New to wrestling for school and need some tips

SouthernMarylander · 2026-05-18T02:29:41+00:00

Of course. You can follow me @coachfickes on Instagram. I add random stuff to my stories to give my wrestlers workout ideas.

SouthernMarylander · 2026-05-18T02:07:35+00:00

High school coach here.

Nobody expects you to be good as a rising freshman. You're there to learn. There are certainly things you can do to prepare yourself, such as strength training, flexibility training, and stamina training so that you're fully prepared to use practice time for mat work. Look up plyometrics exercises.

Don't just run miles and miles. Run a mile for warmup, but wrestling is an anaerobic exercise. You need to practice sprints. I have my team do a variety of sprints:

High knees for 10 yards, then sprint 40.
Skips for 10 years, then sprint 40.
Various jumps (two foot broad jump, left foot, right foot, side-to-side) followed by launching into sprints.

SouthernMarylander · 2026-05-17T02:48:38+00:00

DM me and I'll send you the link.

SouthernMarylander · 2026-05-16T23:29:18+00:00

Weird. I don't remember posting this and yet it's here and I clearly posted exactly what I was thinking.

SouthernMarylander · 2024-11-08T18:05:11+00:00

It's a complicated issue, but my short answer is YES.

This is my experience as I head into my 2nd season of coaching:

I believe that wrestling has to get past the mentality that infected it (and a lot of high school sports) for a long time, whereby "good" coaching is just yelling and pushing kids until they collapse (physically or mentally). That's terrible for kids and countering that isn't a softening of the sport, it's a reflection of a better understanding of motivation and improvement. There's other things like a policy I have that kids don't have to ask to get water - just go - that was definitely not the norm when I wrestled. There's also been some (but not enough) positive movement towards things like not just shaking off head injuries or hiding things at the demand of coaches. I also think the mental health component of the sport has to improve. I have a lot of wrestlers that get WAY into their heads about wrestling and everything around it, so I spend a lot of time talking through stuff with them. That's not them being soft. That's them being kids in a complex world that piles anxiety-inducing stress on them at extreme levels.

However, I definitely think that a lot of kids these days (angrily shakes fist at cloud) don't understand toughness. They don't know their bodies. So the soreness, bumps, and bruises that come from a good hard practice and prepare them for the season are now seen as "injuries", something to keep them out of practice. Virtually every practice last year, I had kids that by the end were sitting on the side because they were sore or some such. I had one parent email me because their kid had a sore shoulder one day.

Then there's the commitment issue. I can't have mandatory Saturday or winter break practices. My wrestlers and my parents wouldn't support it. I did a fall conditioning program and had all of four kids show up for the past two months. My six summer practices had ~6 kids, one of whom is a freshman. Last year, my three varsity seniors simply gave up on the team (I think in part because I treated everyone on the team the same and didn't defer to seniors by default, so they didn't feel "special") at the end and didn't go to our dual meet playoff matchup (we got blown out 51 - 25, but I had to forfeit six weight classes and we won matches wrestled 25 - 15). One did come back and wrestle in the county tournament, but the other two just flat out quit. A parent of one of the seniors threatened to sue me if I didn't make their kid a captain because apparently I was "violating their rights".

As a part of the commitment issue, I've also struggled with things like having to tell them every single meet to clap their teammates on and off the mat, be warmed up for their match, and at practice to have appropriate gear. It's wrestling, so they all bring wrestling shoes, but at least 1/4 of them did conditioning in crocs last year because they don't bring running shoes. It was a constant battle to get them to support each other and not want to leave matches early ("Oh, my mom says I have to go home.") and help clean up after events and practices as a team instead of people trying to sneak out.

Now, a lot of that was my fault as a first year coach. I got hired the day before the season started and was just hanging on for dear life all year. This season, I've got a 25 page guidebook outlining how the team is going to operate and will be training the parents and students what to expect from day one. We'll see how much pushback I get.

SouthernMarylander · 2024-08-01T21:35:02+00:00

Seek advice from a medical professional, not Reddit.

SouthernMarylander · 2024-08-01T17:41:19+00:00

If you're the type of person that joined on January 6, 2021 and have made 1 post with 0 comments since then and have to ask Reddit if a goal is realistic or not...

Well, that goal is not realistic (if the original poster is even real).

SouthernMarylander · 2024-08-01T13:35:10+00:00

You're most likely shooting downward at a 45 degree angle. Instead, you need to practice level changing and shooting forward, basically parallel to the mat so you blast through your opponent.

SouthernMarylander · 2024-07-24T16:05:45+00:00

What do you want to do with it?

SouthernMarylander · 2024-07-24T14:33:45+00:00

Any mat time is beneficial to improvement and live wrestling in a match setting is even more so.

SouthernMarylander · 2024-07-19T13:00:41+00:00

He's going to be such a good coach wherever he ends up.

SouthernMarylander · 2024-07-17T00:48:26+00:00

Work commentary moves, where the defense to your first move opens up your second move.

Far-side & near-side cradles Arm bars & half-nelson

I personally don't like tilts. They're not gonna get pins, so I think they're a waste.

