with Steve Costanzo,
St. Cloud State University Head Coach;
2018 NCAA DII National Champions - third title in four years, including back-to-back National Championships (2016-17);
2018 NWCA DII National Duals Champions;
2016 NCAA DII Coach of the Year;
2018 Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference Champions - winners of seven straight conference titles (2012-18) and 11 overall; 5x NSIC Coach of the Year; former Dana College Head Coach - 2016 NAIA National Champions
Practice is where the most development happens in your wrestlers. As a coach, it's important to understand how to structure your practices throughout the season in a way that helps your athletes peak at the right time, so they can maximize their success at the end of the year during regional and conference tournaments.
A distinguishing characteristic of the St Cloud Huskies' practice sessions is the simple, effective coaching style of Steve Costanzo. You will see that he encourages his athletes to stick to high-percentage moves throughout their training; moves that you will be able to observe and apply to your own training or coaching.
Phase 1: Pre-Season (Disc 1 & 2)
Beginning mid-October through mid-December, Coach Costanzo and his staff introduce their training system to wrestlers and focus primarily on building core technique and integrating those skills during longer, intense live wrestling sessions. Practices start with a dynamic warm up consisting of a combination of calisthenics, band exercise and wrestling drills.
During the first practice, Coach Costanzo and his staff review the bent leg turk series and cradle series, while also illustrating how to build up to intense live wrestling sessions through stance and motion drills and 80/50 movement drills. The 80/50 drill is used to develop confidence in a wrestler's takedowns and hand fighting skills. It teaches wrestlers to get to an angle so they can effectively attack the legs. It also teaches wrestlers how to transition from hand fighting to leg attacks.
In the second practice, Coach Costanzo walks us through a 90-minute pre-season wrestling practice that's a little unconventional because live wrestling is done in the first half of practice and the technical side of things is focused on at the end. Match length and live go's can last anywhere from 15 minutes to 45 minutes. Costanzo explains that he gets the team to focus on a grinding type of training during phase one, typically lasting no more than 90 minutes.
Drills focus on specific wrestling skills, such as the bull ride drill, to work on wrestlers' riding skills and the Abas roll and scrambling drill to work on leg passes and the ability to wrestle through all types of positions and scenarios.
The last half of practice focuses on live situational wrestling and learning a cradle series. Assistant coach Brady Wilson shows the Huskie approach to breaking someone down, and how he splits the back into three parts. First, Wilson shows how to use this knowledge to successfully break the bottom man down, so the top wrestler can successfully start their cradle series. From there, Wilson goes into detail on how to execute the inside and outside cradle, as well as the situations in which a cradle presents itself.
Phase 2: Mid-Season (Disc 3)
From mid-December through the end of January, Costanzo shows how to focus on more chain wrestling through key drills, individual coaching, and shorter live wrestling sessions. With most of the team's core technique established at this time, the main focus of the practice is hard situational drilling to enhance technique that was developed during the first phase and live wrestling to help prepare the wrestlers for competition. Costanzo shows how to reinforce solid positions through key drills such as Position Matches, the Maintain Position Drill, and actively sparring through awkward positions.
Phase 3: Late-Season
From the beginning of February through the end of the season, Coach Costanzo shows how cutting practice times shorter and becoming more efficient with overall time on the mat can help your wrestlers peak at tournament time. With more intense practices that focus on constant drilling and short, situational wrestling sessions, Coach Costanzo reveals how you can get your whole team, both starters and non-starters, to peak at the end of the season. During this session, the coaching staff shows how to run a short, highly-intense practice with drills that promote fast reaction time and explosiveness, but allow wrestlers to drill at a high pace on individualized technique.
Learn how to master the practice room, develop your wrestlers throughout the season, and get your team prepared to wrestle their best when it counts - at the end of the year! Use this video to create the ideal three phase training system for your team, so they can peak when it matters the most!
387 minutes (4 DVDs). 2017.
All Access videos are designed to allow viewers from all over the world to see how successful coaches run their practices in a "live" practice setting. All Access videos allow viewers to see the practices un-edited and in real-time. You will see how top coaches run their drills, interact with their team and staff, how they motivate their team, the cue words they use, the atmosphere of the practice and how practices are structured from day to day. Many coaches visit successful colleges and high schools to watch practice. But if you live out of state or out of the country, visiting another coach's gym can be costly. That's why we created the All Access Practice Series of videos -- to bring the practices to you!