Matside weigh-ins; read info before voting

[T.Vieau]

As many have said, our sport is unique in so many ways. As long as there is weight classes there will always be individuals who cut weight. No matter what is in place there will always be individuals who try and get around it.

[DocWrestling]

As many have said, our sport is unique in so many ways. As long as there is weight classes there will always be individuals who cut weight. No matter what is in place there will always be individuals who try and get around it.

I agree but a system that makes cutting more difficult and maybe decreases performance would curtail those that want to do it.

Reduce Performance-  Make kids wrestle at weight with mat-side weigh-ins.  No time to hyrdate and eat decreases performance or having to maintain that weight over the course of tournament will hurt the kid that is cutting a lot

Make it more difficult-  Do not allow kids to drop for just regionals or just after Christmas with a growth allowance.  Make them wrestle 75% of their matches at that weight so they have to make that weight over and over.  This is what makes it so difficult in college for the guys cutting a lot of weight.  They have to hold it all year.

[Handles II]

As many have said, our sport is unique in so many ways. As long as there is weight classes there will always be individuals who cut weight. No matter what is in place there will always be individuals who try and get around it.

I agree but a system that makes cutting more difficult and maybe decreases performance would curtail those that want to do it.

Reduce Performance-  Make kids wrestle at weight with mat-side weigh-ins.  No time to hyrdate and eat decreases performance or having to maintain that weight over the course of tournament will hurt the kid that is cutting a lot

Make it more difficult-  Do not allow kids to drop for just regionals or just after Christmas with a growth allowance.  Make them wrestle 75% of their matches at that weight so they have to make that weight over and over.  This is what makes it so difficult in college for the guys cutting a lot of weight.  They have to hold it all year.

So kids can't eat lunch or drink during a tournament? That's unhealthy Doc. I expect my wrestlers to hydrate throughout the day and consume healthy foods, even the JV guys. Now they have to fight the scale all day long? When will the scale-stress levels be high enough for you guys? Why not just get rid of wrestling and simply have have day-long weigh in contest? And of course doing this in front of a crowd will certainly give the sport a big boost of positive feedback. 

MN has been doing 50% of all weigh-ins after Jan 15th for 20 years. No reason why WI couldn't do similar. That's an easy fix and it seems to work pretty well. From a coaching standpoint, no surprises either. You know who is changing weight classes for Sections in advance.

[DocWrestling]

So kids can't eat lunch or drink during a tournament? That's unhealthy Doc. I expect my wrestlers to hydrate throughout the day and consume healthy foods, even the JV guys.

This the old-school mentality we have to fight and/or change.  I absolutely agree that kids should be able to eat and hydrate all day but why does that automatically mean they get to now weigh more than the weight class they signed up for in the morning weigh-ins?

Why can't they select a weight class that allows them to eat and hydrate all day without having to go over the weight?

If all kids picked a weight class like this they would never have stress.

Again we would be rewarding the kids that picked a logical weight class by allowing them to eat and hydrate all day and penalize the kid that cut to make the weight.  Why do we reward your wrestler that barely ate on Friday and skipped breakfast to make weight Saturday morning and then gorge and hydrate over the course of the day.

Does it not seem unfair to have a kid weigh in at 126 but he never weighed under that ever again that day?  Is that fair to the other kid that is not cutting?

Move the advantage to the kid not worrying about his weight and stop worrying about the guys that are cutting.  It is a whole change in mentality!

Truth is that if fewer wrestlers cut weight we would have to truly bump up the weight classes

[padre]

Don't you get it Doc? Teams with full weight classes are not lucky enough to get kids to weigh the exact amount. It's not that difficult.

You are from Fondy and they have had plenty of forfeits in the last few years.  You think this would help them fill more weights? This is a huge high school and they struggle to fill classes with just the kids that come out and there are plenty of openings so this is definitely not getting more kids out.

So you have 2 kids that weigh 126 pounds...forfeit 120? That kid that could drop should wrestle JV all year? I think you've lost touch.

