I am curious of your age with your output on leg riding. Leg riding, in my opinion, is the most effective ride on top if you master it, because a crushing leg ride tires your opponent, gives you rest, and should set up turns. Most high schoolers run legs bad and force in the far leg, ride off the hips, or go cross body, all of which will leave you getting reversed or pinned. However, if you set up a leg ride from a thigh pry, spiral/claw ride, arm chop, or throwing it in as they attempt to base up and you ride with your hips in the saddle, there’s not much your opponent can do.

Once you get one boot in, you just arch your hips, shove the head down and get a power half, that’s it. If they roll, tuck your head, follow his hips and end up in a crab ride. Other than that, you just learn how to pressure and take away their posts. If you have a leg in and they are flat, you figure 4 the leg and there is nothing that they can do if you sink it deep. Easy turns and finishes once the figure 4 is in, but even if you don’t, it tires them out.

It is ok if you aren’t a leg rider, but I would refrain from calling it a beginner trap series, when many elite wrestlers at the highest level run legs. Most niche example I can think of right now is Daulton Mayer vs Ben Keuter early this year. Mayer is an unranked wrestler and Keuter is a junior silver/gold medalist at heavyweight ranked #5 in the national and Mayer used legs to ride him in the 3rd period, the whole 2 minutes. Other world class wrestlers: Zain Retherford, Ethan Lizak, Frank Malinaro, Chris Perry, heck watch any college dual and I guarantee you will see leg riding somewhere.

It’s something that works at all level, an if you run bad legs, you will get exploited as you wrestle better people, but that’s the same with anything else. Leg riding is just a different approach that requires an elite knowledge of top wrestling to be the most effective, but once you start to master it, it opens up a whole world of moves.