HooknSinker’s right: by far the best thing that will improve your boy’s wrestling skills is more wrestling. I wrestled from grade 7 until college and every so often a big football player or weightlifter would join a practice, thinking he’s going to throw around a few wrestlers and every time he got tied in a knot within moments and was begging for mercy, at the hands of a substantially lighter wrestler. What people sometimes don’t fully understand is that wrestling is 99% skill and, as hooknsinker correctly noted, so much repetition of moves and sequences of moves that they become purely instinctive.
Strength and power are important. Weightlifting off season can’t hurt. Endurance matters a lot too. If he wants to be a good wrestler he must run, bike and/or swim regularly so he’ll still have wind left at the end of a match, when he’s totally exhausted and wanting to quit. But neither running nor weightlifting makes half as much difference as practice wrestling. And speed? Well, the only speed that matters is being able to execute wrestling moves quickly and well.
If he’s only got a year or two under his belt, but he’s strong and determined, he’ll undoubtedly beat some opponents, but will run into other opponents with several years more experience and they should beat him most of the time. Hopefully that will just inspire him to work harder, because the more he works at it and the longer he sticks with it the more he’ll win, naturally.
Hooknsinker’s right about wrestling camp, but I don’t think he would have to go to Iowa or Oklahoma (a couple of the best states for wrestling). There are lots of outstanding wrestlers in other states, too, such as NY, Ohio, Pennsylvania, California, etc. In high school, I attended wrestling camp two summers in a row at Clarion U, in Pennsylvania.
clariongoldeneagles.com/auto … f/2010camp
That was a great program (30 years ago) and definitely helped, but I’m sure there are lots of other good summer programs. For example, I’d bet U of Oregon puts on a good program:
goducks.com/ViewArticle.dbml … CLID=32998
But hopefully he can find a way to work on his skills at home. If he/you can find a way to clear out one room, somehow (pile the unused furniture in the corner, etc), and cover the floor with the cheap foam mats from B&Q, that will suffice. Then he can practice shooting take downs, doing standups, etc. Of course it would be far better with a partner, but even alone may help if he sticks with it.
Jiayou.