Rehydrating after weigh-ins is a critical step for an athlete to ensure their body is ready for competition. Wrestlers, whether they're beginners or seasoned competitors, need to pay special attention to how they manage their hydration after weight-ins as well as throughout the entire competition day.

Wrestling has a stigma about weight cutting, and often the wrestling community is perpetuating it ourselves. In my opinion, it is emphasized much too heavily and much too young. Through competing, coaching, and educating young wrestlers about the sport, I have observed that our young athletes are taught they might only be successful if they compete at a lower weight. The number of males and females I've spoken to who have decided not to continue their career onto a collegiate or international level, have mostly been due to burn out from weight cutting. When does it become impractical to maintain a weight class? Should our minds, bodies, technique, and love for the sport suffer? This post is meant to be a guide for young athletes to navigate the pressures they may be receiving to cut weight.

The 2024 Paris Olympics crossed a historic boundary. Never before has an Olympics had equal male and female competitors. The event also crossed a historic boundary in social media coverage, with athletes worldwide utilizing the event to grow their social media brands. However, even with a celebration of female athletes at this Olympic games, female wrestlers seemed to be left out of the general media conversation & coverage.

Choosing the right college wrestling program is a significant decision, particularly for female athletes. Beyond the typical considerations, such as academic fit and team culture, there are unique challenges and opportunities that female wrestlers and their families must navigate in today's evolving wrestling landscape.

As a beginner wrestler, how do you become effective in competition without obsessing over learning every technique? When we focus solely on the need to perfect technique, it can often prevent you from seeing the big picture. What is sport, but accepting the challenge from another competitor to compete to your best abilities? By simplifying the idea of sport, we can focus on being a fierce competitor, and focus on where to position yourself for the best advantage. I've seen many great wrestlers who learned how to be tough competitors without high level technique. In good time, the technique will come with work and repetition.

Wrestling has a problem: women aren't coming back to coach. And when they do, they face an uphill battle because they fail to internalize their own accomplishments. This is called Imposter Syndrome, a term coined in 1978 by a clinical psychologist. It has become a buzzword in recent years, and couldn't be more relevant to the sport of women's wrestling.

How often have you arrived at competition and realized you just started your period? Did you have all you needed, or did the stress of being with out the proper tools wear you down? Learning good habits which help support you during your period are a must for female athletes. Being prepared is key, but often we don't have a clue what we should be prepared for! Let's talk strategies and tools we can utilize so the day of competition is a little less painful.

Trying to stereotype a female wrestler’s body as only short and stocky will only give you a narrow view of our sport. Wrestling is one of the few sports where you use your body type as a way to get the advantage over your opponent. Tall wrestle short, skinny wrestle stocky. As long as they are the same weight, you must learn how to wrestle whatever your opponent looks like...

A middle school or high school wrestling tournament is not for the faint of heart. They are loud, crowded, and very long. Most of your time is spent waiting around, interspersed with short bursts of intense (and exhausting) activity. Preparation is the key to survival.

"The Complete Guide to Sports Bras for Female Wrestlers" explores the crucial factors in selecting the perfect sports bra for wrestling, focusing on fit, material, and design. It provides personal insight into the dress coding challenges female wrestlers face and aims to provide female wrestlers, coaches, and parents with the best information to compete confidently.

Hindsight is 20/20. Most of the time, we can't tell how well we have prepared for a competition until we have gone through the preparation and competition process. But with experience, you can get better at recognizing what works and what doesn't and become more self aware of when you are on or off the right track. Taking actual steps towards becoming more self aware is extremely important. If you don't already have a sport journal, GET ONE. Recording progress, workouts, results, thoughts, and feelings are so important in the steps of becoming more self aware. You'll find out how beneficial it is to have a written record of how and what you did to prepare.

We have a bit of a dilemma in the US: if you want to wrestle on your high school team in most states, you must wrestle the boys. Unfortunately, most parents and athletes are not comfortable with the idea of competing in a contact sport with boys. This means female athletes who would like the sport of wrestling are less inclined to join. As prideful as it may be to compete against the opposite gender and be successful, it doesn't always prove fruitful for the sport in the long run.

Seeing her for the first time, I was a bit taken back. She wore a hijab, long sleeves, and pants underneath her gi. The cultural differences between us were obvious — I was only wearing a t-shirt under my gi and my hair was left uncovered. Even though I had trained at this dojo a hundred times, this was the first time I had ever worked out with an athlete who covered themselves. I was soon put at ease when we shared laughs as we worked on our judo. She was a fierce competitor, and didn’t back down from me at all. I could tell she really loved practicing judo. I left the dojo that day thinking about issues bigger than myself. We may be different, but the love we feel in sport unifies us. I was impassioned at how sports can truly bring people together. I asked myself, “could it bring the world together?” For so long, we have viewed the Muslim culture as drastically different from our own world. But as opportunities for women in combat sports are on the rise, we can see a new beginning and a new feminism for Muslim women.

Walking away from a sport has positives and negatives. After placing 3rd at the 2016 US Olympic Team Trials, I went through an onslaught of emotions regarding my training and attitude towards my wrestling career. I was unsure if wrestling still had a place in my life, especially competing. I decided it was an opportune time to heal my injuries and start a family with my husband.