Youth Wrestling Drills You Can Do From Home

2 Quick Drills To Sharpen Your Skills!

In these unprecedented times people, especially kids, can have a hard time adapting to a completely new routine. Staying home and not getting the same amount of activity can be a rough thing for anyone to deal with. If your young wrestler at home is starting to get the itch to work on some wrestling skills you are in luck. Jacob Harman, wrestling coach of Jiu-Jitsu great Marcus Almeida, has a couple of quick drills you can do with a little space and time!

Explosiveness is a key attribute to have when looking for success in the wrestling room. While for some it can be a natural attribute, others might not be so fortunate. Thankfully it is something that can be increased through specific drills that translate to on the mat performance. Jacob has a jump progression drill that he uses with his wrestlers. Keep in mind if you don’t have a mat at home, the drill can be modified. 

If you have knee problems this one might take some warming up to. Thankfully most kids are ultra limber! With drills like these it’s important to understand that you can take certain aspects and modify them to meet your needs. For instance, if you don’t have the luxury of a spacious wrestling mat that allows 5-6 reps of the drill, you could simply go 1 rep at a time. 

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This drill is great because it starts to get a young wrestler in the mindset of exploding to their feet and leaping as far as they can. Drills like this can build grappling specific endurance that translates directly to on the mat performance. Another variable you can add is anticipation. 

Have your kid start off on their knees and have them wait for your call to explode up to their knees and complete their leap. Add head fakes to try to get them to react, have fun with it! To further mix it up, after completing their leap have them immediately drop into a penetration step to simulate a takedown. 

Here is another cool drill you can do with your kid that will have them laughing while at the same time developing some footwork and timing. The sport of wrestling is complex and grueling. Many wrestlers burn out early into their career because of this reality. Games like this can help keep practice light, but at the same time an effective use of time. Adding modifiers like not being able to use their hands forces a young wrestler to focus solely on their foot work. Does foot work matter? Just ask World Champion J'den Cox!

J'den has made a career off of utilizing movement and footwork to dominate the mats. He has some of the slickest foot work in the game. In part he has credited boxing legend Muhammed Ali as part of his influence on developing this crucial skill. Using creative drills like Jacob Harman's is a great method to influence footwork. 

Jacob’s drill helps push foot work to the forefront in a way that helps youth wrestlers get more fluid with their movement. Keep in mind this can be tiring so pace yourself, because you can’t let your kid see you get tired before them! As goofy as this game can get it, teaches some concepts that can be difficult to grasp. By playing the foot step game your kid can learn timing, balance, and tactics. Just make sure they don’t stomp on your foot!

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