How To Train 10-13 Year Old Wrestlers!

Wrestlers who are between 10 and 13 years old are not 'little adults.'  They are growing, maturing youths who need to be trained appropriately for their stage of development.  Don't confuse this with thinking that you should train for wrestling between 10 and 13 the same way you'd train in high school, or worse yet, college...

I'm in my early 40's... that's really old for most of the active wrestlers in the world... but young compared to many parents and coaches.  In those 40+ years I've learned a lot.  I've also made a lot of mistakes.  It doesn't bother me when I make mistakes as long as I don't repeat them.

Well, when it comes to training wrestlers I know a lot... a whole lot.  But I never deny myself the opportunity to learn more and more so that I can help create programs to make wrestlers better than ever...

This past year I have been learning a lot of training methods of Russian and Bulgarian Strength Coaches... especially in regard to younger wrestlers.

All too often younger wrestlers are trained as older wrestlers are trained... with massively intense conditioning programs thought to develop mental and physical preparedness and toughness.  I have mixed views on the training and conditioning methods of most programs out there, but especially at the developmental stages.  Let me start by just saying it...

"If you want to develop a Champion wrestler, you must first develop an athletic wrestler!"

Let's break down what an athlete is...

Athleticism allows you to move your body functionally, through full ranges of motion, with skill, explosiveness and strength.  I don't think that anyone would argue that we want wrestlers to be able to do all of this...

The problem lies when we are overzealous and in the quest to build wrestling champions, we work them out with brutal practice sessions and weight-room programs designed to annihilate them into submission... and hope that we get results that equate to champion wrestling.

The human body is a wonderful machine... and it certainly tolerates a lot.  When we do these things with young wrestlers we do see results... in spite of ineffective training methods.  The body will compensate for inept training and conditioning practices and show improvements in strength, conditioning and wrestling wins...

What I'd like you to do is open your mind to a new paradigm of training concepts (well, they're not new... they just might be new to the mainstream wrestling communities).  Let me start by discussing the life stage of the 10-13 year old wrestler.

Between the approximate ages of 10 and 13 the human body goes through a growth and development stage where the bones grow faster than the muscles, tendons and ligaments.  It can a rather awkward stage for many young wrestlers.  As we know, it's temporary as further growth and development serves to increase strength while evening out the discrepancies.

During this stage it is ok to use some formal means of strength training, as long as perfect form and lighter training loads are used... but even then it is infinitely inferior to training the following factors...

1.  General Preparation - By adding movement patterns that address the Sagittal, Frontal and Transverse planes of motion you help a wrestler become more efficient on their feet because you activate the neuromuscular connection to its fullest.  This means using exercises such as: