My Dream Wrestling Room

The wrestling room in Vision Quest, with the peg board in the upper right

When I first saw the climbing ropes in the corner of the armory sophomore year, I scolded myself for never noticing them freshman year, but I started adding them into my workouts as much as possible.  However, this year our school has the ends of the ropes locked up in a clamp on the wall (most likely because of liability issues, big surprise).  However, every so often someone will forget to lock them up, after which I take advantage of it until someone notices.  For the past week or so one of the ropes has been unlocked, and when I'm done I keep hanging the rope up over the pipe so that at a glance it looks like it's locked in there, so maybe I'll get away with it for a while!

Many wrestling rooms across the country have climbing ropes, and it got me thinking recently of what cool equipment I would like to have in a wrestling room if money and space were no limitation.  Many of these products are available on http://www.suples.com/, the owner of which, Ivan Ivanov, formerly coached the Greco-Roman team at the USOEC.  I know a few people that have trained there and I have used their stuff and can testify that it's of great quality.  Here are all of the workout "toys" that would be in my dream wrestling room:

-At least 2 climbing ropes if the ceiling is sufficiently high.  If the ceiling was low and I had tons of money, I'd have a machine like this: http://www.suples.com/rope-climber-machine/ to simulate rope climbing.

-Speaking of ropes, I would also want some "battling ropes."  If you saw any of the Cliff Keen commercials on Big Ten Network this winter you know what I'm talking about, but you can watch a video of them being used here: http://www.suples.com/snake-trainer/.

-And more ropes.  A couple summers ago an alumni of the USOEC brought in one of the elastic ropes from the High Intensity Rope Training System (H.I.R.T.S.).  There are so many workout that you can do with it, but we just hooked up one end of the rope to something stationary, and then pulled it towards us as far as we could before the resistance pulled us.

-Ever seen those old school wrestling rooms that have the peg board on the wall like the one that Louden climbed in Vision Quest?  Yeah, I want one of those.  I've never done one but they look cool.  However, schools nowadays would probably hate it for the same reason they hate climbing ropes.

-Throwing dummies of assorted sizes and weights.  Perfect for tossing around when no one wants you to toss them.  To plug Suples again, they have the best ones: http://www.suples.com/speed-dummies/.  Of course I'd have some crash mats for when we do toss each other.

-And for when you have no one to shoot on, we'd have our good friend Adam: http://wrestlingadam.com/.

-Kettlebells.  But not the way you see most people do them.  I'd do them the way Crossfit does them, which is where you bring them all the way above the head rather than just to chest level.  It requires much more explosion.  There are many suppliers of kettlebells, but believe it or not, Suples has their own version: http://www.suples.com/leather-bells/.

-And of course, Suples's bread and butter, the Bulgarian Training Bag: http://www.suples.com/bulgarian-training-bags/.  World famous, having been featured on TV shows, it can't be beat.

-A punching bag.  Dan Gable eventually installed a punching bag in one corner of the practice room to make his wrestlers use it if they got too intense.  Pages 87-88 of Wrestling Tough describe how "Fights often broke out in the room, all due to the incredible intensity and competitive spirit," and "The fights of the Brands boys are part of Iowa's wrestling folklore."  I'm not really one for fighting, but I almost wish that I could be a part of a practice that intense.

-A hand bike, as described in one of my blogs earlier this year.

-A Versa Climber: http://www.versaclimber.com/.  In short, it gets you tired fast.  Really fast.

-A set of rings to do dips on, because they're way harder than normal dips.

-Last but not least, the standard equipment: some pullup bars, a set of dumbell and barbell weights, and some stationary bikes.

Seems like a lot, but I'm probably forgetting something; my wrestling facility would have everything!

Dream big,
Jeff