[MNbadger]

"4) Eating disorders in males are highest in wrestlers, gymnasts, and body builders.  It is negligible in other sports.  Because psychologists seldom see gymnasts and body builders, almost all males with eating disorders they see are wrestlers"

Eating disorder numbers are negligible in wrestlers and ex-wrestlers.  Trust me, I went through this with an administrator a number of years ago who claimed this. 

[MNbadger]

Doc, As far as wanting wrestlers to be able to eat during the season, mine did!  I worked them hard enough.  As I said, by tournament time, they were eating the day before.  They were certainly not pigging out but they were eating.  They might have worked off 1-3 pounds after school drilling and they were set.  Most of them dropped to their doctor certified weight. 

[DocWrestling]

Don't you get it Doc? Teams with full weight classes are not lucky enough to get kids to weigh the exact amount. It's not that difficult.

You are from Fondy and they have had plenty of forfeits in the last few years.  You think this would help them fill more weights? This is a huge high school and they struggle to fill classes with just the kids that come out and there are plenty of openings so this is definitely not getting more kids out.

So you have 2 kids that weigh 126 pounds...forfeit 120? That kid that could drop should wrestle JV all year? I think you've lost touch.

I do see that it would create a bigger problem. It would create more forfeits at the lower weights.  This philosophy is not without faults.  You would have to shift the weight classes up to allow kids to wrestle at a more natural weight and wrestle up rather than down.  More kids would be told to grow and get bigger and stronger and fewer would be cutting weight.  That would draw more into the sport.

Our team has multiple guys at every weight class above 138 but we have a tough time finding the little guys.  Our coaches recruited the hallways looking for a 106 and 113 lber.  They could not find a male under 106 in a school of 2000.  They ended up finding two kids and got them to come out but immediately in their first year of wrestling one had to cut to make 106 and one had to cut to make 113.  Next year they will grow and we will be in the same spot. Hopefully they will be back and enjoyed cutting weight but I can tell you that parents of little guys don't have a lot of desire to have their kids get smaller and these kids did not have the weight to lose.

[DocWrestling]

"4) Eating disorders in males are highest in wrestlers, gymnasts, and body builders.  It is negligible in other sports.  Because psychologists seldom see gymnasts and body builders, almost all males with eating disorders they see are wrestlers"

Eating disorder numbers are negligible in wrestlers and ex-wrestlers.  Trust me, I went through this with an administrator a number of years ago who claimed this. 

I have gotten into this debate with many local psychologists.  I agree when you or I define an eating disorder as anorexia or bulimia but many of these psychologists are quick to diagnose the "wrestling diet" as an eating disorder or define any child that skips a meal as having an eating disorder so they use a much broader definition and they love to then attribute cutting weight to depression and another disorders that actually brought these kids in their office.  One old timer that manages a psych clinic did tell me that he sees less now than he did a decade ago.

[DocWrestling]

Doc, As far as wanting wrestlers to be able to eat during the season, mine did!  I worked them hard enough.  As I said, by tournament time, they were eating the day before.  They were certainly not pigging out but they were eating.  They might have worked off 1-3 pounds after school drilling and they were set.  Most of them dropped to their doctor certified weight.  

Some do it the right way and I commend those coaches, parents, and athletes.  Then we have parents that have their kids eat light the night before or skip breakfast before weigh-ins in 4th grade to try and weigh lighter and there is not even a weight class so it does not really matter.

I am just talking out of my rear because none of this is going to happen

[vsmf2010]

The actual number of wrestlers who are diagnosed with an eating disorders may not be extraordinarily high but anecdotally I will say that wrestlers certainly have an other than healthy relationship with food. In addition to being a wrestler who cut way too much weight when I wrestled I also was a competitive road racer several years after which, I believe, further damaged me from a healthy eater stand point. I never purged but I certainly restricted. Massively as a wrestler (not eating for days) and also as a cyclist to get my weight down to an "optimum" level for road racing. I have really have been trying hard to break some of those learned habits. A friend of mine who I coached with tells me that he never has hunger pains. He believes he has lost that sense because of the weight cutting. 

