This Sport Takes More Than All Right Moves : Wrestling: The trials and tribulations of preparing for a match can go beyond technique and training.

All week, you’ve sucked weight.

You’ve practiced your guillotines, leg rides and banana splits.

You’re confident you’ll be able to stick your man with a quick body lock, launch him with an E-ride and pin him with a ball-and-chain carry-over.

You’re no fish. You’re no squid.

You’re a shark, a stallion . . . The best wrestler around.

The language of wrestling is like no other in any high school sport.

Maybe that’s because when your face is being squashed into a sweaty mat, your body is being treated like a pretzel and your girlfriend is watching as you get pinned, there needs to be more than one way to say, “ Ugh .”

In Orange County, which has some of the best high school wrestlers in the state, athletes who choose wrestling as their primary sport rarely do so without an understanding of the dedication--or obsession, many would say--involved.

“Before I wrestled, I would think, ‘What’s so hard about that?’ ” said Ryan Holmes, a freshman at El Modena. “But oh man, I played football--there’s no comparison. People think Hell Week in football is bad, but wrestling practice is way harder. People have no idea how tough it is.”

Whether it be in their conditioning drills, dietary concerns or psychological war games, wrestlers, indeed, have it tough.

The following is a look at the trials--physically and emotionally--a wrestler must go through to prepare for a match.

NAME OF THE GAME: PAIN

Imagine grabbing a door knob, squeezing it as hard as you can and holding that grip for six minutes. Your hand, wrist and forearm quickly begin to burn from the buildup of lactic acid, until even your shoulder and neck begin to ache.

Now imagine this feeling taking over your entire body.

That, former Loara Coach John Dahlem says, is only part of what wrestlers must deal with during the six minutes of their match.

“I really believe wrestling is the most demanding of all sports,” said Dahlem, who led Loara to 10 consecutive league championships and two Southern Section titles in his 15 years as head coach.

“That’s not to demean other sports, but wrestling is the only high school sport that you’re in physical contact with one other person, going full bore all the time.”

That is why, coaches say, wrestling practices must be so demanding. There is no better way to prepare an athlete for a match other than to simulate the highly competitive conditions.

Although most practices begin with slow, easy warm-up drills, stretching and jogging--all crucial for injury prevention--the hardest part of the workout usually begins with several types of drills.

At Canyon, there are stomach crunches, back and neck exercises and an endless variety of sit-ups, all done to strengthen different parts of the body. At El Modena, there are line drills--Army crawls, snake drills and Russian hops to name a few--in which the athletes perform different wrestling moves in a continuous motion to build endurance.

Then the athletes break into groups for round-robin style mini-matches.

At El Modena, they call it the Ironman drill. Four of the athletes take turns wrestling each other for one-minute periods. When the whistle blows, the wrestlers change partners and start again. This routine continues for nearly a half-hour. Along with the encouraging yells from coaches, the room is filled with the grunts and groans usually heard during a fight scene in a bad western.

When it’s over, most of the athletes look as if they’re ready to hit the showers.

No such luck. They’re only half way there.

“I can’t think of anything so fully consuming than using every body part, every muscle to full exhaustion,” El Dorado Coach Frank Gonzales said. “But that’s what these kids do every single day.”

And sometimes, more than once a day. During off-season camps, for instance, athletes are pushed harder than ever, as El Modena’s 105-pounder Danny Wells describes:

“We had about 20% of the kids quit during the two weeks I was there. It was really, really, really tough. They wake you up real early and you go on a long run. Then you buddy-carry (running with a guy over your shoulder) two miles into the back country and two miles out. Then you go on a Rambo run, going as far as you can with a guy on your back.

“You come back and do technique work. Then you eat lunch. After that, you start the hard practice. That’s the part most people can’t handle. You just want to die. After that, you eat dinner, then you have a night session . . . Then you either run or lift weights before you go to bed.”

That camp lasted two weeks, said Wells, the Century League champion at 98 pounds as a sophomore last year.

“You see seniors there just break down in the corner crying,” Wells said. “That’s how freaked out people get. You never forget it.”

MENTAL MOVES

While a good deal of wrestling success comes from the physical training, an athlete’s psychological state, namely his confidence, also is important.

At the Five Counties Invitational last Saturday, wrestlers from all over the state gathered for one of California’s most highly contested tournaments. While some of the matches were going on, those waiting their turn stood along the gym wall, away from the fans and the action, rolling their necks, listening to personal stereos, trying to psyche-up.

Every so often, one would clench his fist to his side and shout an encouragement to himself. Others would sit with their eyes closed, visualizing themselves winning their match. These pre-match moments, coaches say, are often crucial to a wrestler’s success.

“There is a tremendous fear factor involved with wrestling” that few people realize,” said Dahlem. “It’s a combat sport, really. So you really have to overcome a lack of courage, which is normal for most people. I had kids who were seniors come to me and say, ‘Coach, I’m afraid.’ Not everybody’s so mentally tough. So there’s a lot of mental preparation, a lot of psyching” that needs to be done.

Most wrestlers say there is nothing worse than losing--”I’d rather go through a 300-hour workout than lose,” Wells said--mostly because, unlike team sports, attention falls on only one person.

“It’s one-on-one out there and if you lose, there’s no place to hide,” El Modena Coach Alan Clinton said. “(To keep going after losing) takes a lot of guts. Big egos can’t survive.”

PASS THE CELERY STICKS

While crash dieting has always been an inherent part of wrestling--athletes, vying for one of 13 weight classes, often try to lose pounds to make a lower (and less competitive) weight class--most coaches say they are, as a whole, better educated about nutritional needs.

At Canyon, Coach Gary Bowden said losing weight is not encouraged and most of his athletes actually “wrestle up,” into a higher class. Of course, other coaches might point out that Canyon, the county’s top-ranked program with nearly 100 wrestlers, can afford to do so because it has more athletes from which to choose.

Still, many quick weight-loss methods--such as bingeing and purging, using diuretics and laxatives and exercising in rubber suits--all have proven ill-effects and are still being used by wrestlers.

At the Five Counties meet, one wrestler said he had thrown up twice that morning, a practice he admitted using frequently.

“That’s the sad part of wrestling,” Dahlem said. “I think it’s a bad wrap that (bulimia and anorexia) are prevalent, but . . . yes, it is a problem.”

On a lighter note, there’s the weighing in of wrestlers the morning before their match.

Some wrestlers stand on one side of the scale, hoping to affect the weight. Some will cut their hair before they get on the scale. Others shave. “Even the 14-year-olds with peach fuzz,” Dahlem said.

“The funniest thing is the kids who will stand on their heads in the corner of the room before they weigh in,” Dahlem said. “They’ll stand on their heads and think that will make a difference. I even had one kid who weighed in standing on his hands.”

But despite all the hard work and pain, most wrestlers say one thing keeps them going.

“Winning,” Wells said. “A win is . . . the ultimate. And when you stick a guy (pin an opponent), it’s all yours.”