Week as a Wrestler: Day 1

January 20, 2010 • DP Bullington  
Filed under Blogs, Sports

My first day at wrestling practice was harder than I expected. I haven’t worked that hard since Hell Week for football season my sophomore year. 

I attended the Junior Varsity practice. Dwayne Buth, head coach of the wrestling program, advised that Varsity would simply be too hard for a beginner to the sport.

When I first walked into the wrestling room I imagined it would be some dirty, smelly place since I’ve never seen those windows opened. And considering all the sweaty athletes coming in the room day-in and day-out, I imagined it would have smelt worse than the boys’ locker during football season. But to my pleasant surprise, the room actually smelt decent and it was well kept and organized. Coach Buth was personally washing down the mats with disinfectant and we had to disinfect our shoes before stepping on the mat.

The practice was divided into two sessions: wrestling drills and workouts. The drills were fairly easy. I learned what “shooting” meant (the act of going after the opponent’s legs to attempt a pin) and learned how to get someone from a headlock to their stomach. We played a game called Island Hopping where we jump between all the circles on the mat and tried to push and wrestle everyone else out the circle and be the last man standing. 

The workouts on the other hand left me unable to lift my arms above shoulder level. We walked up to the weight room and the set up stations. For each station there was a wrestler and each station lasted 30 seconds before switching to the next without any rest. These workouts involved two different bench presses, squats, dips, pushups requiring a clap between each one, leg presses, three different types of pull-ups, curls, triceps workouts, and several other workouts. And to top it all off, we did a series of 50 pushups straight. It was hell. 

The wrestlers themselves weren’t an insane bunch of violence-proned crazies who regularly starved themselves as I had once heard. They were actually a fairly friendly group of guys. A couple of them took the time to get me introduced to the sport and explained what techniques and moves were being used as I watched a few live matches. 

But that may change soon once they become familiar with my presence. We’ll have to see as the week continues. 

Weight at the end up of the day: 138.1 lbs.