ALTA Week 1 Wrestling

Wrestling – 50/50 over/under position and Pummelling

Week 1 is all about getting to grips with some basic terminology and positions. No major takedowns or defences are covered, just some important building blocks. 

50/50 or Over/under position

This is a neutral position that’s common in wrestling exchanges. Both partners have an underhook and an overhook.

• Underhook refers to your arm that’s under your opponent’s arm reaching around their back.
• Overhook is when your arm is draped over your opponent’s. You’ll commonly have your hand on their tricep and also pinching their arm to your ribs using your elbow.
• Your head should always be on the opposite side to your underhook.
• Whatever side you have an underhook on, that leg should be in front of you. So you have a leg directly under your underhook so that you can lift it.
• In the 50/50 position, you’ll both be trying to off-balance each other by pushing, pulling, turning to gain an advantage. 
• Your opponent may also be attempting to drop and grab your legs to take you down with a double leg. Your over/under grips should deny them access to your legs if you lift them up.

Pummelling

This is a drill that’s tricky to learn but teaches some very important wrestling foundational skills such as foot work and digging for underhooks. 

• Start from 50/50 position (neutral)
• Each partner will take their overhook hand to their chest and dig for an underhook on that side. In essence, both are looking for double underhooks but because they do it at the same time, they’ll just end up swapping underhooks instead.
• The tricky part is swapping your head to the opposite side in coordination with digging an underhook.
• Start the pummell drill with both feet level to each other and ignore the footwork but once you have the upper body movement mastered, add the following footwork:
  • Front leg steps level with back leg. Then Back leg steps forward to become your new front leg. This movement should coordinate with the upper body movements.

Isolation Drills

1. Once you’ve mastered pummelling, you can do a call out drill as follows. Both partners begin by cooperating in the pummel movement. When the coach shouts “Go”, cooperation turns to competition. Now both are looking to get double under and lift the other up off the mat. 
2. From the 50/50 position, you can drill by having both partners looking to off balance one another with the aim being to get to a double leg (grab both legs around thigh height).