Technique
Ninety minutes,
block by block
A wrestling practice you can actually run on Tuesday, with the clock on every block, built on USA Wrestling's own published template. Written for the coach starting a girls' program from nothing, and for the parent who volunteered because nobody else did. Every drill is named, and every one has a free video.
By Joe Spisak, Pennsylvania state champion and 4x NCAA qualifier at Virginia · Published September 3, 2026
There is a particular kind of Tuesday that this page is written for. Fourteen girls have signed up, four of them have wrestled before, the mat is rolled out, and practice starts in an hour. The coach is either a first-year head coach, a boys' assistant who volunteered, or a parent who used to wrestle in high school and got asked because they were standing there.
What follows is a plan for that Tuesday, not a philosophy. It runs ninety minutes, it needs no equipment beyond a mat, and every block is built on something USA Wrestling publishes for free.
The plan
The block order and the minute bands come from USA Wrestling's own Core Curriculum practice plans and from their practice blueprint for women's wrestling. The clock on the left is cumulative.
0:00 · 5 min
Circle up and say what today is
Gather them in a semicircle off the mat. Name the one thing practice is about today, take a quick read of the room, and send them out. USA Wrestling's women's practice blueprint puts this at the front of every session and keeps it under four minutes: a greeting with the day's focus, a one-question check-in on a one to five scale, and a single word each before they move.
0:05 · 12 min
Dynamic warm-up
Four parts, in this order, moving the whole time. The blueprint calls this the Everydays and is explicit about the purpose of part two: activate hips, glutes, hamstrings and quads to reduce knee injury risk. Do not replace this with a lap and a stretch.
- Raise the temperature. Jog forward and backward 30 seconds each, side shuffle two lengths, carioca two lengths, skips for height and distance, arm circles and trunk twists. Video.
- Hips and legs. Glute bridge march 10 each leg, lateral band walks 2 x 15 steps each way, knee hug to lunge with rotation 5 each leg, leg swings 10 each direction, world's greatest stretch 5 each side.
- Shoulders and neck. Band pull-aparts 15 to 20, I-Y-T raises 10 each, neck isometrics front, side and back with a 5 second hold each way.
- Wrestling movement. Stance and motion 2 x 30 seconds, sprawl to shot recovery 5 to 8 reps, penetration steps 10 reps. Video.
0:17 · 10 min
Lines and tumbling
Across the mat and back, everybody moving, no waiting. This is where body control gets built, and it is the block a new room needs most. USA Wrestling names and films every one of these.
- Forward and backward rolls. Two lengths each. The first thing to teach a beginner, because it is how she learns to be upside down without panicking. Video.
- Bear crawl and crab walk. One length each. Core and coordination, and they are the two positions a scramble actually happens in. Video.
- Carioca and lateral glides. One length each. Hip mobility and the sideways movement that stance and motion needs. Video.
- One leg hops and broad jumps. One length each. Explosion, and single leg landing control. Video.
- Bridges, front and back. 30 seconds each, held, not bounced. Then back arch against the wall for anyone comfortable with it. Video.
0:27 · 25 min
Technique
One technique. Not three. USA Wrestling's Level 1 practice plans allot 15 to 20 minutes to a new technique and add a 5 minute review of last week's, which is the shape used here. Show it, break it into two pieces, drill each piece, then drill the whole thing on both sides.
- Review, 5 minutes. Whatever you taught last session, both sides, no coaching. Just reps.
- Teach, 6 minutes. Demonstrate at full speed once, then slowly three times, naming the two or three details that matter. USA Wrestling's Silver certification standard is a one to four ratio of teaching to letting athletes drill, which is a useful clock to keep in your head.
- Drill the pieces, 7 minutes. Break the technique in half. Drill the entry alone, then the finish alone, then put them together.
- Drill the whole thing, 7 minutes. Both sides, rotating partners at least once so nobody drills the same body type all practice.
0:52 · 20 min
Situational, then live
Start from a position rather than from neutral, so the wrestlers get repetitions of the thing you just taught instead of two minutes of hand fighting. Then short live rounds. The blueprint's live block for high school athletes is four to six rounds of two minutes.
- Situational, 8 minutes. Four 2 minute goes from the position you taught. Reset on the whistle. Swap top and bottom.
- Live, 12 minutes. Four 2 minute rounds with a minute between. In a first-year room, make round one and two go-live-from-a-position and only the last two full neutral starts.
1:12 · 10 min
Conditioning through a game
In a new girls' room this block does more for retention than any other, and USA Wrestling's own curriculum treats games as curriculum rather than as a reward. Pick one, play it hard, stop while they still want more.
