gymnastic plyometrics

[Guest guest]

I would have to disagree with M. Madsen regarding the transfer of weight

training to wrestling. My experience has been that during high school and

college that the guys who performed well in the weight room, rarely

performed well on the mat. In high school, I regularly pinned 300 lb bench

pressers. I always thought it was because those guys spent more time on the

weight pile then learning there technique but I was always able to muscle

the guys around on the mat. The exception was that one of my teachers who

had no wrestling experience but competed in olympic style weight training

would crush me on the mat. (another vote for saying that bodybuilding has

had too much influence on American athletics)

The other observation I would like to add is that during college I had the

chance to wrestling around with some high level (Div. II) gymnasts. While

they had strength, they were easy to once again muscle around. I surmised

that it probably had something to do with the fact that they for the most

part were light in the pins. One exception was this guy my weight with

thighs bigger than I had. He was a D-2 all american and could beat me in

arm wrestling but I could bear hug crush him or bull him around quite

easily.

The point of these ramblings might be that in the course of training you

develop sport specific strength that doesn't always cross over to other

activities. Lifting and throwing your training partner is far better than

deadlifting or power cleans or giant swings or iron crosses.

Brett Jacques, ND

AAL Reference Labs.

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