Imagine feeling the overwhelming pressure on whether or not you get to compete in your sporting event could depend on something that seems so insignificant as a couple of sips of water. This small margin for error will cause wrestlers and other combat sports athletes, where there are weight divisions, to take extreme measures to lose weight before stepping on the scale.
Some of these extreme measures that wrestlers usually take to dehydrate themselves consist of dehydrating yourself in a sauna, taking an Epsom salt bath with rubbing alcohol poured all over your skin in scalding hot water, working out, and performing excessive cardio while wearing sauna suits and multiple layers of sweatshirts. “I wasn’t aware of what an issue this was,” said Jeff Novitzky, who is the UFC’s (Ultimate Fighting Championship’) vice president of athlete health and performance. “Some athletes drain 10-15 percent of their water in two or three days. After that point, [medical professionals] I’ve spoken to recommend immediate hospitalization.”
Cutting weight and unhealthy weight loss practices can lead to long-term physical and mental health consequences down the road.
“I was peeing blood,” Jim Miller said. “And my kidneys hurt.”Soon after, Miller, a professional mixed martial artist in the UFC, learned he had kidney stones. On top of that, about a year earlier, he had suffered a full-blown kidney infection. The cause of these problems was damage inflicted on the organs by the process of cutting weight.“I think it has definitely had an effect on my body,” Miller said of weight cutting. “It’s something I don’t feel today, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it took a couple years off my life.”
You might be wondering why athletes go through these drastic measures just to gain weight. “I feel obligated to do it to be competitive with my opponent when I get on the mat, and not be undersized,” said Billy Dekraker, a sophomore wrestler at the McDonogh School. One common answer McDonogh wrestlers routinely gave was, “That everyone is cutting weight” so they feel like they must cut weight to feel that they have a size advantage or at least don’t have a size disadvantage, even if it would impact their performance. “It is harder than most people realize,” said Dekraker “It kind of controls your everyday life, sometimes the only thing that is on my mind is thinking about how much weight I need to lose.” And it's not just as simple as skipping a couple of meals, Dekraker says, “Some people might just think it is eating healthy, however, it involves strict dieting for a while combined with restricting your water intake at the end.” “Cutting the water is the worst part, by the time it is close to the weigh in don't even feel hungry mainly because I am just thirsty.”
Even before athletes begin cutting water weight, they must adhere to a strict diet, some tracking every calorie they put in their body, to be at their optimal body fat composition for making their weight. 2021 Olympic silver medalist in the 57 kg weight category Kumar Ravi Dahiya said "Forget eating sweets or chocolates, if I just eat normally for even 10 or 15 days, I'll weigh about 70kg,"
You might be wondering why weight cutting is still allowed or why there are no rules in place to prevent it. Well, there are some rules to try and minimize weight cutting however some would argue how effective they are. McDonogh school varsity wrestling coach Josh Fitch said “When enforced strictly, NFHS certification template can be effective,” however sometimes athletes can cheat if the rules are not enforced, and sometimes the athlete will just work harder to pass the certification hydration test.
Southeast Asian-based mixed martial arts organization ONE Championship had an athlete die from weight cutting in 2015. Yang Jian Bing died in 2015 from complications related to weight cutting, and he was only 21 years old at the time. After that, they decided that change had to be made and they implemented their new weight cutting procedures. The new procedures consist of a strict set of rules with lots of weight checks and hydration testing throughout the week of the event. The rules, Athletes will be assigned to their weight class based on collated data and random weight checks. Athletes are not allowed to drop a weight class less than eight weeks out from an event. During fight week, weights are checked daily. Urine-specific gravity will also be checked the day after arrival and three hours prior to the event. Athletes must be within their weight class and pass specific gravity hydration tests all week and up to three hours before the event. If an athlete falls outside the weight or fails a test, they are disqualified from the event. Doctors may request additional testing at their discretion. ONE’s rules seem to be the only ruleset that effectively stops extreme water weight cutting, however, these rules are not practical to enforce for the almost 250,000 high school wrestlers in the United States. The jury is still out on what can be done to prevent dangerous weight cutting at large, but luckily some ideas are effective now; it is mainly ways to enforce those rules that must be figured out.
Cutting weight is something that has consumed every thought of mine at certain times, and it has brought me to some of my weakest points. The obsessiveness of tracking everything that you put into your body and feeling guilty about eating something as calorie sparse as an apple. Cutting weight since the age of 10 has negatively affected my relationship with food. Now in times when I'm not near a competition I will binge eat even if I am not hungry, simply because I don't have to step on a scale soon. I would sneak food and eat it where my parents wouldn't see me eat it. at random hours of the dayAs a result of that I could fluctuate by as much as 5-10 lbs any given day. Because of that, I would get self-conscious about my body image. Although cutting weight is a toxic practice that has given me plenty of stress throughout the past eight years of my life, it has taught me a kind of discipline that I don’t believe I would be able to get from anything else.
