Everyone wants to score more takedowns, but I’ve found a lot of wrestlers don’t know which wrestling exercises they should be using in their programs regularly to help them accomplish this.
Certain exercises will help you do this more in wrestling matches.
On a quick side note, if you sign up for your Free 3-Week Cornell strength program to the right, I’ll send you my top 10 wrestling exercises for building strength and power.
Anyway, in this next series of posts I’ll detail exactly what specific wrestling exercises you should be utilizing in your strength and power program to help you maximize your physical abilities to score more takedowns.
Obviously improving your technique and timing will help big time, but the exercises I’m going to detail in this series will definitely help you to increase your takedown production.
Because there are a number of aspects to scoring an effective takedown, I’ll be detailing a variety of wrestling exercises that will help you.
The exercises I’ll cover will range from those that will help you become a more effective hand fighter to getting in on a shot quicker.
In addition, in this post I’ll cover 2 great wrestling exercises that will help you power through a stalemate situation to score a big takedown just when your opponent thinks he has stopped your shot.
But before I get into the specific exercises, I want to first talk about the specific scenarios I look at when selecting exercises for wrestlers; in this case it will be specific to a leg attack.
Wrestling Exercises- Brief Step-By-Step Analysis
As a strength coach for wrestlers, the first thing I do when selecting exercises meant to help out a wrestler in a specific situation is break down exactly what’s going on from a muscular standpoint.
In the case of a leg attack (let’s say the Double Leg in honor of World Champ Jordan Burroughs) there are a number of things to consider:
1. If you are shooting from a hand fight or tie up position, you need some serious grip and upper body strength and conditioning to maintain/control position.
2. The speed and quickness to get in on the shot.
3. The upper body pulling strength to pull the legs/hips in as you continue your penetration step.
4. The lower body and hip power needed to finish the shot and secure the takedown.
When it all comes together beautiful moments like this get caught on camera…
Fact- Jordan Burroughs is pretty good.
Personalizing Your Wrestling Exercise Program
So now that a basic step-by-step scenario has been identified in terms of everything that goes into an effective takedown, I now must start to decide what exercises are going to be best for the wrestler I’m training.
Selecting wrestling exercises that are going to have the biggest impact on performance is individually specific. What I mean by that is, as you look to the various steps above, there may be a certain situation that you end up not finishing regularly.
Maybe you’re not quick enough to get in on a deep double leg.
Maybe you don’t have the strength to pull the legs in after you get in and you’re constantly getting sprawled on.
Whatever the case may be, I base the information provided to me by the wrestler to determine how much time I’ll have them put into each aspect of their training.
For instance, here are two sample wrestling exercise programs that I may come up with. The first is for a wrestler who has a lot of strength but doesn’t have the speed to get in on a double leg fast enough. The second is for a quick wrestler who gets in on a lot of good shots, but gets sprawled on and isn’t able to finish nearly as many takedowns as he gets in on.
Sample Wrestling Exercise Workouts
Scenario 1:
Superset 1: Box Squat Horizontal Jump 4×3 and Med Ball Slam 4×5
Superset 2: Single Leg Vertical Bench Jump 4x3ea and Kneeling Jump 4×3
Superset 3: DB Rack Lunge 4x4ea and Unbraced Pause DB Row 4x6ea
Superset 4: Ball Leg Curl 3×10 and Dr. Mike DB Bench 3x8ea
Scenario 2:
Superset 1: Box Squat Horizontal Jump 4×3 and Med Ball Slam 4×5
Superset 2: Safety Squat Bar Squat 4×5 and Weighted Chinup 4×5
Superset 3: DB Step Up 3x6ea and Gi Cable Row 3×8
Superset 4: Glute Ham Raise 3×10 and Weighted Dip 3×6
As you can see the wrestling exercises chosen are fairly similar. However, the total volume of the wrestling exercises for speed versus strength in Scenario 1 is much higher when compared to Scenario 2.
This is because of the exact reasoning I detailed above- different wrestlers are going to need different wrestling exercises and total volumes (sets and reps) of those exercises to make a more positive impact in their overall develop.
Generally, as a rule of thumb, my training focuses on improving weaknesses. For example, if you’re not quick enough on the mat, the wrestling exercises in your program will be geared toward improving this.
Videos Of Wrestling Exercises
Here are some quick videos of some of the wrestling exercises I listed above in case you have any questions. I’ve also included a link to each post where the exercise is featured already on my blog.
If you want videos on some of the other exercises for wrestlers above go to my YouTube page and click the links in the info box of each video for full descriptions.
Wrestling Exercises- Which Ones Are For You?
Obviously, once you’ve identified specific times when shooting a double leg that you seem to struggle with more than others, you can really start to develop your program designed around specific wrestling exercises that will help you improve in those area(s).
In this series of posts I’ll be going into some of the exercises I use with the wrestlers I train to help them in these certain situations. So let’s get into it with the first because it’s not a scenario I covered above.
The first wrestling exercise I consistently use in the programs I design is some form of overcoming Squat whether it be a Box Squat or an Anderson Squat.
To give you an idea of what a Box Squat looks like, here’s a quick video of me performing a Dynamic Effort Box Squat which focuses on developing a high rate of force from the paused bottom position.
While I’m using bands and a Cambered Bar (2 pieces of equipment you may not have access to) to perform this Box Squat, you can perform it at any gym. I’ve built “boxes” out of bumper plates, Reebok aerobics steps, and just about whatever else happens to be available.
The big thing to remember is to make sure the box is at a height that places the tops of your thighs parallel to the ground or lower. Training with large range of motions with your wrestling exercises will help prepare your body to produce force in very disadvantageous positions.
As with any of the wrestling exercises you do already, get comfortable with being uncomfortable and keep working the height of the box down.
This next Squat is an Anderson Squat; which again is a wrestling exercise I use to build functional strength and power from a paused position.
Again, while you may not have access to a Safety Squat Bar or the Spud Inc. Safety Straps, you can still perform this exercise in any rack at any gym.
Although a straight bar may agitate your shoulders, if that’s all you have, put it to good use. Additionally, set up the safety pins in the rack at a height that places the tops of your thighs below parallel to the ground when you’re at the bottom of your squat with the bar in contact with the pins.
Summary Of These 2 Wrestling Exercises
As you can see, the pause in these two Squat variations makes them both very effective wrestling exercises for building overcoming strength.
What I mean by overcoming strength is simply the strength needed to power through a paused, stalemate situation where you shoot in on your opponent and he stops your forward penetration temporarily with a sprawl.
Using specific wrestling exercises like the Box or Anderson Squat will develop the functional strength needed to help you power through your opponent after he stops your initial attack.
As you know, important matches oftentimes come down to one takedown. On top of that, it’s rarely a clean leg attack that gets the 2, but rather a hard fought shot that requires the offensive wrestler to dig deep and power through.
So be sure to work these two specific wrestling exercises into your weight training program over the course of this season to train your body to develop the rate of force needed to power through takedowns in compromising situations!
Wrestling Exercises- Wrestler Strength
For a thorough breakdown of what exercises you should be doing to maximize your potential as a wrestler, be sure to grab a copy of my Wrestler Strength Training For Wrestling System.
And be sure to check out the next post in the Wrestling Exercises series where I’ll go into 2 great wrestling exercises to improve your ability to dominate the hand fight!
