Right Where We Need to Be: How Three Kettlebells and a Bedroom Corner Created a State Champion Wrestler
The physical preparation for wrestling can be complicated by factors like too many tools in a weight room, too little time, and a low level of understanding of program design for performance–especially in such a physically nuanced sport.
Many get lost (myself as well), but when the weight room closes, getting a ride to the gym is not an option, and freezing weather makes outdoor sessions an impossibility, the end is actually the beginning: three kettlebells and a corner of a bedroom are the only tools needed. The result of this past year? A three-times-failed underdog turned state champion wrestler—in arguably the toughest state to achieve such a herculean feat in the entire country—in large part to those three kettlebells, minimal space, and a few essential StrongFirst principles.
Strong First, Wrestling Second; Enter the Kettlebell
Valeria Ramirez had been eliminated in the first round of the New Jersey State Wrestling championships—which is in no way an issue of insufficient skill. For those who are not wrestling aficionados, New Jersey is one of the very few states with only one champion per weight class; making it one of the most, if not the most, difficult states to secure a win of this magnitude. Valeria’s strength and conditioning had to be unassailable.
With only a small strip of concrete and three kettlebells (two 16kg and one 24kg), Valeria and I ran through instruction on the swing, clean, press, push-press, jerk, and snatch—all auxiliary movements were dosed in through drills that scaffolded the listed skills, such as the goblet squat and windmill. We wove in plyometric and jumping instruction as scaffolds for tension and body position cueing when moving through our jerks and snatches.
When discussing conditioning outside of the wrestling room, I explained that with the impending winter and the general lack of safety in the area, we would be trusting the kettlebell with our conditioning. Pavel’s Strong EnduranceTM seminar equipped me with enough information to ensure that we would be taken care of.
His opening words that weekend in Denver laid out a rationale for the material about to be taught: “high power, high speed, and the ability to sustain it for fighters”. Equipped with best practice from Pavel’s teaching, I countered Valeria’s wish that we had started working together years ago with, “We are right where we need to be.” With three kettlebells and that corner in her room, we began setting our path.
First Phase of the Season: Offseason Strength
- Prying kettlebell goblet squat with 16kg—2 x 30 seconds.
- Two-arm kettlebell groin stretch with 16kg—60 seconds.
A variation of a movement learned under Jon Engum, StrongFirst Certified Master Instructor, at a StrongFirst Bodyweight Instructor Certification (SFB). One foot up high on a box beside her, gripping a kettlebell with two hands and hinging into the groin.
- “Wrestler jumps” 3 with 24kg kettlebell—goblet position, beginning from the knees with toes untucked, exploding up to both feet while holding the bell.
- Snatch at 24kg—1 per side.
- Approach jumps—10 total. “Dunk the basketball” is her cue. A couple of steps, then explode.
Three rounds, performed as a jump set—wrestler jumps, then snatches, then approach jumps.
- Goblet squat with 16kg—30 seconds down, 30 seconds up x 3 rounds. No lockout at the top, stopping just before full extension.
Pavel’s words at the Strong Endurance seminar about slow fibers’ hypertrophy and how to deal with program design for it using only a kettlebell influenced the work we did in this section once we lost the weight room. My notes in reference to this squat reflected Pavel’s words as “living in that zone of discomfort to get maximal mechanical tension near rock bottom.”
After each round, Valeria spent 30 seconds executing light leaps and finishing with one countermovement vertical jump.
- Two-arm kettlebell side step swing—5 minutes.
A Jon Engum special at a StrongFirst Kettlebell Level II Instructor Certification (SFG II), this take on the swing forces you to re-organize stance and receive/project the weight while stepping. Our key to making the conditioning portion highly wrestling specific and very effective? For the entire 3 minutes, Valeria would not put the bell down—she could hold it in the goblet position, taking enough breaths in the rack to recover as much as wrestling would allow, and then she lowered the kettlebell back into swings until completion.
- Copenhagen plank—1 minute total. Reset as often as needed, just trying to accumulate as much time in the pose.
Valeria’s wrestling began seeing seismic shifts. An entire career predicated on finding a double leg takedown and living in fear of executing a single leg takedown began to shift. I saw it both in competition and the training room: her ability to mechanically claim, move, keep an opponent’s limb, and influence their movement directly—all while not worrying about if she would be able to do it repeatedly—was a result of the three kettlebells and the corner of the room. “We are exactly where we need to be”.
Mid-Season: Shift to Endurance
- Single-leg lower back raise—60 seconds.
The wear of the season was setting in, so Valeria began sessions laying in front of a wall, one foot at 90 degrees pushing through the wall, the other straight up—squeezing a block between her thighs for time. The relief this afforded her was invaluable.
- Gorilla walk—60 seconds.
An SFG II classic that I don’t see utilized enough, pressing two bells, sinking the hips to a quarter squat, and walking in this position.
- Seated on a box to broad jump x 3—leaning back, then forward to attack the ground and fly as far horizontally as humanly possible.
