How good is swimming for wrestling?

I think swimming is a good recovery tool. Hitting the bag can be great for conditioning, but it isn't really specific to wrestling. If you want to get stronger you need to be lifting something. Whether its a barbell or your bodyweight. Since you don't have access to weights, I would also suggest checking out never gymless by Ross.

I want to get in better condition during the off season so thats good, so i dont gas during practice, we have a good wrestling program at our school, so i am in relativity decent condition during matches, i get tired during the last period, which i dont want, i dont want to be tired at all.
 
If my hick school had free weights, I'll bet yours does.

QFT

I graduated in a class of 47 people, and my school had plenty of free weights, bench, & a squat rack.

To the original question, I agree with MMAFan232, in that it could help for recovery. It could also be beneficial for breathing. Controlling your breathing in swimming when your face is underwater 1/2 of the time or more has benefits when you get in positions in wrestling where breathing is difficult.
 
For conditioning wrestling is the the best for wrestling. Although cross-training for me is more of keeping things fresh so you dont get bored.
 
For conditioning wrestling is the the best for wrestling. Although cross-training for me is more of keeping things fresh so you dont get bored.
 
our school would have these sport switch days. wrestling and water polo/swimmers always collided, it was fun to throw them around and flirt with the chicks.

then we'd play water polo. good god it was grueling doing that for an extended period. half of us ate a shitload before swimming and ended up puking all over the pool. good times.

anyways, i liken it to long distance running. which always seemed overused in wrastlin' conditioning.
 
With the heavy bag you can do heavy bag getups, and shoot into a zercher squat of the bag off of saw horses or something. For strength, find a gym.
 
I want to get in better condition during the off season so thats good, so i dont gas during practice, we have a good wrestling program at our school, so i am in relativity decent condition during matches, i get tired during the last period, which i dont want, i dont want to be tired at all.

If you don't get tired in a match you're not trying. No matter how hard you push yourself in the room or outside you're going to go harder in a match.

You need to drill. Find a way for your coach to open up the room for your team. And just drill your takedowns over and over again. Not only will you improve your technique you will improve your conditioning. Every rep of every move should be preformed perfect even when you're tired. You will condition yourself to perform the move perfect in the third period then when you and your opponent are both tired that way.
 
Some examples of drilling.

Start of with technique drilling. Go slow with you and a partner. Make sure you go through the steps of the move slowly and perfectly. Break it down, use verbal cues if you have to.

Move into a quicker paced drilling. Partner drilling. 1 and 1, 2 and 2, one man for time or reps. Pick up the pace. Finish hard and correctly every time. Don't grandfather your partner. One thing I learned in college and regret doing in highschool is not teaching myself to finish doubles hard because I didn't want to make my practice partner mad.

The most intense. Power drilling. Groups of 4 - 5. One man is in for 30 seconds to a minute. The man that is in executes a takedown with a hard finish, then the next man rotates in on him without a break. This prepares you for the fatigue of the match it simulates that intensity and physical conditioning. Don't slack off 30 seconds is a relatively short time.

During the summer time if no freestyle/Greco club is available it is important for the success of a team to have an open room session 1 to 2 times per week. Sessions can be short 1 to 2 hours long, and less structured and intense as an in season practice. Implement these drilling strategies along with live matches and live situations and you will see large carryover onto the mat next year.'
 
Well, i have access to the mat during the clinics and open mats our coach runs just about all year round, we have a solid program up here, our team has won the nassau county dual meet championships 01,02,03,04,05,06,08,09, and the county tournament 01,02,03,04,05,06,08. I plan on ordering a mat and i am in the process of building a takedown dummy, i want to have perfect doubles and singles, i think thats what i need to work on the most, turning kids is relativity easy, and while in neutral i find myself more defensive, i want to be the aggressor and keep him off balance, go non stop for 6 minutes. I also want to attend the war at the shore tournament this april, hopefully i can cut down to 114 and compete there, i weigh about 119 currently.
 
Take this with a grain of salt but I would say swimming is probably not a real good option for building endurance for wrestling -- two reasons. One is, you're inevitably gonna have to practice your strokes to be able to swim decently, and that's one more skill to worry about learning. The other is, when you swim, you aren't free to breathe any old time you want, because your head is underwater much of the time -- so you will probably try to pace yourself and not go all-out, especially at first.

