Due to the short amount of time between weigh in and competition, amateur fighters need to take every precaution they can to avoid cutting too much weight, for both health and performance reasons. If fighting is a goal then you must eat healthy and stay close to your competition weight. There is no excuse whatsoever. Eating healthy is part of the job description not an option. If you are serious about being an athlete, your career starts with what you fuel your body with.
I recommend staying within five to ten pounds of your competition weight at all times. If you are unsure on what to eat, educate yourself through reading, talk to your coach, and schedule an appointment with a nutritionist. Cutting ten pounds of water weight before an amateur bout is foolish and will probably land you in the hospital. Make sure to start your dieting at the beginning of the fight camp and avoid water-retaining ingredients such as sodium.
Also make sure you constantly check your weight. This will allow you too get an idea of how much weight you lose on a daily basis. The more information you have about how your weight fluctuates the easier it will become to manipulate your weight in the future.
During your fight camp make sure to drink water all the time. Kamaru Usman, for instance, fights at lbs, but his natural weight is around lbs, meaning the middleweight category would suit his stature way better. There are several sanctioning steps for UFC fighters that miss weight for their fights. If a fighter misses weight for the first time, the opponent can refuse to fight and take the show-up money, while the other fighter gets nothing. But that rarely happens.
The amount depends on how much weight they fail to cut. The fight is then deemed as catchweight and usually does not affect the overall ranking. Kelvin Gastelum, for instance, was asked to move from welterweight to middleweight after failing to hit the lbs limit several times. In championship fights in the UFC, the weight rules are virtually the same, but some additional rules are set regarding the title. If the challenger misses weight for the championship fight, the champion can refuse to proceed with the war.
If they choose to fight anyway, the battle is deemed catchweight, and the title is removed from play. This situation happened several times in the UFC. Most notably, Yoel Romero missed weight two times in championship matches — first, for an interim title against Luke Rockhold, and then for the undisputed title versus Robert Whittaker. If the champion fails to hit the weight limit, the sanctions would be different. UFC champions never missed weight, though. The closest they ever came to this scenario was Anthony Pettis missing weight for a title eliminator fight against Max Holloway.
He started his UFC career in welterweight, where he cut upwards to an absurd lbs for his matches throughout his training camp. He continually missed weight, though, so he was forced to climb to the middleweight division. Again, he missed the limit by a staggering 12 lbs, and the UFC ultimately cut him from their roster. When he returned, he was a big light-heavyweight fighter, knocking people out cold and fighting for the title two times.
Right now, he is a giant body-builder, planning to compete in the heavyweight division. Speaking of light-heavyweight fighters, another LHW star was well known for his ridiculous weight cuts.
Brain, kidney and vision problems are side effects of rapid weight loss, according to the same ARP report.
To lose fat, you have to cut calories. If you look at the math, one pound of fat is 3, calories. Needless to say, Lockhart vehemently wishes for more studies to be done on the importance of cutting weight correctly.
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More Videos. Account My Account Sign Out. Although most boxers must lose a few pounds the day of weigh-ins, the easiest way to ensure that you make weight is to keep yourself as close as you can to your fighting weight throughout training camp.
You can do this by keeping up a restricted diet and nutrition plan that reduces your caloric intake. Additionally, keeping up with your road work and cardio helps to keep your metabolism ticking along at a quick pace and prevents you from gaining weight. When it comes time to start the weight cutting process a day or two before you weigh in, boxers may need to restrict the number of calories they take in to avoid putting on weight.
They will also restrict the amount of water they drink, since water weight is gained quickly. In extreme cases, boxers may not eat or drink for 24 hours before they weigh in for a fight.
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