Wrestling and High School Practices
Wrestling I started wrestling in sixth grade. Even though I didn’t win one of my first seven matches, I developed into a successful wrestler. In high school I won tournaments and beat high-quality wrestlers. During my junior year I was determined to become a great wrestler. I worked harder than ever and didn’t let anyone stop me. That year I lost the Illinois state wrestling tournament championship match by one point. Over the next six months between my junior and senior season I was runner up at AAU national tournament and wrestled at Disney Land in Florida at the Disney Duals with over 50 other teams and only lost 1 of 8 matches. These are a few of my achievements in high school. Now that I am in college there are many similarities and differences between high school practices and college practices. Even though wrestling was hard I loved it in high school. Practice in high school would start with running a trail. A trail consists of running in a circle around the three mats doing different activities to get warmed up. Pushups, sit-ups, stance, and buddy carries are a few things we would do during a trail. From there we would split up in two groups. Group one was small guys from one hundred and forty pounds to one hundred and three. This is the group I was in. We would go out to the track and do a number or things. Running sprints or Indian run with a ten pound medicine ball were the most common. We also did stations. For example running, sit-ups, and jumping rope would be a few. Group two would stay in the room and do three stations. The first station we would work on break downs to flatten out an opponent. Next we would work on a certain take down or throw. The final station we would do an abdominal work out, climb rope, do pull-ups, and pushups. From there we would go into drilling. Some drills we would do would be take downs. My favorite was a high crotch. We also drilled stand ups which are the best away to escape.