Sports
Ohio Wrestlers Make The Cut
< < Back to ohio-wrestlers-make-the-cutGermane Lindsey stepped on the scale just hours before the 2011 Mid-American Conference Championships were set to begin. As the top seed in his bracket, Ohio wrestling’s 141-pounder was poised to earn a trip to the NCAA Championships and defend his All-American title.
At that moment there was just one problem for the 5-foot-6 Bobcat grappler. The scale read 141.2. Two tenths of a pound separated the senior team captain from his dreams. He’d finished sixth at the national tournament in 2010. Could he make a run for the national title? He would never find out.
No MAC Championship. No All-American defense. No shot at a title. At that moment his college wrestling career was over.
Two tenths.
For the first time in his wrestling career he had failed to make his weight.
Just like boxers and Mixed Martial Arts fighters, wrestlers have to abide by weight regulations when they compete. From 125 to 285 pounds, college wrestlers face off in 10 weight classes.
Lindsey wrestled at 141 pounds. At that class, a scale reading at 141.0 or below is okay. 141.2 was no good. The former Green and White grappler and current Bobcat assistant coach became the victim of a system that requires weekly weight loss.
In an overweight world with people looking to shed pounds quickly, wrestlers are kings. In a week’s time they can regularly drop 10 pounds in preparation for competitions. In some extreme cases, like Lindsey’s, they might lose up to 20 pounds to compete. And they do it again and again, week after week.
The process is known as “cutting weight” within the sport, and wrestlers take part in it for a competitive advantage.
“Your body performs differently when you have less body fat on you,” said Ohio 149-pounder Tywan Claxton. “With less body fat it makes it a lot easier to move faster. It makes you more flexible and all the things you really need to wrestle.”
Cutting weight is a numbers game. Part of the idea is to weigh in at the lowest weight possible without inhibiting performance. If an athlete is successful in executing that plan, the belief is their larger and stronger body frame will give them the upper hand against an opponent with a smaller, weaker frame.
For Bobcat 157-pounder Sparty Chino, his wrestling weight is “where I feel like I am an optimum machine,” he said. “That’s where I fine-tune my body to the point that I will have the least amount of body fat that I can possibly have … so my body will be moving quicker and there will be nothing that will slow me down. I just look at it as that is where I am at my most fit state.”
Ohio freshman and 149-pounder Cullen Cummings said it’s all about getting down to a lower weight, but using a larger body frame to a wrestler’s advantage.
“You want to be bigger and stronger than the other guy, and if you cut right you’re [succeeding],” he said.
What is the right way to cut? It’s a delicate balance between a healthy diet and just the right amount of physical exertion. It’s a balance that wrestlers haven’t always managed that well in years past.
Years of terribly unhealthy diet and workout habits climaxed with three deaths in 1997. Over a 33-day period three college grapplers died while attempting to drop an average of eight pounds in less than 12 hours. The athletes were wearing rubber suits and exercising in extremely hot conditions. To make matters worse, the wrestlers had already lost an average of 21 pounds in the months prior to their deaths.
To combat potentially fatal habits, which are commonly related to dehydration, the NCAA made radical changes to its policies on weight control. Rubber suits and other related clothing, saunas and steam rooms, hot boxes, laxatives, self-induced vomiting, diuretics, and artificial means of rehydration like intravenous injections were all prohibited with the changes.
A first violation of these policies results in suspension for the competition for which the weigh-in period is intended. A second violation results in a ban for the rest of the season.
In addition to a number of restrictions and tests, a wrestler’s minimum wrestling weight (MWW) is determined at the beginning of the season. This number is the lowest weight a wrestler can permissibly achieve over the course of the season. A wrestler can achieve their MWW with no less than five percent body fat. Additionally, they cannot lose more than 1.5 percent body fat per week in between competitions.
Ohio head coach Joel Greenlee believes the NCAA’s changes have made the collegiate level significantly healthier.
