is Yianni D. What I do is watch a variety of his matches, find techniques that I want to implement into my own wrestling, then try them over and over at practice.
The biggest key here is to know where your good and where your not good, and find ways to improve both of those. Think about these things before practice and how you will implement them each practice you go to.
PACE AT PRACTICE:
Work harder not smarter is one of the best quotes when it comes to the evolution of wrestling. Contrary to a old belief, the so called “hardest workers” dont always win. Wrestling is becoming a sport that requires having intelligence about the sport to be able to succeed. Therefore, going 100% the entirety of practice probably isnt the smartest option.
One big thing I picked up from wrestling legend, Ben Askren, is the ability to combine sparring and technique into one. Throughout my career I have always seen “technique time” as a time to not sweat and be somewhat bored because of how slow the pace of practice is. Its not logical to transition from boring technique straight into live wreslting, the energy just wont be there. A form of training that I picked up from Ben is something I call “Collabritive Technique”.
Collaborative technique is the idea that you are progressively picking up your spar the further along practice goes. For example if you are working on a single leg, my partner and I will start out about 50% working on ways to get to the leg/ warming up. Then once we find ways to get to the leg, we pick up the pace to about 75% each to work on finishes. In this time, the defensive partner isnt letting person shooting the single score with ease. They may give one or two defenses then give up the score.
Once you finish this section, you and your partner now will raise to around 85-90% to go into a full spar. Knowing that you are working on a single leg, your entire spar you should be feeling those setups and finishes you worked on out. In this portion of the spar, you are still rewarding the offensive wrestler, but you are giving them an almost live defensive feel.
Finally, once sparring is done, you can transition into live. This is an opprituntity to take chances, and push yourself to the limit trying to score as many points as possible.
THE KEY THING HERE IS TO UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE TRYING TO WORK ON AND SET YOUR PACE ACCORDINGLY!
POST-PRACTICE REFLECTION:
After practice is all finished, this is the time where you reflect on how much you improved within the practice. This can look many different ways including watching film, thinking about the technique you worked on, thinking about how you could have improved your live goes, working with coaches, etc. I think this one and the first one loop together, you must understand how you can be better the next practice, then make the adjustments within the direction of your future practices.
Something that I try to do is to always find other opinions about my wrestling. Whether this be from teammates or coaches, its always refreshing to hear other peoples thoughts even if you dont always agree. Learn how to filter advice from others and take what you need from each interaction you have throughout and after practice.
Hope this wasnt too all over the place, I have like 1000 things I could share regarding this but these are some of the most important areas for me!
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I also have a Youtube account where I post wrestling related videos, type in “Tanner Sparks Wrestling” on youtube and my profile name is “Tanner Sparks” :)