‘Cutting’ weight: A safe practice for youth wrestlers?<\/p>\n
Q) My sons are always trying to lose weight to compete in wrestling. Is this OK, if they’re not overweight to begin with? <\/p>\n
Rick \/ Texas<\/p>\n
A) Youth wrestling puts kids at risk for extreme weight-loss practices. Wrestlers may try to “cut “weight in order to compete in a lower weight class, where they think they may have an advantage against a smaller opponent. But some weight-loss practices may be harmful to their health as well as their sport performance.<\/p>\n
Each state has weight-loss guidelines for wrestlers. Before the season begins, wrestlers must undergo a medical evaluation to determine the lowest weight at which they can safely wrestle during the season.<\/p>\n
Most short-term weight-loss methods involve reducing water weight by restricting fluid intake and using diuretics to increase urination. But wrestlers may also try more drastic measures for rapid weight loss, including:
“\u00a2 Fasting
“\u00a2 Using saunas or rubber or plastic workout suits to sweat off water weight
“\u00a2 Vomiting
“\u00a2 Laxatives<\/p>\n
All of these methods can have serious health consequences for kids, such as:<\/p>\n
“\u00a2 Dehydration
“\u00a2 Heat exhaustion or heat stroke
“\u00a2 Low blood sugar
“\u00a2 Fainting
“\u00a2 Electrolyte imbalance
“\u00a2 Calcium imbalance<\/p>\n
Also, crash diets can impair the normal growth process and actually reduce muscle mass in kids. Athletes who want to lose a significant amount of weight should meet with a sports dietitian in the off season to develop a plan that promotes safe and healthy eating and weight goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
‘Cutting’ weight: A safe practice for youth wrestlers? Q) My sons are always trying to lose weight to compete in wrestling. Is this OK, if they’re not overweight to begin with? Rick \/ Texas A) Youth wrestling puts kids at risk for extreme weight-loss practices. Wrestlers may try to “cut “weight in order to compete […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wrestling"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2B7Di-94","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}