Greenlee wrestled collegiately at Northern Iowa from 1986-89, and he thinks the sport is much better off. In his time as a Panther, the former heavyweight set a handful of school records, and attained All-American status twice. He went on to become an Olympic alternate at the 1992 Olympics.
Greenlee wrestled before saunas were prohibited by the NCAA. At that time, Northern Iowa had a sauna in the wrestling locker room. Panther grapplers would regularly enter a sauna set to 160 degrees, with their plastic suits on, and ride stationary bikes for up to 45 minutes.
When Greenlee wrestled, weigh-ins before events were five hours prior to competition. On trips to wrestle schools like Minnesota or Wisconsin, the Panthers wrestlers would weigh in at Northern Iowa, and eat on the drive to their meet – with plenty of time to recover.
“You can sweat off a ton of weight, do a bunch of things and feel miserable at weigh-ins, but recover before the dual meet,” Greenlee said.
During Greenlee’s time at Northern Iowa, the NCAA took notice of the unhealthy habits wrestlers took part in and moved weigh-ins to the night before a competition. The decision backfired. With a whole night to recover from intense practices, Greenlee says wrestlers were cutting even more weight than before.
The NCAA stepped in again, and changed their policies a third time within the decade. Weigh-ins were moved to the last practice before the first competition of a weekend, and wrestlers were allowed to wrestle at that weight for the entirety of the weekend.
Another change led to another problem. With weigh-ins lasting a whole weekend, Greenlee said wrestlers were often wrestling 15 to 20 pounds overweight by Sunday matches.
“We’d weigh in at home on Friday, drive up [to the Michigan State Open], get fat and happy the whole way and be 15 to 20 pounds over by the time we’d wrestle,” he said.
The current weigh-in time at one hour before competitions has been most effective, and has stood for 18 years.
With only an hour between weigh-ins and competition, “you can’t do too many of the wrong things and expect to compete at a high level,” Greenlee said.
Cutting weight properly starts with having a manageable target weight in mind. With a squad of more than 30 athletes ranging from 125 to 285 pounds, there are all kinds of body types and metabolisms to manage on Ohio’s roster.
“Some guys can do it and some guys can’t,” Greenlee said about the process. “I know guys that were great weight cutters. They did all the right things, they’d have all kinds of energy and go out there and wrestle their tail off. I’ve known guys that were terrible weight cutters. They can’t drop five pounds and have energy.”
As a general rule, Greenlee preaches to his wrestlers that they shouldn’t be more than 10 pounds over their target weight at the start of a week before a competition. There are exceptions to every rule, as some grapplers can slip-up to 20 pounds a week and still cut successfully. Lindsey was one of those wrestlers, except for one slip-up at the worst of moments. Anything more than 20 pounds is seriously ill-advised.
Greenlee said being 10 pounds overweight at the beginning of a week might not be a big deal once or twice, but if a wrestler gets into a habit of being more than 10 pounds over, and increases pounds to that total every week, the consequences can be severe.
“By the end of the year, geez, you don’t make weight at the MAC tournament,” he said. “It’s important to be disciplined and not screw it up.”
Healthy and consistent diets are primary factors in cutting weight properly. Resorting to starvation and dehydration are never good ways for a wrestler to attack a cut. Such practices are likely to make a wrestler weak and sluggish for his competition. That’s probably the best case scenario. Worse, severe cuts can lead to greater health issues.
A third component of healthy cutting is consistent workouts. If being no more than 10 pounds over a target weight is the first part of Greenlee’s philosophy, the second part is to lose two pounds a day, which if accomplished from Monday to Friday puts a wrestler at 10 pounds lost by weigh-ins. With team lifts and practices two hours long, the cut becomes manageable. Again, there are exceptions to every rule and Ohio’s 197-pounder Phil Wellington is the exception in this case.
Ohio’s big man said he loses about six pounds after every team practice. The most he ever lost in one practice was 10.2 pounds.
“Phil is ridiculous,” Greenlee said with a laugh. “He thinks about losing weight and he gets skinnier.” Some get all the luck.
