High School Wrestling Essentials: Developing Daily Practice Plans

with John Klessinger,
South River High School (MD) Head Wrestling Coach;
2023 National Wrestling Hall of Fame inductee for 'Lifetime of Service to Wrestling';
over 400 dual-meet wins;
12 Anne Arundel County Championships;
Multiple Regional Championships;
Regional Dual Qualifiers 12 of the last 15 years;
State Dual Finalist and Semifinalist;
6x AA County Coach of the Year;
NFHS Maryland Coach of the Year;
4 Individual State Champions and 37 State Medalists;
author of 'A Coach's Manual';
Columnist WIN Magazine and MatBoss;
Certified Strength and Conditioning Coach

The ability to design a practice plan is vital for any coach that is looking to develop a successful program year after year. Effective practice planning will allow you to constantly reflect and modify your practices to ensure consistent team improvement.

Using a simple structure, John Klessinger demonstrates four key elements of practice design: warm-up, conditioning, skill development, and situational wrestling. He utilizes his athletes to demonstrate and explains how to modify each element throughout the season.

Warm-Up & Conditioning

Learn how to not only develop a warm-up to get your athletes ready for practice, but also improve athletic performance. Coach Klessinger explains how he uses fundamental and non-fundamental warm-up drills to prepare his athletes for practice and competition:

• Fundamental Drills - Neck bridge, hip heist, explosive stand-ups, and cut-outs.
• Non-Fundamental Drills - Speed ladder, line drills, and rope jumping.

Klessinger uses two-part conditioning at the beginning and end of practice to develop an aerobic and muscular endurance base. This approach not only helps develop necessary conditioning for the season, but also increases mental toughness for the biggest matches on your schedule.

Skill Development & Situational Wrestling

Understand why it is vital to not only teach new skills, but build off those skills with a systematic approach. Coach Klessinger demonstrates how his team reviews previously learned techniques with the cement mixer, plus how they build a series from it. You'll see Klessinger cover the cement mixer, block and spin, McNaught, and gator roll.

Finally, you will learn how to reinforce an athlete's technical skills through situational live wrestling. This provides you with the ability to assess your athlete's skill development and reteach specific techniques. Coach Klessinger also discusses his approach to practice closure by focusing on developing a winning mindset on and off the mat.

Coach Klessinger provides the tools needed to develop a successful practice plan in this video. You will learn how to use a simple and effective template, analyze your athletes' skill level, and most importantly, develop a winning practice plan!

61 minutes. 2022.