Eating experts will tell you that to be healthy you should eat intuitively and listen to your body. Stop eating before you get stuffed or over full and eat when you are hungry. When you restrict, your bodies reaction is to over eat so you never want to get too hungry. This is why "diets" do not work over the long term and the majority of people gain the weight back. If you watch little kids eat. They leave the table when they are done whether their plate is full or has 1 bite left on it because they are listening to their body. I have 3 kids and only 1 of them wrestled to the point of cutting weight. When you watch him eat, he is different than the other 2. He eats likes he is not sure where is next meal is coming from. We were very smart with him, we did not cheat the skin fold, he did not yo yo, rarely skipped a meal completely, and often floated enough the night before a weigh-in where he could eat in the morning before getting to school. That being said, I do the believe the restriction has change him some.

I have found it interesting that when you see ex-wrestlers many of them are overweight and many others look like they are right at "fighting weight" and could get right back out on the mat. I think this is because of the habits they formed and how they are comfortable restricting and comfortable over eating.

I doubt any of this will change but if you are being honest and open minded. You have to agree that we could do better and create a healthier environment for our kids. I consider wrestling the greatest sport around and if I could go back and compete again I would do it in a heartbeat even with the massive weight cutting but I think we could make it better and reach more kids.

[Handles II]

A doctor would say that any child that misses a meal has an eating disorder? Puhleeese! I highly doubt that, having had wrestlers with doctors for fathers.

The reality is as humans, we aren't programed to eat 3-4 meals per day especially the high sugar, high fat, high salt foods that we now have in abundance. It's just something that didn't happen in our entire survival. Intermittent fasting has been shown to be HEALTHY for muscle repair and development, proper insulin levels, and brain development. Yes, that's right, all of us wrestlers are healthier and smarter than our football-only brethren (which we already knew) because we limited our food intake (which we didn't know).

It's pretty fascinating stuff. I caught a documentary about it two years ago. I posted it back then but kept following the science and it's continued to produce positives. Here's a couple links, and maybe the end of this ridiculous mat-side weigh-ins, possibly the worst idea for the betterment of our sport since invention of the porcupine jockstrap.

https://authoritynutrition.com/10-health-benefits-of-intermittent-fasting/
https://thefastdiet.co.uk/how-many-calories-on-a-non-fast-day/

Doc, can't find one high school kid that weighs under 106? Two things: 1. more boys are being held back a grade before entering school, so that's a factor 2. kids have higher bodyfat % now on average, so yeah, fatter kids weigh more.  And perhaps yet another reason for JHI, there's some 8th grade studs that could certainly do the job better than a 1st year freshman (who shouldn't have been told to cut weight or wrestle varsity. BAD move by the coach!).

[boowrestle]

make kids certify for a wt class,1985 we had to make scratch wt and certify before we could get growth allowance after Christmas ,the  fact kids never have to ever make scratch wt now days is ridiculous.

[LaValle]

make kids certify for a wt class,1985 we had to make scratch wt and certify before we could get growth allowance after Christmas ,the  fact kids never have to ever make scratch wt now days is ridiculous.

Agreed

Correct me if I am wrong but I believe once you certified and got your growth allowance you could still wrestle a weight class above, but to hold your certification at the lower weight for tournament time you always had to make the certified weight plus allowance.  You could certify early and get your allowance, or certify late (before the deadline) then have to make scratch weight, and at the next event get your allowance.

[MNbadger]

"I have found it interesting that when you see ex-wrestlers many of them are overweight and many others look like they are right at "fighting weight" and could get right back out on the mat. I think this is because of the habits they formed and how they are comfortable restricting and comfortable over eating."

I would say ex-football players are more overweight as a group than wrestlers and they did not restrict their eating.

The truth is, most wrestlers could eat like people in most European countries and still make weight.  What we consider "normal" for weight in this country is absurd.  We are incredbly overweight in this country (and yes, I include myself!).

Every year someone starts this weight deal.  We have a problem but it is not too much weight cutting.  It is our thinking that a measure of self-denial is so damaging. 
You can change the names of the weight classes, people will still get down to a lean body weight.
You can bump the weight classes up (like college did some years ago, to what benefit?!?), people will still get down to a lean body weight.
We are looking for a solution to a "problem" that does not exist!  Wrestlers want to win.  Coaches want to win.  Parents want their kids to win.  If you cut too much weight, you lose.  It takes care of itself, always has.