Have you heard
about fighters who decide to cut weight just to get into a lower weight bracket for competition?

I just read an interesting article about that over at Fighting MMA. To wit:

….These two methods aren’t completely independent: they are often used together, with dehydration preceding dehydration. Furthermore even if you are only dehydrating (method 2) you still have to watch and manipulate aspects of your diet to avoid retaining water. One critical difference, however, is that given long enough between the weigh-in and the competition you can gain back almost all the weight lost due to dehydration, albeit with possible impairment of athletic function.

The popularity of the show The Ultimate Fighter has familiarized many lay-people with the concept of cutting weight, since every second episode has some sort of drama revolving around an overweight fighter sitting in the sauna or having a colonic. What isn’t appreciated as much is the science of re-hydration: fighters at this level dehydrate, weigh in, and then IMMEDIATELY start sipping electrolyte solutions such as pedialyte. They also often use IV solutions (yes, the bag, the tube, the needle in the arm) to re-hydrate faster and more thoroughly ….MORE….

The article has some excellent resources for further reading - you should definitely check it out.

‘Nuff said,

Mama Bear

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