I have been wrestling for my whole life.  I am on my high school team but also a club team and wrestle for pretty much the entire year.  Because of this I dont get in the training I would like to like at your school.  What are some things that I can do at practice in addition to the wrestling to improve my strength?  I dont want to gain weight, but would like to get stronger.  Matt L.

Here is Martin Rooney showing off some bodyweight exercises with the Rutgers University Wrestling Team this offseason.   Rutgers went on to have its greatest win total ever in school history this year.

Matt,

Great to hear from you and thanks for writing in. I get questions like this a lot from both athletes and their parents because now that sports are able to be performed all year, it is often difficult to make physical improvements because there is never an offseason to do so.  Not that all year training is completely a bad thing, but I do believe that you are on to something by having the mindset of figuring out how to make improvement in addition to the constant practice.  Wrestling is still the best exercise to improve your wrestling and I do believe that this training will make you a tough, strong athlete, but working on the body is also essential to taking your game to the highest level.

As for things to do, I would suggest a great warmup before the workout at least 3-4 times per week.  The Parisi Warmup as demonstrated on our video series is a great start, but I would also recommend a number of different body weight exercises as well.   Although you have probably done your share of pushups and situps, there are still ways to increase the tension on your muscles and still keep it wrestling specific at the same time.

3 Great ideas would be:

Chinups (you can use different grips and weights)

Body Squats (you can use the weight of a partner)

Lunges (again you can use the weight of a partner)

These 3 in addition to the warmup, wrestling and pushup/situp routines would really round things out and give you that little extra you might be missing.

I would also finally say that nutrition also plays a role here too.  All too often athletes that work out as much as you might think they can get away with eating whatever they want.  When you do this, you are holding yourself back as well.  Make sure that your preworkout and post workout nutrition is solid as well as your other meals throughout the day too.  Get plenty of water and sleep too.  All of these suggestions will surely add a little more punch to your practices.

 Body Squats with a partner are a great way to work the legs and core!

I hope this helps and wish you the best in your career.

Martin

Pictured is Rich Sadiv blasting up 683.5 at 198 pounds for a new PR in April of this year.  Rich has been training at the Parisi Speed School and is looking to go over 700 for sure on August 4th.

Mark,

Thanks for writing in and I am so glad that our information is helping out.  All too often, lifters think that they do not have to warmup like other athletes, but I disagree. As you are probably seeing from our warmup, your range of motion and strength in certain accessory muscles are improved.  In addition to this, more blood flow to the muscles before you start lifting is also a plus for the workout as well.

Pictured above is one of the strongest athletes pound for pound we have had grace our facility. Rich is 42 years young and in 2006 was ranked 10th overall in the country and 3rd in his age group.  That 683.5 personal best (4/21/2007) Currently ranked #1 Multi Ply 198 by Powerlifting Watch.com (http://www.powerliftingwatch.com/ ) and all of his meets are in drug tested federations.

After watching Rich for months come in and tear it up during his impressive workouts, he and I got to spend some time and talk training philosophy and theory. Rich is a real student of the iron game and has made some adjustments to his current quest for 700 involving some unilateral movements and accomodating resistance ideas. Below is a current series of workouts that he sent in for us to enjoy and learn from:

Paul,

Thanks for writing in and I share in your confusion.  Yes, there are a number of great products out there right now that focus solely on the grip, but if you just train the hands without working the rest of the body you are either wasting some training time or getting ready for the grip world championships.  Below is an post and pics that I put together some time ago on grip training:

How to Develop a Bone Crushing Grip

My father believed that a man in many ways could be measured by the strength and toughness of his hands. When I was growing up, my father and I would arm wrestle every weekend while watching sporting events like boxing, football, or the World’s Strongest Man competitions. For years, I was never able to beat him, but he was always there to help with advice on how I could someday win. A one time Olympic caliber rower, my father would brag of how thick the calluses once were across his hands and he would always impress me with feats of hand strength like driving a single finger through the lids of jars of peanuts and coffee. I also had an Uncle that was a three-star general in the Air Force who would crush my hand with his grip at every family reunion. No matter how hard or long you held his grip for, he would always wait until you released first. It was an impressive show of dominance of one man over another. These two men had powerful influence over me when it came to training my hands. I remember with joy seeing my first callus forming in my palm when I started lifting weights around 13 years old. As the years went on, my dad’s advice paid off and one Sunday evening our grips were locked in a battle and I almost beat him. Interestingly, we never arm wrestled again. Not only was he strong, he was smart too.

