WrestlingGear.Com Newsletter -Get Ready for the Mat (Sent at your request)
February 10, 2005
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Included in this issue you will find Chris Bono’s article on Keeping a Journal, an article by Mike Finn, W.I.N. Editor, and Jon McGovern’s article on Nutrition, Recovery, and Performance in Wrestling.
Also look for Steve Marianetti’s continuing article on The Seven Habits of
Highly Effective Wrestlers Part II.
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Look for future issues of our newsletters to come out on the second Tuesdays of
each month. The next three publish dates are:
March 8, 2005
April 12, 2005
May 10, 2005
-Dave
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"Keeping A Journal" by Chris Bono
Keeping a wrestling related journal is essential if you want to become a better
wrestler. I use my journal for everything I do that I do in life. When I
wrestle a great tournament I am able to look back, read my journal and see what
I did in my training, my nutrition, how much sleep I was getting and my weight
control. More importantly, when I did not do so well or I am not feeling at my
best, I can look to my journal, study it and understand what is going on with my
body. My journal is also great to go back and read my emotions after a big win
or loss and to use as a motivational tool. The only thing that is a must is you
have to be honest, ultimately, if you lie in your journal, you are only fooling
yourself!
The first thing I do is to make sure I know my body weight in the morning,
before practice, after practice, and right before I go to bed. What this tells
me is how much weight I lose over night. I personally lose more weight over
night when I am getting ready wrestle versus when I just training. This is a
direct correlation to eating healthier, training harder, getting more rest, and
drinking a lot of water. The reason I know this is that my journal from all
these years tell me so. I keep track of my weight before and after practice
because I need to know how much water weight I am losing and how I feel at a
certain weight also, I need to know how much water I need to put back to stay
hydrated. My journal tells me that I train better at157 pounds that I do at 162
pounds. Why?, I do not know. But I try and train at the weight because my
reports in my journal tell me I practice better and train harder.
The next issue I report in my journal is how much rest I get. I make sure to
write down how much sleep I get, how good my sleep was, how much time I spent
looking at the ceiling, and how long of nap I took that day. It is so cool to
understand that too little sleep and too much sleep are just the same. You have
to find the right amount of sleep and make sure you stick to it. This helps me
because I know that if I am getting real tired at night; I am usually either
dehydrated or getting sick. Once I know this I can usually jump on the problem
before it starts.
Letting my journal know how my body feels before, during and after practice
helps a bunch as well. It tells me how I am recovering from a tough practice or
if I am not recovering at all. This lets me know when I need to take some time
off or when it is time to push through it. I let my journal know about
injuries, so I know how to take of them the next time around and if my injury
did not let me get on the mat, what I did to compensate for that. The practice
content goes hand and hand here. I write down how much time warming up, warming
down, how much hard drilling, hard wrestling and whatever took place in
practice. This very important so you can understand why your body fells good or
why you are little tired.
Lifting and running also goes down in my journal. I make sure I put down what
kind of running I do, how long I do it and things like that. For lifting, I put
down what type of lift, how many reps, was it easy or hard. If I do a circuit,
I put down how many exercises, how long I did each exercise and was how I felt.
Personal emotions are in there as well. I talk honest and let my journal know
how important tournaments are and how bad I want to win. I tend to right down
how I am going to lose the last couple of pounds for the weigh in. What I ate
righter the weigh in. When matches and tournaments are through, I write down
how I feel physically and mentally, what went right and what went wrong, all my
mistakes and the little things like that. The thing that I like the most and
makes for interesting reading years from now, is that I get guys who are
traveling with me, or who are in the tourney to write a little in blurb in my
journal about anything. It could be about our friendship, the tournament, or
anything at all. It doesn’t seem like much at that moment, but years down the
road it is pretty cool
Keeping a journal is very useful in helping yourself become a better wrestler.
It not something that is very hard to do and at times is actually fun. Remember
to be keep accurate and honest information in your journal because it is for you
to help you on the road to becoming better in all areas of your wrestling.