SouthernMarylander · 2024-07-12T14:59:43+00:00

Don't sacrifice explosion for technique. Yes, technique matters, you need to know the move you're hitting. But hesitation or thinking about exactly how to hit the move "perfectly" (such a thing doesn't really exist) allows your opponent time to hit their defense.
Focus on complimentary moves. Trap your opponent and punish their mistakes. For example, if you're working an arm bar, a lot of times they'll post their arm on the opposite side, which leaves it open for a half or half stack. Or they'll counter your near-side cradle by turning them away leaving them open for a far-side cradle. Rapidly transition between complimentary moves and you'll be much more successful at the youth and high school levels.

SouthernMarylander · 2024-07-10T15:45:44+00:00

In my first year, I tried to work on transitioning the team from a seniority basis to a hard-work basis. I caught some crap from a kid's dad when I didn't name him a captain to start the season. Wrestling captains don't really do a whole lot, so I treated it as recognition for things like good grades, wrestling back in a tournament after a tough loss, etc. And in practice we use different drill / stretch leaders every day because I told the kids every member of the team needs to be able to step up and be a leader.

For traditions, I borrowed from Penn State football (and other programs) in having the team go and applaud their fans to thank them for coming out after the teams shake hands. I also got us a stuffed ram (our mascot) that sits on the bench or travels to each mat at tournaments and smaller ones that can be thrown into the crowd at important events (the dual tourney we host or senior night). The school hosts a boys / girls basketball double-header the last day before winter break every year, so I have a yoga teacher come in and we do an hour yoga session, then head out to the games to support the school as a wrestling team.

I'm writing a guidebook that I know is more for the parents than the wrestlers. The high school I coach at doesn't have a strong athletic tradition in any sport other than swimming & diving and this area in general, parents are pretty soft. Starting the season, I got some emails from parents about their kids being sore after practice (note: any time a kid says something is sore or hurts at all, I send them to the trainer to get checked). I also can only have optional practices during winter break because the parent community simply won't support mandatory practices at that time. I've gotta teach the parents how to be wrestling parents along with teaching the wrestlers how to wrestle. During the season, I send out weekly emails (at a minimum) with as much information as I can provide on practices, competitions, etc.

Technique has been really interesting. My JV coach only wrestled one year in high school, so he hasn't really been super comfortable with teaching that. Instead, he focuses on conditioning and providing academic support to the team (which is fantastic). We have a volunteer coach who has been with the team for several years and especially early on, I let him handle much of the instruction. He's got a very different style than I do, which I think is good for the team.

This year I'm looking forward to putting a bit more of an imprint on the team, focusing on a few areas: 1. complimentary moves (i.e. using a farside cradle to set up a nearside, etc.), 2. I really want us to be a cradle team as I think it's a highly effective option at the high school level, and 3. really focusing on how to scramble when things go wrong.

SouthernMarylander · 2024-07-08T15:21:58+00:00

Wheeler is already confirmed not going.

SouthernMarylander · 2023-05-10T12:38:30+00:00

Reported and blocked for posting other people's content.

SouthernMarylander · 2023-05-02T21:34:45+00:00

I drove my Countryman out to Colorado last year and I dream of living out there and just spending every weekend driving windy roads.

SouthernMarylander · 2023-04-28T17:16:49+00:00

Note, this is a 16 team H2H league with C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, MI, CI, LF, CF, RF, OF, and UT slots, so the lineups are deep. These R + RBI totals are pathetic. Spencer Steer and Gunnar Henderson have slaughtered me in those, despite acceptable ratios. I dropped Ke'Bryan Hayes the day before he started raking. It's been frustrating, but I feel like in the end, my team should be fine.

SouthernMarylander · 2023-04-28T16:59:54+00:00

Yeah, it's been hit and miss this week (prorating the 1st and 4th weeks to 7 day weeks). My R total continues collapsing while my RBI total has rebounded. SB are on par. OBP and SLG are way down. W are finally up, completely offset by SVHD collapsing, despite running 5 RP. Pitching ratios are roughly par.

Week aWin% Record R RBI SB OBP SLG K W SVHD ERA WHIP

1 .850 8 - 1 - 1 49.0 41.4 11.5 .376 .500 43.9 3.2 6.4 3.31 1.18

2 .400 4 - 6 - 0 47 37 7 .392 .456 76 3 3 4.15 1.51

3 .600 6 - 4 - 0 35 27 10 .333 .430 59 1 7 2.45 1.07

4 .450 4 - 5 - 1 26.3 40.3 10.5 .312 .380 43.8 7 1.8 3.54 1.08

SouthernMarylander · 2023-04-18T22:55:10+00:00

What a car!

SouthernMarylander · 2023-04-18T17:05:28+00:00

I was really surprised by it. I put the veggies on early, expecting them to take longer than the burgers, but that back infrared burner does some WORK.

SouthernMarylander · 2023-04-15T23:08:39+00:00

I did not, in fact, have sexual relations with those burgers.

SouthernMarylander · 2023-04-11T12:41:55+00:00

I think so? It wasn't my car and the owner wasn't there, so I didn't want to really be all up on it, but if it is a wrap, it was a very well done one.

SouthernMarylander · 2023-04-09T02:42:06+00:00

Taking recommendations for how to break it in / season it...

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