In this episode you will learn: how coaching high school wrestlers is very different than youth wrestlers, why 12 is the magic age of understanding yourself and outcomes as an athlete, and how you can use Emma’s understanding of youth developmental psychology to have your wrestlers get better with less mat time.
In This Episode We Cover:
0:01 Emma’s Olympic coaching experience, she has a Masters in Sports Performance, and other accolades.-
4:23 Concept Maps and the “web of moves” in Wrestling. 6:20 How kids develop. Is what I am teaching appropriate for their age and physical skill? How the LTAD model can help13:30 What Emma teaches new athletes to shortcut the learning curve and her why, when and how.19:30 When to work body weight and control vs lifting; and when it’s the right time to introduce a complex movement.18:25 How “Dan Gable ruined Wrestling” but it was really the bad imitations of Gable that created a culture that’s too intense for new athletes and how to improve the application of this without watering down the high performance world.23:20 What a week of high school or college practices should look like while working within a weekly competition schedule.
But I also give them equal recovery time so that those stay quality and their technique is looking good, and their head is still up, and their hips are still in and they're running their feet. That doesn't mean that we don't challenge them, but it does mean that we're like thinking strategically about what's the best way to help this athlete?
One, learn, two, stay healthy. Three, how do I make sure that when the end of year comes, they're able to do what they need to do and I don't need to accomplish that. Because it's, you know, December 1st. So I'm 30 days into training with these student athletes. I still have another 60 to 90 days depending on which state you're wrestling in and when your championship falls.
To really refine those skills and challenge and build their cardiovascular level, to build their strength, to be able to teach some tactics of how to win a match with different strategies, whether I'm winning or I'm losing. I think, we just burn people, right? And we think that the entire time, the entire season, every single practice, we should leave completely fatigued. That's just not true.
One, learn, two, stay healthy. Three, how do I make sure that when the end of year comes, they're able to do what they need to do and I don't need to accomplish that. Because it's, you know, December 1st. So I'm 30 days into training with these student athletes. I still have another 60 to 90 days depending on which state you're wrestling in and when your championship falls.
To really refine those skills and challenge and build their cardiovascular level, to build their strength, to be able to teach some tactics of how to win a match with different strategies, whether I'm winning or I'm losing. I think, we just burn people, right? And we think that the entire time, the entire season, every single practice, we should leave completely fatigued. That's just not true.
Emma Randall
World Class & Developmental Coach