This seminar went on last night, and one of the things I constantly get asked is about cutting weight. My son has done a great job over the years of wrestling at what I call his natural weight. On very few occasions have I had him or have I allowed him to decide to "cut weight", he has lost upwards of a few pounds before a big tournament but he has never cut more than 1 weight class. Truth is, that compared to many he hasn't had to work hard at it. This last year, he never had to run or spit before a tournament, not a single time. In fact, he never missed more than a noon meal that I was aware of.

I realize that over time there will be many new parents coming on here looking at wrestling, and many will encourage their kids to "cut" weight. The truth is that this is a part of the sport that will likely never be settled. I do encourage parents, coaches and others involved to the sport to do the necessary research to do the safe thing for your child, wrestler.

All of this to encourage individuals to check out this link: http://www.grapplersnutrition.com/teleseminarlow.wma This is not a commercial or attempt to sell anything, but specifically deals with appropriate nutrition for wrestlers and grapplers. I can’t recommend it high enough.

Mike… I mean no disrespect but Nathan has never been big enough to “cut weight”. At the Kid’s level you should never make them wrestle below their normal walk around street clothes weight. There will be plenty of long nights of fasting when they get older. I believe that there are two completely different issues here. There is “cutting weight” which is not uncommon for someone weighing 210 lbs. for football and wrestling at 189lbs. Or 160 to 145 it depends on body composition. By all means the right way to do it is through proper eating and a lot of exercise. But we all know how most people lose weight, is by “sucking weight” depriving themselves of food and water. The yo-yo effect is not good or can be dangerous. It has been my experience that most will pick the latter because it is sure nice to eat a big greasy cheeseburger and fries than eat skinless chicken and lettuce, skip a couple of meals and make weight again.

Mark, re read the post, your definition of walk around weight and my definition of natural weight look like the same. Did you listen to the audio link? I think you will actually like it as we seem to be on the same page. I likely agree with you on this issue more than you realize if you listen to the audio and then go from there. The truth of the matter is, as was the intent of my post, that many do cut weight at a kids level. Anyone saying otherwise have never been to many tournaments. I don't encourage it or like it. I will say that if at the start of a week of practice, that a kid is a pound or two over a certain weight, that by the end of the week of practice, if they practice and eat appropriately, that they will loose a pound or two. There are also differences between a morning weight and an evening weight. Education as to how to determine and maintain a walk around weight or natural weight in a healthy way is critical. That was my point, parents need to be educated as to how to do this as do many coaches. Truth is, that many Under 6 and Under 8 parents have their kids cutting weight. I don't like it, don't support it. I even know parents that have had their kids go down as many as 3 and in a couple of cases 4 weight classes in a given year. I personally know of a kid last year around 100 pounds at the start of the season that finished right at 20 pounds less. My personal belief is that this is abuse or neglect at best. Nathan has wrestled up many times, but has never not made weight, and he wrestles near the same weight through the year by working hard and eating right. He has tried to shortcut the process at times and has gotten into trouble for it, those around me know that. As to cutting, if that means not eating, I wish someone would come to my house and help pay the food bill from all of the food he "don't eat" but does something with, from his "cutting." My firm belief is that you cut, from eating more, more of the right types of food which the audio link goes into a lot of detail about.

Mike, I do agree with you whole-heartedly. The idea that someone would think that when these little guys that barely weighs 50 or 60 lbs. should go down a class is crazy. We are talking about 5 to 10 % total pounds. Now you or me 10% would be a lifesaver ask any cardiologist. I’m concerned about Johnny can’t beat Billy so we are “cutting” down one or two classes. Good post… I only hope that parents will listen.

Mark

I agree with both of you wholeheartedly on this subject and also believe that proper nutrition and exercise is key to maintaining a good "natural weight" for kids. Also, it needs to be said that most kids go through what can be referred to as a cyclical growth spurt every spring. We experienced this right before state qualifying with our youngest, who had been wrestling at a certain weight class most of the year with no problems making weight at weigh ins. Then spring started to come and he hit that growth spurt so we had to move him up a weight class. Now 3 pounds isn't very much but as you say 3 pounds on a 60 lb little body is right at 5% and that is a bit too much when the kid has little to no body fat in the first place. So we made the decision to bump him up a weight class.