- Plyometric pushup on two books—moving quickly by popping off the books and back on, sets are considered done as soon as the pace slows.
- 3 rounds performed as supersets.
- GRADS/2-1-3—10-20 Minutes, On the Minute (OTM). Submaximal weight, checking the grips, hips, and endurance boxes. Every time the bells were set down, Valeria completed one max approach jump, then rested until the next minute came.
- Single kettlebell clean with rotation—3 minutes. Not swinging the entire torso around, only a tight movement of articulating the T-spine under the load in the rack. Before fatigue, rack the bell, recover, continue.
- Copenhagen plank—1 minute total. Reset as often as needed, just trying to accumulate as much time in the pose.
Post-Season
My mind went back to the Strong Endurance weekend, and I paired this with a conversation I had the same weekend that further drove home the idea of the need to continue jumping. I refer back to great powerlifting coach Louis Simmons’ words that led me to trust StrongFirst in the first place. “The maximal velocity that can be displayed in a given movement depends heavily on the level of strength first and then coordination, flexibility, and technical skills.” (Explosive Strength Development for Jumping, 168) We developed strength first, created a sharper inventory of power and a wider base of conditioning, and now are looking to fire from that base and make history.
Final 3 Weeks: Day 2
- Valeria’s choice from this season.
- Long cycle clean and jerk with 2x16kg kettlebells—3 rounds of 2-3 sets. Each set sees Valeria sprint through the clean and jerk for one minute—the moment that the next rep will be imperfect or she feels out of breath is the end of the set. Rest fully, and then complete the next set. She always reported feeling refreshed, strong, and ready to wrestle—not fatigued.
- Copenhagen plank—the 1 minute limit is now being met.
The End Is in the Beginning
Valeria and I started the biggest week in our lives by reading coverage on the tournament and seeing that her path to a State Championship was labelled as “the most improbable”. Her comeback took everyone off guard. Her first two opponents simply could not overcome the strength deficit that we forced them into, particularly from the top position. That made the difference, as she won via pin and decision in matches that felt like rehearsals of our positional work all winter. The semifinals matched Valeria against the projected winner of the entire bracket—a girl that Valeria was pinned by in the summer, and a girl whose only losses were at national tournaments.
Valeria’s grips, hips, and gas tank were all unlimited, and she delivered the upset of the day. Valeria caught her opponent shooting in, and then her hips delivered what looked like a hardstyle kettlebell swing directly into her opponent, resulting in her falling to her back. Then Valeria used a grinding turn to collect the pin and a berth into the State Championship final.
Valeria’s upset District Championship victory against the girl she would face in the finals mimicked a constraint based wrestling round that Valeria ran since December:
- Wrestler A:You have your partner’s head and arm trapped, and have them halfway to their back. You either finish the pin or hold them and prevent them from building to their knees.
- Wrestler B:In a nearly pinned situation with one hand on the hip that is advancing towards you and attempting to turn you to your back, your partner would either build to the knees or be pinned. Reset once either of those happens.
The final, winning frame of the semifinal match mimicked another constraint based round that we ran very often in training:
- Wrestler A:Lock both hands around your partner’s knee and have them sprawl their hips down on your head. Your only goal is to bring your partner to their hips, and build hip height over them. Reset once that occurs.
- Wrestler B:Use your pressure through hip extension and hand fighting to either secure a chest to back position or turn your opponent to their back. Reset once either occurs.
There was no wrestling outside of the very strict parameters—much like the anti-glycolytic training that was used on the strength-endurance end, reps are poured into hyper-specific situations without wrestling to build fatigue outside of these parameters. This guaranteed that we logged more hours in tough positions while also splitting time between this and strength work.
The state championship final saw Valeria immediately using the hardstyle hip extension bump to stop her opponent’s shot, eventually forcing her opponent to tie up, which allowed Valeria to secure an overhook. In a perfect manifestation of our work, the overhook that we spent hours working hyper-specifically was forced—not just “finding it” in live rounds, but operating from there with specific constraints. Valeria used her strength, which hadn’t faltered even a little bit, to bring her opponent to the mat and decidedly pin, becoming a New Jersey State Champion Wrestler.
This should first act as a testament to the power of minimalist kettlebell training that showed up in force. We prepared in the street and a corner of her room, compared to the tens of thousands of dollars that most wrestlers’ parents spend on personal training sessions in big name programs and gyms.
Second, this accomplishment should stand as an emblem of what Pavel describes in the closing segments of Kettlebell Axe,in a section called “The Art of Appreciating One Thing”: “…Pros do fewer things better.”
The program design of the strength and performance work ensured we sharpened only the qualities needed to be addressed. Fatigue did not accumulate in such a critical post-season time. All of this led to a meteoric improvement of Valeria’s wrestling and strength, which overwhelmed everyone in front of her—a young woman whose greatest wish was to possibly be lucky enough to grace that podium one day. It got her a place–forever—at the very apex of that podium, exactly where she needed to be.
