Wrestling is a challenging sport that can be particularly hard on your body, especially when first getting started. So, you must plan your training regimen carefully to ensure you get the most out of it, starting with determining how often you need to train wrestling.
Most adults should train in wrestling twice a week, but athletes can train more often if they can recover enough between training sessions. To maximize skill acquisition train as much as possible without overtraining. If you are wrestling in school, go to every team practice.
Let’s talk more about wrestling training and how to figure out the best schedule for you.
How Often Should You Train Wrestling?
You should train wrestling at least two times a week, but you can train more depending on your body’s ability to recover. While it’s normal to feel tired after a training session, that feeling should mostly have faded before you train again. At least one full rest day should happen per week.
It’s important to log training time no matter what sport you choose, but wrestling especially requires a lot of training. Whether it’s cardio, lifting weights, or live rounds, you need to get your body in the right condition for the sport and keep it there. However, there is such a thing as overtraining.
You can combat overtraining by listening to your body. Feeling sore after a training session is normal, but you should be waiting for that to mostly go away before training again. Training while still acutely sore or stiff can lead to overtraining and potential injuries. So, you need to be aware of how your body is feeling at all times.
Training twice a week gives your body plenty of time to recover, but it may not be enough for some people if they want to maximize their wrestling ability. If you’re recovering quickly from each training session and want to do it more, feel free to train more often. Just remember to keep an eye out for signs of overtraining to prevent injury.
Can You Train Wrestling Every Day?
You can train wrestling every day, as long as your body is able to recover from training sessions fast enough. Training every day can help you build a routine that’s easier to stick with, but moderating intensity whenever possible might be necessary to maintain this training frequency.
While it’s important to watch for signs of overtraining, many wrestlers choose to train every day. If your body can recover fast enough, then you should consider this. Training every day allows you to maintain a consistent schedule, and focusing on different training methods each day can help to balance recovery somewhat.
For example, you can dedicate certain days of the week to live rounds or hard drilling with a partner. You may have another day dedicated to direct conditioning like lifting or cardio. Working out daily ensures that you get enough training. Programming your focuses and exercises thoughtfully throughout the week helps to reduce the chances of overtraining.
However, training every day does have its downsides. You need to give your body enough time to recover before training again, and training every day may not allow this if you don’t structure your schedule appropriately.
When you train, your muscles break down and you get minor recoverable damage in other areas of the body that recovery time helps to build back up. The recovery process allows your body to repair itself. Without adequate recovery, your body just accumulates damage.
Ultimately, effectively training every day requires a lot of thought, and days off or even weeks off need to happen occasionally in order to provide recovery after several months of a training daily schedule.
Can You Get Better Training Wrestling Once a Week?
You can get better training wrestling once a week, but your progress may be slower than training more frequently. If this is your only option, you can supplement with at-home training or conditioning to ensure that the skill development that happens in your weekly session can stick.
Once-a-week training isn’t ideal for wrestling, but it’s still possible to do. As I discussed above, resting between training sessions is essential for allowing your body to recover and your muscles to grow. But what happens if you wait too long between training sessions?
If you wait too long between sessions, you won’t see results as quickly as others who train more frequently. This means it will take you longer to build the muscle memory movement patterns that are required to have crisp techniques, and if you are not exercising outside of wrestling sessions, you might lack the muscle strength and cardio to efficiently learn wrestling.
One way to combat the delayed progress caused by infrequent training is to supplement with at-home training. Doing this is a great way to still get a workout without training in person. So, let’s talk about ways you can effectively train at home.
Between training sessions at home, you can easily work on your footwork and wrestling stance. These don’t require a sparring partner, which is important for any wrestler. If you are working on taking shots, you can train shot-taking mechanics on air too.
Wrestling requires a lot of conditioning, so building up conditioning will always help you get the most out of your wrestling sessions. You can also work on your cardio at home by running outside or doing basic exercises that don’t require equipment.
If you can’t train more than once a week, you may not progress as quickly as others. This doesn’t mean that your training is worthless. Just make sure you have appropriate expectations and supplement your training with other physical activity between sessions if at all possible.
Can You Train Wrestling at Home?
You can train some wrestling movements at home, but you should do training in person with experienced wrestlers or under the guidance of a wrestling coach whenever possible. Wrestling is a combat sport and requires training against a resisting opponent to be effectively learned.
If you need to train wrestling at home for whatever reason, there are ways you can do it successfully. However, there are limitations to the level you can reach with solo training.
Training wrestling at home should be temporary. The end goal should always be to join a wrestling gym and learn from a qualified coach. This will allow you to perfect your technique and practice with another person.
The two simplest ways to supplement wrestling training are to execute shadow wrestling and basic wrestling movements or to just work on conditioning which is greatly important to wrestling since it is a physically demanding sport.
Shadow wrestling, or wrestling without a partner, is a great way to perfect basic movement techniques. You can solidify good basic mechanics through practicing situational movements and techniques until you can do them under stress and without thinking. Doing these types of drills at home can help you hone those techniques and allow you to act on instinct.
Using guided online content like this 10-minute shadow wrestling workout below can be a great way to practice basic wrestling skills at home.
Since wrestling is such a physically demanding sport, it is always a solid plan to build up your strength, explosiveness, and cardiovascular conditioning. It can directly help you win matches or perform better in practice. Another benefit is that making sure that you are not held back by fitness concerns can actually help you to learn your techniques faster when you are able to get quality training in person.
I found that as an adult picking up wrestling as a supplement to my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training, that being properly physically conditioned ensured that I got way more out of every wrestling lesson that I did in terms of learning techniques since I was able to get a higher volume of quality repetitions overall.
Final Thoughts
Since wrestling is such a tough physically demanding combat sport, picking the right training frequency that balances training volume against recovery at an individual level is crucial to excelling in wrestling as a sport.
For most adults training as a hobby, training twice a week is usually the most appropriate training volume. Doing that alongside some supplemental fitness training is a great way for those athletes to get what they want for their goals. However, for serious competitors with an eye on competing in wrestling or MMA more training is required to excel in those sports.
For more check out Do You Need to Be Fit to Start Wrestling?