An underhook in wrestling is when you thread your arm under your opponent's arm and hook it — your arm underneath, theirs on top. Sounds basic. But if you nail the details, it opens up single legs, snap-downs, and trips that your opponent can't stop without giving something else up.
The key that separates a useful underhook from a dead one? Elbow position. Jon Trenge is emphatic about this: "You want to point your elbow at the horizon. You don't want to leave it down."
The Best Setup for an Underhook
Trenge's go-to entry is a snap-down, but not straight down. "If I pull his head straight down, it doesn't do anything to his arm," he explains. "But if I pull it down and to the side, that arm comes out a little, just to sort of balance himself." That moment of the elbow flaring out is your window. Let go of the head, snake your arm in. Done.
That's the whole setup. Snap to the side, arm comes out, underhook slides in.
Head Position Makes or Breaks It
Once you have the underhook, the fight for the head starts immediately. Your opponent wants to jam their forehead into the side of your head and squeeze with their overhook — Trenge calls it "trying to crush your head like a grape." If they get that, your underhook is neutralized.
So you push their head away and get yours to the inside, forehead in their temple. Now their overhook arm can't reach anything useful. And your underhook arm is free to lift and attack.
Two Attacks That Chain Together
First: lift the underhook, grab the inside of their knee, bring the underhook arm down to lock. You're on a single leg with your ear in their chest. Simple and devastating.
If they pull the leg back, you've got attack number two. That leg retraction creates a gap — a triangle of space between their feet where there's no base. Circle back, use your hips to snap them down into that open space. "Pull him right between his feet when you snap him," Trenge says.
Single leg and snap-down, chained off the same underhook. That's efficient wrestling.
For more on building takedowns off tie-ups, check out our arm drag to single leg guide. The complete hand fighting system is in the Complete Wrestling System.