Four Ways Youth Wrestlers Can ‘Level Up’ in the Off-Season
My favorite blogger Seth Godin is always encouraging his readers to level up. His encouragement in this area has been a tremendous influence in my life.
Godin believes that it’s imperative that we all use our time to “level up” instead of doing things that don’t matter. Unfortunately, the majority of people stay busy doing things that don’t matter and get frustrated when the results they desire don’t materialize. I can see my life changing for the better each day when I focus on what matters instead of just being busy.
Today I want to apply this thinking to how youth wrestlers approach their off-season.
With that said, Godin’s framework for leveling up is divided into four categories:
- Making a bigger difference
- Learning a new skill
- Being generous in your work
- Challenging yourself
Let’s go through each of these categories and break down what youth wrestlers can do to level up in each area.
1) How Youth Wrestlers Can Make a Bigger Difference in the Off-Season
Making a bigger difference starts with understanding the famous John Wooden quote:
Do not mistake activity for achievement.
Off-season practices focused on live wrestling and competing in tournament after tournament is a lot of activity. However, the question is if activities like these are making a difference?
In order to truly make a difference in the off-season, two things are a must:
- Self-reflection
- Intention
With respect to self-reflection, one must reflect on what did and did not work over the previous few months. This self-reflection then feeds into defining the intention for the off-season. In other words, defining specific goals with the intent to double down on what is working and make adjustments on what’s not.
In short, if you want to make a bigger difference in the off-season you must trim the fat and have laser like focus on specific goals.
2) How Youth Wrestlers Can Level Up in the Off-Season Learning New Skills
The first thing to understand is that skills and moves are not the same thing. Yes, it may be worthwhile to invest time in learning new moves. Maybe that’s part of #1 above. However, this is about skills that are likely to translate across many moves.
A good place to start is USA Wrestling’s seven basic skills. But this is just the start. It’s important to remember there are other non-wrestling specific skills that are worth investing time into. For example, cross-training in other sports such as track and gymnastics can build body awareness and explosiveness.
In addition, spending time with a mindset coach, a sports psychologist, or with someone like me who focuses on strategic thinking can develop those mental skills that pay huge dividends in the long run.
3) How Being Generous Can Help Youth Wrestlers Level Up in the Off-Season
Being generous is all about giving back and helping others. It’s likely that you have never thought of being generous as a way of leveling up in sports. However, when youth sports is put in context with life you realize how important character building is to the journey.
One of the things I like to point out is that youth sports do not build a child’s character. Parents and coaches build character using youth sports as the classroom. What’s more, the off-season is the perfect time for teaching many character building lessons.
For example, the off-season is a great opportunity to plan a team-building event that gets everyone together to volunteer at a local non-profit. Similarly, a coach or parent could organize a day to upgrade the wrestling room by painting, raising money for new mats, or simply doing a deep clean of all the nooks and crannies that have built up funk over time.
Ideas for acts of generosity are limitless. Therefore, it’s important that you make sure the act is relevant to the core values that are important to you.
4) How Youth Wrestlers Can Challenge themselves to Level Up in the Off-Season
Obviously, accomplishing the items in the three categories above is a challenge in itself. So applying the level up process in this category should be for a specific physical or mental challenge.
What’s more, the challenge should be controllable. Meaning that success or failure is 100% dependent on the process and effort of the wrestler. Challenges to beat a competitor or win a specific competition do not qualify. There are too many external factors that are not under a wrestlers control in these circumstances.
For example, a good physical challenge for the off-season could be something like doubling one’s pull-up max. A good mental challenge for the off-season could be something like developing the ability to sit silent and meditate with deep breathing for 30 minutes.
To summarize, a good challenge will meet all of the following criteria:
- Controllable through process and effort
- Difficult, but attainable in the time available
- Measurable
What If You Don’t Have an Off-Season?
One common rebuttal I hear from parents with respect to approaching the off-season with intention is that their kids don’t have an off-season. Kids like this either roll from one sport to the next without much of a break, or go hard all year in a single sport.
My philosophy is that even if your child plays sports all year, there must be time set aside to apply an off-season mentality. An off-season mentality is an approach that deemphasizes competing and winning, and emphasizes growth.
The bottom line is that it is very challenging to improve when the focus is not on leveling-up. I personally don’t think it’s possible to play competitively all year and still find time to level-up.
With that said, if you’re a parent who allows their child to forgo off-seasons, I urge you to encourage your child to try something different. Try to reserve one or two months for the four categories above, while at the same time pulling your child back from high level competitions. In doing this, there is a very good chance your child will get more out of sports than they were previously.