Some of these extreme measures that wrestlers usually take to dehydrate themselves consist of dehydrating yourself in a sauna, taking an Epsom salt bath with rubbing alcohol poured all over your skin in scalding hot water, working out, and performing excessive cardio while wearing sauna suits and multiple layers of sweatshirts. “I wasn’t aware of what an issue this was,” said Jeff Novitzky, who is the UFC’s (Ultimate Fighting Championship’) vice president of athlete health and performance. “Some athletes drain 10-15 percent of their water in two or three days. After that point, [medical professionals] I’ve spoken to recommend immediate hospitalization.”
Cutting weight and unhealthy weight loss practices can lead to long-term physical and mental health consequences down the road.
“I was peeing blood,” Jim Miller said. “And my kidneys hurt.”Soon after, Miller, a professional mixed martial artist in the UFC, learned he had kidney stones. On top of that, about a year earlier, he had suffered a full-blown kidney infection. The cause of these problems was damage inflicted on the organs by the process of cutting weight.“I think it has definitely had an effect on my body,” Miller said of weight cutting. “It’s something I don’t feel today, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it took a couple years off my life.”
You might be wondering why athletes go through these drastic measures just to gain weight. “I feel obligated to do it to be competitive with my opponent when I get on the mat, and not be undersized,” said Billy Dekraker, a sophomore wrestler at the McDonogh School. One common answer McDonogh wrestlers routinely gave was, “That everyone is cutting weight” so they feel like they must cut weight to feel that they have a size advantage or at least don’t have a size disadvantage, even if it would impact their performance. “It is harder than most people realize,” said Dekraker “It kind of controls your everyday life, sometimes the only thing that is on my mind is thinking about how much weight I need to lose.” And it's not just as simple as skipping a couple of meals, Dekraker says, “Some people might just think it is eating healthy, however, it involves strict dieting for a while combined with restricting your water intake at the end.” “Cutting the water is the worst part, by the time it is close to the weigh in don't even feel hungry mainly because I am just thirsty.”
Even before athletes begin cutting water weight, they must adhere to a strict diet, some tracking every calorie they put in their body, to be at their optimal body fat composition for making their weight. 2021 Olympic silver medalist in the 57 kg weight category Kumar Ravi Dahiya said "Forget eating sweets or chocolates, if I just eat normally for even 10 or 15 days, I'll weigh about 70kg,"
You might be wondering why weight cutting is still allowed or why there are no rules in place to prevent it. Well, there are some rules to try and minimize weight cutting however some would argue how effective they are. McDonogh school varsity wrestling coach Josh Fitch said “When enforced strictly, NFHS certification template can be effective,” however sometimes athletes can cheat if the rules are not enforced, and sometimes the athlete will just work harder to pass the certification hydration test.
Southeast Asian-based mixed martial arts organization ONE Championship had an athlete die from weight cutting in 2015. Yang Jian Bing died in 2015 from complications related to weight cutting, and he was only 21 years old at the time. After that, they decided that change had to be made and they implemented their new weight cutting procedures. The new procedures consist of a strict set of rules with lots of weight checks and hydration testing throughout the week of the event. The rules, Athletes will be assigned to their weight class based on collated data and random weight checks. Athletes are not allowed to drop a weight class less than eight weeks out from an event. During fight week, weights are checked daily. Urine-specific gravity will also be checked the day after arrival and three hours prior to the event. Athletes must be within their weight class and pass specific gravity hydration tests all week and up to three hours before the event. If an athlete falls outside the weight or fails a test, they are disqualified from the event. Doctors may request additional testing at their discretion. ONE’s rules seem to be the only ruleset that effectively stops extreme water weight cutting, however, these rules are not practical to enforce for the almost 250,000 high school wrestlers in the United States. The jury is still out on what can be done to prevent dangerous weight cutting at large, but luckily some ideas are effective now; it is mainly ways to enforce those rules that must be figured out.
Cutting weight is something that has consumed every thought of mine at certain times, and it has brought me to some of my weakest points. The obsessiveness of tracking everything that you put into your body and feeling guilty about eating something as calorie sparse as an apple. Cutting weight since the age of 10 has negatively affected my relationship with food. Now in times when I'm not near a competition I will binge eat even if I am not hungry, simply because I don't have to step on a scale soon. I would sneak food and eat it where my parents wouldn't see me eat it. at random hours of the dayAs a result of that I could fluctuate by as much as 5-10 lbs any given day. Because of that, I would get self-conscious about my body image. Although cutting weight is a toxic practice that has given me plenty of stress throughout the past eight years of my life, it has taught me a kind of discipline that I don’t believe I would be able to get from anything else.
Comments
I'm a wrestler, and I think this is an amazing way to bring to the light the true struggles that we endure, and how wrestling should not be a sport that focuses on weight, it should be a sport focused on skill, like every other one.
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