Many wrestlers approach conditioning in a haphazard and disorganized manner, with no clear goal in mind. This could be a mistake. Periodization is a concept designed to help you divide your conditioning into phases or cycles in which you focus on certain training goals. Periodization is designed to help you achieve peak performance. Peak performance is virtually impossible to maintain year-round. Therefore, you divide your training into cycles, including rest cycles. Of course, you want to win every game. That is a desirable goal. But, most of the high school wrestlers want to specially qualify for the state tournament or even win the state tournament. Therefore, it is usually towards the end of the competitive season when one wants to peak.

What is periodization?

Periodization is a training concept that became popular in Eastern Bloc countries, especially Russia. The concept of periodization used in regards to sports training is generally attributed to a Russian professor named Matveyev. Matveyev was the first to use the term periodization. Periodization is often associated with weight training, but it can also be used to train other athletic attributes. As I said earlier, periodization is simply dividing training into cycles or phases where certain goals (for example, strength or endurance) are focused. The primary goal of periodization is to help an athlete peak for a certain challenge (for example, state wrestling tournament).

Tudor Bompa, known as the “Father of Periodization,” wrote a book titled Periodization: Training Theory and Methodology. Tudor Bompa divides the annual training into three simple phases.

Three stages:

• setup phrase
• Competitive Phase
• phase transition

However, these three phases can be broken down further. A wrestler’s yearly plan can also be known as a macrocycle. The macrocycle can be divided into mesocycles (ie, preparatory, competitive, and transitional). Each mesocycle can be divided into microcycles (for example, one week). On the other hand, more than one macrocycle can be used during a fighting season because you may have more than one major competition that you want to peak at.

Types of periodization:

• Linear
• reverse linear
• conjugate
• Competitor
• Wavy or Alternating

The type of periodization familiar to most athletes is linear periodization. Linear periodization typically starts with a higher volume of general work and then culminates with more intense, sport-specific work.

A typical linear periodization plan for wrestling:

• Preparatory: Lift weights for sets in the 8-10 rep range, long-distance running, and high-volume wrestling
• Competitive: Weightlifting for sets in the 4-6 rep range, sprints, more intense but less bulky wrestling, competition prep.
• Transition: Taking a couple of weeks off before starting training again

This is just a very simple example of periodization for wrestling. Wrestling is different from other sports because you can wrestle in many tournaments during the season. You may have to give priority to some competitions (for example, the conference tournament and the district tournament). Mark Ginther believes in periodization. You may want to do an online search for Mark Ginther periodization and Tudor Bompa periodization.

Some have argued that periodization is too complicated and impractical. For example, the ideal is to be “in shape” throughout the season and win all games and tournaments. Also, macrocycles, mesocycles, and microcycles can seem a bit elaborate and bewildering. However, trying to maintain the best conditions throughout the year or even throughout the season is difficult. Also, some high school students are multi-sport athletes. A student athlete may compete in track and field in the spring, baseball in the summer, football in the fall, and wrestling in the winter. Each of these sports will have its unique demands. Therefore, trying to use periodization for wrestling may seem impractical. However, Tudor Bompa believes that the alternative to periodization is “chaos.”

I would suggest reading up on the different types of periodization. Some coaches believe that an athlete can train strength, endurance, and other attributes simultaneously, while others do not. In my opinion, you should try to keep periodization simple. The most important thing to remember is that periodization is simply planning your training. For example, you may want to do longer races during the off-season (eg summer) and switch to sprints during the competitive season. You’re probably not going to start off with a lot of hard fighting in your first few practices. You may need to work on technique at first and increase the volume and intensity over time. Also, you may want to have a less intense practice the night before a major competition so that you are recharged and fresh to fight hard the next day.

In sports like swimming and marathon running, athletes often have a “taper” where their training volume is reduced during the last few days or even weeks before major competition. You, as a wrestler, may need some less intense practice and conditioning before a major contest.

As you can see, periodization can be a tricky concept. However, planning your yearly training using cycles with certain goals in mind will almost certainly help you in your wrestling endeavors.