Weight lifting for wrestling – Part II

This month I would like to start with a little story. It dates back to my days as a competitive weightlifter. I competed for 12 years in weightlifting and I remember many contests where I had to lose weight. Towards the end of my weightlifting career I weighed about 196 pounds. He could have raced at 198 lbs. class, but chose to drop to 181 lbs. class to take a chance on a 500 lb. Bench press There weren’t many guys in those days who stepped onto the bench at 500 lbs. at 181 lbs. weight class so it sounded like a good idea.

During the first year that I was going to do this attempt, I had my best training lift of 475 pounds. for 3 reps in the gym. That would work out to around 530 pounds. form. It was the best training session of my life and my contest was the following week. She was super strong and she was super ready to “get the job done.” I only had to lose 196 lbs. at 181 lbs. and had a week to do it. Worst case scenario, I KNEW I would finally get my 500 lbs. bench press at 181 lbs. of body weight.

I wanted to stay strong, so I waited until Wednesday of that week to start losing weight, for the weigh-in on Saturday at 9am and the weightlifting contest at 12 noon.

I only ate 3 small meals each day, and they were basically sandwiches and protein shakes. On Friday night he weighed 189 pounds. I had to lose 8 more pounds. and I knew I would take the weight off of the water by the time the weigh-in came. Heck, it would take a couple of hours to get the water back, so it could probably compete at a total weight of 195-196 pounds. and finally get that bank of 500.

I didn’t drink any water and sat in my friends’ sauna for a few hours every now and then. The weight was being lost. I was tired and not feeling very well, but I was losing weight. Also, I could still get the water back in my system and compete feeling strong.

At 9 a.m. the next morning, he weighed 181 pounds. in the nose. After the weigh-ins I drank Gatorade and water. I tried to eat a little, but my appetite was mainly for water and Gatorade, not solid food. I also had a banana to regain my potassium level. Bottom line, I only bench pressed 470 lbs. that day. It was good enough to win that particular weightlifting contest, but it was a personal disappointment. I knew something was wrong. The following week in the gym, he weighed comfortably 197 pounds. and my bench press was even better. He hadn’t trained since the competition, but the following Saturday he was pushing a weight that would equal 535 pounds. bench press

What did I learn from this experience?

I learned that if you want to maintain your strength, you better cut weight correctly. If you are a wrestler or weightlifter, your goal is to perform at your best. Fighters don’t lift the maximum weight to win a match, but it makes sense to assume that if you are at your best, you will be fighting at your best!

All things being equal, the strongest fighter wins!

With this in mind, here are some guidelines for reducing water weight, in order to fight your best:

Use proper weight loss methods to lose fat first. If you don’t have a lot of fat on your body, you must either trick your body into encouraging further fat loss or accept that your body will cannibalize its own muscle for food. You should eat 6 or 7 small protein-focused meals throughout the day.

Don’t be more than 3 or 4 pounds. over the weight category two days before. Listen carefully. There are some basic physiological truths in this world. You can’t lose 10 pounds in one day and make it come from fat. It has to be dehydration. Dehydration will make you weak if it’s severe. I don’t care how tough you are, how good you are at wrestling, who you learned from, etc. If you cut too much overnight, you may win the match or tournament despite poor weight-cutting techniques, but you won’t be fighting at your personal best! It won’t matter until you’ve found your match. Be smart about your weight cut.

Don’t get dehydrated. You should start “restricting” your water about 15 hours before weighing yourself. That means you will drink 6 to 8 ounces of water every 3 hours starting 15 hours before weigh-in. If you feel like you can’t drink water right now and you’re just trying to sweat the old-fashioned way, you won’t be able to maintain your strength.

Super Saturation Meal 36 hours before weighing (assuming 3-4 pounds heavier), should over-saturate muscle cells. To do this, you will have a large carbohydrate meal (pasta, rice, yams, baked potatoes, etc.) Eat as much as you can comfortably eat during this meal. Then restrict carbs for the rest of that day and the day after. Don’t worry, although your body will use stored carbohydrates (now in muscle cells as glycogen) for energy, you will still have glycogen stored in your liver. Your body will be able to use this stored liver glycogen for energy on wrestling day. After the super saturation meal, you will basically eat protein meals.

If I had known then what I know now, I could have reached my 500 lbs. bench press at 181 lbs. class. Instead, I came in with a comfortable weight of 193 pounds. later that year and got my 500 lbs. bench and narrowly missed at 535 lbs. tried. Learn from my mistakes. Reduce your weight appropriately, consistently and watch your gains skyrocket!