Ask Cael: I\’m a new coach at a fairly new wrestling school. The team does not yet have a routine practice, and needs tons of work as far as technique. What would you suggest as far as what technique to stress drilling on and how an ideal two hour practice should be planned?Story Published Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 question: I\’m a new coach at a fairly new wrestling school. The team does not yet have a routine practice, and needs tons of work as far as technique. What would you suggest as far as what technique to stress drilling on and how an ideal two hour practice should be planned? Technique to work on: On mat: Those are some of the basics for all levels of wrestling. As far as practice, it will vary with the time of year and what you have coming up. Our practices are different everyday. We probably don’t have two practices that are exactly the same all year. The closer you get to competition the shorter and sharper you want practice to be. Here is an idea of a general practice. 15-20 minute intense warm up (running, sprints, push ups, pull ups, stretches, buddy neck exercises, cartwheels, forward and backward rolls, shadow wrestling, etc) Sometimes if we have technique to work on we jump right into teaching and use that to warm them up instead of getting a hard warm up and then jumping back into a slower, learning session that they cool back off during. 30 minute new technique (Start with teaching new technique but I wouldn’t try to teach more then 2-3 things a day. I would rather spend a lot of time on mastering a few things rather then a little time on many things.) 20-30 minutes live wrestling. Change this up daily. Sometimes go long matches, sometimes 30 second goes, do live situations, do 3 men in a group occasionally if space is limited, do full matches, etc. but change it up regularly. That is a long practice there so I would switch it up every day. I prefer shorter, more intense practices to longer less intense ones. A lot depends on what your team’s needs are. If you need more work on technique then spend more time there. There are days that we spend a lot of time on technique. I think one thing to avoid is warming them up real hard with drilling and then jumping back into a slower leaning portion and then jumping back to intense drilling etc. If your kids aren’t wrestling live the way you want them to then have them do drill matches instead doing exactly what you want to see. Often in practice kids get so worried about winning and losing in practice that they don’t work in areas they need to work in. They go right back to prevent mode and avoid mistakes at all costs. That is bad mindset for practice and competition and a challenge for coaches to get them past that. Latest Questions in the Ask Cael Archive- Youth wrestling, how much is TOO MUCH??- Nebraska will enter the Big 10 next year. Does that improve Big 10 wrestling? Why or why not? Thanks. - YouTube technique videos? - Do you do private lessons? - I am only in intermediate and am very small. What do you think is a good move that I can use to my advantage? - My question is, was there a wrestler that you looked up to and were inspired by when you were coming up in your wrestling career and if so who? - I have problems with getting nervous in my matches. I’m not nervous until the ref blows the whistle. at that moment I freeze up and forget everything. what can I do to prevent that? - 3 questions on Asics “Cael” Wrestling shoes - Is it necessary for youth wrestlers to compete for a regional or national title? - Cael, I’ve watched over 500 hrs of video on you especially your footwork. View Complete Ask Cael Archive by Date |
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