Pioneer Valley Youth Sports and Fitness Institute

the source for sound athletic advice

Wanna be a suplex master this season?  If so, then a strong core is essential!  The core consists of much more than just the abdominal muscles;  also included are the hip and spinal musculatures. 

A wrestler must have good hips in order to be successful.  Every move in wrestling involves using your hips in one way or another.  For example, to complete a successful stand up or a successful shot you need good hip flexion and extension.  Not only do you need to be able to perform hip flexion and extension, but you must be able to do so with power.

As mentioned above, wrestling also involves the abdominal and spinal musculature, both of which are important when attempting to execute moves.  If you go in for a shot with your upper body hunched over, and your abs and back muscles not flexed, are you going to be successful in taking your opponent down? Of course not!  Your abdominal and spinal musculature need to be flexed and in an upright position, and you must be as close to your opponent as possible.  And then, in order to effectively finish the takedown, you must be able to exert enough power using the same muscles which are already being flexed.

With all of this being said, one can see why it is important for a wrestler to have a strong core.  Not only do wrestlers need to be able to produce power from their cores, but they must also have superb muscular endurance in this region of the body to be able get those strenuous takedowns while their opponent is fighting back with their core power and endurance, and be able to do so for an entire match.

Below you can find some great core exercises for wrestlers!

• Hang cleans and power cleans are both effective core exercises for wrestlers because they require a movement with power, especially in the hip musculature. 
  

• Back extensions, pull-ups, and lat-pull downs are great exercises for wrestlers because they require so much strength from the spinal musculature to perform (use higher reps in order to get that muscular endurance up).  In addition to using the spinal musculature, a person is forced to flex their abdominal muscles to complete these exercises.
  

• Leg lifts, six inches, prone planks, lateral bridges, Russian twists, and crunches are all great exercises to increase muscular endurance, especially in the abdominal muscles.  To make these exercises more challenging, use the variations where medicine balls and stability balls are used!
  

• Partner band sprints: Here is an exercise that requires a lot of power production in the core.  To do this exercise you will need a partner and a resistance band (resistance level should be challenging, but not impossible); the partner will also be contributing to the amount of resistance on the athlete.  Both partners need to be inside of the elastic, with it around their hips, and be facing straight ahead.  The partner in the front is sprinting as fast as they can (forced to use good form and produce power to move), while the partner in the back is trying to slow the person down.  You can use different variations of this to make it more specific to wrestling, such as having the person in the front do penetration steps and come back up into a stance (this really improves the athlete’s explosiveness, especially in the hips).
  

• Pelvic thrusts and supine bridges are excellent for creating both power and gaining muscular endurance, especially in the hips, and surrounding musculature.