The Perry Girls Wrestling team received outstanding training and had a fun team building experience at Adrenaline Monkey, the ultimate indoor adventure center with ninja warrior obstacle courses, rock climbing walls, and an aerial ropes course. Coach Chad Ruth of Adrenaline Monkey shared how ninja warrior training can benefit girl wrestlers, "We'll start with the most important and definitely the focus of American Ninja Warrior which is the upper body obstacles, which gives you exceptional grip strength. In particular to wrestlers, once you grab on to something, you're not letting go. It becomes a real problem for somebody to deal with on the mats, whether in wrestling, UFC, whatever it is."
Coach Ruth continued, "The power that you get from doing certain types of obstacles gives you a really good feel for how to use your whole body to do what it is that you want to do. For example, combining groups of muscles like your hips and your core to then transfer to your back muscles to accomplish the goal that you want, which again correlates to a lot of different sports. Connecting different chains of muscles, making it an overall feed of movement rather than little short things that don't connect very well."
Coach Ruth went on to explain that the second most important benefit is "definitely agility. You're in control on your feet, not being out of control is definitely something that I focus on more than I think a lot of other ninjas. I teach control, and then I add speed to control. Because you can always learn how to go faster, but if you're not in control, that's not a recipe for anything good."
We also asked Coach Ruth what he noticed about Perry Girls Wrestling in their first experience for many of them at Adrenaline Monkey? Coach Ruth observed, "I would definitely say the ability to dive into something even in a moments notice without hesitation and with full commitment. I was working on a certain skill with quite a few girls, and they wanted to try it. In the moment of them doing the obstacle, I'm giving them tips or tricks and they're listening to me while they're on the obstacle and then executing it at the same time, which is not something that is normal for the average person."
Coach Ruth then highlighted the connections to girls wrestling, "The ability to listen and then execute in a moments notice I think it goes hand in hand with wrestling. You have somebody on the sideline trying to help you, so you're listening for those cues; however, I think a lot of kids naturally block out things when they're pushing themselves. It takes an exceptional athlete to push themselves while also having the ability to take criticism or instruction."
Perry Girls Wrestling would like to thank Coach Ruth and the outstanding team at Adrenaline Monkey for providing an awesome experience for the girls. A member of our Perry Girls Wrestling youth team, Juliana Matteo, is an experienced Ninja Warrior and has won Regionals and qualified for Worlds in three different Ninja Warrior leagues. The benefits of ninja warrior training to girls wrestling were clearly evident in Juliana's first year wrestling this season, earning 4th place at the Ohio Athletic Committee Girls Wrestling State Championships competing against experienced wrestlers.