By: Mike Fry - Grapplers Gym

Now that the season is over many of you are sitting around sulking in your own self pity for the way it ended. Well this is your wake up call. Your opponents are out there right now planning for next season; so the question is what are you going to do about it? The way I see it is that you have a couple of options: you can 1) go back and sit in front of the TV and play playstation or you can 2) get up and get a piece of paper and plan out the next 8 months and start training.

Option Two

For those of you with pen and paper in hand let's get started. On your paper draw a horizontal line across the middle. Now split that line in the middle with a vertical line. Your page should now be divided into 4 sections. I want you to write in the upper left box WANT and in the lower left box NEED.

In your WANT box I want you to list all the things that you want to accomplish for this upcoming season. This is going to be your goals whether it be a state championship or just making the varsity team, write it down.

In your NEED box I want you to write what it is you need to improve on from last season. For some it might be to improve conditioning while for others it may be to get stronger but regardless of what it is write it down.

We are going to leave the other two boxes alone for now but trust me we will get back to them a little later.

The Need Box

I want to focus on the box I think people neglect and that's the NEED box. I want you to think about something for a moment. Your season is over and most of you are home not thinking about wrestling one bit but when October comes around you more than likely will pull out your shoes, dust them off and ensure they fit right?

See wrestling season is right around the corner and you want to make sure that all of your equipment is in top shape and ready to go. But something is missing. You have not done one thing in the last 8 months to get yourself ready.

However it seems all important that you have nice clean shoes and new knee pads. Keep in mind that at the end of the day wrestling can be done with nothing on like what our fore fathers did when they first created our great sport, but for some people it's all about the look.

Many of you will wonder what I'm getting at and the answer is simple; the most important piece of equipment you have is yourself so why not take care of it.

Homework

I am going to end this with a home work assignment for you to complete before part 2 of this series. I want you to take some time out of your day and really think about last season.

Think about what you would change if you could go back and do it all over again. Think about every match one by one. Think about how you felt when you lost and how you felt when you won. Then I want you to write down in your NEED box all the things that you came up with that you need to improve on.

What Would You Change
If You Could Go Back?
Click To Enlarge.

There is an old Chinese proverb that says "The harder you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war"

I will let you think about that till part 2.

About The Author

Michael Fry is the owner of Grapplers Gym and www.grapplersgym.com. Grapplers Gym is the home for advanced fitness and conditioning for today's wrestlers. Subscribe to our FREE weekly Newsletter! Each issue is crammed with free training tips, articles, programs, exclusive discounts, strength/conditioning news and many more surprises. Mike can be reached by email at mike@grapplersgym.com.

mike@grapplersgym.com

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