First, a personal note. I'm somewhat old (62) but have been fairly active/athletic my whole life - wrestled in high school, then a lot of mountaineering and rock climbing during my adult years, along with stuff like racquetball, bball, tennis, etc. But I never lifted weights until 6 months ago. It's been great! I'm at the gym six days a week, and for the first time in my life I've added muscle, especially bicep/tricep. Also, at first I could only do a HALF pullup, now I'm up to 6 -- pushups have increased from 30 to 45 (total of 100 during four sets). Amazing that at my age, I'm building muscle mass!
Well, last week I met a guy at the gym who wrestled at Colorado School of Mines (decent D2 school) in the mid 90s. I was telling him that Spencer Lee has insane strength as far as pulling strength, and Spencer has stated that his strength training focuses on pulling motion (curls, rows, lat pulls, rope climb, pullups, etc --- not exercises like bench press). The Mines wrestler was pretty built in college, but said that if he had to do it over again, he would focus less on lifting and more on "movement" such as speed, quickness, anticipation and technique. He essentially felt that strength was/is emphasized too much, that it's often considered the key to wrestling success. When you look at a lot of great wrestlers over the years, they had decent strength, but it's not the strength that was the key to their success, but rather other attributes such as technique, scrambling, mat awareness, quickness, anticipation, etc.
I thought I'd post a thread asking you Cesspoolians for your thoughts on weightlifting for college wrestlers. The way I see it, BALANCE is where it's at - of course you need to have above average strength at the college level, but you also need the other attributes listed above. In the Chattanooga grades thread, MVPFAN had an excellent post that critiqued the Hawkeye wrestling style, which is grinding and stresses hand fighting and collar ties. I've always appreciated the hard-nosed style that Iowa employs, but as MVP points out, it seems that wearing out an opponent is the focus, rather than score, score, score. In the 1980s the Hawks were superior in their conditioning (AND focused on scoring), but for the last 20 years it seems that most all college wrestlers have outstanding cardio and strength, and aren't affected much by the grinding nature of Iowa wrestlers. C'mon Hawks, just get the takedown and go from there, rather than grinding in neutral and thinking you'll wear out your opponent.
It's ironic that as much as Iowa stresses the grinding style, it seems that they've not been "well-muscled". I previously thought that they need to hit the weights more, in order to impose their will on their opponents, but now I'm thinking that decent strength will suffice, and they need to develop the other aspects of wrestling that I mentioned above. What do you guys think? Todd Conner, if you read this, I'd be interested in your thoughts since you're a big-time lifter, right?
Well, last week I met a guy at the gym who wrestled at Colorado School of Mines (decent D2 school) in the mid 90s. I was telling him that Spencer Lee has insane strength as far as pulling strength, and Spencer has stated that his strength training focuses on pulling motion (curls, rows, lat pulls, rope climb, pullups, etc --- not exercises like bench press). The Mines wrestler was pretty built in college, but said that if he had to do it over again, he would focus less on lifting and more on "movement" such as speed, quickness, anticipation and technique. He essentially felt that strength was/is emphasized too much, that it's often considered the key to wrestling success. When you look at a lot of great wrestlers over the years, they had decent strength, but it's not the strength that was the key to their success, but rather other attributes such as technique, scrambling, mat awareness, quickness, anticipation, etc.
I thought I'd post a thread asking you Cesspoolians for your thoughts on weightlifting for college wrestlers. The way I see it, BALANCE is where it's at - of course you need to have above average strength at the college level, but you also need the other attributes listed above. In the Chattanooga grades thread, MVPFAN had an excellent post that critiqued the Hawkeye wrestling style, which is grinding and stresses hand fighting and collar ties. I've always appreciated the hard-nosed style that Iowa employs, but as MVP points out, it seems that wearing out an opponent is the focus, rather than score, score, score. In the 1980s the Hawks were superior in their conditioning (AND focused on scoring), but for the last 20 years it seems that most all college wrestlers have outstanding cardio and strength, and aren't affected much by the grinding nature of Iowa wrestlers. C'mon Hawks, just get the takedown and go from there, rather than grinding in neutral and thinking you'll wear out your opponent.
It's ironic that as much as Iowa stresses the grinding style, it seems that they've not been "well-muscled". I previously thought that they need to hit the weights more, in order to impose their will on their opponents, but now I'm thinking that decent strength will suffice, and they need to develop the other aspects of wrestling that I mentioned above. What do you guys think? Todd Conner, if you read this, I'd be interested in your thoughts since you're a big-time lifter, right?
