Yogesh Gupta
No matter which combat sport you practice at a certain point you will have to cut weight. It might not be the most attractive and interesting thing about the sport but for keeping odds in your favor, cutting the weight will be a must. In any sport which involves competitors of a certain weight class, cutting your weight itself becomes a skill. Whether it’s powerlifting or mixed martial arts, weight cutting is popular among athletes for gaining an advantage. In this article, we will address a few methods that will be effective in cutting weight for keeping your scales bang right at the target.
Benefits Of Cutting Weight
If you’re successfully done with the practice of weight cutting & also done with proper refueling after the weigh-ins, there’s a higher probability that you will hold a greater strength & power advantage over the opponent. For example, if you are walking around with almost 160lbs but weigh a day before your Muay Thai fight of weight class 147lbs. You can weigh up to 145lbs and that does not mean you will fight with that weight. With rapid rehydration & refueling your body with the right liquids & foods. You can weigh around 157-158lbs when you step into the fighting ring. These are almost 15 additional pounds that you can use to your advantage!
Side effects Of Weight Cutting
Unfortunately, few athletes & fighters chose the wrong approach for cutting weight. They do it either by starving themselves or by draining the energy levels completely for making it into the right weight class. Cutting down the weight recklessly can lead to serious damages to the body, it can hinder the fight performance & possibly send you to the hospital emergency room. You will not want this to happen to you. For avoiding all the unwanted circumstances follow healthy weight cutting techniques.
1) Water Loading
It’s a good and effective way of losing around 5-pounds (the amount can vary from one person to another). It’s a really simple technique. Firstly you will have to drink loads of water, to get the body flushing the water & rapidly restricting the intake & cutting the salt contents from the diet. The body will keep on removing the water from the system, but when it’s not getting re[placed as you aren’t drinking more of it you will start losing weight. Following is an example of a water loading plan.
Five days before: two gallons of water.
Four days before: two gallons of water.
Three days before: One gallon of water, with a low salt diet.
Two days before: two liters of water, with a low salt diet.
One day out: One liter of water, cut all the salt.
On Weigh day: Take small water sips before weighing in, rehydrate & refuel after weighing in.
2) Sweat Suit
It’s another approach for dropping 5lbs+, it involves throwing on the heavy sweat-suit & starting to shadow boxing after wearing your muay Thai gloves, you can also do cycling on your static bike or jog on the treadmill walking, after getting in your muay Thai shorts. You will be required to stay careful, it is so easy to get too much of your energy out, & break down before starting the real fight, it can also get you to end up in a situation where you will require medical attention. Cutting weight with your buddy, for morale & getting yourself checked can be good. Most people prefer to perform in small short intervals of around 5 minutes.
3) Emptying Out yourself
It’s one of the ditch sections of cutting weight that comes with embarrassing risks if done wrongly. You can start by losing a few pounds by taking in some natural laxatives, keep in mind that it will affect your performance. Also, be careful about choosing natural laxatives only. Anything that is even a little harsh will affect the overall health before you step into the ring. We would suggest you choose this option as a last resort. Because taking risks in your competition days is the last thing you would want.
4) Empty Your Bowels
All of your natural laxatives lie in your intestines, clearing out your intestines from excess matter that your body is of no use can be a good contribution. has no use of. Make sure you do not use anything that isn’t organic. Otherwise, your body’s overall health might get compromised. You can end up losing up to 5lbs with this approach, but we suggest that it should be your last-ditch effort for cutting down if you feel you are in a dangerous position for not making the right cut.
5) Keep on Eating
This might sound odd to you but you will have to keep on eating even if you are trying to cut your weight down. Restraining from all the foods will hinder your ability to exercise & sweating off your additional weight. Also stay away from all types of sugar drinks, heavy and salty foods.
6) Lowering your Carb Intake by Half
Going up on a no-carb diet will not be a good idea because that way you will have insufficient time for filling the glycogen stores back up by the time you step in the fighting ring. However, low carb intake will make your body shed water weight at a faster rate. As for each gram of carb you consume, the body holds 3 grams of your water weight for going with it. Like a “bonus” that comes with dropping the carb intake, your body might also end up losing fat percentage by reducing the carb intake. Like you are undergoing the caloric deficit diet. Another primary reason for not cutting the carb completely while you are undergoing the process of weight cutting is keeping the content of carbs in the diet, it will allow training hard.
It will give you additional time for working on the technique, its correction & cardio, training harder helps in maintaining the confidence level, it makes sure that you are not gassing yourself out during your training session. There’s nothing more wrong than training a week before the actual fight and finding you are at the worst level, even lesser when you signed up for training for the fight. Fighters who follow zero carbs also end up losing more weight than is required.
