Welcome to the "Strong Wrestler" workout program. This program is intended for high school wrestlers (typically grades 8-12) looking to build brute strength and crazy endurance for the sport of wrestling.
The Strong Wrestler workout program looks to help you build your strength and endurance in ways that will be beneficial during a wrestling match. All too often, strength coaches will have their athletes perform stationary, isolation exercises to build strength. While this is better than not working out at all, it is not the ideal way to build strength, stamina and mental toughness. We want our kids to train like athletes, not bodybuilders. Standing around doing concentration curls will never happen in this program. We will be focusing mainly on compound exercises with explosive movement patterns. Our conditioning will include some running, but we will look to get most of our conditioning through shorter circuits that utilize plyometrics, barbells, kettlebells and sprinting.
The following workout plan is intended for varsity wrestlers training in the off season. Typically we suggest the athletes who follow this program will be at a minimum 8th graders.
The equipment required to follow the Strong Wrestler workout program is as follows:
To get started, click on "Workout 1" in the table of contents. Be sure to read the Strong Wrestler FAQ here.
*If you are on a phone, the Table of Contents is at the bottom...keep scrolling!
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Is there upload feature? I want to share the meal plan I put together for my son's hockey team
Alexander Garbuz All valid points and thanks for the feedback.
1. It was developed as an off-season program.
2. As far as conditioning progress, we would hope most serious wrestlers would be working out or drilling during the off season - they should notice their conditioning during drilling and live wrestling improve. ie: they don't get as tired.
3. I am considering a deload week before starting another cycle and am currently working on the "Next 30 day program"
4. Nutrition - this also is in the works and will be modeled after the Zone Diet. Along with the base nutrition plan, I also will be covering topics like eliminating soda, sugar and drinking plenty of water.
I like it. A couple of comments/thoughts:
1. Is this a in season or off season program?
2. How are you planning on tracking progress for conditioning? I can see how it can be done with weights - move from 220 squat to 250 and here is your progress, but how do you track conditioning? What is the most important metric for conditioned wrestler? I would think it is the resting heart rate vs. heart rate during the load vs. the heart rate 1 min after the end of the load. But this is something you may need to clarity with other wrestling coached.
3. How are you going to address prioritization? It is very difficult to sustain this kind of level of intensity especially at younger ages. I don't remember where I saw this article but it suggested the following approach:
5 weeks cycle:
1 week - preparing (increasing the load gradually)
2-4 weeks - load (high training volume)
5 weeks - unload (decreasing the volume to stimulate recovery)
Weekly cycle:
1. 3 heavy development days - heavy load
2. 2-3 lower volume days
3. 1 rest day
4. I am 100% confident you will provide solid nutrition advice for the kids. Have you thought about adding a block about recovery? For example the importance of sleep? How to ensure the quality of sleep? Potential issues with sleep and how to solve them?
These are just a few things that came to mind. I really like how you combined lifting and conditioning but yet separated them into different blocks. I think this is really good. Also really liked that you suggest the use of compound moves over isolation work.