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By Katie Downing 11/05/04
What it takes to excel in wrestling is a love of work, the will to expect more of oneself, and the drive to seek out new ways to push oneself above and beyond the workload that only gets a wrestler through the day. This series is designed for wrestlers who desire a little extra training to reach that next level. Some of these workouts are meant to be supplements to practices or team lifts. They can be done by a group of wrestlers during the season. Some of these stand on their own as workouts, and are meant to be almost the equal of team practices. Wrestlers can use these as a way to keep up their training over the summer when practice schedules are relaxed, or when they are traveling. All of these workouts are designed to require little or no equipment.
Workout #1
Pyramids or Crazy Eights
This workout is a supplement to lifts or team practices. It can be done with just two people, or the whole team. The idea is that the first wrestler does the exercise once, then the second wrestler does it once. #1 does it twice, then #2 twice, and so on up to 8 times each, then back down to 1 time each: 1-1,2-2,3-3,4-4,5-5,6-6,7-7,8-8,7-7,6-6,5-5,4-4,3-3,2-2,1-1.
PUSHUPS-
Both wrestlers stay in push up position the whole time, resting in the up position. The wrestlers take turns doing pushups: 1-1, 2-2, . . . up to 8-8, then back down.
PULLUPS-
Wrestlers take turns doing pull-ups, picking a new position on the bar each time. One set can be hands shoulder width apart, facing out Shoulder width apart, hands facing in (chin-ups)
Hands together, both in and out Wide grip, in and out One hand facing forward, one out, then pull up side to side, pulling your head up to one side of the bar then the other With the feet high on the wall so that you pull your chest to the bar
SPRINTS-
One mat length is the first set, then down and back, then down-back-down, and so on until each wrestler does 8 mat lengths, then back down to one.
CURLS-
Two wrestlers face each other, using a straight bar to do curls (some may have to use lighter dumbbells). Wrestler #1 does one curl, hands the bar off to wrestler #2 to do one, then 2-2 and so on.
DIPS-
Wrestlers take turns doing dips. To do dips, you must have two parallel bars. Put one hand on each and raise up with straight arms. Then you dip down until your elbows are at a 90 degree angle and back up.
SQUAT JUMPS OR TUCK JUMPS-
With feet shoulder width apart, the wrestlers bend down into a squat then jump as high as they can for a squat jump. For a tuck jump, wrestlers stand straight, jump up and bring their knees to their chest, and straighten them back out again.
As you can see, the pyramid or crazy eights concept can be applied to almost any exercise you can think of. Also, you can always make it crazy tens or crazy twelves or whatever you can take. They usually don’t take too long to complete, but they can push wrestlers to their limits.
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By Katie Downing 11/11/04
What it takes to excel in wrestling is a love of work, the will to expect more of oneself, and the drive to seek out new ways to push oneself above and beyond the workload that only gets a wrestler through the day. This series is designed for wrestlers who desire a little extra training to reach that next level. Some of these workouts are meant to be supplements to practices or team lifts. They can be done by a group of wrestlers during the season. Some of these stand on their own as workouts, and are meant to be almost the equal of team practices. Wrestlers can use these as a way to keep up their training over the summer when practice schedules are relaxed, or when they are traveling. All of these workouts are designed to require little or no equipment.
Workout #2
Long Functional Series
The functional series can be used as a warm-up, as an addition to a regular practice, an aerobic workout on its own, or a low impact weight cutting workout. Essentially, this workout is like an aerobics class. It is just a series of exercises. As a warm-up, the series should take a total of about 10 minutes. As an addition or a workout on its own, the series can take as little as ten minutes, or as much as an hour. Wrestlers can ask the coach to call out each new exercise, or a group of wrestlers can each take turns calling out the next exercise. The standard amount of time I’d recommend for each exercise is 30 seconds, but wrestlers can go down to 10 seconds if they want to go harder or faster, or they can go up to 1 or 2 minutes for each exercise if they want a slow burn at low intensity. Below I’ll just list a bunch of possible exercises. Wrestlers can choose to do them all, or pick out a certain set of exercises to do each time. Also, if the wrestlers want to select a set of 10 exercises, they can just repeat them as many times as they want to make the series as long as desired.
Exercises:
-jumping jacks
-cross country skiers: just like jumping jacks, except that you move your arms and legs forwards and backwards instead of side to side
-speed skaters: crouch into a stance, hop off of the left foot to the right, then the right foot to the left-hop as far as you can in each direction-you should hop side to side in the same place over and over again
-swivel hips: keeping your shoulders facing forward, hop straight up and down while swiveling your hips left and right
-mountain climbers
-squat, thrust, jumps: some people call these burpies
-jog in place
-butt kicks in place
-high knees in place
-shuffle left and right: three shuffles each direction, over and over
-lunges in place: you can go forward, backward, or side to side
-pushups: regular, arms wide, arms close, hands together, hands out in front of the head, clap pushups, etc.