One of the biggest weight-cutting challenges for underclassmen wrestlers is their diet. Ohio University, like most universities, requires students to live in on-campus housing during their freshmen and sophomore years. In addition to a housing requirement, their diets are mostly limited to what they can eat with a university meal plan.
Dorm rooms that lack adequate cooking amenities and all-you-can-eat, sometimes unhealthy, dining hall food create a combination that can limit healthy-eating habits.
“Just imagine you’re trying to watch what you eat but you go to a smorgasbord every day,” Greenlee said. “That’s the hard part.”
Once wrestlers are free from campus housing and meal plans, they can make healthier diet decisions and limit their portions more easily. When they have to cook their own food they will naturally eat less food than in a buffet-style dining hall. Additionally, being an active cook allows them to see all the ingredients going into their food. Healthy eating starts with consciousness of ingredients.
Claxton takes a special liking to cooking his own food. Like any other self-proclaimed chef, he regularly posts images of his creations to Instagram.
“When I lived in the dorms there was a small selection of healthy food to eat at a dining hall and when you did have stuff like chicken breast and whatnot it was dry, unseasoned and you really didn’t want it,” he said. “I just like fooling around with different spices and whatnot, and [seeing] what different tastes I can get out of the same food. Eating chicken breast and fish gets a little boring so you try different seasoning and different ways of cooking it, grilling it, frying it in light vegetable oil and baking it.”
Proteins are a staple in the diets of wrestlers cutting weight, especially lean proteins like fish and chicken. Spinach and beans, good sources of protein for vegetables, and other green veggies like broccoli are other helpful foods for athletes.
Carbohydrates should be limited in a wrestler’s diet, but not cut out. One gram of carbohydrate keeps 2.7 grams of water into the body. That added water can keep a wrestler’s weight up. Carbs are needed, however, as an energy source, especially towards the end of a week of cutting and after weigh-ins. Wellington prefers to eat pasta the night before a match to keep his energy high.
Starches, sugars and salts should be avoided almost entirely while cutting, as they help keep water in the body. Such foods are for the offseason. After six long months of portion control and eating only a select few foods, the offseason is a time to indulge in the pleasures of junk food.
“Out of season I eat salt, sugar, candy – I love candy, I mean, I love candy,” Claxton said with a smile. “I love fast food. I eat a lot of fast food in the summer. I don’t eat very healthy. I eat like a regular person.”
With worries of weight not hanging heavy on their minds the food isn’t always the healthiest, and it often isn’t restricted. Chino downs five large meals a day.
Such eating habits result in some big weight increases compared to in-season weights. During the season Chino weighs around 165 pounds, a reasonable weight to get down to the 157 class. In the offseason he can tip the scale at 180. Claxton hovers around 160 pounds to cut to 149, but he also touches 180 in the offseason. Wellington tries to stay under 215.
Part of the offseason weight gain is by design. It’s certainly not all fat they gain. Chino said a good lifting program and a high protein diet helps get him and his teammates big in the offseason. The abundance of protein helps build up mass that will inevitably be lost during the six-month season.
October rolls around and preseason practices begin. Autumn means trees drop their leaves and wrestlers drop the pounds as their diets take a major turn. Food group consumption changes and portions diminish. Sweet and salty treats, greasy burgers and fries and fizzy drinks disappear. Smaller portions require that every calorie and nutrient builds and fuels the engine to a wrestler’s body.
“I look at my body like a machine,” Chino said. “Every pound that I cut, every diet, everything is what’s best for me in wrestling. I don’t make a food decision unless it is best for me and my wrestling career … Obviously [in season] there aren’t a lot of cheat days.”
There is no exact formula to cutting weight. Every person’s body works differently. Diets vary slightly, but Ohio wrestlers maintain that water is a must.
