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Saturday, September 29, 2012

10 "Strength Training" Commandments For Wrestlers!

In part one of this series I discussed some tips to keep your strength and muscle, or even gain some during the wrestling season. In part two of this series I will give you ten sure-fire tips for enhancing your "wrestling strength" and therefore your wrestling performances. These tips apply to both in-season and off-season training.

1. Train the "Posterior Chain"

Strength Training

The posterior chain muscles are comprised of the glutes, hamstrings, and lower back. This highly powerful area of the body is a key section to allembracing wrestling performances. By enhancing strength in this area you will consideration a marked correction in speed and power in the neutral and bottom positions. Some exercises that you might want to think in order to work the posterior chain are good-mornings, stiff-leg deadlifts, deadlifts, barbell squats (bar low on shoulders). My two favorites are the reverse hyperextension and the Russian glute-ham-gastroc machine. They are the extreme in working the posterior chain muscles.

10 "Strength Training" Commandments For Wrestlers!

2. Strength Train Slow, Wrestle Fast

You want to be fast and strong on the wrestling mat. Don't think that you should throw weights nearby when you strength train though. When wrestlers try to move a barbell quickly in their workouts, they are using momentum to help move the weight. You should minimize momentum, and maximize the whole of muscle that gets worked by slowing down. How fast (or slow) should you move a weight when strength training? When you are raising a weight (or contracting the muscle) try to do it in 2 seconds. When you lower the weight, do it twice as slowly. You should take about 4 seconds to lower a weight.

3. Brief Workouts

Your workouts should never exceed 35 minutes in duration. If they do, You"Re Not Working Hard Enough! By completing your workout in no more than 35 minutes or so, your body's hormone levels are optimal. Your potential to recuperate from the workouts, and therefore build more strength, is increased. Avoid long, drawn-out strength training workouts. They will ultimately cut into your body's potential to recuperate, and lead to over-training.

4. 12 Exercises Or Less

When I build sport-specific strength training routines for my athletes, I all the time adhere to this. This whole of exercises will allow you to hit the "wrestling muscles" with just enough, but not too much. Any more will almost warrant that you will send your body into an overtraining syndrome.

5. 2 Sets Or Less

Read this one carefully, and try to honestly dispell the content. You should do no more than two work sets (the sets that count. These don't comprise a warm-up set) for any given exercise. If you are working hard enough, this is plenty. You do a warm-up set for an exercise, then move to your top weight. After you perfect that top weight, sacrifice the total weight on the bar or engine by 20% and repeat. If you are honestly training intensely, you can do just one work set per exercise. This is the ideal. If you can hammer a muscle with one excellent set of an exercise, there will be no need for another set. I advocate a second set with a 20% weight allowance because many citizen don't quite hammer that muscle with one set.

6. Fail In The Gym To Dominate On The Mat

Other than your warm-up set for each strength training exercise, you should train your sets to "momentary muscular failure." This is the point where you can no longer perfect another repetition with excellent form. By training to momentary muscular failure, you are forcing the muscles to adapt, and therefore get stronger. Let me elucidate training to "failure." Training to failure is not "almost taxing the muscle." It is the point where you cannot push or pull another repetition no matter what. Is it safe to train this way? Absolutely! The first few repetitions of a set are honestly more dangerous. When an athlete is not using good form, and slower speed, it is usually during these first few repetitions that an athlete gets hurt.

7. Use Machines And Free Weights

There is a tasteless misconception among athletes and coaches that you must use free weights when strength training. Free weights are great! So are machines! Your muscles don't know the difference. The intensity is the most important thing when trying to enhance your strength for wrestling. The tool that you use to get there is not. I like determined exercises for determined muscles. It also depends on injuries that a wrestler might already have. You can work "around" and injury and still give the body a accepted strength workout. If you have access to Hammer Strength machines, I highly suggest that you comprise them in your wrestling strength workout.

8. Use A Thick Bar

If you don't have access to a thick bar, get one. This is usually a hollow metal tube that you put free weights on the end of. A thick bar military you to hold on tightly when performing exercises. It develops amazing forearm and hand strength. It should be part of every serious strength training agenda for wrestlers. You can do curls, reverse curls, rows, and presses with it.

9. Keep Up The Protein

Whether you are trying to cut weight or go up a weight class, you need quarterly feedings of protein. Protein helps to repair and rebuild muscle tissue. It is vital to keep up protein feedings if you are trying to cut weight... Unless of policy you don't mind losing muscle and getting weaker. Try to get at least 5 protein feedings per day. The divergence lies in the carbohydrate intake. If you need to cut weight, you should begin moderately dropping carbs, but never completely. You can't wrestle if you have no energy. Carbohydrates are you body's favorite source of energy. Caress me at steve@sports-strength.com if you're interested in a personalized meal plan for wrestling.

10. The Trap Bar

The trap bar is another improbable piece of equipment when trying to gain wrestling strength. The trap bar is a hexagonally shaped bar. It allows you to perform deadlifts with maximal stimulation of almost every muscle vital to improved wrestling performance. If you've never seen one, do a search on the web. This is an rehearsal that all of my wrestling clients use. It will make your whole body stronger. If I were little to only one rehearsal in order to increase the strength in my wrestlers, this would be the rehearsal that I'd choose.

10 "Strength Training" Commandments For Wrestlers!

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