Introduction
We’ve covered the psychological aspects of wrestling training. It’s time to cover the physical aspects. As we see wrestling is no easy feat, and the toll it takes on your body is immense. Myself having only been training for about two months I can already feel the effects, especially on my back.
To prepare and keep yourself in a condition to wrestle, one has to be diligent outside of the ring.
Diet
Truth be told, my diet is hit or miss. From Eddie Guerrero’s autobiography, at one point in time in his life, he was on a strict diet of tuna and rice cakes. That is all. No, I’m not saying every wrestler should be living off a diet of tuna and rice cakes, but one should have a strict diet.
This is hypocritical of myself, for I am a sucker when it comes to sugary foods, which is the biggest downfall of my diet. However, in other aspects, I have tried to increase the amount protein I’m eating and sticking to ‘good’ carbs.
The use of ‘pre-workouts’ before training and the gym (I use a creatine based one) has helped me immensely. Also, the use of meal substitute shakes and bars (I use the ones from TRIBE) have made life much easier, as I travel for ninety minutes after training to get home.
Keeping a clean diet will help you leaps and bounds in your pursuit to be a wrestler. As your mother said, “An apple a day keeps you in tip top shape to hit a moonsault.”
Work-out
To be a wrestler, you don’t need to look like Big Poppa Pump (although who wouldn’t love that?) But it most certainly helps to be in good shape. Once again I will be completely transparent in saying I am far too overweight for my height (5ft8). This does mean I struggle more than I should with training, but I am trying to turn that around.
Once again I’d like to shout my wrestler friend ‘Leon LeStrange from ‘Origin Wrestling’ (buddy come back to the squared circle…) For giving me tip for a workout routine.
Obviously one needs to hit all the muscles, I personally prefer a full body workout, I just feel better after the gym. However, that does mean you can’t target single muscle groups as intensely as you might like. That means my muscle building progress is slower, but right now my goal is to shed pounds whilst putting on some muscle.
The standard exercises like ‘Rows’ or ‘Chest Press’ are always going to work, but to mix things up, throw in fun exercises such as ‘dumbbell thrusters’ or ‘kettlebell swings’.
However as I’ve mentioned in past articles, the most important aspect is… cardio…
If your cardio isn’t up to scratch don’t bother being a wrestler. A one minute match is even a killer. Running on the treadmill isn’t for everyone. I recommend copying what we do in training as a warm up. Jogging on the spot continuously for thirty minutes, interspersed with doing high reps of simple body weight exercises. This could include, forty reps of squats, followed by ten press ups, followed by 30 sit ups, followed by 5 burpees. On paper, this sounds simple enough, but believe me, fifteen minutes in you’ll be feeling the effects.
Conclusion
I’ll keep this short and sweet.
As John Cena always tweets, “Earn the Day”.
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