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THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE WRESTLERS PART II - By Steve Marianetti
In my last article, I discussed the importance of the stance and offered several
drills to help develop proper position. Today I want to talk about the second
and third concepts on my list: motion and angles.
2. MOTION & 3. ANGLES:
I have combined motion and angles because when I teach these concepts I do so by
teaching one important skill: hand-fighting. Hand-fighting is how a wrestler
generates motion and creates angles. It is a potent skill which I have learned
the hard way. I have spent time on the mat with Tom Brands, Lincoln Mcllravy
and Russia’s Olympic Champion Bouvaissa Saitiev and left stumbling. I then
spent countless hours watching the tapes of these wrestlers, trying to
understand how they can reduce their opponents to weak-legged, jumbled, lurching
amateurs.
The purpose of hand-fighting is to break your opponent’s stance while
maintaining your own. It is also the skill you use to control the match.
Wrestlers who can hand-fight will control the pace, ties and attacks. And that
is what I want as a coach. I want my individuals to wrestle their match with
their ties, setting their pace and initiating their attacks.
This is a tough skill to teach because it requires coordination and creativity.
Your feet are constantly moving and each hand is doing something different. But
we have to start somewhere and I start by explaining what each hand is trying to
do. Assuming the wrestler is a right leg lead, his left hand is going to
establish the tie. The left hand will control the inside, elbow or collar. The
right hand usually causes the diversion. Its job is to tap the head, chop the
arm, control the wrist, pull the elbow or fake a shot. Wrestlers need to
understand basic ties and set-ups before they can move to hand-fighting.
Once your wrestlers have developed solid ties and set-ups, they are ready for
this next level. Hand-fighting is about motion: moving into your ties, moving
into a staggered stance and moving your opponent where you want him.
Inexperienced wrestlers will dive for a collar tie, bury their head in an
ear-to-ear position and cling as if death was at the door. They have to learn
to be more fluid, adjusting their head position (always head-to-head so you have
room to hit a shot) and ties until they create an opening. They have to learn
when to push and when to pull, when to fake and when to snap.
The first step to learning hand-fighting (motion & angles) is by watching film.
You can buy past NCAA championship matches on the National Wrestling Coaches
Association web site and many other companies offer dual meets and highlight
films. Have your team watch what our best college wrestlers do to create
motion, set-up shots and create angles. Have them watch an entire match and
just take note of each wrestlers head position. Once they have a visual
understanding of what you mean by “hand-fighting,” you can begin to develop this
skill in practice.
The first drill I use is called “Heavy Hands, Light Feet.” The offensive
wrestler gets double inside ties or an inside tie and a collar tie. The
defensive wrestler holds position but does not hand-fight and there are no
takedowns. My drill lasts 30 seconds for each guy. The object is for the
offensive wrestler to learn how to move himself and his opponent, without
breaking the tie. He can switch between inside and collar tie but he cannot
break the hold. He needs to learn how to keep his ties heavy while his feet
stay light. He needs to learn how to push until the other wrestler pushes back,
then suddenly use that momentum and pull. He needs to learn how to fake a shot
and follow with a snap when his opponent sprawls his legs back. The offensive
wrestler should be moving the entire time, constantly snapping, pushing or
pulling. This drill develops coordination and teaches the wrestler how to use
his body. When you feel that your team is mastering this drill, you can have
them hit 2-3 takedowns during the 30 seconds so that they can learn how to
incorporate their attacks and develop their timing.
The second drill I use is live hand-fighting. The “Heavy Hands” drill is more
controlled and a great way to learn the basic concepts of push/pull and
fake/snap without much resistance. The live hand-fighting drill allows your
wrestlers to test their skills under real conditions, where the other wrestler
is fighting back. Make sure that they understand that this is not just a big
brawl. There is a purpose: break your opponent’s stance while maintaining your
stance and keep moving. They should be doing something with each tie they get.
If they get an inside tie, they should be pushing or pulling immediately. If
they get an under-hook, they should be driving or snapping. Wrestlers need to
learn to use set-ups right away because good opponents will adapt quickly. They
also need to get angles with the ties either by moving into better position or
moving their opponent into worse position.
