This month I would like to start with a little story. It goes 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. By the end of my weightlifting career I was around 196 pounds. He could have competed 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 that would get on the bench with 500 lbs. at 181 lbs. weight class so it sounded like a good idea.
During the first year I was going to make this attempt, I had my best training lift of 475 pounds. for 3 repetitions in the gym. That would equate to about 530 pounds. form. It was the best training session of my life and my contest was the following week. She was super strong and super ready to “get the job done.” I only had to lose 196 lbs. at 181 lbs. and I had a week to do it. Worst case scenario, I KNEW I would finally get my 500 lbs. bench press to 181 lbs. of body weight.
I wanted to stay strong, so I waited until Wednesday of that week to start losing weight, for Saturday’s weigh-in at 9am and the powerlifting contest at 12 noon.
I only ate 3 small meals each day, and it was basically sandwiches and protein shakes. On Friday night he weighed 189 pounds. I had to lose 8 more pounds. and I knew I would be off the water weight by the time the weigh-in came around. Heck, he’d have a couple of hours to get his water back, so he could probably compete at a full 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. Plus, I was still able to 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 mostly for water and Gatorade, not solid food. I also ate a banana to restore my potassium level. Long story short, I only ever 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 equate to 535 pounds. bench press
What did I learn from this experience?
I learned that if you want to maintain your strength, you had better cut weight correctly. If you’re a wrestler or weightlifter, your goal is to perform at your best. Wrestlers don’t lift maximum weight to win a match, but it makes sense to assume that if you’re at your best, you’ll fight 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 either have to trick your body into encouraging more fat loss or accept that your body will cannibalize your own muscle for food. You will need to eat 6-7 small protein-focused meals throughout the day.
Be no more than 3 or 4 pounds. about the weight category two days before. Listen carefully. There are some basic physiological truths in this world. You can’t lose 10 pounds in a day and have it come from fat. It has to be dehydration. Dehydration will weaken you if it is 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” water about 15 hours before you weigh in. That means you’ll drink 6 to 8 ounces of water every 3 hours starting 15 hours before your weigh-in. If you feel like you can’t drink water right now and just try to sweat the old fashioned way, you won’t be able to maintain your strength.
The Super Saturation meal 36 hours before your weigh-in (assuming you are 3-4 pounds heavier), should over-saturate your 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 carbohydrates for the rest of that day and the next day. Don’t worry, even though your body will use the stored carbohydrates (now in your muscle cells as glycogen) for energy, you’ll still have glycogen stored in your liver. Your body will be able to use this stored liver glycogen for energy on fight day. After the super saturation meal, you will eat mostly protein meals.
If I had known then what I know now, I could have made my 500 pounds. bench press at 181 lbs. class. Instead, I arrived at a comfortable 193 pounds. later that year and got my 500 lbs. bench and just failed at 535 lbs. tried. Learn from my mistakes. Lose weight properly, consistently and watch your gains soar!