-squat, thrust, roll, jump: squat down to your hands, thrust your legs back, roll to the right, bring your legs back in, stand, jump up, squat, thrust, roll left, stand up, jump-repeat
-quick feet: in a stance, keep feet wide, and jog as quickly as possible-one person can call out left, right, up, or down- left=keep shoulders forward, twist legs to the left, then center (quick), right=same to the right, up=tuck jump, down=sprawl-after each thing, go right back into quick feet again, every motion is as quick as possible
-up downs: sprawl and stand over and over, you can pick if you sprawl to one hip or the other, or if you sprawl both legs at the same time
-bear crawl: forward and back 3-5 steps each direction
-carioca: left and right, 3-5 steps each direction
-crab walks: forward and back, 3-5 steps each direction
-squats: in stance squat until knees are bent 90 degrees-these can be slow or fast
-squat jumps: squat down and jump up as high as possible
-sprints/suicides: sprint a given (short) distance and back over and over
-walk
-tuck jumps: jump up, bringing knees to the chest, then straighten legs to land
-split jumps: you get in a stance and step one foot forward, then you’ll squat down and jump up and switch your legs in the air (you’ll land with right leg forward, jump, land with left foot forward)
-broad jumps: feet together, jump forward 3 times, turn and jump 3 back-use your arms, and squat your butt almost to the ground in between each jump so that you go as far forward as possible
-shuffle, sprawl, shuffle: in stance, shuffle 3 steps to the left, sprawl, shuffle 3 to the right, over and over-keep your steps short and quick-stay low in stance
-box step up jumps: step one foot onto a box (3-12 inches) thrust opposite knee into the air as you jump up as high as possible, land with the same foot on the box, then switch-use your arms like you would to run or skip (when you step up with right foot, and thrust left knee up as you jump, then your left arm starts up in the air and comes down as you jump, and your right arm starts at your side and ends in the air)
-box jumps: both feet together, jump straight up onto a box (1-3 feet) and back down, or feet together and jump up sideways and down, turn and do the other side
-1 leg box jumps: jump up onto a box with one leg at a time
-1 leg box squats: with one leg on a box, and the other hanging to the side, squat down like you’re sitting down-this is for balance and strength
-1 leg squats: get in a stance, and squat down on one leg with the other leg forward-this one is also for balance
-rope climbs
-think up as many other exercises as you can!
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By Katie Downing 11/18/04
What it takes to excel in wrestling is a love of work, the will to expect more of oneself, and the drive to seek out new ways to push oneself above and beyond the workload that only gets a wrestler through the day. This series is designed for wrestlers who desire a little extra training to reach that next level. Some of these workouts are meant to be supplements to practices or team lifts. They can be done by a group of wrestlers during the season. Some of these stand on their own as workouts, and are meant to be almost the equal of team practices. Wrestlers can use these as a way to keep up their training over the summer when practice schedules are relaxed, or when they are traveling. All of these workouts are designed to require little or no equipment.
Workout #3
Short Functional Series
While the long functional series is aerobic, the short functional series is anaerobic. These short, high intensity workouts are meant to be added to a lift or a wrestling practice as conditioning. Once you get the idea of the series, it’s easy to replace exercises within a workout to change it up a bit, or to add or subtract the number of series you do in a row according to how much of a workout you need. I’ll give you three examples:
A) With 15-30 pound dumb bells:
-let arms hang with dumb bells at your sides, lunge right foot forward then left
-let arms hang with dumbbells in between legs, lunge right then left
-let arms hang with dumb bells at your sides, lunge right foot backward then left
-curl dumb bells up to your shoulders, military press dumb bells straight up, bring arms back down to your sides, then jump
*Repeat this series 5 times in a row, take a break, then do 5 more this series will be medium-fast: push yourself, but keep good form
B) For 6 minutes, alternate between pull-ups and squat-push-press
-do 10 pull-ups, have a partner spot you as needed
-hold 15-30 pound dumb bells at your shoulders (you choose if you want to have your palms facing forward, or in toward your head), squat down until your knees make a 90 degree angle, then in a single motion, stand up and press the dumb bells straight up. This isn’t a military press; it’s a push press. That means that you don’t stop after your squat to isolate your shoulder muscles to press the dumb bells. You use the momentum of the end of your squat to push press the dumb bells. Also, you do not stop in between each squat push press. As you bring the dumb bells back to your shoulders, you drop right into the next squat. Do 10 in a row, and go right back to pull-ups.
