There are countless reasons for wrestlers and MMA fighters to strength train: building strong muscles, increasing dynamic power to help performance in addition to injury prevention, improved long term health and disease prevention. Then there is the enhanced mental health of feeling like a badass when you’re physically dominating another athlete. Just saying. Another big […]
1. Know what you’re training for and what your goals are. 2. Your commitment needs to be as serious as your goals. 3. Get professional help putting together a total training program. 4. Enjoy what you’re doing. It makes it so much easier. 5. If you’re not enjoying the majority of your training, find a […]
10 Things that KILL team culture: Character- Lack of athlete leadership by top wrestlers. Lack of club leadership and integrity. Coaches and kids not giving 100% effort in practice or matches. Poor practice partners – going easy on teammates. Coaches only focusing on their kids. Poor sportsmanship or kids that try to hurt fellow wrestlers. […]
10 Signs that you need a break from Wrestling Lost motivation for practice and or competition. Goals don’t seem as important as they once did. Your body consistently aches or hurts. Can’t focus your mind. Nagging injuries are piling up and not healing. Losing matches to kids that you’ve beaten in the past. Not feeling […]
10 High Performance Habits Wake up at a consistent early time. Give 100% effort at everything. Deal with your most difficult challenges first. Find the lessons from failure, loss and not reaching your goals and then quickly move on. Pay attention to others and learn from their behavior. Choose your attitude. Know what is good […]
Starting practice with a well thought out dynamic warm up is an important beginning to any training session. I’ll cover several reasons why a dynamic warm-up is key to performance and training longevity. Most teams that I see warm up do a static warmup which doesn’t prepare a body for high intensity activity. Pacing mat […]
Know why you want to get better. Example my son thinks it’s fun and that it makes him mentally stronger in all areas of life. Treat your food as fuel. Eat healthier foods. Give up all sweetened drinks. Protect yourself from mat disease better. Pick one goal a week. Try a new technique at practice. […]
Americans unconsciously consume more sugar year after year – why don’t we think more about it? Until this century humans didn’t really have much access to sugar. Athletes interested in enhancing performance sometimes think that simple sugars will work. I’m not sure that real science backs that claim up but that is an untruth for […]
Response to a Comment from Age of Enlightenment or Avoidance Great post Mike. I love the things you talk about here and the only question I have is what mirror do we use to look at ourselves (& more importantly our kids) when trying to evaluate our shared process. Every coach has different advice & […]
Starting off an article by telling you that I’m a child of the enlightenment won’t win over any new readers, but if you’re a regular you won’t be surprised by my thought process. Let me explain. If you have a goal and a current assessment based on evidence, reason will generally give you the straightest […]
How you prepare for a workout can either enhance or take away from the exercise benefits. If you are a serious athlete or just want to improve yourself you want to make sure that you’re maximizing your workout effects, not detracting from them. Choosing the proper fuel is important, but so is the timing of […]
It makes sense that as life gets easier (less physical) the weaker our muscles become. Children become physically weaker from inactivity and a team of researchers who measured handgrip, arm-hangs and sit-ups found a dramatic decrease in fitness in the last generation of kids. What most parents and coaches might not realize is just […]
General Guidelines- Prepare your child for contact and lifelong body health. Warning! Driven wrestling parents won’t think that this is enough. I disagree. My goal with this is to protect a kid’s body and have them ready for serious competition around puberty. Disguise the workouts as fun or competition with friends. Under 10 boys love […]
Get back on your workout routine for strength, conditioning of the body and mind and dial-it-in to be lean and mean. Learn from previous years’ failures. The harder you train the harder it is to give up on a goal. Get more recovery time than you think that you need. Don’t even think about dieting. […]
If you want your strength to increase you need to grow your muscles. To grow your muscles you need to put them through stress. Wrestlers want strength with as little bulk as possible unless going up a weight class. If you are a wrestler or just an athlete you want the exercises you’re doing to […]