Patricia Miranda

On Keeping Journals and Logs

By Katie Downing

When it comes to keeping track of wrestling and training information in books, the first person that comes to my mind is Patricia Miranda.  She began to keep a training log about two years before the Olympics when the resident program began at the Olympic Training Center.  She kept a wrestling journal throughout college.  She also keeps a personal diary.  As far as all of the aspects of wrestling that can be logged, Patricia tended to over do it rather than miss things to log.  You can use Patricia’s tactics as your example for how to keep training and wrestling logs, or you can pick and choose which parts you want to keep track of for yourself. 

Personal Journal

It may seem as though a personal journal or diary is completely separate from wrestling and training logs.  When a wrestler chooses to make wrestling a top priority in his or her life, then all aspects of life and wrestling are intertwined.  All parts of a wrestler’s life impact his or her wrestling.  Patricia used her personal journal as an outlet for all of the bigger issues on her mind, and a way to work through her thoughts and questions.  She spent about a half and hour writing in her personal journal once a week.

Wrestling Journal

            Patricia described her wrestling journal as a running dialogue of her wrestling as it progressed.  She worked on her wrestling journal at the end of practice each day for about fifteen minutes.  The journal consisted of a list of her goals in wrestling-specific moves and situations she needed to work on and to fix.  Patricia read her goals before each practice.  If it was a technique practice, she looked at her goals and the areas in her wrestling that needed work so that she could focus primarily on those situations within each technique that coach covered.  If it was a live wrestling practice, she looked at her trouble areas and her goals so that she could be sure to put herself in those situations when she went live, and so that she had a specific goal and a narrow focus for what she looked for in each live situation. 

            Patricia gathered information from her coaches and training partners to make sure she knew the best ways to work on the moves and situations that needed work.  As soon as she felt that she fixed a problem-when she consistently succeeded in a particular situation or with a particular move, she crossed that off of her list.  She never added a new set of goals to work on until she had crossed off her previous goals.  For example: If Patricia’s goal was to finish a single leg, she may have made new goals for herself every day until she fixed all of the things she needed to fix in order to finish her single leg, but she didn’t move on to working on front headlocks until she consistently finished her single legs. 

            Competitions set the criteria for Patricia’s goals.  After each competition, Patricia evaluated each match to see which things worked for her and which things did not.  Each practice showed her where she needed to tweak each goal, and competitions showed her where to start with each goal.  Even if she fixed her hi-c in practices, competitions could tell her when her competitors started to be able to defend it better.  If her hi-c no longer worked, she had to find other ways to score.

            Patricia used her wrestling journal as a mental tool as well.  It served as a source of affirmation for her.  If she had a series of frustrating practices, and it seemed as though she’d never fix a problem she had, she could go back and read her wrestling journal to remind her how far she had come in her wrestling to that point.  It took her out of the frustrating situation so that she could see the bigger picture, and she could see her progress over time in wrestling.

Training Log

            Patricia kept track of her over all lifestyle, and her over all training patterns in a training log.  She spent about five to ten minutes each night before she went to bed to log some basic information about her training.  Patricia simply printed up a list of the things she wanted to track, made a bunch of copies, and put them into a book.  Her list looked like this:

Wake up time-

Weight- (first thing in the morning)

Time to bed-

Meals- (including snacks)

Meal times-

Training activities- (wrestling, lifting, run, etc)

Training times-

How did I feel- (at each practice/training session)

What did I learn- (from each practice)

What to change for tomorrow-

What are my new goals-

Extras- (if any unique situations came up that day that affected training, for example)

            This log allowed Patricia to evaluate patterns in her lifestyle that affected her wrestling.  Patricia learned when she felt the best and when she performed the best.  She could track when she’d start to see the effects if she lost some sleep over a day or two.  She could see which foods gave her the most energy for each training session.  This log showed her what she could expect to weigh the next day according to what kind and how much training she did that day.  It showed her how far out of weigh-ins she needed to adjust her diet and add extra workouts.  As and example, she learned that she lost more weight when she added an extra workout right before she went to bed rather than just adding cardio work at the end of a regular practice. 

            Patricia also used her training log as a mental tool.  She could pick out specific habits that she had when she felt her best.  She could also see the days that she didn’t feel her best, and she had to work through it anyway.  This was another source of affirmation for Patricia, because she could look back to times that she was able to perform when the situation wasn’t the best, or when she just didn’t feel her best.  It also let her know what she could expect for competitions.  If she felt tired or frustrated during the week before a competition, she could take away some of that anxiety by looking back at earlier competitions.  She could see that she didn’t have her best practices, but still had great competitions in the past. 

Final note-One of the biggest lessons Patricia learned from all of her information gathering and journal keeping was that sometimes the best use of a journal or a log is to put it down for a day or two.  Some days it was just as important for Patricia to put the books aside and to find a way to make it happen in wrestling without getting bogged down by all of the specifics.