Ask any experienced wrestler. The mental side of wrestling is more important than the physical side. While wrestling does require many physical skills, if you aren’t strong enough mentally, all of the work you do will go to waste.
As a competitive wrestler, your time is spent refining your technique, running sprints, lifting weights, and doing anything else that prepares your body for competition. To compete, though, everything must come together with confidence. This is why mental preparation is so important — you cannot have one (physical abilities) without the other (mental preparation). It takes most wrestlers years to master the mental aspects of wrestling. However, this guide will give you a head start by providing you with information and common practices to help you prepare your mind for the match.
Positive Self-Talk
One of the biggest influences on your mental state is self-talk, or simply how you speak to yourself in your head. Most young athletes don’t realize that they are talking to themselves as thoughts move fluidly though their minds. How you talk to yourself before a match, though, could essentially “make” or “break” your performance. Below you will find a few tips on how to talk to yourself in a more positive manner in order to boost your confidence before a match.
Eliminate Negatives
In order to compete with confidence, you must eliminate all of your negative thoughts. It’s completely normal to be nervous before a match, but negative thoughts can fester in your mind and turn nervousness into fear. Recognize your negative thoughts and cut them off immediately. The best way to eliminate these thoughts is simple. Say something, like “stop” or “no,” in your head (or aloud) anytime a thought crosses your mind that isn’t going to help your performance.
Reinforce Your Confidence
Sometimes you may need to remind yourself of why you deserve to win. Repeating positive thoughts in your head over and over will help you maintain a confident state of mind. This positive reinforcement will make you feel good about getting ready to step onto the mat. Below are a few examples of things wrestlers may repeat to themselves before a match:
- “I’ve worked too hard.”
- “My technique is too good. He can’t stop my double.”
- Even repeating words, like “champion,” can have a positive impact on your thought process.
Convert Your Thoughts
Another technique you may use when coming across negative thoughts is converting them into more positive or constructive thoughts. For example, if you’re nervous and think to yourself, “this guy is a state champ, how can I beat him?” you’re already halfway beat. But, if you convert that statement into something more constructive, like “this guy is a state champ, what do I need to do to beat him?” you’re ready and mentally in the match. This type of conversion process will also put you on track to use visualization to positively alter your state of mind.
Visualize Your Win
Visualization is a very effective technique used by athletes in many sports, but it is especially beneficial to wrestlers. In essence, visualization is when you picture or imagine yourself performing specific actions successfully. You will commonly hear youth and scholastic coaches tell their wrestlers to “go through the match” in their head, which is simply visualization. Below is an example of how a wrestler may visualize his match:
- Get comfortable: Start by going through the entire sequence of tasks that you must complete in order to start the match. These are typically checking in at the scoring table, putting on your anklet, shaking hands with your opponent, etc. Visualize this entire procedure.
- Picture the match: Then, think about your first actions once the referee blows his whistle to signal the start of the match. Picture how you will move, how you will set up your takedowns, what you will do when chain wrestling, etc. Essentially, “wrestle the match in your head” by playing out all of the different possibilities and scenarios that will lead you to victory.
- Positive reinforcement: Be confident when visualizing all of the techniques you will hit. However, you must also be realistic.
- One way to do this is by replaying or remembering previous times that you’ve successfully completed a specific move or action. For example, if you want to visualize shooting a high crotch and then changing over to a double leg, think of all of the times in your matches when you hit the move perfectly.
- You can also picture drilling the move perfectly during practice. Remembering past success will not only prepare you mentally to hit the move when you see an opening for it, but it will also boost your confidence before the match.
Mental Edge
In addition to specific techniques or actions, you may also visualize goal-oriented images, such as the referee raising your hand or standing on top of the awards podium. This will also help to put you in a winning state of mind.
Level of Arousal
Arousal, or essentially the mental and physical reaction of the body to stimuli, is one of the most important concepts to understand in terms of mental preparation for competition. Another more basic definition of arousal is simply your level of excitement. Being able to identify and control your level of arousal will determine how well you perform.
Most wrestlers compete well at high levels of arousal, or when they are “psyched up.” This is because success requires high levels of intensity and aggressiveness. However, it is possible to be overly excited or aroused. For some wrestlers, over-excitement could hinder technical skill and mental processes may not function efficiently under such stress. On the other hand, some wrestlers may not compete well if they are too relaxed, or not psyched up enough. Basically, the key to competing at your best is finding the optimal level of arousal for you.
Below are examples of two opposite types of mental preparation, try out different aspects of both to find the right level of excitement for you:
- When warming up for a match, go through a routine that will raise your core body temperature so that your body is physically ready. However, try to clear and relax your mind. Listen to relaxing music, or even talk or joke with a teammate. How you relax is unique to you. Whatever you do, don’t fixate too much on the match.
- Now, try the opposite approach for your next match. When warming up, try to get yourself as excited or psyched up, as possible. Do whatever you can to raise your level of arousal before the match. Fixate on the techniques you plan on executing in the match, listen to fast-paced music, etc. Essentially, do what you need to do to get yourself excited and pumped up.
It may take some time to determine the level of arousal you compete best at, but if you continue to test yourself, you will eventually be able to understand and control your thoughts and emotions much better.
Take Care of the Physical
“Gold medals aren’t really made of gold. They’re made of sweat, determination, and a hard-to-find alloy called guts.”
Dan Gable
Olympic Gold Medalist
One of the themes you’ll notice in this guide is confidence. Believing in your abilities as a wrestler is a huge part of the mental side of wrestling. In order to be confident as a competitor, you must have something to be confident about. This is something that can only be accomplished prior to the day of a match.
Push yourself to your physical limits during every training session. When drilling technique, demand perfection. When conditioning, do the best you can and don’t give up on yourself. Over time, this will make you mentally tough. And before you step onto the mat, think about all of the hard work you’ve put in, and feel confident that you have done everything in your power to prepare yourself. Simply put, taking care of the physical side of wrestling will also give you a mental edge.
Find a Routine
The tips and techniques in this guide should help you ready yourself mentally before your matches. The key to getting yourself ready to compete mentally is finding a routine that works for you. So, test all of the information provided in this guide to figure out what you need to do to prepare yourself to compete at your best. If you need some extra help, talk to a coach or an experienced wrestler on your team. Lastly, understand that every wrestler experiences mental stress in some form before competition. But, only the champions learn how to control their stress and use it as fuel to compete at their peak. Good luck!