There were many years of training that went by following that time of my life when I was convinced that grip training was essential not just to being an athlete, but to being a man. When I began training jiu jitsu in 1998, I was again reminded not only that grip training was important, but also that my grip was not as strong as I thought. Training with the gi was tough on my hands at first, and although I had strong hands in the gym, I quickly learned that there was more work to be done before my hands could be considered battle tested. In addition to this, I started training and working with ADCC medalist and UFC veteran Sean Alvarez around this time. Sean was helping me with no gi takedowns one training session and he clamped down with both hands on my left wrist like a bear trap. Not only did I know I wasn’t getting my hand back, but I was also worried he was actually going to break my arm with the sheer power of his hands. This event was the final straw that made sure that grip work became a staple in my training with fighters. Since that time, many of the fighters may have cursed me for what we have done to our hands, but their grips have never let them down in competition.

Simply put, if you have a strong grip, you have an advantage. If you have a weak grip, you have a liability. Regardless of what you might like to believe if you fear training the hands hard, a vice-like grip can be the difference between getting the takedown or not, finishing the submission or not, or ultimately winning or losing. Without a strong grip, your hands become the weak link in the chain of the entire body. The deadlift is a great example of this statement. Imagine that you are trying to deadlift 450 pounds from the floor and you have the arms, back and legs that are strong enough to do it. The only problem is that your hands can only hold 300 pounds. Do you see that the heavy lift is now impossible and that the entire body will be limited in how much it can perform? Now take that same concept and apply it to your fight game. The last thing that you want is holes like this in your game holding you back.

Now that I have your attention, this post is designed to show you new ways for training the grip that you may never have either seen or tried before. The great news is that training the grip does not require expensive equipment. Most of the training we do is with simple pieces that you already probably have, or can get rather easily.

Grip Training Exercises

There are a number of different ways to train your grip. I have found over the years that taking advantage of a number of different methods is the only way to develop a bone crushing grip. Finding the time to fit grip training into your session is also critical to getting the most out of the training in an economical fashion. The last thing we want to do is simply tire the fighter out working solely on the grip. Listed are a few exercises that I feel give you the biggest gains for the time spent and also work other areas of the body in concert as well. Every one of these exercises can and should be worked into your training routine on the appropriate day.

Bar Grip Exercises

1. Band Deadlifts

This exercise is a real challenge for the grip. By using elastic bands connected to the bar, as the athlete lifts up the bar gets heavier and tries to rip from the athlete’s hands. We do sets of 5 reps and hold the first 4 reps for 5 seconds at the top and the last rep for 10. This way we are building leg and back strength in addition to a powerful isometric grip.

2. Weighted Chin Ups

This lift is a classic in our program. We do sets of 5 reps and keep raising the weight until there is one man standing. Each time you release the bar you will have to grab each hand and straighten the fingers it is so tough on the grip.

3. Fat Bar Holds

We use a fat bar to challenge the grip. If you don’t have a fat bar, you can place tape or clothes around the bar to make it thicker. At that point, each athlete lifts a certain amount of weight (we usually use 225-275) and see who can hold it the longest. This is a killer on the forearms.

4. Farmer’s Walks

This is an old time strongman lift that we have added to our program. Not only is this great for the grip, it is also a total body strength and endurance exercise as well. You can use heavy dumbbells if you don’t have the farmer’s walk bars. This exercise is performed by picking up the dumbbells (we use 150 pound each hand) and walking either a prescribed distance for sets, or seeing who can walk the farthest. Either way, it is a test of the grip and the mind.