C) On a basketball court (or an equivalent distance)
-lunge forward with right foot then left
-lunge forward at a 45 degree angle to the right, then to the left
-lunge backward with right foot then left
*the lunges all 3 ways is one set-do 3 sets of lunges
-sprint the length of the basketball court down and back 5 times (if you have 2 mats in your wrestling room, go down and back 6 or 7 times)
*Repeat the 3 sets of lunges and sprints 3 or 4 times total
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By Katie Downing 11/09/04
When it comes to keeping track of wrestling and training information in books, the first person that comes to my mind is Patricia Miranda. She began to keep a training log about two years before the Olympics when the resident program began at the Olympic Training Center. She kept a wrestling journal throughout college. She also keeps a personal diary. As far as all of the aspects of wrestling that can be logged, Patricia tended to over do it rather than miss things to log. You can use Patricia’s tactics as your example for how to keep training and wrestling logs, or you can pick and choose which parts you want to keep track of for yourself.
Personal Journal
It may seem as though a personal journal or diary is completely separate from wrestling and training logs. When a wrestler chooses to make wrestling a top priority in his or her life, then all aspects of life and wrestling are intertwined. All parts of a wrestler’s life impact his or her wrestling. Patricia used her personal journal as an outlet for all of the bigger issues on her mind, and a way to work through her thoughts and questions. She spent about a half and hour writing in her personal journal once a week.
Wrestling Journal
Patricia described her wrestling journal as a running dialogue of her wrestling as it progressed. She worked on her wrestling journal at the end of practice each day for about fifteen minutes. The journal consisted of a list of her goals in wrestling-specific moves and situations she needed to work on and to fix. Patricia read her goals before each practice. If it was a technique practice, she looked at her goals and the areas in her wrestling that needed work so that she could focus primarily on those situations within each technique that coach covered. If it was a live wrestling practice, she looked at her trouble areas and her goals so that she could be sure to put herself in those situations when she went live, and so that she had a specific goal and a narrow focus for what she looked for in each live situation.
Patricia gathered information from her coaches and training partners to make sure she knew the best ways to work on the moves and situations that needed work. As soon as she felt that she fixed a problem-when she consistently succeeded in a particular situation or with a particular move, she crossed that off of her list. She never added a new set of goals to work on until she had crossed off her previous goals. For example: If Patricia’s goal was to finish a single leg, she may have made new goals for herself every day until she fixed all of the things she needed to fix in order to finish her single leg, but she didn’t move on to working on front headlocks until she consistently finished her single legs.
Competitions set the criteria for Patricia’s goals. After each competition, Patricia evaluated each match to see which things worked for her and which things did not. Each practice showed her where she needed to tweak each goal, and competitions showed her where to start with each goal. Even if she fixed her hi-c in practices, competitions could tell her when her competitors started to be able to defend it better. If her hi-c no longer worked, she had to find other ways to score.
Patricia used her wrestling journal as a mental tool as well. It served as a source of affirmation for her. If she had a series of frustrating practices, and it seemed as though she’d never fix a problem she had, she could go back and read her wrestling journal to remind her how far she had come in her wrestling to that point. It took her out of the frustrating situation so that she could see the bigger picture, and she could see her progress over time in wrestling.
Training Log
Patricia kept track of her over all lifestyle, and her over all training patterns in a training log. She spent about five to ten minutes each night before she went to bed to log some basic information about her training. Patricia simply printed up a list of the things she wanted to track, made a bunch of copies, and put them into a book. Her list looked like this:
Wake up time-
Weight- (first thing in the morning)
Time to bed-
Meals- (including snacks)
Meal times-
Training activities- (wrestling, lifting, run, etc)
Training times-
How did I feel- (at each practice/training session)
What did I learn- (from each practice)
What to change for tomorrow-
What are my new goals-
Extras- (if any unique situations came up that day that affected training, for example)
This log allowed Patricia to evaluate patterns in her lifestyle that affected her wrestling. Patricia learned when she felt the best and when she performed the best. She could track when she’d start to see the effects if she lost some sleep over a day or two. She could see which foods gave her the most energy for each training session. This log showed her what she could expect to weigh the next day according to what kind and how much training she did that day. It showed her how far out of weigh-ins she needed to adjust her diet and add extra workouts. As and example, she learned that she lost more weight when she added an extra workout right before she went to bed rather than just adding cardio work at the end of a regular practice.
Patricia also used her training log as a mental tool. She could pick out specific habits that she had when she felt her best. She could also see the days that she didn’t feel her best, and she had to work through it anyway. This was another source of affirmation for Patricia, because she could look back to times that she was able to perform when the situation wasn’t the best, or when she just didn’t feel her best. It also let her know what she could expect for competitions. If she felt tired or frustrated during the week before a competition, she could take away some of that anxiety by looking back at earlier competitions. She could see that she didn’t have her best practices, but still had great competitions in the past.
