Getting Prepared for Off-season Training Pt 2

Michael Fry

There should not be a day that goes by where you do not try to improve on something. For many of you it may be your grades in school and for others simply increasing making it through the day with out being punished but what ever it is try to improve on it every day.

In part one you were given a home work assignment to fill out, for those of you who took the time to really do it lets start with a quick review. In part one you were asked to divide your paper into 4 sections and label them Want, Need, and the last 2 we left blank. You were then asked to place in your WANT box everything that you wanted to accomplish in the upcoming season. Then you were to review in your mind the previous season and list all the things that you needed to do improve on. From this list of needs is where we are going to start.

In talking with my wrestlers and the readers of our newsletter the topic that comes up the most is how do I get stronger and improve on my conditioning. For many of you this will be on your list and that is why I mentioned it. What I am going to do is give you an example of what I have on my list right now for myself as I still compete.

WANT:                                                                                               

Win the 2005 Congress state games                                                     

Win the 2005 Connecticut Nutmeg games                               

Compete with the USA Veterans after Oct 1st                                   

Compete and win in submission wrestling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

NEED:

More mat time with better training partners

Improve foot speed

Decrease joint pain (6 knee surgeries = nagging pain)

Improve on pre-match rituals to reduce excitement

Attend BJJ classes and drill

Turn 35

As you can see my WANTS I try to keep them clear and simple, I do this so I can focus on them clearly and not have to worry about all kinds of details. I can close my eyes and see each and every one of these goals coming true. If I am a freshman getting ready for college life and I had listed attend OSU and make the varsity team and win national championship all in one goal you would spend too much energy on the use less facts instead of just saying Winning the National Championship. I ready don't think if OSU turned you down that your goal of winning the NCAA's would change if you attended Michigan or Minnesota. So just stick to the basics when you're writing your goals.

Now let's look at the NEEDS. As you can see again I keep them simple and to the point. It's not important at this time to worry about the details because we will be filling that out in our next box but just make a good list of the things you want to improve on.

Now back to your paper. On the bottom right box write the word "HOW". This is the magic question you need to ask yourself "how am I going to improve my needs". Let's start by using my list as an example.

I have listed More mat time with better training partners, how do I improve this? For me I made contact with Brazilian Wrestler Rodrigo Artilheiro who also trains with Pedro Rizzo of the UFC so when I am in Brazil I can go in and train with them. In the states I have my new friends from Best-way Jiu-Jitsu who do tons of mat work and after each practice I get to train takedowns with a fighter who trains with Chuck Liddell. Very high intensity work with top athletes. So I have that need taken care of that need.

To Improve my foot speed I needed to visit a personal trainer who specializes in speed training. He has me working on "basic" exercises to help me reduce my ground time for my feet and we also do lots of high speed jump roping and foot drills with the 5 dots.

Decrease joint pain not much I can do for this one until I learned some new joint mobility drills. These are drills that many of us did before practice drills like rolling your knees and ankles around to loosen them up. Has helped a little but still long ways to go.

Improve on pre-match rituals to reduce excitement: I went online and started reading about pre-match rituals and sports psychology. I made some phone calls and talked to a professor in sport psychology who was on the National team for Judo in Poland. He taught me about the 7 major skills that every combat athlete should possess. I took that information and put it to use.

Attend BJJ classes and drill and turning 35 are kind of easy to figure out what I need to do with them so we won't go in to it.

We are going to continue this in a part 3 because this would turn into a mini manual by the time I finished talking about needs and how to fix them