Being fast and explosive are two key components if you’re looking to maximize your potential as a wrestler.
For instance, have you ever seen a slow takedown scored?
Have you ever been in slow scramble?
There’s nothing slow about wrestling. Therefore, implementing exercises aimed at developing your speed and power should be a constant focus of your program.
More specifically, developing explosion throughout your body is important for wrestling for a number of reasons.
First, training your body to absorb and quickly react to force is really what wrestling is all about. Power production is key to success in wrestling.
Second, training your body to become elastic will help it to produce power more efficiently when you’re on the mat.
And third, you’ll be more resistant to injury since you body will be trained appropriately. As you know, you don’t become a better wrestler when you’re sitting on the sidelines with an injury. Being smart to avoid missing training time is important to regular improvement.
So, for these reasons, I highly suggest utilizing various explosive exercises in your training program.
Anyway, this past Sunday when my training partner, Mike, and I were finishing up with our warm-up we started messing around with various plyo pushups.
After a few warm-up sets I was feeling pretty “springy” and decided to step up from a plyo pushup.
Much to my surprise (I’ve never been powerful or athletic) I was able to do it!
Anyway, he decided to shoot a video of this version of the plyo pushup.
Batman Pushups
We also experimented with some other plyo pushups and Mike came up with these.
He decided to call them Batman Pushups (what a creative guy, right??).
The idea is to explode up high enough to get your arms out to your sides (the straighter the better).
Try these out in one of two ways:
1. As a solitary dynamic exercise. We did it this way and performed 8 sets of 4 reps of different variations. We supersetted them with with some explosive band ab movements.
2. As part of a complex. Superset these with a bench press or other heavy upper body pressing movement using a 3-5 rep range with challenging weights. Complexes like this are proven in lots of research studies to be effective for building both strength AND power simultaneously. Perform both exercises for 4-5 sets of 3-5 reps.
Anyway, if you’re looking to develop explosive and reactive upper body power, give these variations a shot.
If you have any questions on plyo pushups leave me a comment below or shoot me an email at dickie@wrestler-power.com.
Related Posts:
Training For Wrestling- Power Development
In-Season Maintenance of Power and Anaerobic Endurance
Maximizing Your Power Output (Without Power Cleans)
Hi, I’m Dickie (the author of this blog). Here I am with my good buddy, Kyle Dake. While he doesn't have a nice coat like me, he is pretty good at wrestling. Here's what he said about my training system:
Before I began lifting using Dickie's system my wrestling skills were getting slightly better. I've now been lifting under his guidance for more than 5 months and I have begun to dominating ALL of my competition. At first I had little faith in Dickie and his program, but now I would run into a wall if he told me I would get stronger! I know it sounds insane, but I would. The bottom line is Dickie is an expert and knows what he is talking about. If you want to defeat those kids whom you've always lost to and reach a level you never thought possible, I suggest you start lifting using Dickie's system immediately.
-Kyle Dake, 4X NCAA Division 1 National Champion