Competing within tight weight categories has made fighters the masters of weight control and some lose up to a stone in 24 hours. Here are the secrets of how they do it.
By Robert Carry
Fighters in sports like MMA, Muay Thai and boxing have fine-tuned their ability to control their body weight to the point where they can turn up for a fight a stone heavier than they were the day before at their weight in.
The ability to drop and then rapidly re-inflate their bodyweight gives them a massive size advantage over their opponent and allows a fighter who is naturally a middleweight for example, to fight several weight classes below as a super lightweight or junior welterweight.
So how do they do it? Most fighters bring themselves to within a stone of the weight they want to fight at weeks or months ahead of the fight through controlling their caloric intake so that they will not be taking too much in the run up to the day they climb into the ring.
Water intake
The fastest way to cut weight is to stop taking in water. Even without exercising we dehydrate by breathing, sweating and urinating and by simply not replacing the water you lose the weight simply falls away. Humans can go without water for three days before they keel over and die, and most fighters would never go more than 24 hours without drinking – and it’s normally the last 24 hours before the weigh in.
The process of boosting the amount of water the body expels during this crucial final day starts nearly a week earlier, when many fighters up their water intake to two gallons per day. This prompts you to need to urinate more often – a pattern that kicks over into the final 48 hours when water consumption drops to a single gallon and in the last 24 hours when water intake is halted completely.
This process allows fighters to cut off over half a stone in 24 hours without expending any energy whatsoever. Upping water intake also helps to strip the body of any excess sodium and reduces water retention.
IFL stars talk about cutting weight:
Food intake
Fighters trim down their caloric intake in the run up to fights but are always careful to give themselves enough carbohydrate to fuel training sessions, enough protein for their muscles to repair from sessions and the vitamins and minerals to prevent them from getting run down. Even allowing for these three purposes, there tends to be excess consumption that can be cut away, especially in the final three days before a fight when training winds down or stops completely.
Fighters tend to fast for the final 24 hours before weigh in. If they still have quite a bit of weight to shift however, they will often eat an energy bar or two which will give them enough sugar to blast through a late training session without adding anything more than a few ounces.
Bowels
The large intestine generally contains over 2.5 kilos of waste material from which all nutrients have already been extracted. Beyond a small amount of water, this material is of no use to the body so many fighters opt to remove it ahead of weigh in. This means a laxative.
Some may well opt to blast away the debris with Turbolax or whatever, but most opt for a herbal laxative such as Senakot which prompts the user to expel the waste without causing any sort of stomach upset.
This should be taken in the evening before the weigh in however. Leave it any later and you could be facing disaster on the day of the fight – it’s not unknown for a fighter suffering the effects of a laxative to erm, touch cloth in the middle of their bout.
Sweating
Rumours of fighters going jogging with bin bags wrapped around their bodies underneath their clothes, or doing push-ups in saunas with woolly hats and scarves on have abounded for years – and they’re all true.
If you need to shift weight and the clock is running down, then it’s time to get the sweat beads forming. There are plastic suits which can be bought which are specifically designed for the purpose. Something like a boiler suit only made from a waterproof material, those wearing them quickly start to sweat with only very minimal exercise.
Expending too much energy this close to a fight is a no-no, so fighters will frequently jump onto a bike, go for a jog or do some sort of low-intensity aerobic drills. Fighters will generally train for 15 minutes before jumping on the scales to see if they’ve done enough. Once in touching distance of their target weight, the exercise stops.
In countries such as ours in which the sun will generally not be shining, a trip to the sauna in such a suit might do the trick, although most experts will advise against doing any exercise in that sort of temperature.
Water loss
Some fighters have been known to go the easy route to cutting weight before a fight – popping pills. A laxative and a diuretic, which will trigger significant weight loss by making you want to urinate every few minutes, are a turbo quick way to lose weight. Diuretics however, can cause electrolyte imbalances and pose a serious health risk if not taken correctly. Generally speaking, they should be avoided like the plague.
Is it dangerous?
Fighters must balance the amount of weight they can cut against the negative impact it can have on their performance. While many fighters accustomed to the process could cut a stone from their bodyweight for a weigh in and then put it back on for the fight without suffering any ill-effects, attempting to cut much more than that can leave fighters feeling fatigued during their bout.
There are risks other than simply loss of performance – but most stem from people either taking the easy route out by taking diuretics or by attempting to cut too much weight and becoming overly dehydrated.
Fighters regularly trial run the weight cutting process so they know exactly how their body will react to the various methods, and to establish what works best for them. This way, when it comes to fight night they will know exactly what they need to do in order to lose the required weight without tipping over into loss of performance or something more serious.
Re-inflating
After the weigh in the dehydrated, half-starved fighters are half-way there – it’s time to put back on as much of the weight they lost as possible without causing any upset to their system. While some assume this is just a case of drinking as much as possible and eating anything that comes their way, this will often lead to stomach upset.
Most experienced fighters will start the process of rehydrating with small sips of water and by having a small carbohydrate-heavy snack. Small amounts of food and water are then at frequent, regular intervals for the duration of the day. Fighters continue to eat right up until a couple of hours before their fight – often right through the night. However, they are always cautious of eating anything out of the ordinary and stick closely to the foods they would eat on normal training days.
Water intake should be as high as three or four gallons over the course of the 24 hours before the fight to ensure they are fully hydrated at the bell. Carbs are also crucially important in bringing blood sugar levels back to normal rates.
Principals
Although most people will never need to cut weight in such dramatic fashion, there are elements of the process which can be adopted by normal Joes who like to keep in shape.
For one, the control of water intake can be a key benefit. Increasing the amount of water you drink will strip excess sodium from your body. Excess salt, as well as being bad for your heart, is also one of the main contributing factors in water retention. As well as leaving your lower limbs looking like those of an elderly lady, water weight can sit on your stomach, obscuring that six pack you’ve been diligently working on.
Many men mistake water retention on their stomach for fat, and are amazed at the results they can get by cutting down on salt and increasing water.
Knowing that fighters can cut a stone from their weight in a matter of hours also demonstrates the level of control a human being can have on their size. If they can lose weight at that sort of pace, then trimming off an extra few kilos suddenly looks very, very doable.
You should always consult a doctor before attempting to cut weight.
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