Final note-One of the biggest lessons Patricia learned from all of her information gathering and journal keeping was that sometimes the best use of a journal or a log is to put it down for a day or two. Some days it was just as important for Patricia to put the books aside and to find a way to make it happen in wrestling without getting bogged down by all of the specifics.
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Referees putting headlock on mixed-gender wrestling matches
By Chris Newton, Associated Press writer 12/26/96
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ARLINGTON, Texas -- If Arlington High School wrestler Ashley King has to give up the sport she loves, it won't be because of her mostly male competition.
It could be the referees who drive her off the mat.
The state's only high school wrestling officiating association disbanded a few weeks ago rather than be forced to referee girl vs. boy matches.
"They can't make us do this," said John Rizzuti, former president of the Texas Wrestling Officials Association. "Hell will freeze over before I officiate girls being brutalized by guys."
The association's move came after two female wrestlers and the American Civil Liberties Union threatened to sue it for not refereeing matches involving girls. The dissolution was intended to undercut the ACLU suit.
But two mothers of female wrestlers, Rai Barnett and Karen Herring filed a discrimination lawsuit on Tuesday, along with a motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction.
The governing body of high school wrestling in the state, the Texas Interscholastic Wrestling Association, and the Texas Wrestling Officials Association are among the defendants. Lawyer Anthony Hume, who filed the lawsuit, said yesterday he had no evidence the officials' association had disbanded, so it was included in the suit.
The plaintiffs are seeking $10,000 in damages and a restraining order and injunction forcing the two organizations to allow girls to wrestle.
The legal maneuvers mark the escalation of a controversy over a sport that now has 20 female participants statewide.
Girls have wrestled for several years in Texas, just as in about 20 other states, and typically are on a school's mostly male team. They wrestle boys or other girls in their weight class in matches established by the coaches at the start of a meet.
But because the TIWA does not recognize female wrestlers -- a policy unique among state oversight groups -- referees until now either have ignored the matches or officiated without posting points for the team. The debate boiled over in September when association members began refusing to officiate.
Those who support girls wrestling say the battle comes down to antiquated values and discrimination.
"The girls that wrestle are ready for guys to be rough and they'll be rough right back," King said. "It's really about old-fashioned Texas tradition and sexism."
Says Eddie Nelson, the only association member who supports girls wrestling: "If the good ol' boy network that doesn't like to see women play any sports wins out, I will be really disappointed."
But Rizzuti, who has officiated high school wrestling for 10 years, said the idea of a girl wrestling a boy is "ridiculous." The association's primary concern is safety, he said.
"There's one guy I call the Punisher. If a girl fought him, I'd tell them to call an ambulance -- she's going to the hospital," he said. "What in heaven's name are parents teaching these girls where they want to jump into the ring with brutes?"
Then there are the potential legal ramifications.
"Many times we have to grab wrestlers when the fall off the mat, or things are too physical," Rizzuti said. "We have no protection against sexual harassment charges if some girl is offended by the way we touch her."
Nelson said that's ludicrous.
"It's never, ever happened," he said. "This is just another concoction aimed at keeping girls from wrestling."
Fans at a meet this month between Arlington and Arlington Martin high schools seemed to warm instantly to King.
Cheers went up on both sides of the gym as the 17-year-old briskly shook hands with Marcos Venegas, 17, who had at least a 3-inch height advantage. After two rounds of locks, throws and counters, Venegas pinned King.
King was quick to point out she wasn't outmatched by much. "I'm not saying we (girls) always win, but we can compete."
Dusty Barton, a wrestler for Arlington Martin, said he doesn't mind wrestling girls, but added that many male teammates see it as a lose-lose situation.
"If you win, they say you only won because you're a boy," he said. "If you lose, they make fun of you because you lost to a girl."
The TIWA defends its stance against male-female wrestling, saying it's consistent with policies in other high school sports.
"Wrestling is the only sport across the United States where we even think about having girls compete against guys," TIWA executive director Jim Giunta. "I don't care if it's tennis, swimming, track -- girls don't even golf against guys."
He said he believes the lawsuit will be thrown out of court.
"I want to be an astronaut but that doesn't give me the right to fly the space shuttle," Giunta said. "They don't have the right to wrestle. No court would uphold their stance."
But ACLU spokeswoman Carrie Sperling calls the matter a "clear case of discrimination against women."
On Monday, the state oversight group announced the formation of a female wrestlers league. But Courtney Barnett, 17, is not appeased.
"I want to wrestle boys," she said. "They're usually not afraid to get rough and I like that. They're also usually the most experienced wrestlers."
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