by Brendon Lowe
ITW Strength & Conditioning Columnist

What two abilities best describe the ideal athlete? I would be willing to bet that the most popular answers to this question are strength and speed (and maybe endurance for those of you that are distance athletes).

Just look at the names of the leading performance enhancement programs; Velocity, Frappier Acceleration, Fast-Twitch, and Bigger Faster Stronger (BFS). This is just in the D/FW area! Most of these “scream” speed training, while BFS adds that all important strength factor. This is not to say that these programs are wrong or that they do not train other athletic abilities, but their name tells you what they concentrate on. There is so much more to being athletic than just speed strength and endurance.

Every sport requires a different balance of specific abilities to achieve optimum performance. Speed, strength and endurance are the main three that most people think of. Others include power (yes, power is very different from strength), flexibility, and mental fortitude.
Wrestling is an extremely versatile sport in which the premiere athletes use many diverse styles. With the wide array of styles comes a variance in the balance of athletic abilities. Some wrestlers rely on strength and others rely on speed, but regardless of style the number one quality that a wrestler must possess would have to power.

So, if power is different from strength then what exactly is it? Power is best described as explosiveness as it combines strength and speed to produce quick muscle contractions. It allows you to finish basic moves from taking down your opponent to running a clean gut-wrench.

If you have trouble finishing your shots with force, the most likely culprit is low-power output. There are even separate types of power that I have mentioned in previous articles. The balance between strength and speed within the movement determines them. If the movement requires moving a large load at a fast rate then this would be called strength-speed. Conversely if the movement requires moving a small load at a high rate of speed then this would be called speed-strength.
For those of you that use speed to attack your opponent, then speed-strength will be what you are best at, while strength wrestlers will usually excel at strength-speed. The only dilemma is which component of power you should implement in your training.

No wrestler should have to choose one or the other because every wrestler will benefit from both. There are moments when a strength wrestler needs speed-strength and vice versa. So the next question, logically, would be; how do I train for power? Explosive movements should be trained using explosive movements. Seriously, it’s that easy.

Strength-speed will be seen when doing lifts such as cleans and the snatch. Don’t limit it to just the Olympic lifts because unless you are trying to lift your opponent over your head from the mat then Olympic lifts are not specific movements for wrestling.

The key to power lifts is the rate of force development (RFD), or how fast your muscles can produce force against resistance. You can use strength-speed while performing any lift (and in all honestly you should be using strength-speed for the concentric portion of every lift). Basically, move that heavy weight as fast as you can even if it seems slow.

Now, when training speed-strength you will need to get creative. This is not merely grabbing a bench with just the bar and doing bench-press as fast as you can. You will see little to no benefit from that. These will be more bodyweight exercises using a technique called plyometrics.

Plyometrics uses a specialized mechanical reflex inside the muscles and their tendons to produce a powerful muscle contraction. Many athletes know plyometrics as jump training, but there are slight differences between the two. I will not go into detail about as they are beyond the scope of this article.

Plyometrics are most easily trained using the lower body. When jumping, you must not let your heels touch the ground or lockout any joint in the series. Simple jumping drills can be performed including jumps in many different directions.
To ensure that they are plyometrics jumps, once your feet touch the ground, you must immediately jump again. Examples of this include jumping back and forth over a line as fast as you can for a given period of time or jumping over a row of twelve-inch hurdles as fast as you can.

Plyometric training can be an excellent way to liven up a stale training regimen and strengthen a wrestling ability that you may not have worked before. An important factor that goes along with plyometrics is recovery.

If you start to slow down then your plyometrics training may turn into simple jump training and that important training effect will be gone. When you begin to fatigue it is important to stop and rest so that your muscles can recover for the next bout of jumps. Also, don’t limit to just lower body training.

Be creative and develop movements for the upper body as well. If you need further explanation or ideas about plyometrics exercises, please post your questions on the “Body of a Champion” section of the InsideTexasWrestling.com forum.

Remember that you perform just like you train so make sure that your training includes all components needed to become successful in wrestling. Training for mere speed, strength, and endurance is not enough. My best advice for you is to educate yourself as much as possible about optimal sports performance training. Use common sense and don’t believe everything that you read or hear.

Exercise of the month: Hamstring Curls

1. The hamstrings are vital for powerful movements with the lower body
2. When lying down in a hamstring curl machine make sure that your hip stays on the pad and does not raise when pulling the weight
3. If you have access to both a sitting and a lying hamstring machine, use them both
4. Try using one leg at a time to prevent an imbalance of force between individual legs