Wrestling Fundamental Drills – Skills – Warm-up

I recently broadcasted a live question and answer show online for viewers and a question, which I receive again and again, is how do I structure a practice.

Fundamental skills are something that need worked everyday in various areas.  The correct way to think about skills and drills are to take the common positions in wrestling and apply them daily in training sessions.  The number one problem with this is wrestlers and even coaches do not attack these skill sets properly.

Wrestler A has been training in the sport for 6-10 years and skills were very important to him when he was first learning and he probably attacked them with enthusiasm.  These skills were brand new to him and his passion for learning how to wrestle was high.  As wrestler A has entered high school he now approaches these drills as part of a daily warm-up and just something used to get him ready for when the training session really begins.  His level of intensity and passion for the sport has dropped and will ultimately cause his ability to react, defend, or have full understanding of common wrestling positions to become sub par.

Determine Your Skill and Drill Sets For Your Team

First, you as the coach need to determine what common positions you consider to be important drills in all areas of wrestling.  One example is a spin drill, which teaches wrestlers to react quickly, defend their legs, and then capitalize on their opponent’s attempt to take them down.  This skill or drill would fall into a defensive feet warm-up session.  A spin drill can also fall into a feet offensive warm-up session, but you probably get the point of how I categorize my drill sets.

Quick list of skills and drills could look like this:

Feet Offense Skills

Shadow wrestling
Penetration steps through opponent’s legs
Attacking tie-ups and moving partner
Etc

Feet Defense Skills

Spin drill
Down block and spin
Defend single leg attack
Defend double leg attack
Etc

Top Riding Skills

Sit and follow drill
Opponent stands return him to mat
Taking opponent out of base
Etc

Bottom Skills

Base building
Hip heist drill
Clearing hands drill
Etc

There are many more drills for each area; I’m just keeping it simple for this blog.

Getting the most out of the warm-up

The warm-up section of training should be treated as time to work the skills you feel are most important to your team.  This is where you get into your teams head about what you are going to accomplish during the training session.  This is where you and your staff have determined the places that each team member has to be above average in common positions.  Your warm-up routine needs to change almost every training session.

Big twenty warm-ups

Prior to the start of your season, write down the skills that you feel are important to your team.  Each warm-up covering a specific area of skills and drills should be 20-30 minutes in length.  Creating these warm-ups keeps your team from falling into the same stale routine that will eventually kill the intensity of the room.  If the warm up stays fresh, you and your team can expect solid quality work in every session. Don’t underestimate the significance of the first 20 minutes of practice. Warm ups should: Grab their attention, set the pace, and get them physically and mentally ready for the next 60 minutes. Now after you have applied these 20, you should be an expert at disguising these drills into the warm-up in a variety ways that your team is constantly getting work in common positions.

Warm-Up & Teaching

I don’t feel the warm-up needs to mirror what is being covered that day, but you could put the two together.  If we plan to teach feet defense during our teaching segment of practice, I may grab one of my top riding skill warm-ups and use that at the start.  You can of course have the two match up if you like, but 20 days later you will return to that warm-up.

Practice Planning

Now that you have twenty different warm-ups designed to cover your daily skill work you have saved yourself a great deal of time when it comes to planning practice.  Simply keep a record of each warm-up and when you’ve used it during the month.  Twenty days later start back through the cycle and your guys will not remember the exact routine keeping them on their toes and working!