Strength Training

What-

Strength refers to the amount of force that an athlete can produce. A one rep max represents this the best. The athlete with the highest weight in the squat, press, and deadlift is the strongest athlete. Speed of the bar does not matter, just weight.

Sprinting, jumping, and throwing can be a different measure of strength but we’ll talk about speed and how it relates to strength another time.

Why-

Strength is simply one athletic quality out of a bunch that a wrestler needs. On the mat, so many factors such as conditioning, muscular endurance, and even skill level play a factor into the amount of force that someone can produce. Map out where you are lacking as an athlete. https://www.pullmanperformance.com/post/mobility-power-strength-conditioning

Usually those other qualities are worked on during wrestling practice.

A lot of athletes find themselves in the gym trying to copy the sport of wrestling, but they are already developing those athletic qualities on the wrestling mat. These qualities are more specific to the sport and may not even translate as well as it seems.

One quality to have a big focus on in the weight room is strength. During practice, athletes are doing a lot of reps, but strength is all about just one rep, these are opposite ends of the spectrum.

Imagine an athlete that can do both... produce a lot of force, while putting that force in rep after rep.

How-

Lower the reps on your exercises done with a bar. Sets of 1-6 reps generally work more of the strength quality.

But this isn’t necessary for every exercise. Building muscle is important as well as improving tissue and tendon health. Don’t load up the exercises that isolate a muscle or even the ones that work balance and stability.

The full-body compound exercises are the ones that should be done for strength. Choose a squat, a press, and a deadlift for your big lift. Do 3-6 sets of 1-6 reps for each exercise. Do each one on separate days, to enhance recovery. Do this before the smaller exercises that have lighter loads and more reps, to be fresh for getting stronger.

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This is not saying max out on every exercise. Just a reminder to work on producing more force as that athletic quality is not trained well through wrestling practice.

Get stronger by adding small amounts of weight to the bar throughout your training journey.