I would think a much better option would be intense interval cardio, like doing burpees in sets of 20, running up several flights of stairs over and over, sprinting, etc.

Also, if you haven't been trained in throwing boxing punches, you can do a lot of damage to your wrists if you just start wailing on a heavy bag, especially if you aren't using hand wraps. That said, it might be worth looking into local boxing gyms (real boxing gyms, not "cardio kickboxing" classes) and see if you can take lessons for a month or so, to get familiar with the proper technique. Heavy-bag work is a great cardio option on days your legs are so whipped you don't want to run.

Finally, if you're absolutely sure your school doesn't have free weights, why don't you ask your coach if he can get some? Your school's gotta have money for athletic equipment, right? If not, maybe your team can hold fund-raisers (car washes, garage sales, whatever) to raise a few hundred bucks. Used barbell sets are widely available, and all you really need for starters is an Oly bar (or more than one), a few hundred pounds of plates, a squat rack and a bench with uprights. Check Craigslist, garage sales, classified ads, used sporting-goods stores, etc.
 
Take this with a grain of salt but I would say swimming is probably not a real good option for building endurance for wrestling -- two reasons. One is, you're inevitably gonna have to practice your strokes to be able to swim decently, and that's one more skill to worry about learning. The other is, when you swim, you aren't free to breathe any old time you want, because your head is underwater much of the time -- so you will probably try to pace yourself and not go all-out, especially at first.

I would think a much better option would be intense interval cardio, like doing burpees in sets of 20, running up several flights of stairs over and over, sprinting, etc.

Also, if you haven't been trained in throwing boxing punches, you can do a lot of damage to your wrists if you just start wailing on a heavy bag, especially if you aren't using hand wraps. That said, it might be worth looking into local boxing gyms (real boxing gyms, not "cardio kickboxing" classes) and see if you can take lessons for a month or so, to get familiar with the proper technique. Heavy-bag work is a great cardio option on days your legs are so whipped you don't want to run.

Finally, if you're absolutely sure your school doesn't have free weights, why don't you ask your coach if he can get some? Your school's gotta have money for athletic equipment, right? If not, maybe your team can hold fund-raisers (car washes, garage sales, whatever) to raise a few hundred bucks. Used barbell sets are widely available, and all you really need for starters is an Oly bar (or more than one), a few hundred pounds of plates, a squat rack and a bench with uprights. Check Craigslist, garage sales, classified ads, used sporting-goods stores, etc.

No no we have plenty of free weights in our school, just dont know how to use em...
 
This is such an old thread. I will get in trouble for this, but I was looking for opinions on kayaking for crosstraining.
 
these people are idiots who say swimming is not valuable.

swimming is excellent cardio with low impact. you can use your pool for either HIIT or LSD stuff, 2-3 times a week.

This will not replace road work, weights, plyometrics and of course, mat time.

BUT, it is a great tool. Especially for recovery. My favorite thing to do is swim LSD after my hardest lifting day. I am not nearly as sore as I would be the next day.

The ROSS stuff is solid for not having a gym. As well as getting a kettlebell.

Good luck.
 
Edit: Really old thread.
In regards to weight lifting, there should be a coach of one of the teams that can give you instruction, maybe even offer weight lifting during PE class.
 
Edit: Really old thread.
In regards to weight lifting, there should be a coach of one of the teams that can give you instruction, maybe even offer weight lifting during PE class.

You realize this guy is like 27 now, right?
 
I hate to generalize shit, but when I was a performance coach, I worked with a lot of swimmers.

The only thing I didn't like about implementing it is that seemingly all of them who did it competitively had fucked up shoulders.
 
I hate to generalize shit, but when I was a performance coach, I worked with a lot of swimmers.

The only thing I didn't like about implementing it is that seemingly all of them who did it competitively had fucked up shoulders.

I know plenty of former competitive swimmers with blown out shoulders.

I think swimming is great cardio and excellent for teaching pacing and breath control... as far as improving actual wrestling ability.... I don't know about that.
 
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