Strength training for wrestlers: what the studies in wrestlers measured, the lifts, and a week around the mat

Wrestling is part of my background. This page sticks to what the studies in wrestlers and other grapplers measured, and how someone who wrestles and lifts can build a week from it.

The clearest comparison is a 2011 study of 92 male wrestlers, elite and amateur. The elite wrestlers had 8 to 25% more maximal strength, 14 to 30% more muscle power, 6 to 19% more grip strength and 7 to 20% more back strength, and jumped 8 to 17% higher. The two groups didn't differ in running speed or hamstring flexibility.¹ The elite wrestlers were also older and had more years of training, so the gap isn't all from the weight room. The short version: get strong, get powerful, train your grip and your pull, and keep the engine that lets you use all of it late in a match.

What the research in wrestlers measured

A 2017 review of the research on wrestlers lists the same qualities. Maximal, isometric and explosive strength and strength endurance are closely related to high-level wrestling performance; anaerobic power and capacity separated successful from less successful wrestlers; cardiorespiratory fitness helps sustain effort through a match and recover between periods; and flexibility seems not to be one of the key qualities.² An older review from 1992 describes the successful wrestler the same way, with high anaerobic power, high muscular endurance and average to above-average aerobic power, and notes that data on which type of training program is most effective for wrestling were scarce.³

What that strength looked like in one group: 70 elite junior freestyle wrestlers in Iran, average age 19.8, invited to national training camps, squatted 1.7 times their body weight and bench pressed 1.4 times it for one rep, and averaged 31.6 pull-ups and 66.9 push-ups.⁴ That's one national team's averages, not a standard to hit. For a wider frame by body weight, see strength standards.

What strength training did for wrestlers and grapplers

Training trials in adult wrestlers are few. In one, 16 national-level male wrestlers in Chinese-style wrestling, averaging 20 years old, added a lower-body session twice a week for eight weeks: back squats at 70% rising to 85% of their one-rep max, each set paired with countermovement jumps, 32 squats and 32 jumps a session. Both versions of the program raised the squat, from about 130 to 152 kilograms in one group and from about 126 to 147 in the other, and improved jump tests; their anaerobic power on a 30-second bike test didn't change. No group skipped the lifting, so the trial shows what the program did, not how it compared with wrestling alone.⁵

A trial in another grappling sport did have that comparison. Fourteen competitive male Brazilian jiu-jitsu athletes were split into two groups: one added heavy strength training three times a week, 4 sets of 4 reps at 85% or more of their one-rep max in the squat and bench press plus 4 sets of pull-ups to failure; the other kept to its grappling. The lifting group raised its squat by 15%, its bench press by 11%, its jump height by 9% and its pull-up reps by 33%. Grappling alone brought no improvement.⁶ Two small trials, both at 70% of a one-rep max or more.

A wrestling strength program: the week

A practical layout of the research above, not a protocol from a trial. Two lifting days match the wrestler trial's twice a week,⁵ and the third off-season day matches the grappler trial's three.⁶ Practice stays where your club puts it; the lifting moves around it.

The in-season column is fewer sets at the same heavy weight, a practical choice that keeps the lifting short while practice is hard, and the hard lifting stays away from the day before a match. How the year splits into phases is on periodization, and how to pick the weights is on how much weight to lift.

Wrestling exercises: the lifts, and why each is on the list

The reasons come from what the studies above measured; the picks inside each row are practical.

Grip gets its own work: hangs from the bar, heavy holds at the end of a deadlift set, and the extra ideas on the forearm workout. If you're new to the barbell lifts, start with how to get stronger and build the main three before adding the rest.

Wrestling conditioning

The reviews put anaerobic power and capacity near the top of the list, with aerobic fitness alongside it.^2,3 Practically, that's two kinds of work: short, hard intervals (the HIIT workout, the sprint workout) and easy aerobic sessions (zone 2 cardio). A practical rule: hard practice is conditioning too, so count it, and in a week with three hard practices, one interval day on top is plenty.

Wrestling exercises at home

Without a barbell you can't train heavy, and both trials above lifted at 70% of a one-rep max or more. What a home session can do, practically: push-ups, pull-ups if you have a bar, squats and lunges made harder with slower reps or one leg at a time, burpees and bear crawls for conditioning, and planks for the trunk. Three rounds, as many good reps as you can, works as an off-day session; the bodyweight workout has the full plan.

Common questions

What's a good off-season wrestling workout?

The off-season column above: three lifting days built on squats, pulls and presses, jumps after the squats, and conditioning on two other days. It's a practical layout; the closest tested dose is the grappler trial's three heavy sessions a week.⁶

How do you get in shape for wrestling?

Train the list the reviews agree on: strength, power, anaerobic capacity and an aerobic base,² and wrestle. The wrestler trial above ran eight weeks;⁵ no page can promise where you'll be by a date. Mat time is the one part lifting can't replace.

Should wrestlers lift heavy?

The two trials did: squats climbing from 70 to 85% of a one-rep max in wrestlers,⁵ and sets of 4 at 85% or more in grapplers.⁶ Heavy here means few reps with good form, not grinding misses. How to get stronger covers how to build up to it.

Is a wrestling workout different from a normal strength program?

The core lifts are the same. What changes is the emphasis: more pulling and grip, jumps beside the heavy work, and conditioning for hard efforts. Grip and back strength, power and arm-cranking anaerobic power were among the gaps between elite and amateur wrestlers.¹

If you'd rather have the week planned

Lifting days only work when they land in the right places around practice, and that's a scheduling problem as much as a training one. Coaching here is general strength and fitness coaching, not wrestling coaching: your workouts are built around the days you actually have, and a weekly call looks at the week you just had and rebuilds the next one around what's coming. How coaching works explains it, and apply is the first step. Otherwise: take the off-season column, and start with the Monday squats this week.