The college season is longer than the high school season, so the college guys can afford to take a few more days off. Their coaches preached to recover, but also continue to stay sharp.
Andrew Nicola of Concordia University:
“Our staff has worked really hard to help our wrestlers understand the importance of living a disciplined lifestyle to optimize success. There is no stress of school over the holiday so we encourage the guys to take full advantage of their family time and recovery time. However, I believe in active recovery. Therefore we encourage them to workout in their high school rooms, grab buddies and get a drill in, stay in the weight room, etc. There should be no stress associated with these workouts. We’ve got such a disciplined group that I trust they’re doing the necessary things in terms of workouts and dieting to come back in pretty good shape. Rest is underrated in college wrestling so I also tell them to take full advantage of the ;break.’ There’s a happy medium in there.”
Brandon Bradley of Nebraska Wesleyan University:
“We have some guys who need to rest their bodies as much as possible, and some who we encouraged to get as many lifts in as they could. Whenever they get on the mat over break, we want them to get at least 40 perfect reps of their best takedown. If they go back to their high school teams, we told them to be positive vocal leaders. We reminded them that they have goals and to keep them in mind and to be careful of people who don’t have a plan for their lives and may want to drag them down. We really encouraged them to enjoy the time with their families. We still have 2.5 months left in the season, so we can’t afford to take any steps back over this break.”
Mark Manning of University of Nebraska-Lincoln:
“We told them to stay sharp and get some work in. We also told them to take care of their bodies, stay disciplined with their nutrition, and be thankful for what they have at home and for the opportunities ahead!”
Brett Hunter of Chadron State College:
“We discussed all week leading up to break about how “we can’t take a step backwards. We need to do everything the right way- training, nutrition, and sleep. We monitor everything over break with daily weigh ins and their progress with workouts, we expect everyone to come back within 8-10lbs and in shape but most of all having a great holiday with their family.”
Ramon Diaz of York College:
“I simply told them that “Champions” are made outside the wrestling room. So make champion decisions this season.”
Beau Vest of Midland University:
“We released our guys after they were done with finals, so most of them got close to 2 weeks off. It’s such a long season, that we want them to decompress, and get a way from wrestling a little bit. We still want them to stay active, but focus on spending time around family and friends.”
Dalton Jensen of University of Nebraska-Kearney:
“We give our guys 10 days off for Christmas break and we do this for 3 reasons:
1. We think it is important for them to have plenty of time to spend with their families over the holidays.
2. From week to week, it is our job as a staff to focus on their physical recovery and get them to peak in March, but this 10-day break allows them to get mentally recovered and get refocused too for the second semester
3. We trust in our guys to have the self discipline to continue their training and nutrition at a high level in order to compete at their best. For us to reach our goals, we must hold ourselves accountable and this trust is a must between our staff and our student athletes in order to be successful together.”
Mike Schadwinkel of Hastings College:
“We sent them home with 3 lifting workouts to complete in 9 days. We also told them to manage their weight and get running and/or wrestling workouts in. We also told them to take a day or two to do nothing except spend time with their families!”