Seriously, don't do it! Well not right now at least. That is if you are in the beginning stages of your career. I'm not going to pretend that I'm a nutritionist because let's face it. I'm not. In fact when it came to weight management let's just I did a lot of trial and error... mostly error. However, through my indiscretions. I have learned somethingd and this is the best advice I have on the subject. In the beginning stages of your wrestling career, prepubescent ages and or under 18. I truly believe that there are other things that should require your priority attention. Things such as being a GOOD WRESTLER. No shade! But, if you don't take care of that, it won't matter what weight you go you won't see the competition results that you want. You won't see your true potential. It will be difficult, if not impossible to develop yourself if you're spending a majority of your time stressing your body and your mind about weight. That energy is more useful towards developing your wrestling skill set/style. Learning how to eat right. Developing your routine in regards to your own weight lifting program, cardio regiment, and attaining the proper amount of sleep. I know things can get tricky for you when your coach asks you to go a certain weight class. I also know that as athletes we never want to let out coaches and team down. But as much as wrestling is a team sport it is also just as much as an individual sport. It being an individual sport you have to consider your own career and the longevity of it. As young adults and as women; rapid weight loss in unconventional ways has array effects on our bodies and hormones. The binge dieting young women have done. Depending, on how extreme an athlete goes to, to consistently make a weight class using bad habits, the more extreme residual and sometimes irreversible effects it can have on you physically and psychologically. I think wrestling culture has to change how we view this subject. I think us as coaches and mentors in the sport have the tendency to not recognize rapid weight loss and the tactics as dangerous. Afterall this was what was expected from us as athletes. I believe that if more of our leadership would change their ideas of rapid weight loss and these tactics, and realize how dangerous these tactics are too young athlete especially a young women athletes, taking into consideration on how rapid weight loss effects on our hormones and period cycles during our development stages. Our leadership would stop putting young athletes in that position to make a decision between disappointing the team or preserving physical and psychological health. I know our coaches/leadership wants the best for us athletes. I just think us as a wrestling culture has failed to evolve in this area in the sport.
So, just some friendly advice from an Olympian to a future Olympian, use your energy teaching yourself how to be a consistent and efficient athlete. Your energy is better spent developing, a skill set that you are consistent and confident with. Learn proper nutrition, what foods make your body run efficiently and what foods make you lethargic. developing proper water intake. Learning, what it's going take to be consistent. Learning how to dissect your wrestling film to improve your technique, Learning what you need psychologically from your family and coaches to bring the best out of you. After you have conquered these, I think only then it's an appropriate time to ask yourself what is the best weight class for you to compete at and what is the most effective and healthy way to achieve that. Until then wrestle the weight class your body is naturally at. If you give weight cutting the priority over all the other things I mentioned, you are robbing yourself from seeing your full potential.
Until Next Time, Happy Training
Randi Miller
2008 Olympic Medalist.