- Knee tag. In pairs, in stance, tag your partner's knee while protecting your own. 20 to 30 second bouts, rotate partners each round. Builds level change and hand position without anybody knowing they are drilling. Video.
- Sharks and minnows. Cross the mat past the sharks. Conditioning, penetration, and the first live contact a nervous beginner will accept. Video.
- Power ball. Team game on the mat. Loud, and a good last-ten-minutes choice on a Friday. Video.
- Caged up. Partner game from a locked position. Builds the hip pressure a bad bottom position needs. Video.
- Buddy carry. Down and back carrying a partner. The strength block of a practice that owns no weights. Video.
1:22 · 8 min
Cool down and one question
Stretch the hips, the neck and the low back, then sit them down. The blueprint's debrief asks one thing that went well and one thing to fix, names two athletes by what they actually did rather than by whether they won, and says one sentence about tomorrow. It takes three minutes and it is the reason a fourteen year old comes back on Thursday.
Ninety minutes exactly. If you have sixty, cut the live block to eight minutes and the lines block to five, and keep everything else. If you have a room of nine and ten year olds, cut live entirely and give the time back to games. USA Wrestling's development model is explicit about the youngest band: free play ahead of technique, and the focus on fun, games and activities.
The first three practices of a season are different
USA Wrestling's own coaching materials say this plainly, and it is the note most first-year coaches miss. Their white paper on coaching women recommends that a new athlete's first session be an introductory practice or technique clinic rather than a full-intensity one, and it goes further for everybody: all coaches are encouraged to start each season with three to five practices of shorter duration and lower intensity, which lets the team acclimate and significantly reduces the risk of heat related injuries.
The same document carries four other things worth doing in a first-year girls' room, all of them USA Wrestling's recommendations rather than ours: encourage a new wrestler to bring a friend rather than arrive alone, state the clothing expectations up front so nobody has to ask, put adult women in front of the room where you can find them, and do not let teammates intimidate or haze a newcomer.
Partner drills, and what each one is for
Every drill below is named by USA Wrestling in its Core Curriculum drills library, and the video is theirs. Two or three of these per practice is plenty. A drill that nobody can name the purpose of is conditioning wearing a costume.
| Drill | What it develops |
|---|---|
| Stance and motion | The base of everything. Two wrestlers in stance, moving, hands live, nobody scoring. |
| Mirror drill | One leads, one follows, both in stance. Teaches motion in both directions, which is where most beginners are one-sided. |
| Limbo level change | Change level under a partner's arm without bending at the waist. In most rooms it is the quickest fix for a shot that starts bent over. |
| Jolt drill | Pop the partner's elbows, penetration step in, make hard contact with her upper body. USA Wrestling's guide describes it as repetition work to build muscle memory for doubles and singles. |
| Spin drill | Spin around a partner on all fours, chest heavy, feet fast. The go-behind, without the go-behind. |
| Scramble to a stance | Start flat, fight the top wrestler's pressure, return to a solid stance. USA Wrestling lists this first among its stance drills and notes it builds strength early in the season. |
| Stand up returns | Bottom wrestler stands, top wrestler returns her to the mat, repeat. Both halves of the referee's position in one drill. |
| Cricket and wicket | Partner movement game. Foot speed and reaction, and it works with an odd number of wrestlers. |
| Sneaky snap | Snap and re-set, over and over. The entry to every front headlock on the takedowns page. |
| Face off | Two wrestlers, one position, go on the whistle. Reaction time under a little pressure. |
USA Wrestling's 7 Basic Skills guide describes several more that are worth adding once the room can hold a stance. The jolt drill and the knee pound for penetration. Run down legs and the sprint-out, both of which teach re-shooting after a stopped attack, which is the skill that turns a defensive wrestler into a scoring one. Sprawl to shot, which is exactly what it sounds like. And the hip heist, which is the movement inside every stand-up and every escape, and which almost nobody drills often enough.