The length of this drill is up to you. I make it last anywhere from 30 seconds
to 7 minutes, depending on the time of year and my goals for practice. Often I
will use hand-fighting as our conditioning at the end of practice, finishing
with several 1 minute go’s (starting the process over if I see anyone stop
moving). Another option is to incorporate live hand-fighting into regular
wrestling. For example, start a 7 minute go (just takedowns) and make the first
30 seconds of each minute hand-fighting and the second 30 seconds live
wrestling. This way the wrestlers will have an easier time using this skill to
actually score points.
As I said in my last article, a weak stance makes a weak wrestler.
Hand-fighting will make them weak.
(TO BE CONTINUED)
Is that fire in the eyes of Matt Gentry, looking to defend his NCAA
By Mike Finn, W.I.N. Editor
No, the Stanford wrestler’s eyes are just beaten up from battling in
what is considered the toughest weight in Division I.
“It started up here two weeks ago in Reno (where he won the Tournament
of Champions, Dec. 19),” said Gentry, pointing to his right eye shortly
after the 157-pound senior defeated Illinois’ Alex Tirapelle, 8-1, in
the Midlands final, Dec. 30. “I got another little cherry last night in
the last ten seconds of my semifinal match (a 5-1 win over Iowa State’s
Trent Paulson) and somehow in that flurry (with Tirapelle) I got
another one.”
Gentry said it doesn’t matter how many future black eyes he acquires
this year as long as he’s victorious the final night of the college
season this March in St. Louis, Mo., at the Div. I championships.
The Midlands
in Evanston, Ill., is not the NCAAs but it could be,
considering the quality of the competition in Northwestern’s Welsh-Ryan
Arena.
“Nothing beats an NCAA title but this is an exciting tournament,” said
the top-ranked Gentry, who was named both the Outstanding Wrestler and
Champion of Champions in the 42nd annual wrestling tournament. “The
crowd is awesome, the announcing is great. The competition is
unbelievable.”
That is especially true at 157 pounds, where the last two NCAA
champions (Gentry and 2003 titlist Ryan Bertin of Michigan) compete as
well as the last two runner-ups (Ohio’s Jake Percival, who lost to
Gentry last March, and Tirapelle, who finished second to Bertin in
Kansas City).
But considering Gentry, a native of Grants Pass, Ore., is the
only
wrestler, ranked in the top ten at that weight who lives west of
Nebraska, the Cardinal must make trips to tournaments like the Midlands
to see and wrestle his competition and make sure people don’t forget
about him living on the West Coast.
“I’m not out to prove anything, except to
myself,” Gentry said. “The
rankings don’t mean much. It comes down to who steps on the mat and is
ready to wrestle. I know that I am that guy. I will focus on myself and
not let that other stuff that I cannot control affect me.
“That’s the hardest
part about being the defending champ; not letting
that pressure get to you. Many defending champs don’t repeat.”
For the record,
four 2003 NCAA champions, who returned to defend their
crowns in 2004, came up short in St. Louis: Bertin, Cornell’s Travis
Lee (who moved from 125 to 133), Oklahoma’s Teyon Ware at 141 pounds
and Oklahoma State’s 197-pound Jake Rosholt, who won at 184 pounds in
2003.
“In my mind, this year is going to be harder than last year,” said the
unbeaten Gentry (18-0 after Midlands). “Last year, I had nothing to
lose. I had no pressure as the underdog. This year I’ve got a bulls-eye
on my chest. I have to work that much harder.”
But it’s hard to imagine Gentry
being more confident than he is now.
“I’m riding high,” he said. “I know that
I can compete with the best
in the country.”
But he also doesn’t expect to dominate the field, considering
he only
defeated Arizona State’s Brian Stith in a 2-1 tiebreaker and Fresno
State’s Jim Mederios, 4-2.
In Evanston, Gentry had several close matches,
including his 9-8
quarterfinal win over former Cal-Davis wrestler Jeremiah Jarvis, who
led Gentry 4-1 after the first period.
“A match is six or seven minutes long
and the first two minutes aren’t
what matters,” Gentry said. “It’s the last second and who’s winning
then. (Jarvis) had taken me down twice with the same move so I had to
adjust.”