Canvas Bag Grip Exercises 

1. Sandbag Lifts

A sandbag is an easy tool to make and a great tool to challenge the grip and the rest fo the body. All you need is a big canvas duffel bag or two, some sand and some duct tape and you are ready to rock. I fill one duffel bag with a certain amount of sand, tape the bag shut and then place that bag inside another bag and tape that one shut. This way, there is no mess and you have a great training tool. We use a 120 pound bag for bag lifts. During this lift you grab the bag with the grip and lift with the legs and place it up on a high box. We do sets of 5.

Rope Exercises

1. Rope Climbs

If you have somewhere safe to hang the ropes, rope climbs are also a great exercise for the fighter. Although I like standing more for function and safety, this is another demanding exercise that is a must if you want a strong grip. Depending on the height fo the rope, that will determine how many sets and climbs you do.

3. Tug of War Holds

This is another favorite exercise of the group. Not only does it involve competition, strength and strategy, but the hands get an unreal workout. You can either do a true tug of war with another athlete or a team of athletes, or you can also just do isometric holds with each other for a prescribed time.

The grip is an area of the body that is often overlooked and undertrained. When I hear talk of some legendary fighters like Mark Kerr and current stars like Minotauro, I hear a common thread that athletes that have competed against them say: they had an iron grip! Until you have appreciated a competitor’s grip that could not be broken, you may not take this article as serious as it is, but I hope this post is a wake up call. Now get to work on that grip!

Train Hard,

Martin

Pictured is multiple time world champion and ADCC medalist Braulio "cacara" Estima working on inverse pullups at the facility in preparation for this year's ADCC World Grappling Championships next month.

This exercise is very challenging and not recommended for the beginner that cannot do 10-15 quality pullups on their own.  To perform the exercise, the athlete first hangs from the bar as seen below:

From this position, the athlete then pulls the knees to the chest and prepares to invert the body to then bring the legs up and over the bar as seen in the original picture above.  This next stage is pictured below:

Then after the athlete has inverted completely as in the original position, then the athlete straightens the legs and lowers the body under control as much as possible.

Keep this exercise to 5 good slow reps and start with 1-2 sets.  After a week or two then move to 3-4 sets.  This is a tremendous exercise that involves not only the grip and the back for pulling strength, but also incorporates complete abdominal and hip flexor control too.

Try this out and see if it is not challenging enough.

Martin Rooney

Pictured is arguably the best grappler on the planet Roger Gracie busting out some forearm and back work on the rope here in New Jersey last week.  Roger is fighting in the Super Fight at the World Championships at the beginning of next month and training is right on schedule.

John,

Thanks for writing in and yes, Roger, as well as 8 other athletes (Rolles Gracie, Kyra Gracie, Celita Schutz, Delson Heleno, Braulio Estima, Flavio Almeida, Marcio Feitosa, Jamal Patterson) have been in training for the event.  In addition to this, 3 other athletes that have spent time training here in the past (Alexandre Soca, Nelson Montiero and Renzo Gracie) are also in the Worlds as well and we have a few other athletes that are waiting to hear if they are in too (Romulo Barreto and Leonardo "Tunicu").  So that is a large portion of the athletes that will be competing overall and we have had some real exciting and killer sessions here over the last few weeks as the athletes are getting ramped up.

In terms of most important aspects of training to work on, every athlete is different and has different needs and injuries to work around, but if I had to nail down one characteristic for this event, it would be endurance.  Since you may have as many as 8 matches over 2 days (like in the case of all the wars Roger had at the last event) you need to be able to work hard, recover and do it again.

When you ask what is the best way to address this, it is obviously grappling itself that is the best training, but if you can build strength endurance and cardiovascular endurance in the gym to complement this training, it is a must.  All too often I see people making the mistake of trying too hard to simulate a fight in the gym at the expense of real training.  Then you are not really fighting in the gym and not really training in the dojo, so you are then really never nowhere. Moral:  Fight in the dojo, train in the gym and make sure that there is enough recovery and that they are both helping to improve each other.

Below are some great shots of some of the training over the last few weeks.  The key for these weeks has been to improve heart rate recovery with cycles of training that we are doing.  Each athlete is monitoring heart rate and we are tracking this every session.  The improvement are amazing in that recovery is improved, strength is up, and no one is injured.  In the end, that is what training is all about.