A home list, for the nights there is no practice
Fifteen minutes, no partner, no equipment, on carpet or grass. This is the list to hand a wrestler who asks what she can do at home, and it is also the honest answer to a parent asking the same question.
| Drill | Why |
|---|---|
| Stance and motion, 3 x 30 seconds | In the driveway, in socks, in front of a mirror. Circle both ways. This is the drill that separates a second-year wrestler from a first-year one and it needs nothing. |
| Penetration steps, 10 each leg | Level change, step through, back up. Slow and correct beats fast and bent over. |
| Sprawls, 10 | Hips back and down, not straight down. From a stance, every time. |
| Forward and backward rolls, 5 each | Body control and comfort upside down. Do them on carpet or grass, not on tile. |
| Bridges, front and back, 30 seconds each | Neck and back strength, held rather than bounced. Build up slowly, and skip it entirely if the neck is sore. |
| Bear crawl and crab walk, one length each | Shoulders, core, and the two positions a scramble happens in. |
| One leg hops, 10 each leg | Single leg balance and landing control, which is the movement quality the injury prevention research cares about. |
What is not on that list, deliberately: live wrestling with a sibling on a hardwood floor, and anything that involves being thrown. Rolls and bridges are on the list because USA Wrestling teaches them to beginners as movement skills. Throws are not, because the mat is the equipment.
The week around the practice
One practice is easy to plan and a week is not. USA Wrestling's practice blueprint for women's wrestling publishes a weekly rhythm for middle and high school rooms, and its argument is that a week should alternate rather than escalate.
| Day | Focus | Intensity |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Technical and drill | Medium, skill focus |
| Tuesday | Live and conditioning | High, with recovery |
| Wednesday | Recovery and skill refinement | Light, video review |
| Thursday | Match simulation and situational | High, with recovery |
| Friday | Strength and technique | Shorter, power emphasis |
| Saturday | Competition or team session | Compete or film |
| Sunday | Rest or active recovery | Mobility and fuel |
Two hard days, not five. If your room is running Tuesday's practice five times a week, the wrestlers who are still there in February will be the ones who were already fit in November, and that is a selection process rather than a program.
One more warm-up worth knowing about
United World Wrestling publishes a structured warm-up called Wrestling Plus, and USA Wrestling hosts the poster. It runs twenty minutes in three parts: eight minutes of running, grips and bridges, nine minutes of core, leg strength and balance in three difficulty levels, and three minutes of wrestling simulation. The instruction printed at the top is two or more times per week, not every day.
It is partner-based and needs no equipment beyond an optional stability ball, which makes it a practical structured warm-up for a room with no budget. The poster is a free PDF.
Sources
Every drill name and every video on this page is USA Wrestling's, from documents read in full on 2026-09-03. Every video id was checked live the same day.
- USA Wrestling, Core Curriculum: Drills, Activities and Games. Every named drill and game above, and every linked video.
- USA Wrestling, 7 Basic Skills Coach and Athlete Guide (PDF). The mechanics of scramble to a stance, jolt, knee pound, run down legs, sprint-out, sprawl to shot and the hip heist.
- USA Wrestling, Core Curriculum Folkstyle Level 1 Practice Plans (PDF). The block structure and the published minute bands.
- USA Wrestling, The Practice Blueprint: Structuring Rhythm, Recovery and Results in Women's Wrestling (PDF), by Julie Hatfield-Still. The high school block breakdown, the Everydays warm-up, the weekly rhythm table.
- USA Wrestling, Athlete Development Model poster (PDF). Practices per week and practice length by age band, and the free-play-ahead-of-technique guidance for the youngest wrestlers.
- USA Wrestling NCEP, Recruiting and Coaching Women (PDF). The first practice guidance, the three to five shorter opening sessions, and the four girls'-room recommendations.
- United World Wrestling, Wrestling Plus Warm Up Program (PDF, hosted by USA Wrestling). The three parts, their durations, and the twice-weekly instruction.
What we could not confirm
- The rep and set numbers are ours. USA Wrestling's drill documents describe each drill and what it develops, and their practice plans publish minute bands per block, but neither prescribes reps. The numbers here were chosen to fit inside their published minute bands. Treat them as a starting point a coach adjusts, not as governing body guidance.
- Ninety minutes is a choice inside a published range. USA Wrestling's Athlete Development Model puts athletes aged 13 to 17 at five to ten practices a week of 90 to 120 minutes, and ages 9 to 12 at four to six practices of 60 to 90. This plan sits at the bottom of the older band. Younger rooms should cut the live block, not the games.
- Nothing here is injury prevention advice. The warm-up follows the structure USA Wrestling publishes for women's rooms, and that document states its own purpose as reducing knee and shoulder injury risk. That is their claim about their program, not a tested result for this specific plan. What the evidence does and does not show is on the strength page.
- We did not find a published practice plan written specifically for a first-year girls' room by any state association. The girls'-room notes below come from USA Wrestling's own NCEP white paper on recruiting and coaching women, and everything else is a general wrestling practice adapted by the author.
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