Why Football Players Should Wrestle by Matthew Wernikoff

1. Why Football Players
Should Wrestle
By
Matthew Wernikoff

2. Physical Skills
Wrestling is one of the most physically
demanding sports that any athlete can
partake in. It is a total body sport requiring
athletes to be
flexible, strong, explosive, agile; to have a
great sense of balance; and have the level of
“Wrestlers make coaching football
conditioning that rivals any other endurance easy, they have balance, coordination, and
sport. Wrestlers, through the course of their as a staff we know they are tough.” -Tom
Osborne College Hall of Fame Coach for the
training and competition, are often subject to University of Nebraska.
physical discomfort and pain at a level that
far exceeds most sports. These skills benefit
football players at all levels, from the ability
to move laterally, keep a man in front of you
and close the distance quickly, to driving a
225 lb running back into the ground and
forcing the fumble. There is no doubt that a
wrestler’s physical-ness is a skill set desired
by all coaches.

3. Mental Skills
Weight management, the discipline to maintain a
healthy diet for 6 months or more out of the year, the
drive to give a 100% every practice, and the drive it
takes to wake up early everyday to get an extra run in
“I draft wrestlers because they are tough,
are just some of the mental skills that it takes to be a I’ve never had a problem with a
successful wrestler. But none compare to the mental wrestler.” –Joe Gibbs Hall of Fame
Football Coach.
toughness it takes to walk out on a mat, alone with no
teammates to help you win and take on an opponent
one on one. Nothing compares to that feeling;
whether you have a broken finger, bruised ribs,
strained or torn knee ligament, a wrestler knows that
for 6 minutes nothing else matters but putting his
opponent on his back and getting his hand raised in the
end. What football coach wouldn’t want an athlete on
their team that is always going to give them 100% An
athlete that they never have to tell, “hit the weight
room,” or “you should get extra laps in after
practice?” A true wrestler always wants to be the first
to arrive and the last to leave. A wrestler is self reliant
and will never blame his teammates for his
loss. Wrestlers are mentally tough.

4. Physiological Skills
Hand eye coordination, proprioception and
anaerobic conditioning are three skills that are vital
to both wrestling and football player! The definition
of proprioception is, “the ability to sense the
position and location and orientation and movement
of the body and its parts.” It utilizes all of the senses
in the body. It is the ability to know where your “I would have all of my offensive linemen
body is in the space you are in, without having to wrestle if I could.” –John Madden, Hall of
Fame Football Coach and Broadcaster
look at your body. In other words, when a wrestler
is in a scramble and his head is stuck underneath his
opponent and without looking he is able to move his
whole body, all four limbs, often in different directions at the same time, while
simultaneously keeping track of his opponent’s entire body and staying in-bounds to
finish the takedown; this is proprioception. On a football field an offensive
linemen, for example, has to keep track of the man in front of him, his body, the
bodies to his right and left and the quarterback behind him all at the same time. A
wrestler is forced to hone this skill everyday in a competitive practice
environment. This repetitive practice can only benefit a football player.

5. Physiological Skills
Anaerobic conditioning is defined as your ability
to perform at a rate faster than can be met by
oxygen supply. Short bursts of intense exercise
tax your anaerobic system. Wrestling is a
combination of Anaerobic and aerobic
metabolisms however, it relies heavily on
anaerobic conditioning within a match or
tournament. It is because of this that wrestlers
are often saught after by football coaches “Once you’ve wrestled, everything else
because they are in superior shape to athletes in life is easy.” –Dan Gable Hall of Fame
Wrestler and Wrestling Coach
who do not work their anaerobic system.
Anaerobic
Conditioning
Proprioception
Hand-Eye
Coordination

6. Energy System: How They Relate to Football and Wrestling
The Aerobic System is an energy
system which requires oxygen to be
Aerobic supplied to the muscles. This
system is used for exercise that
lasts over one minute and is the
hardest to exhaust.
Anaerobic-
lactic
ATP/Anaerobic-
alactic

7. Energy System: How They Relate to Football and Wrestling
Aerobic
The Anaerobic-lactic system produces
energy “without” oxygen and is used
during periods of intense exercise or
physical exertion. This system produces
lactic acid, which leads to muscle fatigue
Anaerobic and decreased performance by
athletes. In an untrained athlete it can
-lactic take more than one hour for lactic acid
levels to return to normal. Since the body
uses Anaerobic-lactic energy system for
activities lasting from ten seconds to two
minutes it is beneficial for athletes who
participate in a short burst sports to train
ATP/ Anaerobic- this system.
alactic

8. Energy System: How They Relate to Football and Wrestling
Aerobic
Anaerobic-lactic
The Anaerobic-alactic system provides
energy to the body during high-intensity
ATP/ short-burst activities lasting less than
ten seconds. This is sometimes referred
Anaerobic to as the “start-up” energy that is stored
in your muscles in the form of
-alactic ATP. Under most conditions, these
energy stores are returned to normal
levels after two to three minutes of rest.

9. A regulation wrestling match consists of three periods, each of which is
two minutes. In tournaments, matches are often shortened to a 1min-
2min-2min format or even 1 ½, 1 ½, 1 ½,. While it is nearly impossible
to quantify the time it takes for a series of wrestling moves due to
difference in weight classes, experience, and techniques, it is commonly
accepted that the average “play” in wrestling takes place over ten to
twenty seconds. While “scrambles” can occur in lengths exceeding this,
wrestling mostly occurs in small bursts of intense action with twenty to
thirty seconds of less intense efforts. Clearly, wrestling is an Anaerobic-
alactic and Anaerobic-lactic sport.
Wrestlers are known for their superior level of
conditioning as they often train their aerobic
system to help with weight management which is
necessary for long 2 and 3 hours practices with
limited rest time. In addition, they train their
Anaerobic-lactic system for intense drilling and
matches. Wrestling requires its athletes to push
their whole bodies in order to execute moves on
practice partners and opponents. It is this dual
approach to conditioning that benefits athletes
whose primary sport is football; they are better
prepared for long practices and two a-days as well
as the the short intense bursts in games.

10. Fitness and Strength Considerations
Football coaches often argue that their athletes
benefit from participating exclusively in
football-oriented strength training and agility
sessions in the winter months rather than
participating in a winter sport such as
wrestling. In a recent study published in the
NSCA’s Journal of Strength and Conditioning
Research it was shown that there was no
significant difference in strength or agility levels “…It appears that winter sports
between athletes who only participated in participation does not adversely affect
strength and agility training and athletes who body composition, strength, power, or
participated in a winter sport AND strength agility of football players. In 6 of 7
training. In this study athletes participated in measures of body composition,
their choice of basketball or wrestling. strength, power, and agility, winter
sports athletes scored as well as those
football players who participated solely
in a strength program. Squats were the
only exception: the [strength and agility
only] group did show greater
improvement than the [winter sport and
strength/agility training] group”

11. About: Matthew Wernikoff
Mathew Wernikoff, a personal trainer at Champion Athletes,
was certified with the National Academy of Sports Medicine
and is currently a member of the National Strength and
Conditioning Association. He has worked as a personal trainer
with kids, adolescents and older adults for over six years. He
has also worked with several gym chains as a personal trainer
and as the former Director of Group Fitness and Personal
Training for Premier Complete Training Center, a 20,000 Square
foot facility in Bergen County, NJ.
Mathew Wernikoff has also served as a head varsity coach in
New York State as well as the head coach on several national
teams. He has experience training wrestlers, basketball players,
baseball players, football players, lacrosse players as well as a
variety of other sports and activities on the youth, high school
and college levels.