Optimising the Competitive Performance of Junior Greco-Roman Wrestlers by Consolidating and Improving Their Takedown Techniques

Abstract

In elite wrestling, achieving the best results in major competitions is the primary goal of all activities, and the secondary goal is to provide a recreational, compensatory, or therapeutic approach. In this regard, one of the current concerns in establishing the competition system focuses on children’s competitions. For this reason, specialists in this field are turning their attention to getting as many children as possible involved in sports competitions. They will later represent the base of the secondary selection that will deliver juniors aspiring to important titles. This paper aims to improve the takedown technique's performance in the training process through effective means developed after video analysis of the elemental mechanisms that constitute the action studied. The research was carried out between 19 February and 9 September 2022 within the Greco-Roman Wrestling Section of the School Sports Club no. 5 in Bucharest. The participants were advanced junior athletes aged between 15 and 17 years, competing in the Individual National Greco-Roman Championships. For the study scope, they were divided into two groups (a control group of 9 athletes and an experimental group of 9 athletes). Although both groups obtained similar results in the initial test, the experimental group achieved clearly better results in the final test compared to the control group, which demonstrates the difference between the types of training performed by the two groups.