Then once he reached the finals in his first-ever meeting with
Tirapelle, he knew that he had to be smart and aggressive.
“It was a battle of
positions and one good flurry was going to win
that match,” said Gentry, who turned a 1-1 deadlock into an 8-1 blowout
in the final 30 seconds when he took down the Illini wrestler and added
five more near fall points. “Luckily I got it at the end.
“I was thinking I
had to scramble longer than him.”
Don’t expect Tirapelle to let the outcome
affect his plans of NCAA
gold.
“The best thing for me is that I want to wrestle these guys,” said
Tirapelle, who captured a Midlands championship in 2003 but settled for
fourth at the NCAAs. “You want to win every time we wrestle but you
have to be good in March. If you try to peak in the Midlands in
December, how do you extend that to February.”
But Tirapelle also knew his
match-ups with other ranked wrestlers
during the regular season will have an impact on what happens at the
NCAAs.
“For seedings, it’s critical,” Tirapelle said. “Every match is
critical. It may be the difference between two to three spots.”
And it’s
important that these wrestlers don’t forget the “new” guys
like American University’s Muzzaffar Abdurakhmanov, the native of
Uzbekistan and former two-time junior college champ, who reached the
semifinals at Midlands before losing 4-2 to Tirapelle.
“It’s always good to go
out and scout an opponent so you don’t go into
a match blind,” said Tirapelle. “(Abdurakhmanov) grew up with a
European or Russian style and that’s a whole different style of
wrestling.
“(Abdurakhmanov) adds to the mix. The competition is
getting tougher, not declining.”
All this adds up to is an exciting year of
wrestling at 157 pounds.
Mike Finn
Editor
Wrestling International Newsmagazine
888-305-0606
mikef@win-magazine.com
Visit Win-Magazine
Nutrition, Recovery, and Performance in Wrestling (By Jon McGovern)
Muscle recovery is a major issue in the sport of wrestling. Athletes need to
recover quickly from morning weightlifting sessions in order to perform well in
afternoon practices, and they need to recover quickly from evening practices to
be ready for tomorrow’s training. In tournaments, the stakes are higher and the
challenge is greater. Athletes may wrestle five or more opponents with only 30
to 60 minutes between matches. To complicate matters more, they are likely to
begin even the first match in an energy-depleted state due to the caloric
restriction that generally precedes one- and two-hour weigh-ins.
The ability of wrestlers to perform at peak levels is limited by how quickly
their muscles recover and repair themselves after strenuous practices and
competitions. Although many factors contribute to recovery, nutrition, which may
be the most important, is often neglected, misunderstood and surrounded by
misconceptions. In the last decade, research coming out of leading exercise
physiology laboratories has given us a greater understanding of how nutrition
can enhance recovery and performance. Wrestlers who put the latest knowledge
into practice will have a distinct advantage over their competitors who don’t.
Window for Recovery
Workouts, practices, and matches greatly deplete wrestlers’ muscle glycogen
(i.e. carbohydrate fuel) stores and damage muscle cells, which leads to muscle
fatigue and soreness. The ability to perform at a high level several days per
week is limited by how well the body recovers its glycogen stores and repairs
muscle tissues after strenuous work. The key to maximizing recovery is to
consume carbohydrates and proteins immediately after exercise. Research
indicates that the ideal recovery nutrition is a liquid supplement containing
high-glycemic carbohydrates and quality proteins in approximately a 4:1 ratio,
because this formula is easier to digest and faster acting.
Timing is essential, because the muscle cells are highly insulin receptive after
exercise. Insulin is the hormone that is responsible for transporting glucose
and amino acids into the muscle cells so that muscle glycogen stores can be
replenished and muscle proteins rebuilt. When carbohydrate and protein are
consumed immediately after exercise, these recovery processes occur much faster
than at any other time. But this window of opportunity is only open for about
45 minutes. If athletes wait too long to eat or drink, not only will their
muscles no longer be insulin receptive but they will in fact become insulin
resistant and their recovery will be severely compromised.
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