This is a great conditioning drill to do with a partner or your entire team. Have the athletes partner up and switch off every 20 seconds between 2 stations for 2 minutes:

The bridge row is one of my favorite rowing accessories for wrestlers because it combines the shoulder-friendly neutral grip row with the posterior chain benefits of a glute bridge. Add in the fact that the exercise is accessible for athletes of any age or strength level and you’ve got a winner that should be a staple in every strength program. Developing the ability to pull and squeeze with your arms while simultaneously extending the hips is a must for all wrestlers.

Plank positions are one of the best ways to develop core strength and muscle endurance for young athletes. Learning to brace, stabilize, and maintain position during static holds will also help youth athletes begin to understand how to recruit their abs, lower back, glutes, and lats. This “mind/muscle connection” is crucial as they begin to transition into loaded strength training.

When designing strength workouts for my elite wrestlers at the Ohio Regional Training Center, the accessory exercises are just as important as the main movement of the day. 

The muscle-up — a combination of an explosive pull-up into a dip — is one of my favorite upper-body calisthenic exercises. Muscle-ups are great for building powerful lats, but because of the speed required to complete the movement, I have seen even super strong "weight room warriors" fail at getting over the bar.

I've always used sled work — pushing, pulling, dragging, rowing — to train my athletes. I believe that a prowler or sled is the best tool to build functional strength and endurance, particularly in combat athletes such as wrestlers. 

Want the conditioning benefits of stance motion and hand fighting with the power-building benefits of strongman training? Throw in the added bonus of “socially distanced scrapping” and you have this tough drill: the "Tire Fight."

Need a quick full-body workout that requires only a single pair of dumbbells? 

If your idea of incorporating core training into your weight routine involves sitting on a bosu ball while you do presses, then you need to rethink your core strength strategy. The main function of the core muscles is to provide strength and stability between the upper and lower body. If you take open-chain kinetic movements and now make the base unstable, your primary movers (lats, quads, etc.) are now being forced to function as stabilizers. Not a lot of benefit to the core here, but definitely an increased risk of injury. 

I’ll just say this up front: I’m not a big fan of machines as a strength training modality. Most of my programming for athletes revolves around free weights (barbells, dumbbells) and functional pieces like sleds, ropes, and medicine balls. 

For this week’s wrestling strength video, I wanted to teach you a few simple substitutes for some of my training staples like sled drags, sled sprints, rope climbs, and sled tug of war. 

Everyone loves doing curls for big biceps. But if you spend more time each week developing the bicep in your arm rather than the one in your leg, you are doing yourself a disservice as an athlete. Having strong hamstrings is one of the biggest keys for speed, strength, and injury prevention. You may not be able to show off their development in a tank top, but training your hamstrings aka the leg biceps will pay dividends.

The barbell curl is one of the most basic weightlifting exercises but in my opinion also one of the most useful accessory lifts for wrestlers. 

Neck training is an area that many wrestlers do not prioritize in their strength training. Not that I agree with that strategy (or lack thereof), but when a wrestler is on the mats and hand fighting daily their neck and upper trap muscles are getting plenty of work. 

Kettlebells are a great training tool for wrestlers. They are versatile and can be used for power-based dynamic movements such as swings or more traditional strength exercises such as presses and rows. Most kettlebell workouts fall under what I would call functional conditioning — using a variety of full-body movements together in a circuit. You get to work on improving your strength, cardio, and coordination. What’s not to love?