Off Season Training

Season is Coming to a Close, Now What? Author: Steven Hoffmann

The season is coming to a close and the freestyle season is beginning, and many ask, “what should I do if I want to do better next year?” Should you continue competing throughout the freestyle season, or should you take a break and come back again fresh next fall? Maybe you should spend the spring and summer focused on strength training. Maybe you should attend camps and clinics to learn new technique. What really is the best thing to do in spring and summer to become a champion?

Well, when I was in kids wrestling, there was no “folk style” season. My season began in February and ended in July. I usually then took a break until September or October and then simply had daily “practices” and “workouts” until it began again in February the following year. In high school, I would end my high school season and almost immediately begin freestyle and Greco-Roman competition. Maybe I might take a week or two off completely, but most likely I would still go out for a jog or do some weight lifting.

I would try to attend at least 2 camps and maybe 2 or 3 clinics every single year. I felt it was absolutely vital to my success to try and learn as much about the technique of wrestling as I could. Maybe I wouldn’t use everything I learned, although most of it I actually was able to add to my abilities through effective visualization and drilling, but it would also show me all the possibilities out there so that I could be prepared for almost anything when I got on the mat with any opponent.

I learned early on that it was possible to win the vast majority of matches simply by knowing techniques that your opponents did not know, or did not know well enough. If they were unfamiliar with the technique, it was unlikely they would be able to effectively counter it. I recall that before my junior year in high school, I obtained a video on the “half-nelson series”. Now, I know EXACTLY what you are thinking… Half-nelson?

Yes, I learned the half-nelson when I was 8 years old. In fact, it was the first move I ever learned. But this was a whole new series of how to use leverage and angles to effectively apply the half-nelson at a higher level. I worked on the series throughout the off-season, and when the season started, I began using it in my matches. One-by-one I was able to score and pin opponent after opponent with a simple half nelson because no one had ever seen it applied in this way. No one knew how to effectively counter it.

This is a huge advantage that you can gain over your competition in the off season. I highly suggest camps, clinics, training videos, books, or whatever you can do to increase your knowledge of wrestling techniques while in the off season. But this is not enough by a long shot. In my opinion, off season competition is vital for anyone who wished great improvement and success. Does this mean you can’t be a State Champion without wrestling freestyle? No. It has been done and will be done again. Will your chances by 100 times higher if you wrestle freestyle? There is no question. I cannot think of a single wrestler that was on the first string with me at the University of Wisconsin, nor one single wrestler that was first string in any division I school that did not wrestle freestyle in the “off season”. Competition makes you better. Period!

Finally, what about the other stuff like drilling and weight lifting? This is what I did on MY real off season. In that time from August to about October, I spent my time increasing muscle mass, keeping in good condition with nice easy 3 or 4 mile jogs, and drilling. Most of the drilling I did was through visualization, which is a whole other topic for another post, but I would also drill against an invisible opponent on our mats in our garage, or even get with my buddies maybe once a week to drill and go over the new techniques we had learned.

Bottom line, champions are not champions from November to February. I never stopped wrestling. I stopped competing for a while. Maybe slowed down. I would take the pressure off by just having nice easy practices, or just lie down on a lawn chair while getting a tan and visualize for an hour or so. But I always had one simple thing nagging me in the back of my mind:

While I am drilling these new techniques, or visualizing, or lifting weights, or going to camps… While I am doing all these things, my opponents are eating ice cream and playing video games. And when next season comes, I will be the one getting my hand raised, and they will be wondering why they weren’t able to compete with me.

Even to this day, some 15 years after my last competition, I smile when I think about that. If you are smiling too, then you know the answers to the questions I raised at the start of this post.

Be the Champion, and everyone will be dumbfounded trying to figure out how the heck you did it. Good Luck!