As if a victorious wrestler isn’t intimidating enough in himself, recent studies show that he may have an extra boost of testosterone driving him in the ring.

Andrew Fry, professor and chair of health, sport and exercise sciences, conducted research on Penn State’s wrestling team, among others, looking for a coorelation between the success level of wrestlers and their testosterone levels.

He found that wrestlers who won matches had significantly higher testosterone levels than those who lost. Additionally, the research team proved that having higher levels throughout the season positively affected the wrestlers mentally and built up their esteem.

Wrestling teams can use these findings to strategically set their tournament schedules.

“The scheduling and how you arrange it could be very important,” Fry said.

Fry said that the scheduling of meets should be arranged so that the squad does not face the tougher teams at the start. He said that it is better to challenge tougher teams later in the season because the athletes’ confidence is potentially already built up from defeating easier opponents early on.

While conducting the research, Fry had a team of the researchers who filmed the meets, did performance analyses and watched the hormonal responses. Part of the study group was the wrestling team at Penn State, including the coaches. Penn State was chosen because it has a long wrestling history and a large team, as opposed to the University, which does not.

The U.S. Olympic committee provided funding for the research, and Fry hopes that the findings of this study will spur more research for KU Athletics.

“We will do additional research on what contributes to the success of successful sport performance,” Fry said.

— Edited by Sarah Gregory