Wrestling is a tough and demanding sport. It both requires and builds strength, stamina and explosive speed and power. Wrestlers are known for their physical and mental toughness, as well as their grueling workouts. Because it is a grappling art, you can practice live wrestling at full power and intensity with minimal risk of injury. All of this combines to make it excellent for burning calories.
Significance
Wrestlers come in all shapes and sizes. For the most part, weight is an obsession, as it pays to be as big as possible for your weight class, so you can benefit from a strength and size advantage. While you can cut weight, new regulations at college level mean you need to be within a touching distance of your wrestling weight at the start of the season and therefore cannot cut excessively. This makes it even more important for wrestlers to stay as lean as possible.
Features
Fortunately, wrestling training is one of the most demanding workouts around. In the sport of mixed martial arts, color commentators, such as Joe Rogan, routinely espouse the work ethic, conditioning and formidable mental and physical toughness of wrestlers. Wrestling workouts require strength, speed, agility, flexibility and endurance, engaging your entire body thus using up more energy from your body's reserves. Wrestling is almost unique in that it is a combat sport in which you can go at almost full power without great risk of injury, since there is no striking involved. However, slams and awkward falls do carry the risk of injury so caution is advised.
Types
Typical workouts can vary enormously. Wrestlers will sometimes have separate cardio sessions dedicated to building cardiovascular endurance, stamina and muscular endurance. They might also have a weightlifting program designed to improve their strength. These are the same as conventional weight training or fitness programs, although there may be more wrestling orientated movements such as picking up and slamming grappling dummies, or wrestling moves such as pummelling, sprawling or shooting mixed in.
Technical Drills
As well as physical preparation, wrestling requires enormous skill which is developed through endless drills as well as actual mat time. Technical drills include pummeling, a partner drill where you stand mirrored chest to chest with your partner, each with one arm under and one arm over. You begin by switching positions, so that your over arm swims underneath your partners arm and goes under his armpit, while he does the same on the opposite side leaving you mirrored on the opposite side. After warming up like this, you can both begin to fight for control of each other by aiming to get both arms under your opponents. Next you can work take downs into this, making an effective warm-up with technical applications.
Live Drills
Other drills include sprawling, as you kick your legs out backwards and drive your hips to the floor to stop an imaginary opponent from reaching your legs. You can also drill take downs, such as a double leg or single leg. Repeatedly lifting a partner into the air becomes exhausting very quickly. Lastly, you can engage in live sparring, either from a neutral position as in a match, or with one partner in an advantageous position if you wish to work on something specific. Because you can go at full power, this is excellent conditioning work that will leave you sore all over. Always be sure to warm up thoroughly as well as to stretch and warm down after a session.
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