Wrestling fitness tip of the week: sprinting

August 28, 12:57 PMGrand Rapids Wrestling ExaminerDan Sabin

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From Sports Fitness Advisor

Cisco Cole is the head coach of the Jamestown College Men’s and Women’s Wrestling Teams.  He has several years of experience coaching.  However, what he has his teams do the first day of pre-season conditioning is the perfect example of what not to do.  The first day of pre-season, each team does a very long run.  The women’s team does an 8 mile run and the men’s team does a 10-12 mile run.  The question is why?  Well it builds on an athlete’s cardio, right?  True only if an athlete is in shape and has been working up to such a point.  For a wrestler, it is somewhat pointless.  Wrestlers do need to be able to outlast their opponent in a match and the better conditioned wrestler of equal skill will win, but running 8 miles isn’t what will get that wrestler to that point.

What running 8 miles the first day of conditioning does is hurt an athlete.  It pushes muscles that aren’t used to working that long and causes them to be damaged.  This happens whenever you workout, but what is different here is the muscle takes longer to repair itself.  It exposes an athlete to possible injuries and increases an athlete’s chances of injury in any workout that may follow.  It is too much stress on the joints and muscles.

Here is the solution, sprints.  Warm up with a 10-20 minute cardio jog and then focus on sprints.  Wrestling is a sport of several explosive movements over a short period of time.  A sprint is an explosive action that pushes your conditioning and strengthens leg muscles.  When you do sprints, it takes much less time to build up to faster and longer sprints then when you run say 8 miles.  So, you can push an athlete harder in one day doing sprints than you can a long distance run and you’ll reduce risk of injury in the long haul.  Not only are sprints more wrestling specific, but they are a great way to create a competitive atmosphere in the wrestling room.  Pit two wrestlers against each other in a sprint and watch them work twice as hard.  It’s a win-win for everyone.