Romulo and Roger cranking out 5 sets of Bar Complexes for time

Rolles Gracie banging out 60 yard sets of Farmer's Walks

Delson Heleno "Pe de Chumbo" ripping off sets of ten with the sandbag lift

Kyra and Gregor Gracie working sets of forward and backward resisted sprints for time

Roger, Igor Gracie, Rolles and Romulo hitting another 5 minute round of ladder drills.

I hope this helps give a small view into just the training that these warriors are doing.

Martin Rooney

Pictured is Florida State receiver Chris Davis showing off the speed, technique and strength that allowed him to run some of the fastest L drills (6.66) and 60 yard shuttles (11.30) at the whole NFL Combine. 

Eddie,

Thanks for writing in and great question.  I am glad that you enjoyed the DVD and that you are taking the information and adding it to your training.  The Strength for Speed DVD is quickly becoming our best and fastest seller.  I presented some of the information this weekend in Cincinnati and it really resonated with the attendees.

As for your question, yes, you can do the linear (sagittal plane) and lateral (frontal plane) movements on the same day with the lifting.  Although we do have speed days that are specifically devoted to linear and lateral days, there is still even crossover during those sessions as well.

Since sport involves movements in all directions at all times (unless you are in say track, or an event that has only certain requirements for movements) your training can and should mimic this as well.  Because the movements on the DVD are multidirectional, I believe that this mix will not only build your strength, but also importantly help to even further create muscular balance and prevent injury.

I would balance the workout between bi lateral and uni lateral sagittal lifts (squats, deads, toe raises, lunges, step ups) and the frontal plane exercises from the DVD (side lunge, ankle band work, cross over lunge and step ups, ETC.).

I am sure you are going to not only stimulate some new strength, but it will keep the workout exciting and new as well.

Keep us posted.

Martin Rooney

Pictured is PhD and Sport Psychologist Rob Gilbert taking the athletes and staff through a session that not only toughens the body, but helps develop control over the mind.   Dr. Gilbert helped many of the athletes by delivering the strategies to control themselves under times of stress and to reach full potential.

Jordan,

Thanks for writing in and I am so glad that my work has been able to help you along in your career.  As everyone knows, I am about sharing information.  If I have an idea and never share it, it stays one idea and can only affect so many athletes.  If I deliver those ideas and the people that get that idea deliver to others, we can all really make a difference.

I am also glad that you recognize that it is not what you get from a job, but truly what you become that is of value.  Keep working on yourself by improving every day and the things that you get will take care of themselves.

As for me, this year, as every year, was an opportunity to push the envelope in our training from a physical and mental standpoint as the above picture indicates.  I will say that the program this year was improved in terms of nutrition (our body comp changes were awesome),

our football specific training (we really broke down the drills and had professional coaches to teach them),

our attention to cardiovascular fitness,

and our attention to the "mental" aspect of the events.

As I am starting to reflect on this year, I see the connections that we made with the athletes and I know that this was essential to getting them to peak performance.  I hope that over the next few weeks, we will see the results that will demonstrate that what we did was effective.

Thanks again and I hope this helps. Remember that the day that you think you know it all is the day you have left the path you were originally on.

Martin Rooney

Pictured are three Michigan athletes (Cliff Ryan of Michigan State benching and Drew Mormino of Central Michigan spotting and Dan Bazuin looking on) working hard on sets of 8 with 315 pounds on close grip benching at the facility.  Not only are we working on endurance at the facility with 225, but we also spend time increasing maximal strength.

John,

Thanks for writing in and taking an interest in the kids and our program.  It has been a real honor over the last 7 years to get a chance to work with all these awesome athletes.  The opportunity is unlike what many other people in the industry get to experience.  Thanks also for the wish of good luck, but as I tell the athletes here, good luck to us is when opportunity meets preparation.  In 3 weeks, I am sure our athletes are going to look lucky according to this definition as usual.

As for the bench, which it seems so many people are interested in, we focus on a lot more than just working with 225. As the previous post on this site shows, there is a lot in terms of technique that is important, but also muscular balance and overall maximal strength are important too.