According to Chino cutting out water is a common misconception that a lot of wrestlers have. He said those that cut their water too severely usually aren’t successful at managing their weight. Many Bobcat wrestlers drink more water than the average person, because rather than drinking sodas, juices and other sugary drinks that are empty calories, water is one of few acceptable sources of hydration for an athlete.
A typical wrestler starts off his week drinking around a gallon of water per day. It isn’t until the end of the week, usually the last day before a competition, that water restriction becomes normal practice. By the last day before a match, Wellington cuts his water consumption down to eight to 16 ounces of water – just one glass of water for the day, taken in sips to spread throughout the day.
A gallon of water weighs 8.34 pounds, so limiting it before weigh-ins can be crucial to making weight. To make up for the lack of water, wrestlers find hydration in other fluids, like Pedialyte and Gatorade, which are high in electrolytes. Such liquids adequately hydrate athletes in smaller quantities and less weight. They also help provide a wrestler with calories and energy that they might be lacking if their diets are limited.
Consuming plenty of water in the early days of the week also keeps wrestlers’ stomachs satiated. Though Chino eats less food in season, he says drinking generous amounts of water keep his appetite manageable.
Claxton says hunger is state of a mind. For him, feeling hungry doesn’t mean he needs to eat to satisfy the sensation.
A grumbling stomach isn’t always a sign of hunger. The noises a stomach makes are usually just regular digestion. The hunger sensation that humans feel in their stomach comes from ghrelin, “the hunger hormone”. The stomach is constantly digesting, and when it is empty with nothing to digest, the body releases the hormone into the bloodstream to signal the body to eat and fill the stomach again. Eating smaller, more frequent meals and consuming protein and fiber can limit ghrelin release, according to Women’s Health Magazine.
Diet is only half the battle. Exercise and strict regimen of workouts makes up the other half. To drop 10 or more pounds a week wrestlers endure grueling workouts. To shed water-weight they sweat. A lot.
In the Ohio wrestling practice room, 30 athletes push through the grind of two-hour practices. Running laps, their tired feet drag on the spongy green mats as they cut through the dank air of the poorly-lit room. Their shirts, if worn at all, are saturated with sweat and are stretched and tattered from wrestling and pulling on each other. Sounds of bodies hitting the mats and the booming voices Ohio coaches rebound off white cinderblock walls.
The time in the practice room help wrestlers regulate their weight, but Chino said it’s important not to focus too much on weight control.
“Weight is something that takes care of itself through hard work,” Chino said. “We work so hard in this room – it’s going to come off. I look at how to better myself. If you start focusing on your weight, then your workout is going to diminish and you’ll be breaking yourself down mentally.”
But, again, every wrestler is different, and while Chino doesn’t like to watch his weight strictly, Claxton always keeps a close eye on the scale.
“Absolutely, I need to know [my weight] at all times,” he said. “I think it’s kind of risky not to know. You got to know what you can and cannot eat. To be successful, to be good and to win you need to get into a routine that your body is used to. In my mind if I don’t know how much I weigh and I just eat here and there periodically and don’t watch it, I will either be too light or too heavy.”
Claxton said always knowing his weight doesn’t weigh too heavily on his mind. After the first 15 or 20 minutes of a practice he stops thinking about weight and focuses on other things.
In addition to practices, Chino and Claxton insist that extra workouts are needed to keep weight in check and to become a better wrestler.
Claxton said if a wrestler wants to feel good while cutting, a few extra workouts a week are a must. If a wrestler is only working out in practices, he said they are likely starving themselves. Additional workouts still allow wrestlers to consume a healthy amount of food. According to Ohio’s 149-pounder, his extra workouts aren’t too demanding, working at a frequency around three times a week at just 30 to 45 minutes for each session.
Wellington uses extra workouts to “over-cut,” a term he uses to describe meeting his weight class requirement days before a competition. He aims to reach 197 pounds two days before a competition, and shed even a few more pounds. With several pounds of lee-way he can eat moderately and hydrate adequately so he feels 100 percent for his match(es).
“Once you get in a routine, it’s easy,” Wellington said.
