Kolb

 

For many sports, the strength and conditioning coach is the lone member of the coaching staff allowed to conduct year-round workouts with student-athletes. In addition to training athletes to be bigger, stronger and faster, these coaches are faced with the pressure of ensuring an athlete is ready to not only compete, but compete well from the start of the season on.  

 

Tanner Kolb, the strength and conditioning coach for the WVU wrestling program, knows all too well what it takes to prepare for a wrestling season. Kolb, who enters his fourth year with the Mountaineers, spent four years as a starter on the Messiah College wrestling team. Along with his experience as an athlete, he earned his master’s in the wrestling hot bed of Oklahoma, working as a graduate assistant under Gary Calcogno at perennial contender Oklahoma State. Kolb worked with the Cowboy wrestling program and also with high school wrestlers at a private center. He served as a coach and workout partner for MMA fighter Muhammed Lawal during his post-collegiate training days before stops at Northern Michigan and Waynesburg University.

 

This personal experience is a major benefit when working with a wrestling team as it is unlike most other sports on campus. It is a physical, combative competition that pits one athlete directly against the other. Unlike basketball or football, a wrestler hits the mat alone without the benefit of a teammate to fall back on. This easily exposes weaknesses, said Kolb, and to improve on these weaknesses, the athletes work directly with the guys who have been there and done that – the coaches.

 

“Wrestling inherently is a brutal sport and takes an unmatched dedication to be great. I place this standard on the athletes that I train, ‘our average should be others’ best.’ One of the things I like most about the sport is that unlike football, basketball or other activities the coaches are constantly participating in practice. Each session they are wrestling the guys, demonstrating technique and performing at high physical levels. I believe that this develops a relationship and respect within the team that you do not find in many other sports. The other different aspect that wrestling offers is that it requires an athlete to be great in many different areas in order to be successful. It utilizes multiple types of strength and requires training of all energy systems.”

 

Kolb explains that, as with many sports, strength plays a key role in wrestling. But not just general strength. Absolute strength, relative strength, explosive power, reactive power, starting power, specific strength, muscular capacity, stabilization strength, static strength and reserve strength are all crucial parts of the seven minutes a wrestler spends on the mat for a bout. In order to improve on all these, Kolb trains in a manner that all of these are a part of the program at different points in the season.

 

“The term ‘sports specificity’ gets misused in the fitness industry all too often,” says Kolb. “We cannot replicate sport in a weight room. We can, however, train musculature and energy systems used, types of strength and contraction and focus on preventing common injuries of the sport. For this reason I have borrowed the term ‘task specific’ to be a better representation of what we are training to accomplish.”

 

A great example of a student-athlete who has bought into Kolb’s program? None other than WVU’s most recent All-American.

 

“As in other sports the best wrestler does not always win, but through proper programing we can help athletes close the gap,” he says. “In today’s athletic arena, practice alone is not enough for guys to win, and I think Zeke Moisey is a great example of this. From the time he stepped on campus last year, he worked harder than any incoming freshman we have had. He did all of the little things right and allowed himself to be coached and pushed into an area that he had not been before, resulting in him over-achieving and beating guys no one else thought possible.”

 

However, strength and conditioning coaches who oversee wrestling face a task that is unfamiliar in most other sports. Wrestlers look to increase their strength and power, but must do so while, for many, dropping pounds rather than gaining. It is not uncommon for a wrestler to compete at a weight that is lower than his regular weight, so most look to cut weight the week of a match.

 

“The bottom line is that it is part of the sport. The ultimate goal is not just to make weight; it is to win. I will have a specific program for those guys who have to cut a lot of weight or that struggle to stay at their weight class. Unlike other sports I must be very vigilant not to develop useless muscle that does not specifically aid in the participation of the sport that they must still step on the scale and account for. We do very little hypertrophy training and when we do, it is for guys that need to get bigger or during the post-or offseason.”

 

With weight being such a crucial part of wrestling, it’s important to note that Kolb travels with the team for the duration of the season. He stresses the importance of this, not just from a strength and conditioning aspect, but as a crucial part of building a relationship with his athletes and coaches.

 

“This is one of my favorite parts of the job. A lot of programs say that “we are a family” but it is without a doubt a true fact in our case.  I would go to bat for any of these coaches at any moment and do anything that I could for them because of it,” Kolb says. “I think that it is paramount for a strength coach to build relationships with his athletes and gain a mutual respect, and this can only be done with time. Being on the road allows me to interact with these guys in a completely different environment, I can really learn who they are, what they are about outside wrestling, life goals and desires, likes and dislikes and so on. I can then use this information and relationship to coach them and push them further than if I was not there. I do not coach everybody the same; they all have different backgrounds and vastly different perceptions and so I must change tactics constantly so that I am able to get the most out of them.”

 

However complex the relationship may be between the mat and the weight room, it all leads to one goal.

 

“I want to win. I want our guys to have success that has never been done here before. I truly believe that we have multiple guys that will end up on the podium at the end of the season. I know that we have the best staff in the country, it is a fact, and that with the talent in our room this program is about to elevate itself to the top and start a tradition that will last the test of time.”