Wrestling Blogs - Martin Floreani

And so it begins. In about 12 hours we will begin to start Freestyle. These guys have waited a long time for this and Mike Zadick has got to feel like he has the world in front of him with his birth at the Olympics. It is interesting to see how these wrestlers perfrom under the "pressure". I have been doing a lot of thinking about these guys and how they will perform. Do wrestlers perform at their ultimate or do they crumble or just tighten up? Why and how?

Can you imagine when you workout in intense conditions and the lactic acid is starting to go into your muscles? It is at that time where you make a conscious choice to work through it or let up. That pressure we all feel at that moment is intense, real and flooding. Can we continue with the same intensity or will we let up a bit? Is that the same intense pressure that it feels when you are about to step out on the mat and compete at the Olympics? Is it that the best are just able to keep composure and compete with a clear head and able body through that intense pressure?

I dont think so. I think the best are able to just completely avoid the pressure. For Example From my conversations I dont think that Ben Askren feels anything like the aforementioned description of Olympic pressure.

If your feeling the pressure, the eyes of the nation on you, already your strength is being used in the wrong way. John Smith said that while others ran around the room in circles (figuretively and literally) he was completely zoned in on what he needed to do to improve. He was able to really improve technically and become a better wrestler because he knew his weakpoints and was fixing them. In the manufacturing world they call this Value added labor.

I digress. Lets say a factory makes spoons. If you calculate the amount of time that each factory worker actually spends making the spoon... bending, forming and polishing them.. divided by the total time they are in the factory you may find that value added labor is less than 1% in some factories while in the top factories in the world it is up to 40 or 50%. The factory makes money by producing spoons not by filling in time sheets, not by stocking parts, not by receiving and keeping track of inventory. The best factories focus on the production process and try to increase value added labor because thats how they make money.  

In the same way the best wrestlers focus on the things that help them get better and thus win. Everything else gets pushed aside. It is very direct and simple. The strongest minded ones dont let pressure effect them because pressure takes resources away from performing and thus getting better and winning. I believe the best way to perform under pressure actually means to totally avoid it. If you are feeling pressure than mental resources are being diverted to something other than winning...like having to fight to keep your head clear because of the pressure. Your mental resources are much better spent on focusing on wrestling and competing with your opponent.

I guess the next question is why do you feel pressure. The answer may be different for each athlete but fundamentally the pressure is rooted in the athlete's mental perspective of the event. Really an athlete can only put pressure on themselves. We all have done it, but it is a silly thing to do.

Instead hopefully the enormity of this event helps each wrestler zone in as the rest of the world gets washed away. All each one of the US athletes needs to feel is the flo.

The work has been done, the learning is over it is time to FLO.