Understanding these concepts and also knowing the athlete you are working with is critical to developing the proper program for each athlete to maximize their results.  Many of the athletes have been pressing for years, but their upper backs, rotator cuffs, and low backs are notoriously not balanced in terms of strength.  As a result, we hit a lot of this in our training.  Below are some pics to illustrate:

Pictured is speed merchant Josh Wilson of Maryland working on some horizontal single leg pull ups for balance.  Josh blasted 18 reps on 225 during our mock test this week!  Not bad for a corner back.

Here is 310 pound Mario Henderson of Florida State showing the big boys out there that just cause you are heavy doesnt mean you cant be strong for your weight.  Mario Can now bang out sets of 6 on the chins and interestingly we have watched his 40 drop as these numbers increase!  The only thing tough about this exercise is finding a chin up bar high enough for his almost 6'7" frame!

I hope this helps and we will keep the numbers coming!

Martin Rooney

Pictured is Dante Rosario of Oregon blasting out 24 reps during his test day last week.  Dante has really improved his form and strength and is now up from 17 reps!  He has become a technician and has changed his mindset of how he approaches the event.

Chris,

Great to hear from you and thanks for writing in.  I am so glad that the Combine DVD has helped you out and that already sounds like an impressive improvement.  I dont know how long you have been at it now, but to increase from 8 to 20 is a pretty tall order.  With continued practice and the adrenaline of the event, however, I have seen amazing things before, so there is no reason why you cant shoot for the stars.

As for the bench press event, we have really gotten into developing the correct technique for each athlete.  What I mean by this is that every athlete has a different arm length, fiber type, maximal strength, and chest/tricep strength ratio.  So, according to these factors, we will address grip width, bar angle of attack and develop there rep scheme attack during the actual event.  To show the difference from the above picture in form, see 6'6" Mario Henderson of Florida State below:

Mario has incredibly long arms, but is stronger benching with his triceps than more on his pecs, so he keeps a more narrow grip than Dante. Although the bench stroke is now longer, he gets more reps this way.  By understanding the athlete and having them understand themselves, we then give them the best chance to hit their best numbers.

All too often athletes have just benched with one grip and one form that they just kind of "learned" on their own.  There is more technique to it than that and when you make the right changes, athletes improve.

My suggestion would be to mix the grip a bit and see if you dont find what works best.  You might be surprised that you might not yet be playing to your strengths.

I hope this helps and best of luck.

Martin Rooney

I am a baseball player and whenever I start throwing after a layoff, my shoulder kills me.  What kind of exercises can I do to offset this?  I look forward to your reply. 

Jeremy P.

Pictured is Tampa Bay Bucs QB Chris Simms working on his posterior shoulder region this week at the facility.  Chris is a big believer in both throwing all year and working his shoulder decelerators.

Jeremy,

Great to hear from you and thanks for the feedback.  Make sure you still get to sleep my friend, you have plenty of time to learn.  And I promise I am going to keep the great info coming.

As for your question, I know exactly what you are talking about.  As a former collegiate javelin thrower, I learned the hardway in terms of pain that too much time off and improper shoulder training is not the way to improve.

Before I recommend any specific exercises, I want to make sure that you are following one of my core principles in training which is the principle of continuity. What I mean here is that you must stay consistent in both your lifting and your throwing throughout the year.  I would talk to your coach and not only make sure that your throwing program is a good one, but that you are also technically sound in terms of mechanics.  Even if you have the right strength, and you are staying consistent, you can still have soreness from poor technique.

When it comes to upper body training for throwing (remember that the lower body and core are also as much if not more important), it is not just about pressing and vertical pulling movements.  What I mean here is that all too often I see athletes benching too often and even if they are working chin ups or pullups, they are still not working the shoulder horizontally.  The decelerators of the shoulder (mainly the rotator cuff and posterior muscles of the shoulder) are critical to keep strong and condititioned.  Both throwing and proper training help this.

Below are two shots of the incline row which Chris uses during his upper body sessions to achieve this.

I hope this helps and keep up the great work.  Now get some SLEEP!

Martin Rooney