“The importance of off-season wrestling” (Part 1 of 2)
By Ben Askren
“High school” season is over and the “real” season is just beginning for “die hard” wrestlers.
How can you spot “die hard” wrestling warriors?
They were probably the ones winning state high school titles in dominant fashion.
Even in the state finals these wrestlers make it look easy.
There are many reasons for this. First, they have dedicated much more of their life to
wrestling than most other people. They spend countless hours in the gym each spring,
summer and fall. Second, they have found better competition. They find this at national
tournaments and wrestling the best people from other states. Doing this, one realizes
how good the competition in their home state really is. Lastly, they’ve developed
more confidence. They now believe they’ve “out trained” everyone and they were
beating much better people only a few months ago.
“Off season” wrestling will allow you to increase your level of wrestling exponentially,
and take you to a new dimension of wrestling. There are so many opportunities.
Take advantage of them.
For me, on a personal level, I loved wrestling and was always on the mat, even on
days when I was “down”, I went in the room and worked hard, because I knew it
was needed to accomplish my goals. In high school I can count on my hands and
feet the days I didn’t wrestle, and on 2 fingers the days I didn’t work out. This is the
kind of dedication that is needed to make it to the next level.
In the off-season I also made sure I got the best coaching and competition possible.
From fifth grade on I went to Ringers Wrestling Club. I can thank Ringers for a lot
of my freestyle and Greco success. Stefan Ivanov, Jim Schmitz, John Harms, and Matt Abad
were just a few coaches I was fortunate to have. They all emphasized great technique, so
early on, that is how my wrestling developed. Wrestling at Ringers meant I always had
great partners. Some of the wrestlers that went there were Ryan Lewis, Erick Swick,
Brandon McNab, Rudy Ruiz, Brad Russell, OB Mungon, Jack Jensen, Glen Pero, etc., etc. etc.
There wasn’t a better collection of wrestlers in the state anywhere and all of them fed off each
other to become better. I don’t see the same collection of great wrestlers getting together today.
I was lucky so many great wrestlers were gathered at Ringers and at Steiners Advance Wrestling
School when I attended. In my later high school years these were some of my most important
practice opportunities In order to have those opportunities today, the great Wisconsin wrestlers
need to get themselves to Ringers and Steiners to better one another.
Another part of my off-season wrestling was done in my basement. I was very fortunate to have
a father that realized a wrestling mat might pay off. He brought one home when I was in third grade.
It isn’t huge, but it definitely gets the job done. It started out as 12’x12’, but after much use was
expanded to 24’x12’. In junior high and early in high school, when I didn’t have lots of good
partners, I would do lots of shadow drilling. Drilling for hours by myself. Practicing my moves
over and over again. This is one thing NO wrestler can claim they did not have the opportunity
to do. All you need is yourself.
From my sophomore year on, I had a consistent wrestling partner. After my sophomore year
he’d come over, usually, 3 days a week. My junior and senior years it was everyday.
Most workouts would consist of 40 minutes of drilling and about 30 minutes of wrestling.
We would go hard, but always had fun. It wasn’t too much. It was just enough to get the
edge I needed. We went freestyle from the day state was over until the day high school
season started. Alternating styles was more fun and then high school provided a good change.
Besides that partner, I had a ton of drill partners, who would call me a couple nights a week
and drive in to wrestle with me. The two I wrestled the most were Brian Meier and Joe Milburn,
it provided a good change of pace and I always liked helping them. Teaching others about
wrestling is a really great way to learn it better yourself. If you want to learn something, teach it!
I also had lots of friends from across the state who would come in for a weekend and hang out
and wrestle. The Crass brothers, Josh Wagner, OB Mungon, Matt Pell, the Blumenthal brothers,
Jack Jensen, Chris Johnson, etc. were all great partners.
The last option for wrestling in the summer is camps. I did not go to very many camps, because
I was wrestling at home. I always went to Junior National and Cadet National camps and had a
great time. I learned a lot at these camps. I encourage everyone to attend them.
Other options, for the off-season, are lifting and cardio work. I always lifted, but not very hard,
in high school. You can become well conditioned and technically skilled enough so that tremendous
strength really isn’t necessary to beat most high school opponents. However, I now realize spending
more time on strength work would have been helpful. Being stronger would probably have made my
college red-shirt year, here at Missouri, unnecessary. I do encourage lifting, however NOT instead of
wrestling. Always wrestle, before anything, if possible. Conditioning really isn’t an off-season
thing unless you are competing. If you aren’t competing, then it really only takes 4-6 weeks to get
in shape so you won’t have to do it until October or so.
Next:
“The importance of off-season wrestling”: Part 2
Now that I’ve given you a look at what my training was like,
I will try to give you a jumpstart by showing you all of your options up front.
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