In the Room Part 1: Training Days with MSU-N Wrestling

The most time a college wrestler spends on the mat in a given match is seven minutes. But the time that a wrestler puts in to get to that seven minutes is a whole different story. And any wrestler will say, most of the time, that training isn't just a grind, it isn't hard work, no, the training and grind to put it bluntly sucks.

Right now the Montana State University-Northern Lights are grinding. Official practices started last week for the Lights and longtime head coach Tyson Thivierge. With hopes high for the upcoming season - the Lights return one of the top teams in the NAIA this season - right now, Northern is happily embracing the suck.

"Every day, our coaches preach to us about embracing the suck," Northern senior Chris Nile said after practice Tuesday. "As a wrestler, you know going into a new season, that this part (training) is going to suck. It's a grind, every single day, so it's about going into it with the right attitude. You go into it with a positive attitude, and you're going to see the gains from it. And that's what we're doing as a team right now, we're embracing the suck, because we know it's going to make us better."

To the average person, what the Lights are going through right now would indeed suck. But to wrestlers, and especially to a Light's squad with lofty goals this season, it really is normal.

Northern recently finished up its preseason conditioning, which included running anywhere from two to seven miles a day, in a variety of different ways, including hill sprints, buddy carries and other various forms of running. The Lights are also up at 6 a.m. four days a week during conditioning to lift weights.

"It's extremely hard," Nile said of what Northern went through in the month of September. "Most people, when they go for a run, they listen to music or whatever and that kind of calms that little voice in your head that is telling you to stop or give up. We're running and competing against each other, whether it's hill sprints or buddy carries, so each of us has to do whatever it takes to tell that little voice in your head to shut up. You have to do that and just push through. And it definitely beats you up. You're running when your sore from lifting, the asphalt running beats up your feet pretty good. It's challenging mentally and physically. But the more you can control that little voice in your head, the more you're able to push through, and we know that if we're able to push through we're going to be better wrestlers and a better team."

The Lights certainly are pushing through and their head coach sees it.

"In my opinion, our preseason conditioning was as tough as it's been since I've been here. It was extremely tough," Thivierge said. "We really challenged them mentally with everything we did. And they stepped up and met every one of those challenges. No one quit. They all fought through it, and they're all here. As a coach, that's what you want to see, is them meeting those challenges, and they all did and I'm proud of them for that."

With preseason conditioning in the rearview mirror, the Lights have now turned their attention to practice and preparing for the regular season. But make no mistake, that doesn't mean things will get any easier.

According to Thivierge, Northern went through a grind of a practice Monday, while Tuesday, the Lights focused more on technique. But even on days that aren't considered as rigorous as others, the Lights still start practice by running for 20 minutes, and another seven to cool down at the end. In between on Tuesday, Northern worked on quite a bit of technique but also did live wrestling in short bursts before finishing with third-period wrestling.

"Right now, it's about finding that balance," Thivierge said. "We're working on getting our conditioning under control, while also working on a lot of technique, educating them on a bunch of different things, and as the days go on, we'll push the pace and the tempo up. And we'll continue to challenge them mentally. We want to be a very mentally tough team, so that's where the focus will be as we go through these early-season practices."

Of course, given what the Lights have gone through already, the mental toughness should be growing. And with Northern being such a veteran team, the Lights know exactly what they have to do to get to where they want to go.

To get to where they want to go, which is ultimately winning a national championship next March in Iowa, for now it all goes back to embracing the suck.

"It's all about having the right attitude," Nile said. "It's about telling that little voice in your head to be quiet, about making yourself push through whatever it is you're going through. Whether that's conditioning, or being really sore, or tired, or hurt, or whatever it might be, you just have to push through it. You know this part of it is going to be tough, but we also make sure we have a lot of fun, too. We have a great team. The guys on this team, and the coaches, we're all really close, and everybody in here has the right attitude and the right mindset. We push each other, we pick each other up, we have each other's backs, no matter what we're going through. To do this right, to go through what you have to go through in order to be successful, you have to have the right mentality and the right attitude, and every guy on this team has that."

No doubt, the Lights have the right attitude - they're embracing the suck. And come March, when it's all on the line, they know, it's going to pay off. And with the regular season now just three weeks away, the Lights are going to keep grinding, they're going to keep embracing the suck.

Editor's Note: This is the first of a three-part series as the Northern wrestling team prepares for the 2018-19 season. Next week, we'll check back in on the Lights as they prepare for their annual Alumni Dual.