With our oldest son he entered wrestling for his firt year right at 96 lbs. He has a sturdy frame but was a bit overweight and with the proper nutrition program and the hard work in the wrestling room over the season he had dropped down naturally to 82 lbs. (poor kids is built like myself and will always have that "husky" look to him even if and when he is at little to no body fat)
Moreover, I was just trying to make the point that with the proper nutrition and exercise, different kids respond differently and I believe that "cutting" weight should ONLY be done naturally (like in the 2nd example) and not to combat the evils of that springtime growth spurt.

Cutting weight at such a young age is just plain stupid. Like Parkwayred said, there will be pletny of long nights for cutting weight for when the kid is in high school. Trust me on that one, I was there quite a few times my senior year in high school. And even then it's not fun. I didn't really start cuttin weight till my freshman year of high school, and I didn't even do that till the second half of the season. I guess my point is, don't let your kid cut weight untill they are older. If you have your kids cut weight at a young age, you run a very high risk of stunting their growth. I've seen it done before. But that's just my two cents.

I know it would be an added exspence but if kids took a preseason physical The doctor could determine how much a kid could lose without harming himself.I dont think there is anything wrong with a kid dropping a few pounds if he or she has it to lose but we have all seen kids cutting weight who didnt have it to lose.This would help protect the kids and to me be worth the added cost.

Once in high school, you are only allowed to lose 10% of your natural body weight on the first day of practice. That is unless you know that your going to be droping more than 10%, them you can get a slip from your doctor stating that it is ok for you to drop that weight that you want to. Now, I think that this would be a good rule to instate into kids wrestling for those that want to cut weight. But there would need to be some extra guide lines to this. I.E.- one can only lose 3-4% of their natural body weight on the first day of practice. No one can get a slip from their docotor....or ANY doctor saying that they can lose more. Also maybe only certain ages can lose this weight. Like 12 and under and up. Now I know that there are some kids that tend to lose weight just natually though the season. I was once one of those kids. Those kids that do so, so that they don't get into trouble for losing more than they are suppose to, could keep like a weekly chart of their weight. With that in mind, the head coach and 3 assistant coaches and their parents must sign off on it, stating that that information is in fact true and that that kid is not actually "cutting" the weight, they are naturally doing it.

I wasn't saying that my oldest cut weight, I was just stating that through getting the exercise that he needed and the change in the overall diet for our entire family (to maintain good weight for my youngest) not only did my oldest lose weight throughout the wrestling season but the rest of us as a family dropped some excess pounds as well. This is one of the reasons that I like wrestling so much is because of the personal accountability of weight management. Through proper nutrition and exercise we are teaching these kids to properly maintain their weight which is a first step in combatting childhood obesity which is something that needs to be done throughout the country.

However there are those that take the shortcuts and try to "cut" weight that isn't there to be lost to better improve their chances in tournaments. This is not a good aspect of wrestling competition and this practice needs to be abolished especially at the kids level.

Perhaps a weekly weight chart is a good idea not only for overweight kids, but also for ALL kids. The only problem I see with that is it needs to be kept confidential as some kids don't like to be embarrassed by having other people know that they are so much overweight. I know this is a concern for my oldest so much so that he doesn't like his own brother know how much he weighs at any given time. And I know how he feels, I personally don't like people to know how much I am overweight.

Hey Daniel, great to see you back, stay safe and respond when you can. Here is a question for you and others. How difficult was the transition from Kids where you didn't cut weight to high school, where it is pretty much a given that you cut some weight? Another question, did anyone take the time to listen to the audio link? There is some great stuff on there.

Hey Mike, it's great to be back. Should start seein me around on here a little more, now that I actually have time to do stuff now that I've finally settled in out here in VA. To answer your question, it was a little difficult to make that transition to the high school level. Luckily I had had a few years of experience of what a high school practice was like from practicing with Wichita South when I was in 6th-8th grade. As far as the cutting weight goes...it was hard to learn the dicipline and self sacrafice that it takes to drop the weight and to try and keep it off. That's about the only thing I DON'T miss about the sport, ha ha. But from dropping the weight and learning the dicipline that it takes to do so helped play a big role a little bit later on in life when I was in boot camp. Not that I had to drop weight or anything like that in boot camp, but that self dicipline helped me get through boot camp a lot easier. I seriously think that if I had not of wrestled and learned that dicipline, then I wouldn't have made it through boot camp.