With all that it takes to make weight, one might think it’s not too uncommon for a wrestler to weigh-in too heavy. Actually that’s just not the case, at least not for Ohio wrestlers. Wellington, Claxton, Chino and Lindsey each said they only missed weight once in their respective wrestling careers.
The Bobcat grapplers’ slip-ups came in their high school years. Wellington and Chino credit their failures to miscommunication. Chino remembers the ridicule he received from his coaches and teammates and called it one of the worst experiences of his life, yet, one of the best things for his wrestling career as he now considers himself one of the best at monitoring his weight.
“It’s [just] not too common,” Lindsey said about missing weight. “Does it happen? Yeah, it’s like once every blue moon, but it doesn’t typically happen and it’s not even something you put a lot of emphasis on because you [don’t] expect it to happen … Most of the times if you know you have a solid game plan that week, you follow that game plan you stick to it and you should make weight. Before the season even starts with all of the weight certifications, you kind of know what your body can and can’t do.”
Like Chino, Lindsey knows the pressures of missing weight all too well. On top of missing out on his own personal endeavors his senior year, he also dealt with feelings of letting his teammates down. He was always confident he’d step on the scales and be cleared for competition. In a sick twist of irony, his first time to miss weight came at the worst of times, and almost four years removed from the experience, he still thinks about it.
“It is something that bites at you, but it doesn’t hurt as bad as it did when it happened,” he said. “It’s something I learned from … but at the same time you don’t fully get over it.”
Tipping the scales above a target weight class comes with plenty of consequences. If a wrestler weighs in over his established weight class, he can only return to that class by following a prescribed weight-loss plan. Following the guidelines that require a wrestler not lose more than 1.5-percent body fat a week, it could take several weeks to get back to a specific weight, potentially keeping a wrestler out of competition for multiple weeks. After February 15, a wrestler may not make an appeal to descend to a lower weight class. Failure to make weight after this deadline could result in missing out on conference and national championships, as was the case for Lindsey.
“At the end of the day you’re going to make weight,” Claxton said. “Not making weight is just not acceptable.”
So why can’t wrestlers just compete at their natural weights? What would the sport look like if nobody cut weight?
Lindsey said the sport likely wouldn’t feature as many lightweight classes. He said there aren’t many grown men that weigh under 135 pounds. He also sees a sport landscape riddled with injuries due to athletes not being in tip-top shape.
Wellington actually feels like his optimum wrestling weight would be between 205 and 210 pounds. Under current class limits, that would qualify him as a heavyweight, and he believes he would be too small for a class in which wrestlers can top out at 285 pounds.
Chino insists sanctions are necessary in the sport. He argues that cutting is too ingrained into the nature of the wrestling.
“Weight cutting makes wrestlers who they are,” he said. “You’ve got to be crazy to be a wrestler. You’ve got to be crazy to cut your calories, cut all your water and go out there and try to perform.”
Greenlee can’t see an environment without it. Just like in any competition, competitors will always be looking for some kind of edge, some kind of advantage on their opponents.
Wrestlers will always try to make themselves smaller.
Lindsey might have failed to do that at the worst possible time, but he understands it wasn’t all for naught. The humbling experience gives the assistant coach a story. That narrative is a warning to all the grapplers testing their limits in the heavy, muggy air of Ohio’s practice room.
“I feel like this is something that happened to me for a reason, and as a coach I think I can always look back in my career and say [to the team], ‘Hey, I did this and look at what happened,’” Lindsey said. “It’s always just giving them insight on what happened to me and building off of that experience and passing it down to them.”
He knows the pain of fractions of a pound ending a lifelong dream, so he tries his best to push the Bobcats in their workouts. When he wrestles with his athletes, the main focus is to improve their wrestling abilities. Technique, endurance, strength and tenacity are all being worked on, but wrestling Lindsey requires more than that.
His determination is unwaveringly energetic.
Because he knows.
In wrestling, every tenth matters.